Another shooting in California

Gun violence, support for SPOT & Corporate Rock Sucks

There’s another memorial in Barrio Logan. Flowers, a scatter of candles, a framed photograph from happier days. An all-too-familiar sight for an all-too-frequent occasion.

The vibe in the barrio has been somber lately. It started with the death of José late last year. He was a man without a home who was able to get by doing odd jobs for many of the businesses along Logan Avenue. He reportedly had a heart attack and died in the lot where he was sleeping. He was fixture in the neighborhood and I wrote a tribute to him for Razorcake. He is greatly missed.

The rains came and kept customers away from the small businesses up and down the block for much of January, making it a bleak start to 2023. I was sick and stayed away.

Then on Friday January 20 the police killed a man right in front of our studio. I heard the news the next day. The police had shut down Logan Avenue for most of the block between Chicano Park and S. Evans Street. There’d been an officer-involved shooting the night before and the police were still gathering evidence.

I read in the San Diego Union Tribune that a man driving a red pick-up truck was pulled over by the police on the other side of Cesar Chavez, directly in front of Las Cuatro Milpas. After being questioned by the officers the man drove off only to stop a few blocks away—directly in front of the mural on Logan Avenue.

The man got out of his car with a weapon and fired at the officers. When they returned fire he ran across the street and was caught in the hail of gunfire. He collapsed in the street and died.

All because of a traffic stop over a broken taillight.

When I went to the studio a few days later, my downstairs neighbor showed me the bullet holes in our building. There was one above the door to his shop and below the window to my studio. There was another farther down near the store next door and one of the windows to the shop two doors down had been blown out.

My neighbor showed me where the man had gone down directly in front of the burger joint where tables have been set up outdoors. I could still see the stains on the asphalt just steps away from where people were eating lunch.

The whole thing made me sick to my stomach.

Judging from the video the SDPD posted of the incident on YouTube, it doesn’t seem like the situation in Memphis but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t preventable.

You can call me a radical, but it’s my view that no one should die from a traffic stop. However, the chances of getting killed after being pulled over (or pulling someone over) have never been higher. On an average day police pull over more than 50,000 people. It’s an excessive amount that creates an endless cycle of confrontations. Factor in millions of guns and you’ve got a situation that’s dangerous for all parties.

Cops don’t want to be shot by criminals.

Civilians don’t want to be killed by cops.

Communities don’t want their streets sprayed with gunfire.

But with so many guns and so many cops pulling over so many people, these shootings feel inevitable. With millions of guns and millions of stops is it reasonable to expect there won’t be shootings?

When I left the studio that evening, I walked by the park and saw the memorial for the man whose name the San Diego Union Tribune couldn’t bother to spell correctly. Another insult to the victim’s family that has been senselessly torn apart. The candles lit up a section of the gray concrete pillar under the bridge as the traffic sailed by overhead. It would be sad on any day, but in the wake of so much gun violence, the park felt like a giant tomb.

I’ve been coming to Barrio Logan to support, celebrate, and make art for as long as I’ve lived in San Diego. I go to the studio to write, make art, work on projects, and package orders from my store. The murals at Chicano Park tell a story of persistence through resistance. The community of artists and entrepreneurs in Barrio Logan is incredibly strong but it can’t go on like this. It’s hard to believe that love is more powerful than hate when there are so many tragedies to mourn.

Support for SPOT

If you’re like me, when you heard the news that legendary SST producer and musician SPOT had a stroke, you probably wished there was something you could do to help. Well now you can.

In the Red Records, Ryebread Rodeo, Susie J and Henry Rollins have joined forces to make some of SPOTS iconic prints available to the public. You can probably guess which one I bought. (Hint: I licensed the image for Corporate Rock Sucks.)

It goes without saying, it’s for a good cause.

Corporate Rock Sucks 2.0

This week I’ll be going over the proofs for the paperback edition of Corporate Rock Sucks. I’ve already made more than 50 changes—big and small—to the first edition. If there’s something about the book that’s been bothering you, chances are it’s been bothering me too and I fixed it. But this is your absolute last chance to speak up and be heard.  

Also, if I missed your town when the book came out last spring, and you’d like me to do a book signing in your local book or record store this summer, please drop me a line. I’m starting to plan events and I’d love to come see you.