February 23, 2021
BAYAN Northern California joins family members and allies across the Bay Area in demanding justice for Angelo Quinto, a 30 year old Filipino man killed by police in Antioch, CA last December 23, 2020. Angelo, who had been experiencing a mental health episode, was met with police brutality rather than medical attention when his family called for help. Angelo was taken to the hospital after Antioch police officers handcuffed and knelt on his neck for at least five minutes. Videos show his lifeless body being taken by paramedics from his home.
Angelo Quinto’s family believes that Angelo was killed due to asphyxiation caused by the knee-to-neck restraint used by police. Antioch police waited more than a month to confirm the killing publicly, on January 25, 2021. On Feb 18, 2020 Angelo Quinto’s family held a press conference with their lawyer, taking up legal action against the Antioch Police for wrongful death. Angelo’s story has agitated the masses to share his story and call for justice.
Angelo is not the only Filipino who has been killed at the hands of the police. We remember the names and families of Dennis Carolino, Toby Diller, and others in the US, as well as the thousands of Filipinos who have lost their lives due to police violence in the Philippines. We also recognize that mental health challenges are widespread in the Filipino community, and are often left unaddressed because of cultural stigmas rooted in colonial views on mental well-being, as well as a lack of resources and access to mental health services for immigrant working class communities.
Moreover, BAYAN Northern California recognizes that we cannot demand justice for Angelo Quinto without demanding justice for all working, poor, and oppressed communities targeted by state violence, particularly Black folks in the US. The same knee-to-neck restraint that was used on Quinto by Antioch police is the same brutal move that killed George Floyd last May, a Black man whose death at the hands of Minneapolis police reignited uprisings across the country against police brutality and white supremacy. We must fight for justice in our own communities knowing that this struggle is bound to the struggle for Black power and liberation in the US and worldwide.
We call on the Filipino community and allies to support the Quinto family’s demands to the City of Antioch to: 1) immediately ban the use of the knee-to-neck restraint; 2) establish and fund 24/7 mental health crisis response teams; and 3) require body cameras and dash cameras. You can mobilize to the Antioch City Council meeting today, February 23, at 7:00pm to support these calls following the instructions below. More broadly, BAYAN Northern California joins the call for working, poor, and oppressed people to organize our communities; build our own people power and community control over the institutions that repress us; and use that power to defund the police and other institutions that harm us, instead channeling those funds to the social services our communities so desperately need.
Resources to take action:
- TODAY (2/23) – Speak during public comment at the Antioch City Council Meeting: http://tiny.cc/AQcalls
- justiceforangelo.carrd.co
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