from 'The Militant!
On September 27th San Francisco's poverty-stricken black ghetto exploded in reaction to a police shooting of a negro youth- 16 yer old Matthew Johnson. He was shot in the back and fatally wounded as he fled from a patrolman. Police claim thet the car from which the youth .jamped and fled was stolen. By 6.Opeme that day about 1,000 people had gathered near the scene of the shooting. Some of the black youth at the Bayview-Hunters Point Community Centre h-d sent word to City Hall that they wanted to mect at 4.0p.m. with the mayor and Police 6hief in an attempt to quell the mounting resentment which had already broken out in the form of smashed store windows and sporadic looting. They petitioned the mayor with a five-point demand that included a call for jobs, education and recreational facilities. A meeting finally did occur, When Mayor John She ley arrived, he brought with him about 40 helmeted police armed with shotguns and tried to talk to the hundreds of youths gathered outside of the community centre. furious at the mayor for sending in police with shotguns, the youths booed and jeered him as he spoke through a bullhorn. Orville Luster, . Youth for Service leader, persuaded the mayor to leave and 200 police sealed off a six-block area after he left. During this time, a T.V. cameraman's car was turned over and set on fire. A nervous city administration, anxious over a possible recurrence of another Watts in San Francisco, penicked and called in the National Guard and additional reinforcements of state police and highway patrol men. The city was proclaimed to be in a state of emergency and a curfew was announced for negro ghetto trouble spots. Next day, 2,000 National Guardsmen were in town with some 590 stationed in the Hunters Point area. The sane day violence erupted late in the afternoon &t Hunters Pointe but the violence was directed against negro citizens by armed police who fired on the Bayview-"unters Point Community Centre. The exegttive director of tbheCentre, arold B.Brookes, Jnr., said, "These kidsthey weren't thinking that the police would ever fire on them." At *the same time some 200 younesters were in the building. Luckily enough, when the firins began there were none in the gront. “If there had been," said Brooks, "there would have been a massacre." He estimeted that a thousand rounds of ammunition were "essily" fired into the building. Seven youths were injured in the fusillade- 211 negroes. Some of them, described in the press as "rioting youth", were volunteer workers who were trying to clear the streets and had worked with the police in a last-ditch effort t o clear avoid a clash. "Ror God's sake, don't send any more cops down here," pleaded Adem Rogers, 4 youth organiser with the Economic Opportunity Council( Anti-Poverty Programme). "We'll clear it up for you," he told a police captain. He was shot in the leg for his efforts. He described this; ""These police were shooting people that were trying to help. They knew who I was. They could easily distinguish me because I had a blowhorn in my hand and was wearing a black arm band. Just shooting up a building like th»t- they knew there were a lot of kids in there. This doesn't make any sense- shooting up a building like that." Another person told how shotguns were beinz used to fire into people's homes. "It looked like Vietnam. It's even worse than that. There the eneny's got a better chance than we have. They can put up ~ white flag and they got a chance but here we don't ever heave 2 chance" he said.