A massive new mural can be seen in San Francisco's Mission District.

Alto al Fuego en La Misón (Ceasefire in the Mission) honors Amilcar Lopez Perez, a Guatemalan immigrant teenager fatally shot by law enforcement officers in plainclothes on February 26, 2015, according to an article by Remzcla.

The mural, by far the largest public art piece to be painted along the city's Latino Cultural Corridor in a decade, stands two stories tall on the southern side of Calle 24's headquarters at 3250 24th St. to remind passersby of the intensifying police violence against Black and Latino communities. It is a joint project between the Justice4Amilcar Coalition and Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (HOMEY).

Lopez Perez is painted wearing a San Francisco Giants hat with hands raised as several guns pointed at him. To pay tribute to the late teen's bicultural identity, he stands amid a Guatemalan landscape and the San Francisco cityscape. The mural also includes a painting of him and his family.

To further signify protest against state violence, the piece also highlights other Black and Latino victims portrayed by votive candles in an altar-like section. These victims' lives were claimed by police officers and Border Patrol agents, while some died under the custody of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

"We really wanted to connect different kinds of law enforcement violence ... at the border specifically, and the treatment of immigrants as a community," Dyana Delfin-Polk, associate director of HOMEY, said in an interview.

The victims include Mario Woods and Alex Nieto, both shot by police officers; Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, shot by a Border Patrol agent; Roxana Hernandez, a trans woman from Honduras who died in ICE custody; and Oscar and Valeria Martinez Hernandez, who died while journeying to the U.S..


While the vibrant mural has been acclaimed by the community, Anna Lisa Escobedo, one of the lead painters for the mural, said that many have raised their concerns about several victims who were not included in the project, an indication of the grim reality of police brutality.

"That was the hardest part," said Escobedo. "From the community, a lot of people were saying, 'We are missing this person, this person, this person.' We could do five more murals and focus on people who had the same circumstances, and that is sad."

In the investigation conducted by the San Francisco Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau, they claimed that Officer Eric Reboli and Sgt. Craig Tiffe acted within policy when they shot the Guatemalan immigrant more than four years ago for wielding a knife in an attempt to steal a bike from in the Mission District.

"The officers, as they are only allowed to fire in defense of themselves or others, felt that one of those situations was in play," Suhr said the day after the shooting.

Furthermore, police officials claimed that both officers wore their badges on the outside of their clothing.

The district attorney's office in 2017 declined to file charges, citing insufficient evidence that the officers broke any laws in the killing.

On the other hand, defense attorney Arnoldo Casillas said Perez-Lopez was not a robber and was in fact running away from plainclothes officers who failed to identify themselves when he was shot in the back.

"Chief Suhr has been repeating the version of what the officers told him despite its falsity," Casillas said. "The official version is a lie."

The police explanation runs counter to what three eyewitnesses, including the alleged victim of the bicycle theft, told private investigators hired by the family. According to him, they were only arguing about the sell of the bike which prompted Lopez Perez to draw a knife and caused witnesses to call 911.

In 2018, the city agreed to pay Perez-Lopez's family $275,000 to settle a civil lawsuit.