Los Siete de la Raza (The Seven of the Hispanic Community) was the label given to seven young Latinos from the Mission District of San Francisco, California who were involved in a 1969 altercation with police that left one officer dead.
On May 1, 1969, plainclothes police officers Joseph Brodnik and Paul McGoran approached a group of young Latino men as they had been called in relation to a burglary.
The interrogation and hunt made community relations worse as officer McGoran identified Jose Rios as one of the young men involved in the incident.
[1] Media accounts hindered their defense, particularly after the mayor of the city, Joseph Lawrence Alioto, described them to be "hoodlums", "Latin hippies", and "a bunch of punks".
The young Latinos included four Salvadorans, one Nicaraguan, and one Honduran, some of whom had been involved in the youth group the Mission Rebels (founded in 1965); and later in pan-Latino organizations such as COBRA (Confederation of Brown Race for Action) at the College of San Mateo, and the Brown Berets, an organization that took inspiration from Black Power movements and was founded by David Sanchez and Vickie Castro.
The prosecution,led by District Attorney Thomas Norman, failed to make its case and the charges made against Los Siete were dismissed.
[8] It is also important to note that court sessions were widely attended by other young radicals, including Black Panther Huey P. Newton and two of the Chicago Seven.
[9] The pair were constantly harassing the people of the neighborhood; officer Brodnik allegedly would carry a rubber hose with him although it was unclear if it was used during beatings.
[2] The "Los Siete" Defense Committee, housed near 24th and South Van Ness, raised support for the seven Mission District youths and obtained assistance from the Black Panther Party.
The La Raza Information Center, one of the groups that emerged from the Defenese Committee, took inspiration from the Black Panthers and began operating in the summer of 1970 in the vacant storefront next to "Los Siete".
Like the Panthers, it ran many programs, including Centro de Salud, which offered free bilingual services that eventually put pressure on public hospitals in the area to do the same.
[11][citation needed] Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, frequently worked with Los Siete and the Brown Berets.