May Day rally in Santa Rosa highlights social justice, immigrant-rights issues

About 250 people turned out for the annual May Day march and rally in Santa Rosa on Friday, with participants highlighting such issues as police accountability, immigrant rights and the plight of the homeless.

The event, which commemorates International Workers’ Day, began with a rally in the parking lot of the site of the future Roseland Village development on Sebastopol Road and West Avenue.

Led by Aztec dancers, participants marched down Sebastopol Road and made their way to Old Courthouse Square. They carried signs with such messages as “Justice For Andy Lopez,” “$15 Per Hour Minimum Wage,” “Xenophobia Kills” and “Who Would Jesus Deport?”

One sign showed a rough sketch of a video camera, with the message in Spanish, “Tape the Police.”

The annual rally and march took place the same day Baltimore’s chief prosecutor announced that six police officers would be charged with murder and manslaughter in the death of Freddie Gray.

A number of local police accountability activists carried signs related to the 2013 fatal shooting of Andy Lopez.

Ana Salgado, a member of the Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez, drew comparisons between the Lopez shooting and recent events in Baltimore. But she said, speaking in Spanish, that fewer people protest locally because “we lack unity.”

Salgado said the local movement is calling for, among other things, independent review of the Sheriff’s Office; mental health evaluations for local law enforcement after a fatal shooting; and stricter policies for the use of deadly force.

Marty Bennett, co-chairman of North Bay Jobs with Justice, attended the march and rally to shed light on the local campaign to raise the minimum wage in Sonoma County to $15 an hour. A “living wage” ordinance that would do just that is set to go before the Board of Supervisors on June 9, he said.

“This is part of the nationwide movement - the Fight for 15,” Bennett said, adding that similar ordinances already exist in Sebastopol, Petaluma and Sonoma. Bennett said one of the aims of the local ordinances is to show state and federal officials that raising the minimum wage does not cause the economic calamity that some fear.

Adrienne Lauby, a member of Homeless Action, and a number of other housing activists decried the lack of affordable housing that’s fueling homelessness.

“We have 3,000 people every night who don’t have a safe warm place to sleep,” Lauby said. “Thirty people a year die on the streets, without a home.”

Some people carried signs that looked like tombstones with the names of homeless people who have died. One sign tombstone read, “RIP Karen Marie Patrick, Loved by Many.”

In the past, the issue of immigration rights often has dominated the local May Day event. In 2006, the event drew about 10,000 participants, many of them undocumented immigrants and their supporters. But since then, fewer and fewer immigrants have joined the event.

Jesus Guzman, lead organizer for the Graton Day Labor Center, said that in recent years the hope for a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws has dwindled, even as the country has deported record numbers of undocumented immigrants under President Barack Obama.

“It’s a war of attrition, where we’re seeing more and more of our community being deported and ending up on the other side of the border,” Guzman said.

Richard Coshnear, a staff attorney for Santa Rosa-based Vital Immigrant Defense Advocacy & Services, said he believes local deportations are on the decline. He said local immigrants are waiting to see how the courts rule on Obama’s executive order that would grant a temporary reprieve and work permits to an estimated 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Coshnear said he hopes the federal appeals court currently hearing the case will rule in favor of Obama’s order, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans, or DAPA.

“We remain hopeful,” he said. “We’re hoping to be taking DAPA applications this summer.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @renofish.