SAN ANTONIO — Josey Garcia says she's never seen the entire video of George Floyd’s murder.
“I watched it long enough to see people standing by. The officer was nonchalant, the other officers were standing by, but I couldn’t watch it all the way through,” Garcia said.
What she did see moved her to act.
Garcia is a member of the Reliable Revolutionaries and said that for her everything started a year ago at Travis Park in downtown San Antonio.
“I was really taken aback at how many people showed up, the energy was real high. It was scary. There was a heavy police presence,” Garcia said.
She and other San Antonians kept protesting in the streets — even on wheels. This past summer one of the many protests was called Roll in Peace. Young folks learned about police brutality by skating, rollerblading and cycling.
James Brown, a mentor on San Antonio’s Southside, was at many of these protests.
“You don’t want your children to go through with what I had to go through,” Brown said last summer. “Now is the time to make a change.”
These demonstrations sparked by George Floyd’s murder helped shine a light on what’s happening in their backyard.
Debbie Bush is the aunt of Marquise Jones, a San Antonio man killed by an off-duty police officer in 2014. The officer was never charged.
“Since George Floyd, we’ve [had] quite a few groups come out. One of them is the Reliable Revolutionaries,” Bush said.
Bush is a family liaison for the organization and is tasked with aiding grieving families.
“And now it’s basically, it’s from the streets and taking it from legislation, but until we change the laws, you are just basically wasting your time,” Bush said.
The one thing Bush says she won’t waste is time. She also made a promise to Jones and to the families whose loved ones were killed by law enforcement.
“I won’t be going anywhere now, especially since I reached out to other families and speak for them and fight for their loved ones also,” Bush said.