On Tuesday night, UCLA law students carried pictures of unarmed black men and women who were fatally shot in recent years to the footsteps of their classrooms. Candles lit up the faces the individuals one-by-one as they lined the steps that lead to the front door of the law school.
A month after a police officer fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., about 40 students from the UCLA School of Law gathered in a candlelight vigil to remember Brown and other individuals killed in incidents of police brutality.
“All of them were failed by the injustice system,” said Alexis Gardner, a second-year law student and the social chair of the Black Law Students Association, which organized the event.
The vigil is the second held by members of the UCLA community in response to Brown’s death. On Aug. 22, the Incarcerated Youth Tutorial Project, a student group that tutors middle and high school students at a probation camp in Malibu, hosted a vigil at Meyerhoff Park.
Protesters in Ferguson have been calling for an end to what they say is police brutality and racial profiling after Brown, an unarmed black man, was shot by white police officer Darren Wilson. The incident has brought the topics of police militarization and racial discrimination to the forefront of national debates.
Vigil attendees shared their thoughts on racial discrimination by law enforcement officers. Art Royster, a Los Angeles resident who came with a UCLA law student to the event, said that as a black man, he thinks he has been frequently racially profiled by law enforcement.
“Police look to instill fear in us,” Royster said. “(Racial profiling) is a subtle violence.”
After the vigil, attendees taped pictures of unarmed black men and women who were fatally shot in the last decade or so to the walls of the School of Law building.
Stephanie Champion, a second-year law student and co-chair of the Womyn of Color Collective at the School of Law, taped a picture on a wall facing a first-floor elevator. Champion said she came to the vigil because she felt heartbroken about Brown’s death.
“You want to take action, but you feel helpless,” Champion said.
But Champion said she looks favorably at measures that could increase checks on law enforcement officers, such as putting body cameras on every police officer. She said she thinks similar policies could help make law enforcement officers more accountable.
As the vigil came to a close, attendees said they hope the event helps put faces to the events people may hear about in the news.
“It’s a human issue, it’s a being issue,” said Markia Bonner, a second-year law student and the academic and fundraising chair of the Black Law Students Association. “The person is not a news story. The person is a husband. The person is a child.”