Baltimore activists gather every week for ‘West Wednesdays’ to demand accountability for the death of Tyrone West and other victims of police violence
Story Transcript
TAWANDA JONES: As y’all know, this is West Wednesday. We’ve been out here now for 173 weeks. 1,211 days. Fighting for justice. Or really accountability. ELIZABETH WOODSON, TRNN: That was Tawanda Jones, sister of Tyrone West, who has been leading the weekly protest against police brutality and the killing of her brother in Baltimore, Maryland. The Real News attended West Wednesday on November 16th, 2016 to talk to the West family and other activists about what a Trump presidency will mean for police accountability and justice for families of victims of police brutality. QIARA BUTLER: I’m tired of hearing people talking about the presidential candidates as if it mattered to black people. As if anything would be different with whoever candidate it would be. Let’s be very honest because Hillary watched those people, those moms of victims of police brutality on that stage and talked about gun control. She had Eric Garner’s mom on stage talking about gun control. They had her son on video. They killed him on video. What gun control would’ve stopped his murder? J. WYNDAL GORDON: Our work must continue. It really doesn’t matter who’s in White House. What matters is what we’re doing out here in the community. What matters is that we’re holding our local officials accountable, and what matters is that we come together now that we have this very difficult task ahead of us in living under his administration, we must unify indeed so that we can make sure that we observe the rights that are guaranteed by this constitution and make sure that we organize as well because there’s going to be another election in 2019 and the White House is great but that senate is also extremely important and we need to retake that senate house. So we need to organize, educate, and make sure that our people come out to vote. That’s one of the things that I advocate very strongly, the right to vote. JONES: My sister, Delegate Jill Carter who be really like fighting to change these corrupt laws. My sister’s here and I want her to share. Thank you so much. Thank all of y’all for coming. JILL CARTER: The fight has to be political. It has to be political because it is political. It’s absolutely 100% political. If you have representatives that don’t support things like fair bail, no bail, no money bail, don’t support basically laws that keep law enforcement officers from killing eople proporterdly in the line of duty, then you need new legislatures. The only people that can make that happen is us. G. “SOLDIER” DENT: I’m 69 and I’ve seen many president whether it would’ve been Hillary or Trump, our institutional racism is still embedded and I feel lie Trump is nothing but a mere stump. We done survived slavery, Jim Crow, we’ve been lynched, beaten by drungies and hung from trees. Even Trump shall pass. We shall survive that and I urge that we keep our eyes on the prize, freedom. [[CHANTING]]: No justice. No peace. No Justice. No Peace. Justice for Tyrone West.
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