New York Metro Club, Party of Communists USA • http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/ - Justice for Eric Garner and All Victims of Police Terror

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Dear comrades and friends,

The statement below and attached was distributed at the march on Sunday for Eric Garner. Comments and criticisms are appreciated.

In solidarity,

New York Metro Club, Party of Communists USA • http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/

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Justice for Eric Garner and All Victims of Police Terror

Once again, NYPD officers have killed an unarmed Black man, Eric Garner, this time on the streets of Staten Island. Garner was killed while he was trying to break up a fight in his neighborhood. This latest police murder comes on top of decades of killings of innocent victim, the great majority Black and Latino, by police, since the murder of 15-year old James Powell in 1964 that sparked the Harlem rebellion of that year. To mention only a few of the most notorious cases of police brutality and killing in New York City, there was the murder of 67-year-old grandmother Eleanor Bumpurs in her home in 1984, the killing of Anthony Baez in 1994, the torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima in 1997, the shooting of Amadou Diallo in 1999, killed by 41 police bullets, of Sean Bell in 2006 with 50 shots, and of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham in his own home in front of his grandmother and younger brother in February of 2012. The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the cold-blooded police shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California in 2009, are just two examples that such murders are not confined to New York.

Rotten Apples or a Rotten System?

In almost all these cases, we are told by the authorities that they are examples of a few “rotten apples” in the police department, that the majority of cops are really there to “protect and serve.” But if that were the case, why did the rest of the cops who were there to arrest Garner do nothing as Officer Pantaleo was choking the life out of him? If it was just a matter of a few rotten apples, wouldn’t the “justice” system do all it could to charge, convict and sentence these cops for murder, so that it could cleanse the department of the few bad officers? But in almost all these cases, the cops have gotten off scot free, mostly without even an indictment and trial.

Why are there so few grand jury indictments of cops in these cases? Anyone who has ever seen a grand jury work knows that, as the saying goes, s grand jury would indict even a ham sandwich if the district attorney asked them to. But in most cases of police killings, the district attorneys do not even ask for an indictment. They just bring an “investigation into the death” of the victim. And then they present all the evidence that the cops want the jury to hear. This is usually enough for the reactionary majority on such juries not to bring an indictment.

The Cops are No Friends of Blacks, Latinos or Any Working People

The police are only there to protect and serve the interests of the rich, the ruling, capitalist class. Look at the way the police were called out to make mass arrests of the Occupy Wall Street protestors in 2011, or how they are used against anti-war protestors – remember the hundreds jailed protesting in front of the Republican National Convention in 2004? And every time there is a strike, the police are there to protect the bosses’ property, to enforce injunctions against mass picketing, and so on.

It may be that in the murder of Eric Garner, Officer Pantaleo will be indicted on some minor charge, or at least be dismissed for violation of “proper police procedure,” as chokeholds are against the NYPD’s own rules of conduct. But only a sustained mass protest would have any chance of leading to Pantaleo’s indictment on any serious charge.

Moreover, to get rid of police brutality would require a socialist revolution, that would overturn this system in which a small minority of wealthy bankers, industrialists, real estate interests, etc. rule over the workers and oppressed people. Under a socialist system, the police would be replaced by a militia of working people, and the armed forces would serve to prevent the former capitalist rulers, who had a fine life living off the labor of the majority, from returning to power.

New York Metro Club, Party of Communists USA • http://nymetrocommunistparty.org/

If you agree with the basic views in this leaflet, or for more information, please contact us:
nycommunistparty@gmail.com • 646-351-2508

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