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It was three days after New Year’s Eve. Eula Mae Love was drowning in debt after her husband’s recent death, with three children to feed. So when the gas man came to turn off her service, she chased him away. She just needed time to pay the bill!
What happened next broke the community’s heart.
The gas man called the LAPD. Frustrated, Love came outside with a knife when they arrived, saying she would pay the bill soon. Then she turned her back on them, tossing the knife away.
Her neighbors, aware of the LAPD’s racist reputation, pleaded with the officers to leave. She wasn’t a threat! But the officers refused.
Instead, they shot her in the back, legs and chest 12 TIMES, then handcuffed her while she lay dead in her front yard – while her children watched! But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Because of the outcry after Eula Mae Love’s death, the City of LA initiated the first oversight commissions to conduct investigations of police brutality in South Central, finally giving the community a measure of justice!
We must always fight against a discriminatory system that punishes us for poverty instead of listening to our cries for help. Community outcry and organizing can – eventually – lead to some measure of justice.