Support Black liberation: Demand justice for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile
International Prisoner SolidarityStatementsJuly 7, 2016
blm_minn

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its strongest solidarity with the Black movement for justice and liberation following the U.S. police murders and extrajudicial executions of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the two latest Black lives to be taken by police in the United States, on 5 and 6 July.

State terror, whether carried out by racist police, occupation armies, border guards, or other agents of oppression, is a crime that must be met with popular resistance. The Black movement, from the historic struggles for Black liberation to the Black Lives Matter movement and beyond, is at the forefront of confronting state terror – while Black people and Black lives are being relentlessly stolen by racist police oppression.

As Kristian Davis Bailey of Black4Palestine wrote, the Black and Palestinian struggles are “the thorns that exist and resist from different ends of the US colonial and imperial project.” Standing against anti-Black racism and oppression is critical to any meaningful challenge to U.S. imperialism.

The murders of Sterling and Castile are only the latest in a long line of ongoing police violence and repression directed at Black people in the United States, from the genocide of slavery, to lynching and Jim Crow, to the ongoing racist oppression and police/state violence directed against Black communities and lives that has sparked such powerful resistance. The United States is responsible for occupation, exploitation throughout the world, as its leading imperialist power; the U.S. was created through the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous people and built on the backs of enslaved Black people. The United States, the world’s leading imperialist power, is responsible for occupation, exploitation and oppression around the world.

The United States government is the funder, strategic partner, and strongest ally of the occupation of Palestine, while the Israeli state trains U.S. police in repressive counterinsurgency tactics tested on Palestinians under occupation.

As we struggle to free Palestinian political prisoners, imprisoned for their struggle against racist oppression and settler colonialism, we renew our call for the urgent need to free the Black Liberation, Latino and other Puerto Rican, and Indigenous political prisoners in US jails, as well as Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims imprisoned for their resistance to racism and oppression. We salute and demand the freedom of the Black resistance strugglers, prisoners from the Black Panther Party, Black Liberation and MOVE, who led a generations-long struggle against white supremacy and state repression that continues today.

We stand with and join in the struggle against mass incarceration in the U.S., and to dismantle the system of policing and the prison industrial complex that targets Black lives and supports the suppression of all oppressed peoples and communities in the U.S. As we demand an end to Zionist oppression in Palestine, it is critically important to confront, resist and defeat white supremacy and racist oppression in North America.

We urge all friends of Palestine and advocates of justice and freedom for Palestinian political prisoners to take to the streets and support the protests against police terror taking place across the U.S. strongly, to clearly assert that #BlackLivesMatter and that #BlackLiberationMatters, and to challenge all forms of anti-Black racism and oppression.

Justice for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile! Freedom for all political prisoners!

http://samidoun.net/2016/07/support-black-liberation-demand-justice-for-alton-sterling-and-philando-castile/

At Least 5 Officers Shot Dead at Dallas Police Brutality March

http://www.telesurtv.net/__export/1467947250941/sites/telesur/img/news/2016/07/07/dallas_police.jpg_1718483346.jpg
Three police officers were shot in Dallas during protests against police shooting, local media reports. | Photo: Reuters

Published 7 July 2016

One alleged suspect and one person of interest are in custody as police continue their search for more suspects.
At least five Texas police officers were shot dead and more are wounded after two snipers apparently shot them as hundreds of demonstrators marched in downtown Dallas Thursday to protest recent incidents of police brutality including the killing of Philando Castile.

Local media station KDFW report that three to six police officers are "gravely wounded." Reports indicated that more gunshots had been heard in Dallas near the area of El Centro College.

Dallas police confirmed at approximately 2 a.m. local time via their Twitter account that a fifth officer had died from their injuries.

A person of interest handed themselves into police after their photo was circulated on Twitter by the Dallas Police Department. The photo showed an African-American man carrying what appears to be a rifle, it was not certain if the man was involved in the shooting.

Another alleged suspect was taken into custody following a shootout with Dallas SWAT officers. A suspicious package was found near the suspect and was being secured by the police bombsqaud.

"An intensive search for suspects is currently underway," Dallas Police Chief David Brown said. Police are warning people to stay away from downtown Dallas as it remains an active shooter situation.

Police said a total of three suspects were in custody but that they were not cooperating.

Brown also confirmed there was an ongoing stand off between police and at least one suspect, with the alleged suspect saying, "The end is near."

Brown said earlier on ABC news that police believed that the suspects may have planted a bomb in downtown Dallas. The gunmen reportedly fired on the police from rooftops.

“We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers from two different perches and garages in the downtown area, and planned to injure and kill as many law enforcement officers as they could,” Brown said.

Protesters were marching in downtown Dallas in protest the continued police brutality against African-Americans in the U.S. It follows the death of Philando Castile who was killed after a police roadside stop in Minnesota on Wednesday.

Castile’s death occurred a day after Alton Sterling, 37, was killed during an altercation with two white police officers.

Protesters were seen marching through the streets in Dallas chanting “Black Lives Matter." Protests also took place in other cities around the U.S.

In Oakland, California, around 2,000 protesters marched and blocked traffic on the Interstate 880, pouring red paint on the front door of the Oakland police station, according to the San Fransisco Gate.

In Chicago, protesters shut down one of Chicago's main road for around 10 minutes.

In New York, several hundred protesters blocked traffic in Times Square, chanting "Hands up, don't shoot."

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/At-Least-5-Officers-Shot-Dead-at-Dallas-Police-Brutality-March-20160707-0030.html

Too soon to conclude anything but could be kinda convenient: " I'll see your 2 dead blacks & raise ya 5 dead cops."

Judging from the video I've seen the one filmed shooter has had tactical training.

OTOH there's the Politics of the Deed. Have we just jumped 30 years?

“... never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon...Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they always made me glad.” - Malcolm X

We may have jumped 30 years. This may have been an excellent example of "Politics of the Deed". But for sure, sooner or later, there was going to be pushback. Too soon to be sure what this is, but one thing is sure: a line has been drawn.

“... never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon...Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they always made me glad.” - Malcolm X

We may have jumped 30 years. This may have been an excellent example of "Politics of the Deed". But for sure, sooner or later, there was going to be pushback. Too soon to be sure what this is, but one thing is sure: a line has been drawn.

So hard to say what with 'false flag' being a favored tactic. The statement of the Dallas Chief of Police raises all sorts of red flags and they made sure as hell that the suspect 'told no tales'. Of course those sort of frame-ups happened in the 19th century too, and Maidan comes to mind. Regardless of who initiated this the net will be the same: more repression, more better tech for cops. We might also see measures taken to restrict use or admissibility of cell phone footage and censorship of social media, which I believe is already occurring but will become more obvious.

All of this will stir the pot, but on the shallow surface the 'conversation' is again about the 'war on police' and not the police war against black folks. Funny, that.

In truth, the so-called War On Police is small change and we should be concerned with the War On Loggers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm2V4gJVYAEqCx0.jpg

In truth, the so-called War On Police is small change and we should be concerned with the War On Loggers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cm2V4gJVYAEqCx0.jpg

A correction: we should be concerned with the War on Workers in general. The bourgeoisie is winning the class war; Warren Buffett himself, in a rare moment of capitalist candor, said as much...

Property Is Racist
by ELLIOT SPERBER

While most cops – as so many contend in the USA these days – may not be racists (let’s say, for the sake of argument, that they aren’t), it is nevertheless still the case that the police, as an institution, is racist through and through.

This is because, among other things, as an institution, the police is an appendage of the larger institution of property. The police serves property. And property – in the US at the very least – is inextricable from racist dispossessions of wealth. Property is racist.

Indeed, it is no coincidence that the term private (found in the designation private property) derives from the verb ‘to deprive.’ And these deprivations, from the late eighteenth century on, and the creation of both personal property (slaves, for instance) and real property (land) were justified and enabled by racist ideologies.This relationship – between race, property and police – appears in the very creation of the institution of the police department. In the US, as Kristian Williams and others have noted, the first police departments were specifically instituted to hunt runaway slaves – that is, to retrieve and secure runaway chattels, also known as personal property, or personalty. And slaves’ status as property was determined by the idea of race.

Related to personalty is the concept of realty. Realty, or real property, refers to fixed property – land. And, just as it is with the case of slavery, the modern anointment of the world as so many pieces of property (dominated by owners and secured by contracts, the courts, police, etc.) is inextricable from the racist ideologies and practices fundamental to the European and US conquest of the planet. Whether public property or private property, real property (like a particular lot of land) or personal property (like the cotton extracted from it), property is simultaneously the manifestation of wealth and power (political and economic), and the objective, concrete manifestation of historical racism. This is not to say that property is exclusively racist. However, in the US property is thoroughly imbued with and inseparable from racism.

Just look at where real property (to say nothing of personal property, or wealth in general) comes from. In the US virtually all real property was taken, by force and in violation of legally binding treaties, from Native Americans. And more often than not the rationale for forcefully taking these lands derived from racist narratives. Depicting Native Americans as essentially nomadic (in stark contrast to the evidence of the practices of the Cherokee Nation, for example, or to the presence of the ruins of the city of Cahokia – which, when discovered in the early 1800s by European-Americans, near present day St. Louis, was larger than the contemporaneous city of Washington D.C.), the racist narrative of an essential nature was necessary to the ethnic cleansing of North America and the concomitant transformation of the land into so much property.At the same time, the development of wealth and property in the US was inextricable from a slave economy underpinned by racist ideologies and practices. Even after the Civil War, the exception to the 13th Amendment – which allowed slavery in the case of punishment – enabled the continuation of systemic slave labor to flourish. More often than not, this practice was deeply racialized. In addition to significantly contributing to the industrialization of the South, this racist prison labor system continues to operate, controlling overwhelmingly black and brown ‘surplus populations’ and generally maintaining property values throughout the country as well. This fundamental relationship between race and property is not by any means limited to the 19th century, however, or to the prison-industrial complex that Michelle Alexander persuasively refers to as “the new Jim Crow.”

In the 20th century racist practices such as blockbusting, redlining, and urban renewal destroyed neighborhoods and enriched others across the US. These policies and practices ensured that some people (like pundit Bill O’Reilly’s family, who lived in racially restricted Levittown, New York) would benefit economically and politically from owning property, and others (such as people of color living in areas that were being deformed into ghettos by these same policies) would not. The brutal effects of these policies continue to reverberate throughout the US today in the form of poverty, inequality, incarceration, and police violence (the patent expression of the latent relations of domination and subordination). The deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, among so many others, are the entirely foreseeable outcome of these relations.

In spite of the prevalence of its brutality, though, in the end the institution of the police is but an extension of the more deeply rooted institution of property – which, in turn, is the manifestation of wealth and economic power (which, in a capitalist society, translates to political power as well).

In light of this, in confronting racism it is insufficient (though nevertheless still crucial) to focus our efforts on the brutality of the police. The police is but the tip of the racist iceberg – or, if you prefer, the toxic icing on the racist cake. As the icing, it primarily conforms to, and reflects, the underlying contours of the cake.

Meaningfully dismantling racism, then, not to mention inequality and poverty, requires dismantling not the police so much as it requires dismantling property relations. This, in turn, requires dismantling property as such – not the concrete objects that are presently regarded as property so much as the very concept of property – and what this implies, the right to dominate in the first place.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/11/property-is-racist/

A FEW BAD APPLES

JULY 10, 2016
Man who Posted Alton Sterling Shooting Video Arrested 24 Hours Later on Fabricated Charges

https://photographyisnotacrime.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Chris-LeDay-feature-1000x532.jpg
CHRIS LEDAY, LEFT, WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO POST THE VIDEO OF THE ALTON STERLING VIDEO, AND WAS ARRESTED 24 HOURS LATER


The man who made the video of the Alton Sterling shooting death go viral, one of two brutal videos from two states that sparked a national outrage and led to the shooting deaths of five Dallas police officers during an anti-police brutality protest Thursday – was arrested 24 hours later.

Chris LeDay believes it was an act of retaliation.

Considering police handcuffed and leg-shackled him after accusing him of assault and battery – only to jail him overnight for unpaid traffic fines – it certainly appears that way.

Especially considering his arrest took place 24 hours after he had posted the video on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where it instantly went viral.

LeDay, 34, lives in Georgia, but was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where the shooting took place early Tuesday morning, so he learned of the video through friends back home but it wasn’t getting much exposure.

At the time, the story – without the video – was being reported in the local news and was already generating controversy because the store owner was saying the shooting was unjustified and the coroner was saying he was shot several times in the front and back.



And the cops were saying their body cams had fallen off, so there was no video of the shooting.

But because he is very active on social media with almost 13,000 Instagram followers, more than 6,000 Twitter followers and almost 2,000 Facebook friends, he offered to post it on his social media platforms in order to get the word out to a much larger audience. He even tagged his local television news station on the Facebook post, hoping it would pick it up.

“I wanted everybody to see this video,” LeDay said in a telephone interview with Photography is Not a Crime. “I wanted it to go viral. The police were already saying their body cams fell off and I wanted to show there was video of the shooting.”

So he posted the video on all three social media platform Tuesday evening, where it began getting shared numerous times, including by Shaun King of the New York Daily News, who uploaded the video on his Facebook less than an hour after LeDay had posted it on his Facebook page.

Special: Uncover The SECRETS To Feed Your FAMILY Healthy Fat Burning Meals
Chris LeDay

Shaun King

And by midnight Tuesday, the story was picked up by several more news sites, including PINAC, which posted it at 11:05 p.m.

Baton Rouge PINAC story

By Wednesday morning, the story was being reported on several major national news sites. And by Wednesday afternoon, it was picked up internationally, so he had fulfilled his goal of making the video go viral.

However, that evening as he walked into his job as an aerospace ground equipment technician at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia, going through the usual security checkpoint he had been going through for the month he had been working there, he was not allowed walk through.

Instead, he was detained by at least ten military police officers with guns, including a few with M-16s, all of them surrounding him in case he tried to make a run for it.

He managed to use his phone to inform his Facebook friends that he was being detained, but he wasn’t sure for what.

He didn’t dare record them, knowing those MP’s with their M-16s would not hesitate to use them.

DeLay arrest

They eventually told him he was wanted on a warrant for assault and battery and escorted him into a back room where he was handcuffed and forced to wait for Dunwoody police to come pick him up, the local police department who had this alleged warrant out for his arrest.

When the Dunwoody police officer arrived to transport him to jail, the warrant did not say anything about an assault and battery charge.

“It was just over some traffic tickets from a couple of years ago,” he said. “They said my license was suspended.”

And he acknowledges that he did not pay the fines, allowing his license to be suspended, but he also says he does not even drive anymore.

“At the time, I couldn’t afford it, then I was just being stubborn about it,” he said.

“But I take Uber to work anyway. Even one of the cops on the base said he sees me getting dropped off for work.”

But that did not stop the Dunwoody cop from leading him out of the base in handcuffs and leg shackles.

“It was embarrassing,” he said. “This happening in 2016.”

But the cop told him it was for his safety; LeDay not having paid his traffic fines and all.

He ended up spending 26 hours in the Dekalb County Jail and was released only after paying the $1,231 fine for his unpaid traffic fines.

Otherwise, he would have had to wait until the following Wednesday to see the judge, who apparently only drops by once-a-week.

LeDay was worried that he would lose his job because his boss had seen him getting arrested but when he told him it was for unpaid traffic tickets, his boss just laughed it off, saying they don’t care about stuff like that.

But his boss did say they had been concerned that he had omitted an assault and battery arrest on his security clearance form, which would have been immediate grounds for dismissal.

Chris LeDay release

Even though he believes somebody in law enforcement was trying to get him fired in retaliation for posting the video, he said he is not going to stop speaking out against police abuse.

“We need to diffuse what the cops are doing,” he said. “They want to say that not all cops are bad but they are not speaking out against the bad cops.

“It just keeps getting worse and people are getting tired of it. I just want some change to occur.”

https://photographyisnotacrime.com/2016/07/10/man-who-posted-alton-sterling-shooting-video-arrested-24-hours-later-on-fabricated-charges/

Videos & screenshots at link. A good resource, while it last.

Black Lives Matter- but, not in Capitalism

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KEvlZjs088g/V4OUr4znqpI/AAAAAAAABJw/KVJsz7hP_q0o6KvjaUF4xQncMgn4xgNiwCLcB/s320/black-lives-matter-atl.jpg

COMMENTARY:

The recent murder of 37-year old African American Alton Sterling by police in Louisiana is another tragic episode in the long chain of racist crimes in the U.S. The United States of America- the metropolis of Capitalism- has a devastating tradition of racial discrimination. A tradition of human chattel slavery back in the 18th and 19th century, of lynchings and mob violence against African-Americans, of racial segregation and discrimination against black people in the post WW2 decades.

Racism is an inseparable element of the capitalist exploitative system; it is in the very nature of Capitalism to produce, promote and feed racism. After all, the exploitation of the working class by the capitalists becomes easier and more effective when there are divisions among workers. For that, racism consists a valuable tool of the capitalist establishment in creating disunity within workers. What is best for the exploitative system rather than a splitted working class, filled with racist poison?

Writing for TIME magazine, after the murder of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the former basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was correctly pointing out: “And, unless we want the Ferguson atrocity to also be swallowed and become nothing more than an intestinal irritant to history, we have to address the situation not just as another act of systemic racism, but as what else it is: class warfare” (TIME, 17 Aug. 2014).

Indeed, the racially motivated crimes must be seen not as an exclusive and separate issue of “racism” but within the context of class warfare. The intense class warfare in the U.S. reflects the harsh reality behind the curtain of the so-called “American Dream”. In a period of 33 years, from 1980 to 2013, 262,000 black males were killed in the United States ("A Matter of Black Lives", theatlantic.com). This number is more than four times bigger than the number of Americans killed in the imperialist Vietnam War. In 2015, U.S. police killed at least 102 unarmed black Americans (MappingPoliceViolence.org), while the rate of death for black men was five times higher than white men of the same age.

The police brutality against African-Americans goes hand-by-hand with the rise of racist, neo-fascist white supremacist groups in the country. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the U.S. hate groups including the notorious Ku Klux Klan have increased dramatically in the past year- in the multicultural metropolis of Capitalism (U.S.) there are 892 active hate groups, including neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, white nationalists, fundamentalist christian groups etc. The vast majority of these hate, racist groups are based in Texas, California and Florida.

During the last years of the capitalist crisis, in both the U.S. and Europe, we have seen the rise of far-right, fascist and racist groups and parties. Despite the distance, the cultural and political differences, the root for the strengthening of such groups is the same in both the two sides of the Atlantic: the need of the capitalist system to keep the workers, the low-income people divided, by reproducing waves of racism, nationalism and bigotry. The fake divisions within the working class (e.g. white versus black workers, local workers vs immigrants, etc.) consist an extremely comfortable situation for the monopolies and their profitability. There are countless examples which prove the abovementioned argument. However, we can only refer to a characteristic one – the 1994 case of Texaco's corporate racism.

In 1994, Texaco- the 14th largest corporation in the U.S.- was hit by a $520 million racial bias suit. The suit, filed by six African-American employees on behalf of 1,500 other employees, asserted that Texaco "systematically discriminates against minority employees in promotions and has fostered a racially hostile environment." A large number of black employees had then testified about racist incidents at Texaco. Later, The New York Times obtained thousands of pages of sealed court records, as well as government documents, corporate records and sworn depositions, which exposed how systematic, racist policies thrived at Texaco. The supposed “equal opportunity” promoted by the “American Dream” hides numerous cases like Texaco; cases of racial discrimination, of openly hostile environment for workers, of capitalist terrorism.

The conclusion is: Black Lives Matter, but not in Capitalism. In the capitalist exploitative system what matters is the profit of the capitalist. Everything else (including, of course, human life) can be sacrificed at the altar of profit. As Malcolm X, a non-communist but nevertheless an honest fighter for civil rights, once said “you can't have Capitalism without racism”.

http://communismgr.blogspot.gr/2016/07/black-lives-matter-but-not-in-capitalism.html

snip


If one examines the facebook page of one of the dead Dallas policemen (Patrick Zamarippa) what you find is an Iraq vet (3 tours) and a rabid nationalist. There is a photo of him holding his presumably son, and both are wearing stars and stripes. There is even a slogan in quotes….’Dont Tread on Me’. So essentially this is a far right wing hyper violent nativist psycho. And a cop. In the New York Times the coverage, from vetted black voices like Michael Dyson, is replete with the usual mantras for *most* blacks the desire is for peaceful protest. Etc. I am sure that is partly true, but not close to entirely. There is a part of every black person in the United States (except maybe those writing for corporate owned news outlets) that sees the shooting as resistance to an intolerable situation. But that is not allowed to be said. Just as Palestinian resistance is not allowed to be spoken of. Or ANY resistance to U.S. global violence. The fascist nature of Patrick Zamarippa won’t be analyzed or discussed in media. How many people does one usually, on average, kill over the course of three tours in Iraq? Why is that not a significant part of the discourse on police violence?

But this is also an expression of the institutional racism of the U.S., and also the malignant narcissism of its citizens. The popular media will portray the dead cops are heroic and even many on the left will discuss how terrible these shootings. How peaceful protest was highjacked (per Dyson). And yet, Officer Zamrippa is a fascist. And a right wing extremist. The fascist personality, the violence loving war addicted sociopath is also deeply narcissistic and infantile. And honestly, I am always stunned this isn’t glaringly obvious.

http://john-steppling.com/2016/07/administered-opinion/

Anti-racist protests challenge killer police
/ 1 day ago
Aug. 2016 Black livesBy JEFF MACKLER

https://socialistactionusa.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/aug-2016-black-lives.jpg?w=700

— Jeff Mackler is the 2016 presidential candidate of Socialist Action. —

Five hundred and seventy one and counting have been killed by U.S. cops this past year, an all-time high in recent decades, according to figures posted in the U.S. edition of the British-based Guardian newspaper.* The majority murdered were Black, Latino/Hispanic, and Native American. One hundred thirty eight were Black. For the year 2012, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s research put the figure of Blacks murdered by cops and vigilantes at 313, averaging one every 28 hours.

These are curious facts, which need elucidation. In only a handful of these murders was a cop convicted or even charged. “Self defense” was the time-honored defense of the police. They were said to have feared for their lives when “confronted” by Black people who were almost always unarmed.

In the few instances when charges were brought against these institutionally sanctioned killers, compliant racist judges and consciously hapless prosecutors conspired to convince carefully selected juries, usually stricken of Black members, to find the killer cops innocent. This is the same scenario that is unfolding in Baltimore today, as Freddie Grey’s murderers are acquitted one by one. The unspoken conclusion in all these “legal” proceedings was that the Blacks got what they deserved.

This is the rule, not the exception, in racist America. In many respects, it is not much different than in the days when lynching Blacks was unofficially sanctioned, or in slavery times when vigilante slave catchers were legally assigned the role of cops to capture, kidnap, and return the slave master’s “property.” As in the epoch when tens of millions were sacrificed aboard the slave ships and on the slave plantations, the ruling one percent today subordinates anything human to their lust for profits. Their greed is epitomized by the school-to-privatized-for-profit, virtually slave-labor, prison-industrial complex.

Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Kajieme Powell, Michael Brown, and now Baton Rouge’s Alton Sterling and Minnesota’s Philando Castile have been added to this endless list of capitalism’s near-daily executed victims. In the old days only the eyes of the Klan killers and sometimes cheering racist crowds, amongst whom were elected police officials and politicians, witnessed the murders in mass orchestrated public lynching rallies. Today, however, the murders of Sterling and Castile have been caught on video for the world to see.

These horrors have stirred a new generation into action, marching down the streets to the applause and approval of millions. They march to mark the victims of police violence and to demand a new society. Increasing numbers—especially young people—doubt that the present capitalist minority-controlled order can ever be reformed. The previously forbidden word, socialism, is on the lips of millions.

Today, protesters march in the hundreds and thousands, at times courageously facing lines of police in battle gear. Tomorrow, as the protesters gain in experience and political clarity, they will be the critical organizers of millions in massive actions that are capable of engaging the broad working class and of closing down the nation’s factories and cities. The movement that they lead will challenge the capitalist system at its roots, and will embark on the construction of a new social order free from the inherent horrors of minority ruling-class domination.

Meanwhile, President Obama, undoubtedly aware of the revealing three-year Center for Policing Equity study of 18,000 use-of-force incidents that has just been released, was compelled to note the “racial disparities in the criminal justice system.” This think tank’s investigation found that “the use of force was disproportionately high for African-Americans,” almost quadruple the use of force against whites.

But Obama’s Warsaw speech on July 8 focused on the “vicious, calculated, despicable attack on law enforcement” in Dallas. Within minutes of the Dallas shooting murder of five Dallas cops and the wounding of seven others by a deranged Black Afghan War veteran, few were shocked at the police-fabricated story that was almost immediately broadcast across the country. We were told that this had been an orchestrated “triangulated” assassination, initiated as a revenge killing by several individuals.

Indeed, four “suspects” were almost immediately arrested, including Mark Hughes, whose brother was scheduled to speak at the mass anti-police violence march of thousands of predominately Black protesters. Hughes’ photo was broadcast front and center in newscasts worldwide.

Within days the police conspiracy lie evaporated and all suspects were released. The sole Black shooter, Micah Johnson, who tragically and mistakenly believed that racist murders in America could be avenged by killing cops, was murdered by a remote-control military-grade 500 pound guided robot that ignited a bomb that ended his life—the first robot ever deployed in the U.S. and yet another example of the ongoing militarization of U.S. police and other repressive forces.

The Socialist Action 2016 Campaign joins the protesters in the streets in demanding: Prosecute and jail killer cops! Police out of the Black community! No to racial profiling! End stop and frisk! Black lives matter!

* The Guardian based its report on partial records of U.S. police departments across the country. The vast majority don’t report figures to federal agencies.

https://socialistaction.org/2016/07/12/anti-racist-protests-challenge-killer-police/

snip

What Steppling misses is that Johnson was ASSASSINATED by police *after* he was no longer a threat -- the Oregon Bearded Bastards they handle with kid gloves for years but a black man rendered harmless they decide to blow up in about 10 minutes. What's more Johnson is tried and convicted..before his body is cold -- by the same murdering cops and their fawning servile press. They say he confessed and swore allegiance to ISIS errr..BLM -- anybody actually heard the tape recordings to back that claim up? The only reason this isn't a lynching is because the police blew him up first (and the technicality of the legal definition that lets Gov Moonbeam arrest BLM protesters for "lynching")

What Steppling misses is that Johnson was ASSASSINATED by police *after* he was no longer a threat -- the Oregon Bearded Bastards they handle with kid gloves for years but a black man rendered harmless they decide to blow up in about 10 minutes. What's more Johnson is tried and convicted..before his body is cold -- by the same murdering cops and their fawning servile press. They say he confessed and swore allegiance to ISIS errr..BLM -- anybody actually heard the tape recordings to back that claim up? The only reason this isn't a lynching is because the police blew him up first (and the technicality of the legal definition that lets Gov Moonbeam arrest BLM protesters for "lynching")

That's all beyond discussion.

The so-called statement screamed scripting and it's worse with every repeat. I doubt we'll ever hear the 'recording' and if so cannot for a second assume it's authenticity.

police brutality (http://www.thebellforum.com/category/african-america/police-brutality)


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by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley Cop-worship seemed to be the national religion as the U.S. ruling and talking classes sanctified five Dallas policemen. “Just at the moment when rage was most needed, hand holding, candle light vigils and pleas for calm became the order of the day.” Officiating over it all was the Actor-in-Chief, playing his familiar role as philosopher-preacher (he’s an assassin on Tuesday nights), who has “never used his authority to prosecute even one killer cop.”
Freedom Rider: Why We Need Black Anger by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley “The system is designed to potentially treat every black person the way it treated Sterling and Castille.”
The entire world witnessed American police murder, but time stopped for black people when Alton Sterling and Philando Castille died on camera. Alton Sterling was killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shot to death as he lay subdued and helpless. The trauma of that moment was still fresh when Philando Castille was shot after he told police he had a licensed handgun. His partner Diamond Reynolds was composed enough to film the scene. Castille lay dying but she understandably felt compelled to address his killer as “sir” as she and her four-year old child were treated like criminals.
The reaction of rage was immediate and was tempered only by grief. It is not the first time that 21st century lynchings were seen by millions of people. But by now we know that the outcome doesn’t change whether the victim died in secret or on camera. There is rarely any justice because the system is designed to potentially treat every black person the way it treated Sterling and Castille.
That anger was short lived and disappeared when the tables were turned on police in Dallas, Texas. A man by the name of Micah Johnson, now dead at the hands of police himself, is the named suspect in the shooting of five officers during a protest march.
“Every photo of a black cop crying over his dead colleagues was placed front and center.”
Black people are taught to hide their anger. The deaths of the Dallas police were a signal to stop demanding justice and begin the foolish and dangerous loop of sentiment. Just at the moment when rage was most needed, hand holding, candle light vigils and pleas for calm became the order of the day.
The corporate media needed to take black anger off of the front pages and the airwaves. Every photo of a black cop crying over his dead colleagues was placed front and center. Black protesters who shook hands with red necks were lionized. Every image of a white cop hugging a black child was suddenly deemed prize worthy.
The turn of events showed the depth of black American miseducation. The same feelings which brought rage upon seeing Sterling and Castille dead suddenly became useless, even damaging.
Even the victims’ families gave condolences and asked for calm. The Sterlings and the Castilles should have felt no need to say anything about the Dallas police killings and yet they succumbed as well.
The two dead men were all but forgotten after police died in the way that black people do every day. Suddenly love was in the air. Love, healing, togetherness are worthy but not when rage is justified. These otherwise laudatory feelings are used to silence black anger when it is needed most.
The media promoted the foolishness and made no attempt to do the work of journalism. Every day an average of three people die at the hands of police in the United States, 1,134 in 2016 alone (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men). Other nations have never had that number of police killings in their entire history. This data alone should be the catalyst for investigative reporting.
“Love, healing, togetherness are worthy but not when rage is justified.”
Instead the media use well known racists like Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani to stoke useless anger and divert attention. Their opinions are irrelevant and giving them a forum is a substitute for raising the questions that white supremacy would prefer to keep covered up.
Of course some of the “kumbaya” nonsense was prompted by repression against those who spoke out in their righteous indignation. A black firefighter (http://www.mediaite.com/online/dc-firefighter-under-investigation-after-calling-on-citizens-to-murder-police-officers/) was under investigation for saying that police need “bullets to the head.” He didn't actually shoot anyone. That right is reserved for cops.
Of course the sorry spectacle is all reinforced by Barack Obama. His comments on the killings of Sterling and Castille were as Cornel West said, “weak.” It is obvious that Obama never likes to talk about black people. His resentment at having to do so is palpable. He certainly won’t side with people who love him and risk angering the white people that he loves instead.
According to press reports he called the shooting of the Dallas police a “hate crime (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/obama-dallas-police-shooting-hate-225390)” and compared it to the mass murder of black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina. This same president never used his authority to prosecute even one killer cop.
Showing anger towards Obama would be the truest test of black political development. For now black people need help even acknowledging that they are angry about their condition at all. Expecting more than that is a vain dream.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com (http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/). Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.




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police brutality (http://www.thebellforum.com/category/african-america/police-brutality)


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by Bill Quigley* Militarized cops are running amuck in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hundreds of people protesting the death of Alton Sterling have been arrested and many more had guns pointed at them by riot-geared cops seemingly unconstrained by any notion of law. Protesters, journalists and neighborhood residents are locked up for bogus reasons, unlawful reasons, or no apparent reason at all. The justice system is criminal.
Baton Rouge: “Put Those Damn Weapons Down!” by Bill Quigley* “You would think Baton Rouge would watch Ferguson and learn a lesson. Apparently they didn’t.”
“Put those damn weapons down (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14018130). I'm not going to tell you again, goddamn it. Get those goddamn weapons down.”* That was the first command of one of Louisiana’s most revered figures,*General Russell Honore (http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/08/ferguson_unrest_prompts_lt_gen.html), when he arrived in New Orleans in 2005 to direct the military recovery after Hurricane Katrina.* The General’s directions have not been followed in Baton Rouge.
Since the police killing of*Alton Sterling (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/07/us/baton-rouge-alton-sterling-shooting/index.html?eref=rss_topstories),*thousands of people in Baton Rouge have been non-violently protesting (http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/u.s-shootings-draw-continuing-response)*day and night all over the city.* There has been no arson in Baton Rouge, no looting, no burning cars, no windows broken, and no people beaten.* Police report that*a rock or other material was thrown at them (https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-latest-protesters-present-demands-to-memphis-officials/2016/07/11/81b48b2c-47c4-11e6-8dac-0c6e4accc5b1_story.html)*but there is no video of such action nor have there been any arrests for such actions.* *
Despite these non-violent protests, around*200 people have been arrested (http://www.wwltv.com/news/200-arrested-in-baton-rouge-weekend-protests/269689354)*and the police have shown a militarized and aggressive response.
When Ferguson police showed a militarized response to protestors,*General Honore (http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2014/08/ferguson_unrest_prompts_lt_gen.html)*was again plainspoken. "Any time we have policemen pointing weapons at American citizens, they need to go through retraining."* *Baton Rouge police, who have a*documented history of brutality (http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2016/07/baton_rouge_police_brutality.html), clearly need retraining.
After Ferguson, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a scathing*report on the police response to protests in Ferguson (http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p317-pub.pdf)*and they came up with numerous recommendations for law enforcement.** While the police have smartly*pulled back from protests at the scene of the Sterling killing (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/alton_sterling/article_b583a00d-8670-5016-9e28-0888d45d21bc.html), many of the DOJ recommendations are being ignored in other protests around Baton Rouge. **
“You would think Baton Rouge would watch Ferguson and learn a lesson. Apparently they didn’t,” said Peter B. Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University, to the*Baton Rouge Morning Advocate (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_5b4c6f61-632a-5824-b271-38b2e2eda7ae.html).* Kraska, who’s studied police militarization for the past 25 years, has worked with over 70 police departments on training and reforms.
“Over the past few days, law enforcement in Baton Rouge have escalated many interactions with the public civilian population, creating a more dangerous environment for everyone,” says May Nguyen, Secretary of the*National Lawyers Guild (NLG)Louisiana Chapter (https://wordpress.com/post/billquigley.wordpress.com/321).* The Louisiana NLG, in cooperation with the*Southern University Law Center chapter of the NLG (http://www.sulc.edu/law_news/sulc-national-lawyers-guild-chapter-to-host-legal-observer-training-july-9/), issued its conclusions from information gathered from more than 150 legal observers trained to protect First Amendment rights. **
Thousands Non-violently Protesting in Baton Rouge, Hundreds Arrested
Thousands have*protested nonviolently (http://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/local/louisiana/2016/07/10/least-1000-march-capitol-protest-police-shootings/86925184/)*in Baton Rouge over the past week.* Despite the non-violence, the police have*arrested around 200 protestors (http://www.wwltv.com/news/200-arrested-in-baton-rouge-weekend-protests/269689354).*
Amnesty International (http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/the-right-to-peaceful-protest-of-shootings-by-police-must-be-protected), with observers on the ground in Baton Rouge, raised questions about the number of arrests.* “In the wake of this intensely emotional week, it is understandable that people across the country have been moved to take to the streets to peacefully exercise their right to be heard.* Police have a duty to facilitate the right to peaceful protest while still protecting their own safety and that of the public.* The sheer number of arrests last night raises serious questions about proportionate response to peaceful protests. Law enforcement officers cannot selectively decide which laws to enforce during demonstrations - be it against journalists, legal observers or protestors."
A careful look at the arrests of the three journalists jailed indicates police were arresting many people without any crime being committed. *
A conservative white journalist, from the news site Breitbart, who is self-professed Black Lives Matter critic and a strong supporter of law enforcement,*Lee Stranahan (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/12/lee-stranahan-my-weekend-incarceration-in-a-baton-rouge-prison/)*was arrested under circumstances which call into question the actions of police.* He*reported (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/12/lee-stranahan-my-weekend-incarceration-in-a-baton-rouge-prison/)*“I did nothing to break the law. I was not obstructing traffic because with the road closed and police blocking the lane, there was no traffic. At no point did I hear the police give any order for me or anyone else to stay back. I was given no warning whatsoever; I was simply approached and forced to stop recording.”**Stranahan was critical (http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/12/lee-stranahan-my-weekend-incarceration-in-a-baton-rouge-prison/)*of the lack of leadership of the city and police as well.* “…. Without any leadership, whoever was giving the orders to the police was issuing a series of confusing and conflicting rules of engagement for dealing with protesters, and the result was an increasingly chaotic situation with no open lines of communication between police and protesters.”
Another journalist, the*assistant news director of a local television station (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/alton_sterling/article_e1daf165-519a-572f-b9ba-cfe4b9eacbdc.html), apparently put one foot on the highway to get a better angle for a video shoot and was arrested.* Is that a crime suitable for arrest? *
An Indian American reporter for a New Orleans NPR affiliate was arrested*while he was on the grass (http://wwno.org/post/wwno-reporter-describes-arrest-while-covering-baton-rouge-protests)*by the highway across from the police station.* Trying to move away from an interaction with the police, he found himself surrounded by police who did not let people leave. *He was charged with simple obstruction of a roadway despite having*camera footage (https://twitter.com/ryankailath/status/751907563281743872)*showing he was never in the road. *
Police Repeatedly Pointing Weapons at Non-violent Protestors in Baton Rouge
Many, many Baton Rouge officers have threatened non-violent protestors by pointing their weapons directly at them. **A*Huffington Post journalist (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/baton-rouge-assault-weapon-huffpost-reporter-protesters_us_5782415be4b0c590f7e9b48e)*reported an officer pointed a machine gun at him.* Police are*caught on camera pointing their guns (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/alton_sterling/article_45632401-721f-57d0-9cef-d97b8daa652e.html)*at non-violent protestors, in videos and in*newspapers pointing guns at protestors (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/07/10/3796942/deray-mckesson-arrested-baton-rouge-protests/).* Numerous other reports of police pointing weapons at protestors have been observed by legal observers of the*Louisiana Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (https://wordpress.com/post/billquigley.wordpress.com/321).
These officers are not disciplined or suspended by the government but defended.* "These officers are on edge. They're scared just like the public is. But we don't condone that, and it has been addressed," said the*Baton Rouge Police Chief (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/alton_sterling/article_45632401-721f-57d0-9cef-d97b8daa652e.html)*a couple of days before the police did the*exact same thing again (https://twitter.com/rebekahallen/status/752286933770969089/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw).
Wrongful Militarization of the Police in Baton Rouge
Military vehicles with LRAD (https://twitter.com/rebekahallen/status/752286933770969089/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)s (long range acoustic devices) atop them have been used to*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dry9oK6FLUg.* Baton Rouge has*purchased two $299,000 Bearcat armored vehicles (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_5b4c6f61-632a-5824-b271-38b2e2eda7ae.html)and put LRADs on both, using one Sunday.* Such use of an LRAD was specifically criticized by the*DOJ Ferguson Report (http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p317-pub.pdf)*where they said, “At times, the deployment of the long range acoustic device (LRAD) was warranted as a high-volume public address system; however, it should have been deployed using a platform other than an armored vehicle.* While the LRAD may be appropriate to disperse crowds, using it in conjunction with an armored vehicle escalates the hostility of the crowd and creates a negative public image.”*
Pictures of militarized Baton Rouge police (http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/baton-rouge-protest-chaos/)*in military green gear, helmets, assault weapons and gas masks*are all over the media (http://fusion.net/story/323498/deray-mckesson-arrested/).* In fact they are now*on the news across the world (https://theintercept.com/2016/07/11/images-militarized-police-baton-rouge-draw-global-attention/). *
Police*advanced against protestors (https://news.vice.com/article/baton-rouge-louisiana-police-militarization-protest-arrests-riot-gear-assault-rifles)*dressed in military gear, with gas masks, shin guards, face shields, brandishing assault weapons alongside heavy military vehicles.
“Something is not right in that department in terms of amount of equipment and amount of training,” General Honore told the*Morning Advocate (http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_5b4c6f61-632a-5824-b271-38b2e2eda7ae.html)*about the Baton Rouge police.* After watching hours of video of the police response, Honore said “The gas masks themselves were pretty intimidating…My concern is, with those homes there and all the people in the houses, that would not have been a good place to do (show that weaponry), particularly when the protesters weren’t being violent,” he said after viewing hours of videos, imagery and other coverage of protests in Baton Rouge on Sunday.
The*DOJ Ferguson report (http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p317-pub.pdf)*specifically warned police that militarized response was counterproductive and serves to escalate the situation.* *The use of military garb, weapons, materials and vehicles “inflamed tensions and created fear among demonstrators.* Agencies possessing military-type equipment or weaponry should restrict its deployment to limited situations in which the use of the equipment or weapons is clearly justified by the events. The equipment and weapons should be kept out of sight and not be used routinely or in the absence of special circumstances. Policies and procedures should clearly state the limited situations for deployment.”
These are non-violent protestors.* They are not an invading army.*
Wrongful Arrests of People for Obstructing the Highway While On Public Property
While some protestors were actually blocking a street when they were arrested, dozens of the arrests for obstructing the highway were of people who were arrested on sidewalks, the grass or even inside a person’s house as the journalists’ accounts show.* Pictures evidence*heavily armed police (https://twitter.com/JSODonoghue/status/752350344387047426/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)*taking down non-violent protestors*not in the streets but on the grass (https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/752366235678048256/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw).* Other*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uaaOVNBQJI*dozens of police surging onto*private property (https://twitter.com/lizzkatherine_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)*and arresting people wholesale.*Legal observers (https://wordpress.com/post/billquigley.wordpress.com/321)*documenting the arrests while standing on the sidewalk were also arrested. **As*The Daily Beast (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/11/baton-rouge-cops-throw-protesters-into-street-arrest-them-for-being-there.html)*headline sums up: “Baton Rouge Cops Throw Protestors Into Street, Arrest Them for Being There.”
Other Problematic Police Behavior
The Louisiana National Lawyers Guild has received reports of law enforcement covering up their name tags so people cannot know who they are have been received, conduct which is specifically criticized in the*DOJ Ferguson report (http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-p317-pub.pdf).* “Officers wearing name plates while in uniform is a basic component of transparency and accountability…[covering them up] defeats an essential level of on-scene accountability that is fundamental to the perception of procedural justice and legitimacy.” *
Likewise, once jailed, the mistreatment continues according to the National Lawyers Guild.* People have been pepper sprayed in jail.* People in jail were denied their medicines.* People hurt during arrests who asked for medical help in jail were denied. **People are being caged in places that could not possibly accommodate the numbers of people inside.* People are not being allowed to make calls from jail to attorneys or families.* Strip searches of women prisoners are occurring.
It is past time, Baton Rouge, to listen to*General Honore (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14018130). *"Put those damn weapons down.”
Bill Quigley*teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans and can be reached at*quigley77@gmail.com




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MONDAY, JULY 11, 2016

The Failure of Black Lives Matter
“Black lives matter was gaining ground. Then a Sniper Opened Fire.” This New York Times article encapsulates everything that is wrong with the ubiquitous but ultimately useless organization, Black Lives Matter. The phrase is now used to describe any protest by black people in the last two years and has come to symbolize the fight against police murder. So much so that it is difficult to offer any serious commentary about BLM.

To be clear I differentiate between the organization and the many efforts to fight back against 21st century lynch law. That fight is a righteous fight, but BLM as an organization is an abject failure. BLM makes no political demands of Obama or any other officials. The founders of BLM know good marketing when they see it and the phrase is used by the righteous and the scoundrels alike. If BLM was the truly radical, revolutionary organization that we so desperately need, it wouldn’t feel a need to explain actions, defend itself or offer anything other than political demands. Its leaders wouldn’t care what the New York Times or anyone other than the masses of black people had to say about them.

Black people have been living in a state of barely concealed anger for years. Murderer vigilantes like George Zimmerman go free and make a profit from killing. Eric Garner was killed on camera but the only person imprisoned was the one who recorded the video. Watching Alton Sterling and Philando Castille die on camera were the straws that broke the camel’s back. Whether spoken or not, black people know there will be no justice for these two men, just as there was none for Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray or Michael Brown.

Black Lives Matter has nothing to show for the money it raises and media attention it receives. They gave words, a name to a mass movement, but they haven’t articulated any political message to date. Their conference in 2015, a “convening” as they called it, was a mish mash of touchy feely new age nonsense. Workshops on healing and safe spaces were on the menu but there was little talk of political action which might end police murder.

Despite its lack of accomplishment, BLM has been a target for white anger. That doesn’t really mean much because white people are generally angry and feel aggrieved when their racism is pointed out to them. The bar for making white people mad is rather low and so is evoking negative reaction from right wing pundits and red neck republicans from Nowheresville.

If the New York Times says that BLM was gaining ground, who were they gaining ground for? Are they talking about good publicity, fund raising or accolades from all the right people? Since BLM was founded there has been no drop in the number of police murders of black people or of anyone else. There has been no improvement in prosecution or punishment of killer cops.

Black Power Matters. All else is nonsense.
POSTED BY FREEDOM RIDER AT 2:14:00 PM

http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-failure-of-black-lives-matter.html

Combat Police Violence in Jamaica with Organized Working-class Resistance
By: Ajamu Nangwaya

http://www.telesurtv.net/__export/1468509649266/sites/telesur/img/news/2016/07/14/jamaica-police_crop1468508571782.jpg_1718483346.jpg
Armed police question men on the street in the market area near Tivoli. | Photo: Reuters

Published 14 July 2016

If the Jamaican poor feel like they are being hunted by the police, they are not exaggerating.
The Jamaican police are very brutal in their policing of the African working-class in Jamaica. However, oppressive conditions tend to give birth to resistance.

Jamaica’s working-class reggae artistes have used their music to share the people’s experience with police violence. The singer Barrington Levy accurately capture’s the behaviour of the cops in the song Murderer. Levy reveals a common experience in working-class communities:

“Dem come inna my area want to kill off the youth
Nuh dress up inna jacket and dem dress up inna tie
Come a courthouse want to tell pure lies
Dem a murderer, aah”

The singer is blasting the widespread practice of police extrajudicial killings. He is also criticizing the air of respectability that the cops project in wearing suits and ties to the courthouse, while shamelessly telling lies about their coldblooded killing of the poor.

Jamaicans are currently observing the 6th anniversary of the tragic Tivoli Gardens Massacre, which was an act of class warfare on Tivoli Gardens, a working-class community. On May 24, 2010, at least 74 civilians were killed in the Tivoli Gardens Massacre by a combined force of about 800 soldiers and 370 police officers. They were on a mission to capture the reputed gang leader Christopher “Dudus” Coke who was barricaded in the community under the protection of his armed confederates. Coke was being sought for extradition to the United States for drugs trafficking and gunrunning.

The residents of Tivoli Gardens have accused the cops of the Mobile Reserve of carrying out extrajudicial killings and other acts of brutality. Based on the investigative work of the Office of the Public Defender, extrajudicial executions by the cops might have claimed the lives of 44 victims of the Tivoli Gardens Massacre. The recently released Report West Kingston Commission of Enquiry 2016 that documents the circumstances that led to the bloodbath also lends credibility to the community’s claim.

The report states that the behaviour of “some members of the security forces was disproportionate, unjustified and unjustifiable,” and recommends a parliamentary apology to the “people of West Kingston and Jamaica as a whole for the excesses of the security forces.” Furthermore, the report supports the payment of reparations and provision of trauma-related counselling to the people.



Levy’s framing of his dislike for the police might appear over-the-top: “'Cause dem a murderer, dem a vampire /They always suck out your blood.” The pele of Tivoli Gardens probably felt like the prey of a bunch of bloodthirsty vampires during the atrocity.

If the Jamaican poor feel like they are being hunted by the police, they are not exaggerating. The human rights group Amnesty International states that Jamaica has one of the world’s highest rates of fatal shootings by the police. According to the document Human Rights Watch World Report 1989, between 1979 and 1989 the police killed a yearly average of 208.3 Jamaicans, which was quite startling when compared with the annual figure of 700 people murdered by the cops in the United States. During that period, America’s population was 100 times larger than Jamaica’s.

Jamaica now has a population of 2.8 million people. In 2015, 106 civilians were killed by the police, according to data from the Independent Commission of Investigations. In contrast, the United States with the highest rate of lethal police shootings among global North countries kills less per capita of its people than Jamaica. According to the police accountability website Killed By Police, in 2015, police officers killed 1208 civilians across the United States, which had a population of 321.8 million people in 2015. It should be noted that America’s population is now 115 times larger than Jamaica’s.

Interestingly, the reformist democratic socialist regime of the late Michael Manley escalated the murderous tendencies of the police on working-class communities. In April 1974, the government passed the human-rights compromising Suppression of Crime Act and the Gun Court Act that gave legal cover to the culture of impunity enjoyed by the police. This culture of police violence against civilians has also been supported by other administrations.

The shooting deaths are simply the most dramatic representation of police violence. However, physical assaults, arbitrary detention and arrests, torture, humiliation, sexual assaults, extortion, robbery, intimidation of witnesses and fabrication of evidence are acts of violence that are carried out against the people.

At the present time, the non-profit organization called Jamaicans For Justice is the island’s principal police accountability organization. It describes itself as a “non-profit, non-partisan, non-violent citizens’ rights action organisation that advocates for good governance and improvements in state accountability and transparency.”

The working-class communities that bear the weight of police violence need to collectively and systematically organize in order to combat police violence. The following actions are among those needed to smash police violence.

Create community-based organizations: Organizations are indispensable to organizing resistance to oppression and police violence in particular. Each working-class community needs a fighting, militant and locally controlled group to plan, direct and execute the activities that are needed to fight police brutality.

Class solidarity is weakened by the divided loyalty of the Jamaican working-class between the two bourgeois-led mass parties. It would be politically prudent for the community-based organizations to create a federation, while retaining local autonomy. The call for cooperation would be done on the basis of their common experience of police violence and living conditions. A federation would develop a common strategy, share resources and coordinate the national fight against the police who operate like an occupying army in poor neighbourhoods.

Create alternative community security structures: The police exist to serve and protect the wealth and power of the elite. A central goal of the local committees should be to educate the people on the need to abolish the police force.

In many working-class communities in the Kingston Metropolitan Region, there is already an alternative structure (the defence crew) that has taken over a number of policing functions. According to the report Youth Violence and Organized Crime in Jamaica: Causes and Counter-Measures, a defence crew is used as a means of collective self-protection against attacks from rival communities or groups. Defence crews are also used to exact “swift punishment of those who are found guilty of rape or robbery inside the community.”

Defence crews are embraced by communities as an armed and legitimate means of collective self-defence. Defence crews are not criminal entities or gangs. The function of the defence crew could be expanded to include protection against extrajudicial killings and other acts of police violence. The members of defence crews would need to undergo political education in order to transform them into partisans of liberation.

These working-class communities could create their own democratically-controlled judicial structures with a formalized, transparent and fair process. They would use them to deal with the violation of community norms. It is important for the process to be informed by the principles of restorative justice and transformative justice. The communities would not give up their freedom to impose punitive sanctions against people who have caused harm to others.

Provide practical forms of solidarity: This militant movement against police violence would need to create legal advice hotlines, provide know your rights workshops, undertake mass public education on the repressive function of policing, build class solidarity, create a roster of lawyers to act as first respondents when people are detained or arrested, assist victims of police violence to sue the government, and create support programmes for defence crew members who become political prisoners. These concrete activities might help in encouraging mass resistance to police violence.

In sum, Walter Rodney raised an important issue in The Groundings with My Brothers: "We were told that violence in itself is evil, and that, whatever the cause, it is unjustified morally. By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master?” The organized response to police violence would be an essential part of the class struggle and self-organization of the Jamaican working-class.

Ajamu Nangwaya, Ph.D., is an educator, organizer and writer.

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Jamaica-Organized-Working-class-Resistance-to-Police-Violence-20160714-0013.html

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