Police raided Molina’s home on the 3500 block of North Halsted Street at 10 PM, Monday night, arrested her son, Michael Ortiz, and detained but did not arrest Molina. Over the course of the next 28-1/2 hours, family members and friends repeatedly visited police stations, appealing to them to allow Molina access to her medications, but were denied each time.

Molina had multiple medical problems, including diabetes and high blood pressure, and was largely confined to a wheelchair. Her attorney, Jerry Bishop, visited her at the Belmont and Western police station and said she appeared to be in poor physical condition. “I told them, you really need to get this woman to Cermak [Hospital],” said Bishop.

“They denied her her medicine,” said Alexander Hauad, Molina’s nephew and one of the several relatives who attempted to deliver her prescription medications while she was locked up at Addison and Halsted police station, and later at the Belmont and Western station. “They murdered her. They have got to pay.”

Geri McKenzie, who witnessed the Monday night raid, described seeing three police officers in their back yard as she let out her dogs. They said “get the dogs off or we’ll shoot them,” she reported. Police then bashed down the front door of the first and second floor apartments and handcuffed McKenzie, Molina, and the two second floor residents, Ortiz and Juan Robles.

After handcuffing Molina and McKenzie to chairs in the first floor apartment, police began badgering Molina by name, saying “we can avoid a lot of trouble” if she told them where to find what they were looking for, without saying just what that was. An officer then went into Molina’s bedroom and within five minutes came out with what appeared to be packets of drugs and said, “Well, bingo, what have we found here, May? And now, because you lied to us…” and then they started ransacking the apartment.

Juan Robles, a second floor resident along with Molina’s son, Michael Ortiz, reported a similar “search.” An officer went into one bedroom of the three-bedroom apartment and “within a minute,” came back out with what appeared to be drugs. “They then ransacked the house to make it look like they had to search for it,” said Robles. While briefly detaining Robles, they arrested Ortiz. The bedroom in question, however, was occupied by neither of them, but had been previously been occupied by another person who was already in custody for a parole violation.

Anti-police brutality activists such as former death row inmate Aaron Patterson, members of Comite Exijimos Justicia, and members of Molina’s organization, Families of the Wrongfully Convicted, swept down to Belmont and Western police station early this morning upon hearing that Molina had died and held an impromptu press conference. All agreed that the raid on Molina’s residence was in apparent retaliation for her anti-police brutality and misconduct organizing. Molina was tireless in her activism to free her son, Salvatore Ortiz, and recently had made significant advances in their battle to win him a new trial.

Help demand justice for May Molina and Michael Ortiz. Families of the Wrongfully Convicted and other activists are calling on all to join them at a candlelight vigil at the Belmont & Western police station at 8 PM tonight. They are also appealing to all to come to the next Police Board meeting at 6:30 PM, Thursday, May 27 at police headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Avenue.

Sometime later tonight, we expect to be able to post to this site photographs showing the aftermath of the raid.