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A Dangerous Thing

A Dangerous Thing

In the wake of the police shooting of Jessica Hernandez, one community organizer talks about why she won’t call the police.

By Kyle Harris

Mimi Madrid Puga, a community organizer with the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, has been working with a coalition of activists responding to the death of Jessica “Jessie” Hernandez, a 17-year-old gunned down by the Denver Police in a Park Hill alley on Jan. 26. “Calling the police is a dangerous thing,” she says.

“That morning, Jessie didn’t even get to say her name before she got shot through the lungs and through the heart.”

Like many, Madrid Puga sees her own story reflected in Hernandez’s. “I share some of the experiences Jessie had. As a young person, 10 years ago, I was doing a lot of the same things she was doing: growing up in Denver, Colorado; sometimes running away from home; sometimes taking my mom’s car. My mom didn’t call the police to get help because she knew I’d be in more danger.”

Like Hernandez, Madrid Puga grew up in a predominantly Latino community with many undocumented immigrants. Her community members lived in fear that the government would split their families apart.

“I grew up in a culture where police or anyone in uniform [embodies] a sense of mistrust. They’re the ones who carry the guns — we carry nothing. They’re frightening and absolutely racist and homophobic through every interaction. The reason why it’s dangerous to call police — especially in our community — [is that] we know police officers are often perpetrators of violence to trans and gender-nonconforming folks.”

In the aftermath of Hernandez’s death, her community’s fear of police has become terror.

“We know now that police will kill us — point blank kill us — without asking questions. They’ll even do it with cameras on. We know the system [they] operate from is a corrupt system of violence. [It] encourages that violence and lets police officers know they can kill people on the street. We know police will kill us on sight without asking any questions, without caring if we have families, without caring about our dreams and aspirations. We have to watch our backs because we’re moving targets.”

Denver Chief of Police Robert C. White responded to Madrid Puga’s comments: “I’m sitting here reading this, and obviously I’m not in a position to get into the particulars of Jessica’s case because there is an ongoing formal investigation. But I kind of want you to know this, and you should feel free to quote this: Regardless of anyone’s station in life — and I don’t care race, sex, gender, whether you wear your pants up or wear them down, whether you’ve been a victim of a crime or whether you’re committing a crime — we should treat everybody with dignity and respect, regardless of their station in life.”

When asked if the Denver Police Department has been holding up these standards of respect, White responded: “You know, what I’m telling you is that I have zero tolerance when it’s not held up. I’m also going to tell you — if you’re asking if every police officer does everything they’re supposed to do — the answer is absolutely not. That’s why we continue to fire officers and discipline them when they do the wrong thing.”

The united community combating police violence comes from a variety of backgrounds, Madrid Puga says. People have crossed barriers between races, cultures, sexualities, gender identities, and ages to organize a better way to serve and protect our streets.

“We need alternatives to police and have transformative justice and healing justice in our own communities,” Madrid Puga says. “When there is a young person who is out with her friends all night, that should not be seen as a crime punishable by death. Instead, there should be enough investment in community to ask: “What is happening? What do you need?”

“For us, what feels like a breath of hope, what feels like a breath of actual esperanza — yeah, hope — is that while our queer brothers and sisters are being assassinated and taken out from this world and from this realm, their spirits will live on through us, through our breath as queer people of color. Our aspiration should be to arrive at an elder age. We are powerful and resilient people.”

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