Alto al Fuego en la Misión

Unfinished History

Capp-24th-full-mural 20200608 202524.jpg

The full view from across 24th Street.

Photos: Chris Carlsson


In 2019 Carla Wojczuk and Lucia Ippolito led a crew of wonderful community muralists in painting a stunning full-building mural at 24th and Capp Streets on a building owned by Mission Housing and with the streetside storefront rented by the Calle 24 Cultural District organizing project.

Titled Alto al Fuego en la Misión the mural honors multiple homicide victims, all killed by the San Francisco Police Department in the past few years. Prominently featured are Amilcar Perez-Lopez, shot in the back by undercover police on Folsom Street, Alex Nieto, shot down in a hail of 59 bullets after eating his burrito on Bernal Heights, Luis Gongora Pat, killed in less than 30 seconds while sitting on the ground on Shotwell near 19th... and quite a few more too.

The mural was designed and directed in community and collaboration by Carla Elana Wojczuk with, Homies Organizing the Mission to Empower Youth (HOMEY), Justice4Amilcar Coalition, Lucía González Ippolito, and assisted by Flavia Elisa Mora; and painted by: Cristian Muñoz, Lucía González Ippolito, Anna Lisa Escobedo, Carla Elana Wojczuk, Adrianna Adams, Flavia Elisa Mora (painting and poetry), Pancho Pescador, and Sonia "G" Molina.

From the press statement by the mural creators on its inauguration:

The mural is dedicated to Amilcar Perez Lopez, a 21-year-old Ch’orti’ Mayan immigrant from Guatemala, shot and killed by officers from the San Francisco Police Department on February 26th, 2015. Despite the Department’s initial claims the officers had fired in self-defense after Amilcar had lunged at them with a knife, medical examiners later revealed the officers had instead fired six shots to the back of Amilcar’s body as he was running for his life.

For almost five years, Amilcar’s killing has elicited widespread protests throughout the city and media attention throughout the world. Despite the subsequent failure of the legal system to hold the officers accountable for his murder, his family in Guatemala, and this community in the Mission in which he lived and died refuse to forget him and the others lost to police violence.

The mural portrays Amilcar, his family demanding justice, and the other community members recently killed by SFPD: Mario Woods, Alex Nieto, Luis Gongora Pat, and Jesus Adolfo Delgado. The mural also depicts immigrants and migrants killed along our Southern border: Roxana Hernandez, Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, and Oscar and Valeria Martinez.

Alto muralistas at inaugural.jpg

The muralists are honored at the unveiling.

Photo: Chris Carlsson

Capp-24th-Amilcar-detail 20200608 202548.jpg

The detail on Amilcar Perez-Lopez, a Guatemalan immigrant laborer, whose family mourns him in their mountain village.

Capp-24th-memorial-details 20200608 202538.jpg

At right, Luis Gongora Pat; center, Alfonso Delgado (shot in a hail of police bullets while hiding in the trunk of a car); front and center: Roxana Hernandez.

Capp-24th-mural-detail 20200608 202556.jpg

Based on a photo of Amilcar Perez-Lopez's family holding a banner demanding justice in their village.


Alto al fuego original Juana Alicia.jpg

As is often true among local muralists, the Amilcar memorial is painted in part as an homage to an earlier work that was destroyed, Alto al Fuego, by Juana Alicia, decrying the wars in Central America in the 1980s.

Photo: Chris Carlsson