Posted Jul 8, 2020, 12:41 pm
A vigil for Carlos Ingram-Lopez at the El Tiradito shrine in Downtown Tucson, June 25. - Paul Ingram/TucsonSentinel.com
Here at El Tiradito, which in my shitty Spanish translates to The
Precious Throwaway, a police helicopter circles over an aunt
lighting a candle, a concrete engine of commerce where a
neighborhood once was, urban renewal just a novel face of the
same Manifest Destiny and purging displacement. The only
progress here is the expansion of capital, accompanied by a
deficit of spirit. A veiled police perimeter surrounds the vigil
and following march, beyond a roving assortment of marked and
unmarked vehicles, ranging one to three blocks away. The
helicopter and a twin-engine plane continue overhead, a quick
check of my phone reveals four unidentified flights encircling
the Barrio Viejo. A line of police officers with helmets off, arms
crossed in front of their belts, another line of officers inside,
barely visible in dark lit rooms, helmets on, holding canister
launchers and pepper-ball airguns. Carlos Adrian Ingram-Lopez:
father, son, brother, cousin. Whose garage the police charged as if
the Beaches of Normandy, to subdue Carlos as he hid naked in
his garage. So this is a Wellness Check, to place a mesh sock over
Carlos' head and lay him face down in his vomit. Proof that a
gun or chokehold isn't necessary to murder a man, not when he
can be scared to death. Tucson, this progressive city, what have
we thrown away?
David Weiss is an assistant designer and editor with Chax Press and is a board associate at POG Arts, both in Tucson. A self-described vocational reader, he holds no letters and claims no expertise. Instead, he prefers to emphasize the essential heterogenous community which makes the lonely tradition of writing and composition a joyous one.
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