I am glad to see an article that directs our outrage toward police
violence in the direction of an united front demanding a change in how
we citizens are policed. Change will come from the bottom up. The
top is feeling just fine with police protection they receive. They
make the laws, so the Bottom must actually "break" those laws in order
to put new laws in place.
It is urgent, in mass movements of protest, that participants
understand that their peaceful refusal to allow conditions to
continue, they must realize that the Ruling Class, the makers of the
Law of the Land, will retaliate with violence. It is all they know.
And it works if we let it.
But we cannot return violence for violence, or we will be the losers.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/30/15, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2015/7927/792704.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 27 August 3, 2015
(front page)
Fight against cop brutality grows
in year since Eric Garner was killed
Militant photos by Mike Shur
Rally July 18 in Brooklyn, N.Y., was among events to commemorate
anniversary of chokehold killing of unarmed Eric Garner by New York cop.
Inset, Garner’s wife, Esaw Garner, spoke to crowd.
BY MAGGIE TROWE
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — “I can’t breathe,” said Esaw Garner, widow of Eric
Garner, at a rally of hundreds across from the federal courthouse here
July 18. The crowd repeated the words Eric Garner cried out 11 times as
New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in a chokehold that
killed him July 17, 2014. The event was part of two days of actions and
church services marking the anniversary of Garner’s death, an occasion
to take stock of events of the last year and the gains scored in the
fight against police brutality.
Bystander Ramsey Orta’s video of the killing of Garner was seen by
millions around the world. Broad protests took place in the weeks
following Garner’s death, ruled a homicide by the coroner.
The outrage galvanized by Garner’s death grew in response to a series of
killings by cops of other unarmed Black men. Among them: Michael Brown
in Ferguson, Missouri, Aug. 9; Akai Gurley, shot and killed in a
Brooklyn stairwell Nov. 20; 12-year-old Tamir Rice, carrying a toy gun,
shot by Cleveland cops two seconds after they pulled up next to him Nov.
22; Walter Scott, shot in the back by a cop in North Charleston, South
Carolina, April 4; and Freddie Gray, who died of spinal injuries
sustained after being arrested in Baltimore April 12.
After grand juries let the cops who killed Brown and Garner walk, Black
Lives Matter protests, many spontaneous, broke out across the country,
with tens of thousands marching in New York Dec. 13.
This movement has overlapped with and reinforced the growing fight for a
$15-an-hour minimum wage and unionization, spearheaded by fast-food and
Walmart workers, with many young people joining actions around both
questions.
While Garner’s killer was allowed to walk free, the surge of protests
since his death, a manifestation of greater confidence, combativeness
and solidarity in the working class, has resulted in some victories and
led the ruling class to begin reining in the cops to a degree.
Vincent Liang, the cop who killed Gurley, was charged with manslaughter
in February. Michael Slager, Scott’s killer, was indicted for murder and
fired in April. Militant protests forced Maryland officials to bring
serious charges against six Baltimore cops involved in Gray’s death. On
June 11 a Cleveland city judge found probable cause to prosecute two
cops who killed Rice, though the county prosecutor has refused to file
charges.
Barely three weeks after the massacre of nine African-Americans at
Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white supremacist
terrorist, the Confederate battle flag — a symbol of racist terror — was
removed from the state Capitol. This victory was the result of the mass
struggle for Black rights that overthrew segregation in the 1950s and
’60s and its social and political consequences over decades, reinforced
by today’s struggles.
Several hundred people took part in a rally at Columbus Circle at the
corner of Central Park July 17. Sponsors included Millions March NYC and
Stop Mass Incarceration. They then marched through Midtown, eventually
dispersing at Union Square later in the evening.
Significant union presence
The Brooklyn rally, which was marked by a significant union presence,
was sponsored by the National Action Network, 1199SEIU, New York Nurses
Association, NYC Communities for Change and the Working Families Party.
Participants included SEIU Local 32BJ janitors, members of the New York
Civil Liberties Union and a contingent from the Nation of Islam mosque
in Harlem.
Speakers demanded the U.S. Department of Justice file civil rights
charges against Pantaleo and that he be fired. Pantaleo was moved to a
desk job after killing Garner and is under review by New York police
internal affairs.
Speakers included Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and his daughter
Emerald Garner. Also present were Constance Malcolm, mother of Ramarley
Graham, killed by New York cops in 2012; Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar
Grant, killed by a transit cop in Oakland, California, in 2009; Sybrina
Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, killed by a vigilante in Sanford,
Florida, in 2012; and Leslie McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown.
“Without you, we couldn’t do this alone,” said Carr. “We need your
support, because we know next time it could be you or your son. We want
no more members” of the club of bereaved families. “This club is full.
It’s closed.”
“I support the families of people killed by police,” said Olga López,
70, a cleaner who came with her son, a hospital worker and member of
1199SEIU.
“I came because I have a close-up view of the systematic institutional
racism perpetrated by the justice system,” Nora Carroll, 33, a public
attorney who was born in the South, told the Militant.
Members of People’s Organization for Progress were at the rally passing
out handbills for the July 25 Million People’s March Against Police
Brutality, Racial Injustice and Economic Inequality in Newark, New
Jersey, a protest being built widely in the region.
Related articles:
Malcolm X: Revolutionary leader of the working class
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