PROTESTERS MARK 1ST ANNIVERSARY OF POLICE KILLING OF PEDRO OREGON

As a corps of stone-faced Houston police officers secured the route, more
than 100 protesters chanted slogans like "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the racist cops
have got to go" during an hourlong march to commemorate Pedro Oregon's death
Sunday.

The death of Oregon, whom police shot a year ago Sunday during a botched
drug bust, has galvanized area activists against police brutality,
protesters said.

Family members of half a dozen people shot by police in the last two decades
spoke when the march ended outside Oregon's former southwest Houston apartment.

One was Janie Torres, whose brother Joe Campos Torres was beaten by Houston
police in a notorious 1977 incident in which he drowned after falling or
being pushed into Buffalo Bayou.

"The problem is the same now as it was then," said Torres, exhorting the
crowd through a bullhorn. "The important thing is that we did nothing to
them. My brother did nothing to them.

"What cowards are (the officers involved) to say they were in fear of my
brother? He was handcuffed."

The theme that police brutality has become worse in Houston since Campos'
and Oregon's deaths reverberated through the crowd.

Most said the repercussions for the six officers involved in Oregon's death
were far too light. HPD fired them all, but only one, James Willis, was
charged, and he was acquitted of criminal trespass.

"Basically, they're getting off scot-free," said a 29-year-old woman
protester who identified herself only as Chickpea. "The cops lost their
jobs, whereas someone else who was unarmed lost his life. There's a big
difference."

A year ago Sunday, six uniformed officers, acting on an informant's tip but
without a warrant, went to Oregon's apartment looking for drugs.

One of the officers testified during Willis' trial that Rogelio Oregon,
Pedro's brother, answered the door and tried to run. But he was grabbed by
the first officers who entered the apartment.

The other officers moved quickly to the back of the apartment and found
Pedro Oregon in a bedroom.

As they confronted him, one officer accidentally fired his weapon and hit
another officer. Thinking Pedro Oregon had fired, the other officers fired,
hitting Oregon with 12 of 33 shots, nine in the back. One officer fired two
dozen times.

No drugs were found in the apartment. Some of the officers have said that
Oregon pointed a gun at them. Evidence showed that he had a stolen gun, but
it had not been fired.

A federal grand jury is investigating the case to see if police violated
Oregon's civil rights. In addition, the family is suing the city of Houston.

On Sunday, the protesters called for accountability for police officers who
kill unarmed victims. They chanted: "D.A. (Johnny) Holmes, you can't hide,
charge the cops with homicide."

One protester, 64-year-old Margaret Nichols, said she felt that trying only
one of the officers in the Oregon trial was a "sham."

Noel "Skip" Allen, whose son Travis, 17, was shot to death by Bellaire
police in July 1995, called the lack of a felony indictment in Oregon's
killing "typical of the `good old boy' justice in Texas."

"Police brutality knows no color, race or creed -- you just happen to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time," Allen said. "How can the community have
any confidence in its police department if they're not held accountable for
their actions?"

Sunday's march began at 2 p.m. near the corner of Hillcroft and Bellaire.
Protesters walked along Bellaire three-quarters of a mile to Atwell, then
went a block south to where police shot Eulogio Perez on April 6.

Police reported that Perez began shooting at them with a pistol, but family
members disputed that Sunday.

"They didn't shoot an animal -- they shot a human being," Perez's brother,
Adan, told the crowd in Spanish.

From that site, the group marched two blocks north on Atwell to Oregon's
apartment.

The crowd stayed in the midday heat for more than an hour outside Oregon's
former apartment listening to speeches and chanting.

Explaining the crowd's persistence, 31-year-old Wesley Cordova said,
"Somewhere along the way, we've got to draw the line on how far we're going
to let the police and government erode the Bill of Rights."

Cordova, representing the American Civil Liberties Union at the march, said
justice would only be served by criminal indictments against the officers
involved in the Oregon shooting. The civil suit will not be enough, he said.

"You can put a dollar amount on someone's life, but that's not justice," he
said.