According to the SFPD Internal Affairs Division’s “Summary of Officer Involved Shootings Since 2000” from May 2014, since 2000, 97 SFPD officer-involved shootings occurred, resulting in 33 deaths and 35 people being injured. The Internal Affairs Division memo reported that in every case where someone was killed in an SFPD officer-involved shooting, the officers were found to have acted within policy. On March 11, 2016, a jury handed down a verdict that also exonerated the killers of Alex Nieto from wrongdoing. Previously, in 2015, D.A. Gascón had determined that officers had acted within policy in the Alex Nieto shooting, and he would not press charges.

For weeks now, community members have been expecting D.A. George Gascón to make an announcement as to whether he will charge officers in the killing of Guatemalan Mayan Chorti indigenous day laborer, Amilcar Perez Lopez. A recent joint report by KQED-El Tecolote covered first hand the witness report that contradicts SFPD’s narrative. His announcement is delayed in the context of the Frisco 5 hunger strike and rising anger from supporters at City Hall for inaction to end police impunity.

The fact that there are no consequences—ever— for officers means that the legal framework is structured to impede accountability in all cases. In other words, it is structured to sustain impunity in police killings. For this reason, the Justice 4 Alex Nieto Coalition now joined by Justice 4 Amilcar Perez Lopez and Justice 4 Luis Góngora Pat are demanding deep structural reform to guarantee fair and independent investigations and radically increase transparency and accountability in cases of serious bodily injury and misconduct by police.

The killings of these past few years have happened in a broader context of heightened conflict over traditional working class families being pushed out of the City by gentrification. The death of Alex Nieto was the first moment of awareness that gentrification can kill when police protect white fear and property over minority resident lives.

The death of Luis Góngora Pat sheds light not only on a housing crisis, but an increasing crisis of homelessness and lack of resources to address rising inequality. The month of April once again broke real estate records for median pricing on San Francisco homes. Luis Góngora Pat was in fact on the street due to landlord harassment that led him and his brother to abandon their tiny rental room.

Luis was known and loved by family by the nickname “El Sapo” and by friends as “Chupacabras”. Everyone remembers him as lively, kind, and generous both at home and in his encampment of unhoused friends on Shotwell Street. He arrived 15 years ago to work in San Francisco, following after his brother Jose in search of a living for their families back in the little Mayan town of Teabo, Yucatan. Jose and Luis lived like twins, sharing life wherever they went together. Luis’s and Jose’s first language is Mayan, speaking enough Spanish to get by, and very little if any English. Language barriers caused them to struggle to get steady work in San Francisco, because they had a difficult time communicating even in Spanish. All the same, like many other Mayans they found work in the restaurant industry including Mel’s Diner.

Restaurant business in San Francisco is fueled by Mayan labor. According to INDEAMAYA, a Mexican government agency that supports Mayan people, 70,000 Yucatecan Mayans live in San Francisco with 70% of them working in the restaurant service sector as waiters, line cooks, and servers. A majority of these workers come from the region of and around Oxkutzcab, Yucatan. If Mayans walked off the job tomorrow in San Francisco, this foodie town would collapse! Food is a source of great regional pride for Yucatecans. Luis was often the one to feed the encampment on Shotwell when resources ran short.

For several years, Luis shared a tiny room with his brother José and another Mayan Yucatecan friend. About a year ago, the landlord got greedy and raised their rent. The landlord also harassed the other neighbors in their building. Luis and Jose humbly left the building, not wanting trouble. Other neighbors actually fought and won a settlement. A neighbor of Luis’s, a single mother of three told us at his funeral that to her Luis was a great person —”una gran persona“— who even motivated her to get out of an abusive relationship.

When Jose was taken in by a cousin, Luis stayed nearby in the Mission; sleeping at first in Dolores Park, a stone’s throw away from the original Mission Dolores, nicknamed after the River Dolores (River of Sorrows) that now runs as an underground river down 18th street. A Mission that was imposed upon a Yelamu settlement. The Mayan brother later moved downstream closer to his kin on Shotwell Street.

So it was that Luis was unhoused, but not homeless: He was loved. He shared time, meals, and experiences with kin in San Francisco. Jose visited frequently and they talked on the phone to their wives and children in Yucatan. He shared every day life with his chosen camp community on the street.

Now his family on both sides of the border begins the grueling trail to confront the City over the killing of Luis, while the housed and unhoused witnesses deal with the trauma of having observed brutal murder…

Please come meet the family today, and learn about this proud Mayan family fighting for honor and justice for Luis. Today, we’ll also tell you more about an upcoming event on May 22nd in the Mission Dolores planned by the family.