PHOTO/MOTHERS FOR JUSTICE UNITED, MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN
By Sandy Reid, People’s Tribune
MILWAUKEE, WI — On Mother’s Day, 2015, Moms whose children have been killed by police, and who seek justice, rallied in Washington, D.C. under the banner of the Million Moms March. The organizer of the event, Maria Hamilton, of Mothers for Justice United, is mother of Dontre Hamilton, a young man, who was killed by police while sleeping in a Madison, WI park. Maria said the Mother’s Day protests, will “continue annually until justice is served.”
“I decided to do it after doing protests and rallies, and after the District Attorney said they were not going to charge the officer that killed Dontre,” said Maria. “I wanted to take the other Moms who had previously been involved with this particular District Attorney to Washington, D.C., to see if all of the cases he had been involved with could be reopened because he works on a daily basis with the police. The Police Department, coroner’s office, medical examiners, all have to be investigated. They have been lying, hiding information, and saying information was misplaced. Dontre had 21 holes in his body; they plugged them up except for nine. The police think they are above the law. To me, they are like organized crime and they are literally getting away with murder.”
Maria said she feels the pain in the voices of the Moms when they tell their story. “All I want to do is help them. And I want to make people aware that there is a problem.” Maria said she would never call 911. She envisions a new society where we “don’t have police in the community,” where the “community continues to fix the houses and owns the grocery stores.”
Sandra Reid is co-editor of the People’s Tribune, serving as Production Manager. She is also the founder and coordinator of Speakers for a New America, a speakers bureau affiliated with the People’s Tribune and its sister publication, the Tribuno del Pueblo.
