Why San Francisco Giants Fans Are Rallying Against Police Brutality

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/why-san-francisco-giants-fans-are-rallying-against-police-brutality

On October 16, during Game 5 of the National League Championship Series between the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals, a group of Giants fans and community members came together outside AT&T Park to protest police brutality. Organizers sought to show solidarity with St. Louis County residents following the shooting of Michael Brown, and to draw connections to the recent San Francisco police killings of Alex Nieto and O’Shaine Evans.

Demonstrators stood below the larger-than-life statue of Willie Mays outside the stadium, holding signs and leading chants inspired by baseball terminology and the Ferguson protests. Organizers also launched a sailboat covered in banners into iconic McCovey Cove, a creek mouth flowing into the bay just beyond right field, where fans often go out in boats hoping to catch Giants home runs, affectionately dubbed “splash hits.”

After the rally, protest organizer Juana Teresa Tello said, “Both cities want our teams to win, but it’s important for both cities to know that no one wins when police brutality happens.”

http://vimeo.com/109757382

In a phone interview, Tello said that the protest elicited a generally positive, if sometimes mixed response from fans, saying, “There was a lot of support from the local people, and it was mostly people of color who resonated with the message...and there was some reaction from fans where you could see in their demeanor that they didn’t support what we were about.”