Mothers in White Demand Justice for Slain Teenager Andy Lopez by Shepherd Bliss

Image by Daniel Arauz via Flickr

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Santa Rosa, California
December 28, 2013

Christmas Eve is when many families gather to celebrate and exchange gifts. But what would you do when a beloved child of your immediate or extended family had been killed two months before?

This Christmas Eve a committee of the Justice Coalition for Andy Lopez met to plan a peaceful, dignified action to support the family whose 13-year-old son Andy Lopez was killed October 22 in Santa Rosa by Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus. They demand a halt to cops killing innocent children and then not being indicted and punished.

“Moral Injury”–One Military Veteran Kills Teenager, Another Kills Himself by Shepherd Bliss

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Santa Rosa, California
December 12, 2013

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez was killed by sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus on October 22, as the boy walked home in his Latino neighborhood in Santa Rosa, California. The Iraq War veteran claims he mistook the eighth-grader’s toy rifle for a real one.

A month later another Army vet, Paul Duffy, took his own life nearby. Duffy, as some friends called him, was found by his wife hanging from a rope in the writer’s cabin he had built outside his Tomales home by the Pacific Ocean.

Justice Coalition for Slain Andy Lopez Founded, by Shepherd Bliss

Image by dignidadrebelde via Flickr

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Santa Rosa, California
November 22, 2013

A new, powerful coalition of Latino, social justice, green, progressive Democrats, student, civil liberties, peace, and other groups has emerged in Sonoma County, California. The killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus on October 22 unites them.

Andy Lopez’s Family and Others Speak Out + National Day of Protest by Shepherd Bliss + Cindy Sheehan: Jailhouse for Gelhaus

Image by dignidadrebelde via Flickr

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Santa Rosa, California
November 8, 2013

The October 22 killing here of 13-year-old Andy Lopez by a hail of bullets from sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus has resulted in daily peaceful marches, prayer vigils and speaking events honoring Lopez and calling for justice, as thousands in the northern California community continue to mourn and express outrage.

Killing of Teenager Andy Lopez Ignites Latino Community by Shepherd Bliss

Image by dignidadrebelde via Flickr

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Santa Rosa, California
November 1, 2013

Colorful Aztec dancers lead a few hundred chanting, slow-moving people of all ages on a march from the Latino neighborhood of Roseland to Santa Rosa, California’s downtown square on October 30. They demanded justice for the killing of 13-year-old Andy Lopez on October 22 by sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus.

Andy Lopez: The Killing of an Innocent Child by Shepherd Bliss

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Sonoma County, California
October 26, 2013

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

Another child has been killed. Andy Lopez was playing with a toy on Oct. 22 near his home in a Latino community in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, Northern California. A sheriff’s deputy pulled the trigger and hit the 13-year-old seven times, fearing that his toy assault rifle might be real. His partner, sitting next to him in the car, held his fire. That patience was a better approach. Who is responsible for this death?