Theresa Smith Recalls the Day Anaheim Police Killed Her Son Five Years Ago

A mother's worst nightmare came true for Theresa Smith five years ago, when 35-year-old son, Caesar Ray Cruz, was killed by Anaheim police. The father of five left to pick up his kids for football practice that day, but instead got tailed by five officers acting on a tip from an unnamed informant describing Cruz as an armed drug dealing gang member on parole. They cornered him at a Wal-Mart parking lot, where they opened fire and killed him. "I was at home and I got a phone call from my sister and my niece," Smith recalls. "When I heard he got shot, I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would find out that he was dead." Five years later, the police accountability activist is planning a march from the Anaheim Plaza Wal-Mart to APD headquarters in memory of her son.

Read more on my latest OC Weekly Navel Gazing Blog post:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2014/12/planned_march_marks_5th.php