RACIST MURDER SPARKS OAKLAND REBELLION

OAKLAND, CA, January 12 — On January 1, Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, was murdered by a racist BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop. Grant cried to the cop, “Don’t shoot me! I have a four-year-old daughter!” whereupon the cop shot him in the back while he lay on the ground, sparking hundreds of youth to rebel.  This state-sponsored execution-style murder is one of the latest examples of “business-as-usual” under the racist capitalist system.

On January 7, workers and youth held a protest rally at BART where the murder occurred. As anger grew, up to 500 people eventually marched from that BART station to downtown Oakland where a rebellion occurred. Youth attacked police vehicles and businesses along the route.

The murdering BART cop is part of a force for which Homeland Security allotted millions of dollars specifically to transit police in the rulers’ “war on terror,” now being turned into a racist war against black and Latino youth.
Many of the young people who marched for immigrant rights on May Day last year were present. The united anger of young people from all backgrounds was inspiring. Some held signs with Oscar Grant’s picture, linking his murder to the massacre in Gaza as the latest examples of state-sponsored terror. When Oakland’s black mayor Ron Dellums showed up, he was booed. When he pleaded for “calm” later at the rebellion, he was ignored. PLP’ers brought our class analysis and internationalism to the protest and distributed CHALLENGES.

The rally’s open mike heard most speakers call for a calm protest, requesting a “police oversight commission.” But angry youth called for action. One youth declared, “This isn’t just a black thing, all of Oakland needs to unite and do something about it.”  Another young man said he “would personally organize a riot if the cop wasn’t convicted.” Thuyen Tran, 24, of Vietnamese descent, despite the damage to his family’s business, said he understood the protesters’ anger: “It doesn’t make sense,  using brutal force. It doesn’t feel good because No.1, I’m a minority, and No 2, I’m a young kid.” (NY Times, 1/8/09)

All these comments contained the seed of a class analysis about the difference between state-sponsored, institutional violence from the police and violence among youth due to being saturated with divisive capitalist ideas. They present an opportunity for PLP’ers to raise with co-workers and friends that pacifism towards the police won’t stop cops’ violence (nor gang violence). Only developing class consciousness among young working-class people will do that, understanding that they are all in the same boat, and have a common, often violent, class enemy that controls the government and uses the police to repress workers’ opposition to ruling-class oppression.

Whether through unemployment or underserved schools and resources, capitalism has always marginalized black and Latino youth. The large, militant response to this murder shows that these youth are a potential force for rebellion. However, they need to see the connection to the overall capitalist system, which depends on racist super-exploitation for super-profits.

It is precisely these angry youth who the ruling class wants Obama to divert away from rebellion against racist oppression into patriotic “national service” to fight in U.S. imperialist wars. (See editorial front page.)
As the bosses’ economic crisis deepens, continued attacks here and abroad will intensify. The current massacre in Gaza reflects what this system has in store for the working class worldwide.

This protest showed the need for communist leadership to develop this kind of analysis among these youth. We must step up our participation in the community organizations in and around Oakland and build our influence on our jobs, in our unions and in the schools and not be caught off guard. Calling for strikes on the job against these police-state murders is more relevant in light of this rebellion.

Just as we saw in Greece, where the working class was already in motion against austerity measures and was inspired by the action of young people, this rebellion here shows that the working class is smoldering and impatient, that working-class-wide unity is possible.

The door is wide open in these events when we go with our friends and co-workers. Oscar Grant’s murder has outraged vast numbers worldwide who know the intimate details from the internet. To go from outrage and rebellion to class-conscious, planned, working-class-led revolution is a long process. It requires a communist party — PLP — active among workers and youth to lead to this goal.

Relying on Politicians Won’t Stop Racist KKKops

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD, Aug. 20—Hundreds of workers, mostly Latino, attended a vigil to protest the brutal killing of plumber Manuel Jesus de Espina by a Prince George’s County cop. Manuel and his son were drinking in the stairwell of his apartment building, celebrating his 40th birthday. The cop, known for his swaggering brutality, claimed he feared for his life because Espina grabbed for his gun (or was it his baton? The story kept changing), but working-class eyewitnesses reported that Espina did not resist arrest but was beaten, blinded with pepper spray and then shot. Who do you believe? PLPers brought the message of militancy, anti-racism, multi-racial unity and the need for communist revolution to this gathering.

Under communism, there won’t be cops protecting rich people’s property, because there won’t be any rich people or private property. The communist leadership of the new society will resolve conflicts in a comradely way, jail racists and build a unified working class. The role of cops under capitalism is to terrorize workers and protect the bosses and their system. As anti-immigrant racism grows, the cops will increasingly brutalize and murder immigrant workers to fulfill this mission.

Today we are still exploited by capitalism and murdered by racist cops. In Prince George’s County, 14 workers have been shot by the cops since January 2008, several fatally. Twenty years ago, cops beat Gregory Habib, a Ghanaian student, to death here after he failed to stop at a stop sign. The cops were exonerated. “Going through channels,” advocated by leaders of the vigil, has never worked to hold cops accountable, and never will end this racist, fascist intimidation.

We are already campaigning against the lynching of Ronnie White (almost certainly by cops or prison guards) in his jail cell two months ago (CD, 30 July). Then came the needlessly brutal SWAT attack on the home of a Mayor Calvo of Berwyn Heights, and now Espina is murdered in Langley Park. These blatant attacks are just the latest in our area’s long history of police violence, racial profiling and murder. The grassroots People’s Coalition for Police Accountability (PCPA), led mainly by black workers in the County, launched resistance to police brutality over ten years ago, and the 2005 PLP Summer Project in D.C. joined that struggle.

Local politicians and some community activists called for patient reliance on the very system that oppresses all workers. They urged attendees not to “take matters into their own hands.” The wife of State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey (charged with investigating and prosecuting the lynchers of Ronnie White) hugged family members, spoke of justice for Mayor Calvo, but did not mention Ronnie White. She gave Mayor Calvo’s dead dogs killed by the cops more play than a lynched young black man! Politician Victor Ramirez, Delegate to the Maryland House of Representatives, actually blamed Manuel for his own death, saying that he may not have led the most perfect life, and then quickly added that violence never solves anything, so rely on the “justice” system and don’t fight back.

In addition to politicians, representatives of several African American organizations spoke out in solidarity as well. PCPA leader Dorothy Elliott spoke eloquently both about Ronnie White, and her son Archie Elliott, who was murdered 15 years ago by the cops as he sat handcuffed in a police cruiser. The translator never translated her words about Ronnie White!

The lack of militancy did not sit well with the hundreds of angry workers, who rushed to our militant bilingual signs charging PG County cops with racist murders, and linking the attacks on African American Ronnie White and Latino Manuel de Espina with the slogan, “Workers, United, Will Never Be Defeated.” Several new friends offered to help hold these signs, and hundreds more eagerly took CHALLENGE-DESAFIO as over 250 papers flew out of PLPers’ hands.

The organizers invited friends and coworkers of Manuel to speak after the politicians. In the beginning, they mostly spoke of what a great and loving father Manuel was. But then workers’ anger came out and stories of police brutality and intimidation rang out over the crowd. The organizers only let that go on for two or three speakers and then shut down the rally, fearing the growing militancy of the crowd.

PLPers spoke afterwards with workers. One man said, “It isn’t just here that this happens. It happens all over. As long as there is money in a system there will always be oppression and wars.” Another cited the importance of multi-racial and multi-gender unity in the common fight against our common exploiters. Several contacts were made and all were invited to our next events, including the annual PLP Crab Feast and the PCPA forum scheduled for September 9. Our fight against racism, police brutality and for the working class will continue until the exploitative system of capitalism is crushed by workers’ power.

France: Black and Arab Youth Rebel Against Cops’ Terror

100 COPS INJURED:
“THEY WON’T STOP ’TIL THEY BURN DOWN A POLICE STATION”

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, FRANCE, Nov. 28 — Black and Arab youth have rebelled against the racism they face every day. Two police stations were attacked and 100 cops were injured in several nights of violent protest that rocked this Paris suburb. Angry youth have shot at the hated cops with hunting shotguns. The rebellion has spread to Toulouse.

The rebellion began after a police car deliberately struck and killed two Arab youth on a mini-motorcycle. The racist cops then fled. When the police failed to investigate the “accident,” the neighborhood exploded.

Le Monde, a French newspaper, quoted Younès B., a resident of Villiers-le-Bel: “A second police team came to pick up their colleagues. But they left the two kids without doing anything.”
The rebellion followed on the heels of two weeks of labor and student struggle (see page 3). On Nov. 27, while the Socialist Party Student group (UNEF) was trying to sell out the student and teachers’ struggle, riot cops attacked protesting students in Nantes. One 17-year-old high school student suffered a serious eye injury when riot cops aimed point blank at his face.
Meanwhile in this Paris suburb where the rebellion began, the father of one of the slain Arab youth, Larami, 16, said his son had been threatened by police last week.

“We’re fed up with the lack of respect,” said Ikram, 23, who used to live here. He predicted the uprising would continue. “The young people won’t stop until they’ve burned down the Sarcelles police station,” he said. Youth anger at the cops and the racist system they serve is very justified.

‘WANTED FOR MURDER: CHICAGO KKKOPS!’

CHICAGO, Nov. 16 — Students from Chicago State University, Purdue University-Calumet in Indiana, PLP members and other community members took part in a rally against police brutality on 87th and the Dan Ryan Expressway. The Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) long history of racist murder was repeated in August when cops killed Aaron Harrison and three other young black men and even more recently with the murder of rapper Freddie “Latee” Wilson. Protesters carried signs reading “Police Kill!!!!,” “Victims Must Have Justice,” and “Wanted for Murder: Chicago KKKops!” and chanted “No justice, No peace. No racist police!!!” and “Hey pigs what do you say? How many kids did you kill today?”

We distributed dozens of CHALLENGES and flyers to workers getting off the El train and to young high school students who talked about how the cops would stop and harass them and their friends in the neighborhood. We made many contacts and will be talking to them in the future about communist ideas and building a PLP base within the community.

To date, in 2007 the Chicago police have shot 31 people. Community misleaders like the Rev. Ira Acree of the Leaders Network and 28th Ward Alderman Ed Smith want an Independent Review Board to pacify angry workers and let the killer KKKops off the hook, but the protesters at the 87th street rally have some understanding that racism and police brutality cannot be ended by any “independent” board. We in PLP must win more anti-racist workers and youth to our communist politics to build the fight against capitalism, the real cause of racist police terror.

Racist Cop Torturers: Chicago’s Abu Ghraib

CHICAGO, IL, October 26 — Yesterday a majority of the City Council asked a federal judge for access to the names of hundreds of Chicago cops who have multiple citizen complaints against them for brutality and false arrests. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) has lacked a superintendent since April and the current interim chief said that the current scandals are “eroding confidence” in the department. A former FBI official and president of the Chicago Crime Commission said, “Suspicion is running very high as to who you can trust, as far as officers.” (NY Times, 10/26)

This follows a series of crises that have rocked the racist CPD, starting with the ongoing investigations into the torture cases involving Jon Burge & Co. From 1973 to 1991, long before Abu Ghraib, detectives under Burge’s command used what the City’s own lawyers called, “savage torture” to get confessions from suspects. Ninety people complained of the use of electric shock with portable hand-cranked generators, suffocation, burnings on very hot radiators, the use of cattle prods on the genitals, severe beatings and mock executions.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor who convicted Cheney’s errand boy Scooter Libby, has taken over after the County’s four-year investigation found a long history of racist torture and brutality against black workers. It also found that Assistant State Attorneys never properly investigated the torture charges and that those who prosecuted the victims are now the very judges denying them appeals! The investigation also found that Mayor Daley, then a State’s Attorney, knew of the torture complaints and did nothing.

The statute of limitations has run out so the torturers, from Burge to Daley, cannot be prosecuted. The feds are investigating perjury allegations against police and others. The city is spending millions on attorneys, including Burge’s lawyers, to delay settlement of the civil torture cases.

More recently, the Special Operations Section (SOS), an “elite” anti-drug/anti-gang unit, was dissolved due to its own crime wave of robbery, false arrests, kidnappings, brutality, and murder. One cop is charged with hiring a hit-man to murder another cop who was willing to testify to save himself.

This past August, the police went on a racist rampage and brutally murdered four young men in cold blood, in four separate incidents. West Side workers and youth marched and confronted the police over the murder of 18-year-old Aaron Harrison. PLP was active in this fight-back and met many angry residents. They’re being invited to this month’s CHALLENGE dinner.

Last week, two cops were found guilty in a civil case of sodomizing a young black worker with a screwdriver, after having been “cleared” by the Office of Professional Standards. (OPS “investigates” citizen complaints). That will cost the city $4 million. Another jury awarded another black man $2 million for being framed and falsely arrested.

Like many politicians, CEO’s, bankers and union leaders, personal corruption has hurt the CPD’s ability to implement the rulers’ plans for war and fascism. To regain control of the police, the City is working with the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a “progressive” police think-tank that includes NYPD chief Ray Kelly and LAPD chief Bratton, and follows George Kelling’s community policing model.

Now Al Sharpton has opened up shop here to maintain control of masses of angry workers and youth, taking advantage of Jesse Jackson’s silence about the rise in racist police terror. Sharpton criticized Daley for not handling the SOS scandal. He’s calling for a civilian review board over the police.

But review boards won’t stop these racist killer-torturers from doing the bosses dirty work of terrorizing us into accepting a future of wider wars and poverty wages. Review boards won’t stop racist cutbacks in mass transit and public health to finance the endless oil wars. The racist murderers and torturers and the entire capitalist system they protect must be destroyed with communist revolution!