Were you on the streets of the Mission yesterday?
A social justice coalition, WarIsACrime.org, declared April 14 as "Shut-DownA14," a day of protest in cities nationwide. The call-to-action led to hundreds of people in towns coast-to-coast taking to the streets to protest the increasing number of cases of police brutality. The action is part of the larger #BlackLivesMatter movement that emerged following the death of 18 year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, last August.
We know that San Franciscans love a good, meaty social justice cause, from environmental issues to worker's rights, so it doesn't take much to get folks onto the streets.
And lately, with seemingly every new day bringing episodes of unarmed citizens (usually men of color) being gunned down in towns from
Oakland to
North Charleston, South Carolina, dozens of sign-carrying protesters dutifully rose to the "#ShutdownA14" call.
The city's finest, of course, was on its "best behavior" as protesters marched down Market Street and eventually turned up in front of the cop shop at Valencia and 17th Streets yesterday: There were a couple of instances of scuffling between police offers and protesters, but no mass arrests or injuries reported.