On Nov. 22, the Santa Anna community finally pushed through their demands into policy, after enduring 57 years of no recognition from the state. A month after the Watts Riot in 1965, a generation of Santa Anna residents have been pressuring the local government to establish a city council establish oversight committee over the Santa Ana Police Department. On the date mention, the wish has been satisfied, the Santa Anna Council casted in favor of the formation of a local Santa Anna Police Oversight Committee, giving the residents the power to manage their local law enforcement, I.e., their historical executioners.
As KNOCK LA has clarified in their article about the event, “The committee will have the power to review complaints and lawsuits alleging police misconduct. The oversight director, acting as head of the commission, will have the power to subpoena witnesses and investigate the issues.”
This campaign has been decades long, but only just in 2017 new revitalized interest and collective actions were mobilized to push the community demand into the courts and council even harder, since in that same year “the city settled two police shooting cases for upward of $6 million combined.” “One of these cases involved now-retired Major Enforcement Team (MET) Detective John Rodriguez shooting Jason Hallstrom in the back twice, according to records obtained via a public records request. The other case involved Detective Christopher Shynn shooting and killing Ernesto Canepa, who had a BB gun in the back seat of his parked car.”
Thankfully, the American Civil Liberties Union and Chispa OC, legal advocacy-civil society organizations led the campaign, sharing on the day of the vote a complete model ordinance informed by months of community forums in Santa Anna.
Here again we see the power and competency of the community to organize for their own interest; the community ownership of the political instruments is the goal of all radical projects; socialism itself is a permeation of the already existing historical process of humans working together for their collective interests and mutual desires.