Skip to content

Police violence

Kenosha Unsurprising

August 30, 2020 By Paul Street, Counterpunch. , , ,
Damaged young men and adolescents like the Kenosha street-shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, a Trump fan and police devotee (his social media account is filled with “Blue Lives Matter” posts) are being sparked into a fascistic frenzy by a fascist president, a white-nationalist (Republican) party, and neofascist media outlets who tell them that the Great White Fatherland is under existential assault from Communist totalitarians masquerading as civil and human rights advocates and allied with the other leading national party – the supposedly “radical Left” Democrats. On his path to infamy, the 17-year-old psycho killer Kyle Rittenhouse became a big-time MAGA-boy, a Trump fan who traveled from northeastern Illinois to Des Moines, Iowa to hear his Dear Leader speak last January. A CSPAN photo shows Rittenhouse standing in the arch-propertarian Trump rally’s front row, gazing in rapt adoration at the indecent beast who tells police to “take the gloves off” when dealing with Black criminals and who fantasizes about attacking immigrants and protesters with “vicious dogs.”

Milwaukee Bucks Skip Playoff Game To Protest Shooting

August 27, 2020 Marty Johnson, The Hill. , , ,
The Milwaukee Bucks boycotted their playoff game against the Orlando Magic on Wednesday afternoon to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday. The game was scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. EDT, but minutes before tipoff, the Bucks still had not taken the court. “Some things are bigger than basketball,” Alex Lasry, senior vice president of the Bucks, tweeted Wednesday afternoon. “The stand taken today by the players and org shows that we’re fed up. Enough is enough. Change needs to happen.

Doctors Decry ‘Less Lethal’ Police Munitions

August 26, 2020 Alexandra Kelley, The Hill. , , ,
A group of doctors from the Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, Austin penned a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine to warn of the dangers of police’s less-lethal munitions used to subdue Black Lives Matter protesters after treating several patients with severe injuries. The Associated Press (AP) reports that 12 doctors from Dell Seton said Austin police used bean bag rounds in place of actual bullets to control the protests, but the bean bags still resulted in injuries like bleeding in the brain and a skull fracture.

Rebellions Break Out In Lafayette And Kenosha

August 26, 2020 It's Going Down. , , ,
A new round of uprisings has kicked off across the so-called United States following the police killings of Trayford Pellerin, “a 31-year-old Black man who was fatally shot Friday night” in Lafayette, New Orleans and 29-year-old Jacob Blake, also Black, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Pellerin was killed after police were called to the scene of a convenience store after someone called in reports of a man walking around with a knife. Police responded by first tasering Pallerin and then shooting him after he walked toward a gas station door.

NAARPR Calls For Justice For Jacob Blake

August 25, 2020 the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. , , ,
Once again the hour of tragedy strikes for another Black family, in another Black community caught in the grip of the pandemic crises of COVID-19 and racism. First of all, we want to express our solidarity with the traumatized family of Jacob Blake, and the protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Sometime after 5pm on Aug. 23, 2020 Jacob was returning to his car, unarmed, after attempting to break up a fight between two women. The police arriving, guns drawn, were pleaded with by bystanders not to shoot, yet they shot Blake 7 times as he was opening his car door.

Police Shoot Man; Video Shows Officer Firing Several Shots Into His Back At Close Range

August 24, 2020 Meg Jones, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. , , ,
Kenosha police shot a man Sunday evening, setting off unrest in the city after a video appeared to show the officer firing several shots at close range into the man's back. The shooting victim has been identified as Jacob Blake, a Black man, by Wisconsin officials. He was in serious condition at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee as of early Monday morning. The Wisconsin Department of Justice's Division of Criminal Investigation said early Monday that the involved officers have been placed on administrative leave. The Kenosha News reported that neighbors said Blake was trying to break up a fight between two women. Bystanders said he was Tased and then shot several times.

At Washington Post, Defunding Police Is A Step Too Radical

August 22, 2020 Oivia Riggio, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , ,
Since the May 25 murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, calls across the US  to defund police departments—shifting resources from law enforcement to social services—have grown louder. In June, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio shifted $1 billion from the NYPD—at least on paper (Gothamist, 6/29/20)—and Minneapolis city council members vowed to dismantle the police department and build a new model of public safety (though the city’s charter commission kept an initiative to eliminate a requirement to maintain a minimum number of police officers off the November ballot—Washington Post, 8/5/20).

Police Use Violence On Protesters Against Police Violence

August 21, 2020 Jake Mysliwczyk, Pittsburgh Current. , , ,
A group of protesters gathered again Wednesday evening at the Point Breeze home of Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto to protest the snatching of a protest marshal off the street over the weekend by heavily armed police officers in an unmarked white van. This was the second consecutive night of protests. On Tuesday evening, an even larger crowd showed up at Peduto’s front door and spent the night until they were ordered by Police to leave at 10 a.m. Wednesday morning. A different scene unfolded Wednesday evening though, as the group was met by Peduto sitting on his front porch, waiting to talk.

Report: Political Repression On The Rise In The United States

August 21, 2020 the Alliance for Global Justice. , , ,
The Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) has released a comprehensive report detailing the various forms in which political repression of today’s anti-racist uprising in the U.S. has manifested itself. The report discusses findings in four key areas of investigation into deepened political repression of the uprising at the state and societal level: a surge in mass arrests and a significant rise in political imprisonments; an increase in arbitrary detentions and the militarization of streets; deaths caused by use of lethal force; and deaths caused by the ignition of racist violence and right-wing terrorism. Our findings and conclusions are summarized below.

Tell The People That The Struggle Must Go On

August 20, 2020 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , , ,
Young children marvel at an obvious contradiction in capitalist societies: why do we have shops filled with food, and yet see hungry people on the streets? It is a question of enormous significance; but in time the question dissipates into the fog of moral ambivalence, as various explanations are used to obfuscate the clarity of the youthful mind. The most bewildering explanation is that hungry people cannot eat because they have no money, and somehow this absence of money – the most mystical of all human creations – is enough reason to let people starve.

BLM Activists Hospitalized After Police Kneel On Her Neck

August 14, 2020 Khaleda Rahman, MSN. , , ,
Protesters said Jae Passmore had been leaving a demonstration in downtown Tampa on Wednesday night when she was detained by police, The Tampa Bay Times reported. In on video shared on Instagram, Passmore is seen being pinned to the ground by several officers as protesters shout at them to free her. "Stop! Get your knee off her neck!" A protester can be heard repeatedly yelling. Another is heard screaming: "Get off of her like that!"

Street Artists Rise To The Occasion

August 13, 2020 Paul Von Blum, Progressive.org. , , ,
The massive protests in Los Angeles in response to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others organized through the Black Lives Matter movement generated an outpouring of engaging and provocative visual artworks. Open-air installations, murals, posters, “street art” works, and similar efforts abound, many in my Venice/Mar Vista neighborhood where I regularly jog. I participated in many of those protests and saw some of these efforts personally. Cumulatively, these, and similar works throughout the United States and the world, have added to the burgeoning tradition of political art—a movement that has inspired social activists for centuries.

Seattle Just Defunded Its Police — Sort Of

August 13, 2020 Paul Blest, Vice. , , ,
After a summer of explosive demonstrations that saw protesters take over several city blocks for weeks, the Seattle City Council approved a budget “revision” package on Monday that will cut $3 million from the police budget and eliminate up to 100 positions from the department. The move both fell far short of the demands of activists, and was so forcefully opposed by the city’s establishment that the police chief resigned almost immediately. Seattle police chief Carmen Best wrote a letter to members of the department announcing her retirement late Monday, effective September 2.

The Feds Left, But The Battle For Portland Continues

August 13, 2020 Shane Burley, ROAR Magazine. , , ,
Protests at the federal Justice Center in downtown Portland have become a nightly ritual, but protesters have also been expanding their reach across the city. Demonstrations at various precinct offices and the Portland Police Association, the police union, have drawn crowds of hundreds. In recent days, the demonstrations focused on these “satellite offices,” mainly because now that the federal officers have left, people’s attention turned back to the local police. On both August 6 and 7, the East Precinct, near the edges of the city proper, were overwhelmed by protesters.

Memorials, Protests On The 6th Anniversary Of Michael Brown’s Death

August 10, 2020 By Bryce Gray and Rachel Rice, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. , , ,
People gathered in a Ferguson street Sunday to mark the sixth anniversary of the shooting death of local teenager Michael Brown by a police officer — an event that not only resonated throughout the community but came to ignite a national movement and conversation around racial inequalities and injustice. Sunday’s memorial service — held in front of an apartment complex on a painted and flower-strewn patch of pavement on Canfield Drive, where the 18-year-old died — featured speeches from local leaders, as well as Brown’s friends and family members. It was made clear that, even as the years pass, plenty of heartache remains. “Today, it’s just still hard,” said Michael Brown Sr., reflecting on his son’s death and its aftermath. “Over the years, going through and coming to this site, I was very angry.”
«12345678910»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.