Protest organized to bring justice to women killed to police brutality

DETROIT - “I feel like I’ve been over policed, over-sexualized my entire life,” said protest organizer, Ama Russell. “In any space, even in school, I am not heard and just reduced to a supportive role. 

Black Lives Matter In All capacities, organized by two rising seniors at Cass Technical High School. They joined with Michigan Liberation and Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan for the march. 

“Time is up for being ignored. Time is up for just standing by the Black man because we are being killed too,” Russell said. 

The march down Woodward to the Spirit of Detroit Plaza acknowledged the lives of women like Breonna Taylor, who was shot by officers in her own home during the execution of a a no-knock warrant. The male suspect they were looking for didn’t even live in her apartment complex and was already detained. 

“It’s Black women, Black men, It’s Black children, Black little boys and girls who lost their lives” said protest organizer Avamelo Oleita. “Ayana Stanley Jones was just 7-years-old when she was killed by police in her home.”

The child was shot by a Detroit police officer in a botched raid in 2010. She was asleep on the couch. The family settled a civil suit with attorneys from the city of Detroit for $8.25 million.

“It’s not the fact that we’re somebody’s mom, somebody’s sister, it’s the fact that we’re somebody,” Oleita said. “We live on this earth, we walk on this earth and we deserve to be here just as much as anybody else.”