'No Justice No Peace': Community Marches For Miguel Estrella
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A crowd of nearly 200 marched on Sunday afternoon from Persip Park to City Hall and Park Square chanting "No justice no peace" and "Justice for Miguel," who was killed by police more than a week ago.
Miguel Estrella's family is demanding answers to the fatal shooting that is under investigation by State Police.
Police say the 22-year-old city man was in a state of distress when he was shot while wielding a knife last month.
"Miguel didn't need guns, he needed help, Miguel didn't need the police, he just needed help, anybody from the fire station could have just sat down and had a conversation but instead they sent guns and crooked a** officers," Estrella's older brother Corey Johnson said.
"Justice for Miguel, justice for his mother, who came here from [the Dominican Republic,] believed in this place, said, 'I want to take my children and give them better opportunity,' how crazy is it that Miguel was deeply involved in your community, in our community, working for Habitat for Humanity, his mother feeding the homeless, and he got killed by the police."
The group stopped at different times along the march for people to speak. Marchers held signs, including a banner that read "Miggy's World," and some wore shirts that said "Justice for Miggy."
The event also recognized Daniel Gillis, who was killed by Pittsfield Police Officer Christopher Colello in 2017 after police said he advanced on them while distraught with a knife.
Elina Estrella, Miguel's sister, said the wanted to turn the event into a positive by demanding change and making sure that it does not happen again.
"We just want answers," she said, asking whether proper protocol was used when responding to her brother.
Estrella's mother, Marisol Estrella, described him as a marvelous person who gave her hope when he walked into her house with a smile and said, "Yo mommy."
She recognized the many other mothers whose children have been killed by police.
Dubois Thomas, neighborhood revitalization director at Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, said the city's system killed Estrella and the people are responsible for changing that.
Estrella had volunteered with Habitat and Thomas said he helped with creating affordable shelter for about six families in the community. A small housing frame that Estrella built was wheeled around the march and participants were encouraged to sign it.
"Miguel joined the Habitat family many years ago, he was a 15-year-old volunteer at the ReStore, and even that early, his natural leadership skills were clear," Thomas said. "He was eager to learn more, he was willing to do what it takes, knowing that the road to becoming an electrician was very long, but he was still determined even after the pandemic hit,"
"Miguel was a rock, a reliable team member who kept our builds going."
NAACP member Kamaar Taliaferro said Police Chief Michael Wynn had responded to the killing of George Floyd in 2020 by saying if the city's police training does not resonate with residents, it needs to be changed.
"I did not know Miguel personally but I know this city," he said. "And I know how this city treats its young men of color, enough is enough."
Barbara Atim Okeny of Diverse People United and the Lynn Racial Justice Coalition said, as a woman of color and a mental health professional, the mental health of Black and brown individuals is too often criminalized.
"When people of color experienced mental health crises, the default response has become the police despite the fact that interactions with the police are more likely to lead to an arrest unnecessary involvement in the criminal system or harm," she said.
"There are real systemic barriers people of color to access mental health care, especially during a mental health crisis, the current state of our mental health care system does not do enough to support people of color with significant mental health issues, the current systems in place for emergency crisis response largely involves the police, people with untreated mental health concerns are 16 times more likely to be killed during an interaction with the police, 16 times."
Atim Okeny also pointed to a history of anti-Blackness in policing.
"We need to acknowledge the culture of policing, the systems that police operate with, they were built on ideals of white supremacy, anti-Blackness," she said.
"The racialized history of this country includes policing, this is historic trauma that is triggered by recent acts of police violence, the police have only continued to perpetuate this trauma, causing racial trauma for communities of color."
Speaker Michael Hitchcock argued that the city's police budget can support additional mental health workers to respond to people in crisis nonviolently.
In the fiscal year 2021, the Pittsfield Police Department's budget was $11,516,231.
"I got to tell you the police budget is very inflated and I think we can and should afford to make these changes without them," he said. "Eleven million dollars for what? To be brutalized, terrorized, and occasionally murdered?"
The Police Department does work with mental health and substance abuse counselors; one had gone off shift about an hour and half before the shooting. Police had been called along with ambulance personnel but Estrella reportedly refused treatment. Police responded again just minutes later.
Pittsfield attorney Rinaldo Del Gallo was seeking signatures for a petition to have the Pittsfield Police equipped with body cameras and dashboard cameras.
"Video footage greatly assists in the preservation of the truth with respect to police encounters," the petition read. "It neither favors the citizen interacting with the police nor the police officers themselves — it neutrally captures what actually occurred."
Tags: march, vigil,
