Alex Nieto was shot and killed by San Francisco police on March 21st, 2014. He was 28 years old. As Rebecca Solnit put it, the killing is considered “death by gentrification.” Nieto, a Latino son of Mexican immigrants, was shot to death in the Bernal Heights neighborhood where he was born and raised. The men who called the police on Nieto were white, San Francisco newcomers.
To commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Nieto’s death, artist Yano Rivera created a comic recreating how the tragic evening unfolded in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights Park. “Nieto’s death reflects larger issues of police use-of-violence in the United States,” said Rivera. Amid contested evidence, the comic pulls from several sources: El Tecolote archives, court records and other new sources. “By turning his story into a comic, I hope to contribute to the kind of art that Pan Cooke (@thefakepan) creates, and, perhaps, bring awareness to a problem that needs to change.”
Click here to download a PDF version of the comic.
