A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A heart shaped memorial is made in memory of Anthony McClain across the street from La Pintoresca Park in Pasadena, Thursday, April 15, 2021. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
Asians for Black Lives walk in solidarity with BLM to the Pasadena Police Department to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena on April 15, 2021 to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade. (Photo by James Carbone)
A group of about 75 demonstrators marched in Pasadena Thursday afternoon to protest recent police shootings across the country and the deaths of Black men killed by Pasadena police over the past decade.
Sparked by anger over last week’s police shooting of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, the demonstration was the first in more than eight months, when a series of actions in Old Pasadena and Northwest Pasadena roiled the city following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last May 26.
Speakers criticized Pasadena civic leaders for their reactions to the police shooting deaths of Kendrec McDade in 2012, the death in police custody of Reginald “JR” Thomas, in June of 2018, and the shooting death of Anthony McClain last summer. All three men were Black residents of Pasadena.
Protesters also called for the removal of Police Chief John Perez and City Manager Steve Mermell.
Speaker Javon Vision decried what he called the country’s historic racism, saying, ‘’Too often we take this revolution as something for the moment, but we are here to destroy a system that was founded (constitutionally) on racism.”
Vision also told the crowd, which was roughly 50/50 white and African American and primarily female, “You white women here, were not equal to the white man. You couldn’t vote, as well as the African (American) couldn’t vote.”
Added speaker Ryan Hunt, “I’m here because I’m tired of seeing my brothers and sisters get murdered by a system that is supposed to protect us, but is really built against us.”
As with the protests last summer, the demonstration was noisy but nonviolent.