Police violence

Community Control Vs. Defunding The Police

June 11, 2020 Max Rameau and Netfa Freeman, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Class war, Defund the police, Police violence, White Supremacy

The intensity and scope of the mass rebellion that has gripped the U.S. and expanded internationally has shaken global white supremacist capitalist patriarchy to its knees. The people have tasted a real sense of their own power and as a result some very unexpected developments have emerged. Among them is the demand to “defund the police,” which is even being acknowledged by some lawmakers in a few jurisdictions. To be clear, this is a momentous development for the movement. Supporters often advance two primary arguments: the first is that defunding is a necessary step towards the ultimate goal of abolishing the police altogether.

Over A Thousand Cyclists Take Over City Streets On Solidarity Protest Ride

June 10, 2020 By Elizabeth Kim, Caroline Lewis, Ben Yakas, JB Nicholas, Jake Offenhartz and Karen Yi, Gothamist. Resist! Bicycle protest, George Floyd, New York City (NYC), Police violence

Over a thousand cyclists biked their way from Brooklyn to Manhattan as part of a Black Lives Matter solidarity ride Monday evening. The ride started at Grand Army Plaza just before 6:30 p.m., and made its way to Atlantic Avenue and then Bedford Avenue; the riders then crossed over on the roadway of the Williamsburg Bridge, snaked through lower Manhattan, and started biking up the West Side Highway. Along the way, there was lots of cheering and seemingly supportive honking—and probably some not-so-supportive honking from drivers who had to wait for the cyclists to pass them. A large group of the cyclists looped around over the Manhattan Bridge, and headed back toward Barclays Center. Some cyclists were snared in traffic on the roadway of that bridge, with several people getting flat tires—and at least one driver running over a person's foot.

ILWU, ILA, And Teamsters Take Action In Honor Of George Floyd

June 10, 2020 By Frances Madeson, Spectre. Resist! Police violence, Racism, Rebellion2020, Unions

Members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters laid down their tools in a work stoppage for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, the precise measure of time that George Floyd, handcuffed and helpless to resist, was forced to endure a policeman’s lethal knee on his neck. Killed by Minneapolis police on May 25, Floyd was buried today in Houston. Trent Willis, president of ILWU Local 10, Keith Shanklin, president of ILWU Local 34, and Gabriel Prawl, former Secretary/ Treasurer of ILWU Local 52 in Seattle, all members of ILWU’s Committee Against Police Terror, conceived of bringing this powerful gesture into union workplaces as a way of honoring Floyd, who earned his livelihood as a truck driver and security guard. In connecting Floyd’s struggle for his last breath with workers’ struggles for survival in a drastically altered post-pandemic economy, they hope to point the way forward by demonstrating the power of the working class.

America’s Forever Wars Have Come Home

June 10, 2020 By William J. Astore, Tom Dispatch. Educate! Militarized police, Police violence, Wars and Militarism

From their front porches, regular citizens watched a cordon of cops sweep down their peaceful street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rankled at being filmed, the cops exceeded their authority and demanded that people go inside their houses. When some of them didn’t obey quickly enough, the order -- one heard so many times in the streets of Iraqi cities and in the villages of Afghanistan -- was issued: “Light 'em up.” And so “disobedient” Americans found themselves on the receiving end of non-lethal rounds for the “crime” of watching the police from those porches. It’s taken years from Ferguson to this moment, but America’s cops have now officially joined the military as "professional" warriors. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder on May 25th, those warrior-cops have taken to the streets across the country wearing combat gear and with attitudes to match. They see protesters, as well as the reporters covering them, as the enemy and themselves as the "thin blue line" of law and order.

The Roots Of Violent Protest: Violent Cops

June 10, 2020 Erik Loomis, Lawyers Guns Money Blog. Educate! Militarization, Police violence, Protests, Rebellion2020

You will be shocked, simply SHOCKED, to learn that after decades of researching effective methods for police response to large crowd actions, researchers have found — and you’re never going to believe this — that when cops show up in military gear and get aggressive, they actually make protest violence worse! That’s one of the findings in “New Directions in Protest Policing,” a 2015 paper that reviews decades upon decades of police history and the conclusions of multiple separate commissions. Police that dress like they’re going to war, who try to control First Amendment expression rather than facilitate it, and who act in arbitrary ways can inflame violence and jeopardize their own safety and that of the public. The paper was written by Edward R. Maguire, an Arizona State University professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and it dives all the way back to the nation’s founding and the civil unrest that led to the creation of the United States.

Over 600 Groups And Families Of People Killed By Police Call For UN Investigation

June 9, 2020 Coalition, ACLU. Create! International Law, Police Killing, Police violence, United Nations

The undersigned family members of victims of police killings and civil society organizations from around the world, call on member states of the UN Human Rights Council to urgently convene a Special Session on the situation of human rights in the United States in order to respond to the unfolding grave human rights crisis borne out of the repression of nationwide protests. The recent protests erupted on May 26 in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was only one of a recent string of unlawful killings of unarmed Black people by police and armed white vigilantes. We are deeply concerned about the escalation in violent police responses to largely peaceful protests in the United States, which included the use of rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and in some cases live ammunition, in violation of international standards on the use of force and management of assemblies including recent U.N. Guidance on Less Lethal Weapons.

The Rest Of The World Sees Uprisings, Not Riots

June 9, 2020 By Reese Erlich, The Progressive. Educate! Civil Rights, Human Rights, Police violence, Rebellion2020

U.S. officials, whether Democrat or Republican, pretend that only other countries violate human rights. Every year, the State Department issues a report on worldwide human rights with the heaviest criticism aimed at enemies du jour such as China, Russia, and Iran. Human rights, as defined by U.S. officials, include freedom of the press, maintaining an independent judiciary, and civil rights. But most of the world, the United Nations included, goes further, saying human rights include the right to a job, health care, and housing, among other things. Not surprisingly, U.S. leaders never mention authoritative international reports detailing U.S. human rights abuses. In 2017, the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights issued a report sharply criticizing U.S. human rights abuses.

Day Of Action June 13: Stop Police Crimes, Community Control Now

June 9, 2020 By National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression. Resist! Community control of police, Police Killings, Police violence

The National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression calls upon all its members, comrades, friends and allies to join a national day of action this Saturday, June 13ᵗʰ to call for direct democratic community control of the police, to continue the call for freedom for those caged in detention centers, jails, and prisons while the pandemic continues to spread, and finally to continue the call for justice for George Floyd and all other victims of police crimes from brutalization, illegal searches, torture, forced confessions, and murder. Community Control of the Police means more than attaching some new name on the same ineffective review boards filled with law enforcement officers and their sympathizers; it means direct, democratic control of police departments, policies, budgets, and officers with full subpoena power through a civilian council elected by the people of the community served by the police.

Journalists Demand End To Harassment After Over 100 Attacks On The Press

June 8, 2020 Charles Davis, Business Insider. Resist! Media, Police abuse, Police violence

US police launched over 100 attacks on credential members of the press over the weekend, according to a count by the investigative news organization Bellingcat. In a June 1 open letter, leading press organizations pleaded with law enforcement to “halt the deliberate and devastating targeting of journalists in the field.” Aaron Miguel Cantú, a freelance journalist in Los Angeles who was arrested over the weekend, told Business Insider that reporters are now learning that “police have grown so powerful that there is nobody left to meaningfully hold them accountable for their actions.”

Violence Towards Protesters Shows Why Many Want To Abolish Police

June 8, 2020 Kim Brown, The Real News. Educate! Minneapolis, Police Abolition, Police violence, Rebellion2020

Welcome to the Real News. I’m Kim Brown. After several sustained days of protest in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd on May 25th, the epicenter of this latest uprising movement, Minneapolis, is experiencing an over militarized response with Minnesota National Guard troops joining alongside Minneapolis Police Department and the Minnesota State Police law enforcement agencies in attempting to quell the uprisings. But organizers on the ground there are using their ingenuity to coordinate mutual aid and redistribution efforts, plus providing a platform for the solution to the crisis of over-policing and brutality, get rid of the police altogether. Well, joining me to discuss this today is Tony Williams. Tony is an organizer and a police abolitionist in Minneapolis.

What Next As The Whip Of Reaction Fails To Cow The Masses?

June 8, 2020 John Peterson and Jorge Martin, Marxist.com. Strategize! Police violence, presidential elections, Rebellion2020, Working Class

Over the last two years, more Americans were killed by police than Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan over the last 18 years. ‬More Americans were killed by police in the last three years than people were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. ‪Combine this with a devastating economic crisis and pandemic, and it is easy to understand why a tipping point has been reached, as the accumulated rage and humiliation of centuries spills over onto the streets. Earlier this year, in the 2020 draft Perspectives for the Coming American Revolution, we wrote the following: “2008 profoundly transformed the consciousness of billions. The most serious strategists of capital understand and fear this. The Edelman Trust Barometer polled people in 28 major countries and found that 56% of the population believes that ‘capitalism today does more harm than good to the world’ – including 47% of Americans.

Chemical Weapon Use Is Dangerous In A Pandemic

June 7, 2020 Lisa Song, ProPublica. Educate! Chemical Weapons, COVID-19, health, Police violence

When Amira Chowdhury joined a protest in Philadelphia against police violence on Monday, she wore a mask to protect herself and others against the coronavirus. But when officers launched tear gas into the crowd, Chowdhury pulled off her mask as she gasped for air. “I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I felt like I was choking to death.” Chowdhury was on a part of the Vine Street Expressway that ran underground. Everyone panicked as gas drifted into the dark, semi-enclosed space, she said. People stomped over her as they scrambled away. Bruised, she scaled a fence to escape. But the tear gas found her later that evening, inside her own house; as police unleashed it on protesters in her predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia, it seeped in.

How Endless War Contributes To Police Brutality

June 7, 2020 Bonnie Kristian, Responsible Statecraft. Educate! 1033 program, Militarization, Police violence, Wars and Militarism

The indefensible death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the indiscriminate police violence in subsequent protests have returned police misconduct to the center of our national conversation. It is not a conversation we may quickly or easily conclude. The problems in American policing are multitude and systemic, matters of both policy and culture. Much of this can only be corrected at the state or local level, and as there are around 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, this is a monumental task. In very few cases could sweeping federal action affect any substantive reform But one way in which Washington is directly implicated in police brutality is its contribution to the militarization of local police departments through the Pentagon’s 1033 Program and the so-called “war on terror” more broadly.

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