![\"Dolores](\"https:\/\/s.hdnux.com\/photos\/71\/10\/63\/14978284\/3\/920x1240.jpg\")
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Dolores Piper greets Jeff Stewart, a close friend of Mario Woods, during last summer\u2019s 2nd Annual Mario Woods Remembrance Day.\u00a0| Leah Millis, The Chronicle<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n Sitting in her home last summer, Dolores Piper picked up a pair of scissors and cut the red tape wrapped around a paper bag labeled \u201cSouth San Francisco Police.\u201d<\/p>\n She had received the package months earlier and left it untouched in a closet. Just opening it and seeing the contents, she knew, would send her flashing back to the worst night of her life. But it couldn\u2019t wait any longer.<\/p>\n Piper reached inside and pulled out a pair of tattered red shorts. She placed them on her dining table. Reaching in again, she retrieved a pair of underwear stained with blood.<\/p>\n The two pieces of clothing were taken off the body of 15-year-old Derrick Gaines, who was shot and killed by a South San Francisco police officer on June 5, 2012.<\/p>\n Piper held in her pain as she looked at her great-nephew\u2019s tattered clothes on the table. She helped raise him from when he was an infant.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was a joy in our lives,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was just really engaging all his life. I think that was his most charming quality. He was a diplomat. A lot of people thought he had a lot of promise as a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n For many people who have lost loved ones in police shootings, grief can be a gateway to advocacy. For Piper, 75, Derrick\u2019s death spurred her to become a fixture at San Francisco Police Commission meetings. It\u2019s why she\u2019s part of a group working to address racial bias among police. And it\u2019s why she specifically focuses on officer bias against youth.<\/p>\n \u201cIt propelled me to look at what\u2019s happened, what policing is about, how our kids aren\u2019t protected by these police, and what suffering is out there among women and men and families who lose their loved ones,\u201d said Piper, who co-owns a food brokerage company.<\/p>\n \u201cI like to be present at a lot of these (meetings). I don\u2019t need to do anything or say anything, but be present there. I feel like that\u2019s really, really important \u2014 to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n David Salaverry, co-founder of San Franciscans for Police Accountability, an organization that counts Piper as a member and pushes for police reform, said mothers and other family members who have lost loved ones in officer-involved shootings can make a difference.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Dolores and people like Mario Woods\u2019 mother and the parents of Alejandro Nieto are not present in front of the commission, in front of the politicians, in front of the district attorney, then everything is just abstract,\u201d said Salaverry, 66, of San Francisco. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to ignore if there isn\u2019t a victim speaking out. The personal aspect of it is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n Woods was a 26-year-old stabbing suspect whose December 2015 shooting death in the Bayview prompted criticism of San Francisco police after\u00a0f<\/a><\/b>ootage of the incident<\/a><\/b>\u00a0was posted on social media. Nieto, 28, was fatally shot by San Francisco police in March 2014, after officers said he pointed a Taser at them. Nieto\u2019s parents filed a federal civil rights claim arguing that police wrongfully killed him, but a jury\u00a0cleared the officers of all charges.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n In July, Piper attended the second annual Mario Woods Remembrance Day in Martin Luther King Jr. Park in San Francisco. She wore a white T-shirt with the names of at least a dozen people who had been fatally shot by police, including Derrick\u2019s. She greeted Gwen Woods, Mario Woods\u2019 mother, with a smile and a laugh before making the rounds to say hello to the others who had gathered at the park.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels good to be with these people, to learn how to stand up to these institutions and to question them,\u201d Piper said. \u201cAnd it feels more powerful together.\u201d<\/p>\n On a summer night 5\u00bd years ago, a South San Francisco police officer initiated a stop of Derrick and his friend, who were walking through a gas station parking lot near Piper\u2019s home. The officer noticed Derrick making \u201cfurtive gestures\u201d near his waistband, according to a report by the San Mateo County district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n The officer, Joshua Cabillo, suspected Derrick might have a firearm or drugs, based on his movements, the report said. When the officer tried to question the boys, witnesses said, Derrick ran.<\/p>\n Cabillo told investigators that a .45-caliber revolver fell out of the boy\u2019s pants when he tackled him to the ground. The gun was later found to be inoperable. During a scuffle, Cabillo said, he got on top of Derrick and pointed his firearm \u201cseveral feet from his face\u201d while telling him not to move.<\/p>\n When Derrick reached for the revolver, Cabillo said, the fourth-year officer shot him at point-blank range. Derrick died from a gunshot wound to the right side of his neck and chest, according to the autopsy report.<\/p>\n Steve Wagstaffe, the district attorney for San Mateo County, ruled the shooting was legally justified.<\/p>\n \u201cThe role of the district attorney is not to say whether this was a good way to do business,\u201d Wagstaffe told The Chronicle. \u201cWe don\u2019t deal with police conduct. Our focus is purely: Was this criminal conduct by the officer, or was this justifiable under the California penal code?\u201d<\/p>\n The city of South San Francisco settled a civil suit filed by Derrick\u2019s parents and agreed to pay the family $250,000, without admitting wrongdoing, said City Attorney Jason Rosenberg.<\/p>\n The district attorney\u2019s report includes a summary of events from two witnesses, Jaime Gotai and Claudia Li, that says they told investigators Derrick was shot within seconds of being tackled by Cabillo.<\/p>\n Li said she turned her head just before the shots were fired, according to the report. Li confirmed that in an interview with The Chronicle, but said the report left out several details that she witnessed that contradicted Cabillo\u2019s story.<\/p>\n Li, 31, of San Francisco, said Cabillo actually tackled Derrick twice. After the first time, she said, the boy ran from the gun, putting him out of reach of the weapon.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time (Derrick) had kind of slid and stopped, the gun was pretty far away. Maybe a few feet away,\u201d Li told investigators the night of the shooting, according to a tape of her interview.<\/p>\n In a second interview three weeks later, Li repeated that the gun \u201cwasn\u2019t near (Derrick\u2019s) hands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat (the district attorney) wrote out was completely different and not what I told them, because I clearly said he fell down and got up again,\u201d Li told The Chronicle. \u201cTo say that someone tried to pick up a gun and tried to take down an officer, that is not what happened. That\u2019s messed up.\u201d<\/p>\n Wagstaffe said investigators had taken Li\u2019s statement into account, but that \u201cOfficer Cabillo\u2019s description was what we believed the evidence showed and what we believed justified the shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n More than five years after Derrick\u2019s death, Piper still refuses to accept Wagstaffe\u2019s decision to clear Cabillo \u2014 in part because of Li\u2019s assertion that investigators misreported her testimony.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a heartache you just never get over,\u201d Piper said. \u201cIt comes in waves.\u201d<\/p>\n She says she wishes she had told Derrick, who was half black and part Puerto Rican, to be cautious around police. The thought never occurred to her, she said, as a middle-class white woman.<\/p>\n \u201cI really couldn\u2019t understand the struggles that Derrick had,\u201d Piper said. \u201cI was pushing for him to succeed in this white world.\u201d<\/p>\n Since that night in 2012, Piper has followed Officer Cabillo\u2019s career from South San Francisco \u2014 where he spent nearly six years \u2014 to the San Francisco Police Department, which he joined in April 2013. He is now assigned to Central Station.\u00a0<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n Joseph Lucia, the attorney who represented Cabillo in the shooting, said Derrick\u2019s death took a toll.<\/p>\n \u201cOfficer Cabillo was very affected by this,\u201d said Lucia, whose client did not respond to requests for comment. \u201cHe was forced to make a decision that he didn\u2019t want to have to make.\u201d<\/p>\n The shooting is not the only incident in which Cabillo\u2019s use of force has been called into question.<\/p>\n The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against him and several other San Francisco police officers in 2015 on behalf of a 23-year-old man who said police had assaulted him. According to the complaint, Cabillo and the other officers threw the man to the ground, punched him and twisted his arm while threatening to break it.<\/p>\n The city settled the suit in 2016 and agreed to pay the man $40,000, without admitting any wrongdoing by the officers.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like he was trying to appear as a hot shot,\u201d Piper said of Cabillo\u2019s actions the night Derrick died.<\/p>\n But Piper\u2019s mission isn\u2019t just to keep tabs on Cabillo, she said. She also wants to protect people like Derrick\u2019s 10-year-old half brother, Michael Red, another biracial child she\u2019s helping to raise.<\/p>\n \u201cI had this naive feeling that Derrick would be OK out there, no matter what,\u201d Piper said. \u201cI almost have a repulsion to the (police) uniform and especially to the guns on their hips. I never used to feel that way, but now I really do. I\u2019m not afraid, because I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll ever bother me, really, but I\u2019m afraid for other people.\u201d<\/p>\n When a family tries to pursue civil action against a police department, Piper sits in the court gallery. When family and friends of someone killed by police rally to protest, Piper marches with a raised fist. She\u2019s present at vigils, memorials, San Francisco Police Commission meetings and other events \u2014 all with Michael beside her.<\/p>\n John Burris, a civil rights attorney who represented Derrick\u2019s parents in the civil suit against Cabillo, said he\u2019s become accustomed to seeing Piper at anti-police-brutality events.<\/p>\n \u201cShe really has turned into a wonderful activist,\u201d Burris said. \u201cI am more than happy to see her when we have these rallies. She\u2019s there comforting the moms.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve met some extraordinary people in this whole movement who are dedicated and have been all their lives,\u201d Piper said. \u201cIf there is any hope, it\u2019s the hope of people who just don\u2019t give up.\u201d<\/p>\n Binders of documents and sworn statements from the district attorney\u2019s investigation are still scattered throughout her home. Each day, she wears a pin that includes Derrick\u2019s photo and says, \u201cJustice for Derrick Gaines.\u201d<\/p>\n As a way of keeping him close, she finds a way to bring up his name in almost any social situation.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m here fighting for Derrick,\u201d Piper said. \u201cAnd I always will.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:\u00a0sravani@sfchronicle.com<\/a><\/b>\u00a0Twitter:\u00a0@SarRavani<\/a><\/b><\/em><\/p>\n (Submitted by Ruthie Sakheim.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many people who have lost loved ones in police shootings, Dolores Piper found that grief can be a gateway to advocacy. By\u00a0Sarah Ravani\u00a0(SFChronicle.com) Dolores Piper greets Jeff Stewart, a close friend of Mario Woods, during last summer\u2019s 2nd Annual Mario Woods Remembrance Day.\u00a0| Leah Millis, The Chronicle Sitting in… Continue reading