Santa Ana, CA – On December 1, two officers from Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) shot and killed a man in downtown Santa Ana near Broadway and 2nd Street. SAPD stated that people called about a man loading a rifle. Nearly 30 bullet holes scar the wall where he was shot for holding what turned out to be a non-lethal airsoft gun.

The name of the victim has not been released but reports state that the man was “Hispanic”, in his thirties and pronounced dead when he arrived at the hospital.

The next day, members of Community Service Organization, Orange County (CSO OC) began flyering downtown Santa Ana to reach the victim’s family and to spread awareness about the killing. Many people walk down Broadway unaware they are passing an execution site.

Fewer people know about the site just one block away in the CVS parking lot, where SAPD shot unarmed Salvadoran immigrant Miguel Chavez in 2022. At least eight officers chased his vehicle into the lot and surrounded him with guns drawn. Officers Jonathan Chavez and Sean Anthis fired three “less-lethal” rounds into Miguel Chavez and Officer Mark Shifflett sicced a police dog on him. Chavez died two days later from bite injuries. The death was ruled a homicide by the coroner, but all three officers were cleared of wrongdoing by Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, two years after the killing.

In Santa Ana police are largely shielded from accountability. The “Critical Incident Reports” they must share within 45 days smear the victim and justify police actions. While Miguel Chavez had no criminal record or history of drug use to be used against him, officers said they saw a weapon, but no weapon was found. Meanwhile, these reports are not required to share officer names. As a result, when impacted families and the public are most desperate for answers, they don’t learn about which officers are responsible or about their history of violence.

That is why CSO OC is in the process of building a campaign to demand that SAPD release officer names after police killings. Rain Mendoza, a member of CSO, said, “Our demand comes from impacted families and our study of police policy in Santa Ana. The demand is part of a step-by-step process in which we take power from the police who repress and kill us, and we give that power back to the people.”

To get involved in CSO OC’s police accountability campaign, reach out to us on our social media, @cso.oc on Instagram, Orange County CSO on Facebook, or email us at orangecountycso@gmail.com.

#SantaAnaCA #InJusticeSystem #ChicanoLatino #CommunityControlofthePolice #CSOOC

Tacoma, WA – Tacoma residents gathered outside the Tacoma Public Utilities auditorium on July 2, to make their last statements ahead of the finalization of the city’s new charter.

Every decade, the city of Tacoma convenes a Charter Review Committee, or CRC to assess and make changes to how the city is run. In 2024, 24 recommendations were made by the CRC, some of which include the formation of a Climate Accountability Commission, a Policing Accountability Board, and removing power from the city manager to place it back to the mayor and city council.

The crowd outside the temporary city council chambers urged the council to pass all CRC recommendations with cries of “Democracy across the nation! Pass every recommendation!” and “Let us vote!”

The outcry for accountability for the police and the climate comes after the murder of Manuel “Manny” Ellis and the subsequent acquittal of the Tacoma police officers who killed him, and the construction of a mega-warehouse in South Tacoma, respectively. Many of the decisions made by the city are single-handedly made by Tacoma’s unelected city manager, Elizabeth Pauli.

Ann Dorn, member of the Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America, stated, “We want to vote on where executive power is placed, and we want this under the control of the people.”

“We already told the city that we wanted change ten years ago, and nothing good has changed for us. We get murdered, we get pollution, we get violation of treaty rights – we get nothing, and they get everything!” said Gemini Gnull, member of Climate Alliance of the South Sound.

Once inside the chambers, the people made their thoughts known to the council during the public hearing section.

“Tacoma is called the City of Destiny, but what destiny has this current city government designed for the 250,000 Tacomans who rely on it? A destiny of Amazon warehouses, LNG plants, police brutality and lung disease,” Sean Renning, a Tacoma resident, testified. “The Bridge Industrial warehouse is the greatest travesty this city has suffered since the Ruston copper smelter a century ago.”

During the meeting, the city council did not bring up the Policing Accountability Board, presumably because it would not move forward in the charter. Attentive Tacomans recognized this and made note of it in their statements to the council.

“It looks likely the policing accountability recommendation from the charter commission is not going to be put forward to voters, and that concerns me,” said Sean Arent, member of Washington Against Nuclear Weapons. “I think this is something our city cares about, and I think public safety ranks as a top concern for most Tacomans and we should have democratic control over that system.”

The filibustered meeting finally ended after four hours, leaving residents uncertain about their future but ready to keep fighting back.

#TacomaWA #CommunityControlofthePolice #Environment

By Destiny Spruill and Jacob Buckner

Chicago, IL – Two factors have made public safety a lynchpin issue in the upcoming mayoral election between Brandon Johnson, former teacher supported by the Chicago Teacher’s Union, and Paul Vallas, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, backed by the Fraternal Order of the Police (FOP). First is the rise in the crime rate in the city in recent years. The second, and principal, reason is the law-and-order backlash that followed the historic protests of the George Floyd Rebellion.

Groups like the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) are fighting to make sure that the city’s supposed concern for public safety prioritizes police accountability for its Black, Latino, indigenous and working-class residents. These residents face the highest rates of incarceration and violent police raids and have been the most likely to face the full force of the police state.

You can’t discuss public safety without discussing the struggle for community control of the police – a struggle for democratic rights.

“This mayoral election is historic. It is the first time in four decades that we’ve had a truly progressive candidate for mayor – Brandon Johnson. For the first time in history, the people of Chicago have a real choice between the old reactionary, recycling of the status quo and taking a progressive road towards advancing the democratic right of the people,” says Frank Chapman, the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist Political Repression (NAARPR).

The movement for community control of the police in Chicago began over 50 years ago. CAARPR played a leading role in the 1970s and starting 11 years ago has led it through its Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) campaign. They believe that electing Brandon Johnson is an important piece in the broader struggle for police accountability. Understanding the history of CAARPR’s CPAC movement is crucial in assessing the needs of Chicago’s most vulnerable populations. It is also crucial in evaluating how we can chart the way forward.

CAARPR and its struggle for community control of police in Chicago

By 1968, the first citywide attempt at community control was started by the Black Panther Party (BPP), which initiated a number of programs that demanded to transform the power structure of the police and its effect on the lives of Black Chicagoans. The Panthers believed that community control of the police was a political necessity for Black community members to decide for themselves how public safety would be implemented. Their demands were clear: violent police officers must be held accountable through community boards, the people must decide the funding of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), and the power of supervising and administering the police department must be transferred to the citizens of Chicago. The National Alliance Against Racist Political Repression (NAARPR) took up these demands and created a model to bring these demands to legislation.

Starting in 2012, CAARPR, the Chicago branch of NAARPR, provided a model based on the principle set forth by the Panthers, and on legislation that had been developed by the National Alliance in the 1970s. Decades later, the need for this movement continued as racist policing in Chicago increased as a result of the heightened power of the CPD. In 2012, 22-year-old Rekia Boyd was murdered by an off-duty police detective named Dante Servin. Following community protests, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression began a ten-year process of building a movement to pass an ordinance that would create community-controlled police boards in all 22 Chicago police districts. This movement became known as the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) campaign.

CAARPR spent the next years in working-class neighborhoods most affected by police violence and spoke to survivors and community members about their public safety needs. These efforts continued from the murder of Laquan McDonald in 2014 to the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. When George Floyd was murdered, the National Alliance Against Racist Political Repression called for a national day of protest on May 30. In Chicago, 20,000 marched or car caravanned into the Chicago Loop. In the following weeks, over 100,000 marched in Chicago. Every protest called for “CPAC now!”

The campaign collected over 60,000 signatures with an average of 1000 signatures in 38 wards. Their efforts proved that victory is only possible with the leadership and experience of the community. This mass movement created the conditions for passing legislation.

By 2021, CAARPR had the support of 19 of the 50 city council members. A competing police accountability legislation, the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA), had the support of 26 of the 50 city council members. Council members of the Socialist Caucus of Chicago told GAPA that they would not cast a vote to support their legislation unless they came to an agreement with the CPAC legislation proposed by CAARPR. After then-mayor Lori Lightfoot refused GAPA’s demand to include control of police policy in their legislation, negotiations between CAARPR and GAPA began, and a compromise was reached two months later.

The Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance was passed in the city council and officially created two bodies for police accountability: the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) and the police district councils, for which there were elections in February. These bodies have the following powers: Directly investigating crimes of police violence; determining Chicago Police Department policy; hiring and firing the Chief Administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA); holding hearings about police superintendents; and recommending preventative, proactive, community-based and evidence-based solutions to violence.

These District Councils and the CCPSA go beyond stopping vicious and racist police officers, they hold a model for community members directly affected by racist police violence to see justice and build a regenerative model to change public safety.

Many of the candidates for these boards had never run for public office – they are motivated by their own experiences with police violence. Cynthia McFadden, for example, ran for the board because she was inspired by her father who fled the South due to extreme violence only to be murdered by Chicago police the day of his arrival. Coston Plummer was motivated by his older brother who was forced by Chicago police to falsely confess to a murder when he was just 15 years old. These candidates believe that ECPS represents the will of communities impacted by police violence to finally experience justice.

On February 28, 2023, for the first time in history, residents of Chicago had the opportunity to vote for these boards – resulting in 39 of 66 district councilors being elected from the movement for police accountability. CAARPR, alongside their partners in their community, expanded this grassroots campaign and made it possible to succeed.

From CPAC to ECPS to Brandon Johnson

“The terms of this election were set by the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Across the U.S., 26 million people called for justice – including Brandon Johnson. Brandon Johnson has received the support of the Chicago Alliance because he alone included police accountability and working with ECPS in his platform and campaign. Paul Vallas received support from the FOP to maintain injustice. On February 28, the Black community voted against the FOP and for justice through democratic control of the police in the district council elections,” says Joe Iosbaker, cochair of the Labor Committee of CAARPR.

During a mayoral forum on public safety at the UIC Forum on March 14, Paul Vallas put forth his vision of police accountability by saying, “Community policing fundamentally means, you have beat officers on every beat. So every single beat is covered by a patrol car, manned with officers. Officers know the community, and are known by name and by badge number, by the community.” Vallas has seized on rising concerns for public safety – which have steadily grown as the city of Chicago experiences more violence and believes the only way forward is to increase police presence and grant them more control over the city. Chicago’s FOP, an organization that is nationally known for its hostility towards Black and brown people, threw its support behind Paul Vallas. He welcomed its endorsement and thanked “Chicago’s finest, men and women of the FOP who sacrifice their lives to make our city safer. Reducing crime and making Chicago safer are my top priorities.”

Brandon Johnson has built his public safety platform with the intention of addressing the “root causes of violence and poverty.” Johnson’s campaign for Chicago mayor is not only about the use of community control boards, but about creating an overall model of safety which positions the needs of the community at its center. Johnson argues that public safety is not only about stopping police violence but about investing in generative initiatives such as mental health care and housing.

Johnson believes these measures will prevent systemic violence from attacking Chicago communities. One of his initiatives involves getting rid of the racist “Gang Database,” which currently “labels more than 280,000 people – 95% people of color as gang members without requiring evidence of gang affiliation or informing them of their listing.” The Gang Database has been used to profile and surveil Black neighborhoods, resulting in heightened Black and Latino arrests. Johnson also supports the Anjanette Young Ordinance, which will stop no-knock warrants. He believes in collaborating with the democratically elected District Councils to manage police accountability and decide the Chicago Police Department's policy.

Each of Johnson's initiatives interconnects with the overall needs of the community, including mental health. Within mental health initiatives, Johnston aims to Launch Crisis Response Teams with non-police personnel, reopen all 14 mental health centers, and expand the 988 mental health crisis hotline to 24 hours.

The fight for Brandon Johnson is the fight for justice for the Black and Latino community In Chicago

The mayoral election between Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas will decide if the city continues the struggle for a public safety plan that includes Black and Latino Chicagoans and its working-class neighborhoods. The grassroots work of the last ten years – the struggle for democratic control of the police – could be upheld through Brandon Johnson’s leadership. For ten years, Chicagoans have fought for police accountability, affirmative mental health treatment, and housing for all community members. Many believe Brandon Johnson’s candidacy represents the work that Black Chicagoans have put toward a movement to see their own collective needs met against systemic violence.

Throughout the ten-year CPAC campaign, CAARPR created a grassroots movement that won a historic ordinance to hold the police accountable. CAARPR responds to the calls for public safety this way: “Black and brown communities are over-policed and under-protected. There’s a reason that 70% of violent crimes in our neighborhoods go unsolved. No one trusts the police. And why would they? After generations of police crimes, like the reign of torturer Jon Burge!” In the words of Frank Chapman, “We want to hold the police accountable for what they do, and what they don’t do.”

CAARPR’s current task is to uphold the advances made by the district council elections through the election of Brandon Johnson, but they will carry forth the mission toward real police accountability, in partnership with the local community, well beyond this mayoral election. We will continue to look to them as leaders in our struggle against state-sanctioned violence.

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #US #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #Elections #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CommunityControlOfThePolice #BrandonJohnson

New York, NY – Nearly three years after the George Floyd uprising of 2020, New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) has released the findings of its investigations into the New York Police Department’s misconduct during the protests. But rather than addressing the increasing brutality of the cops, the results of the investigations show how an unelected, ineffective review board becomes a tool of the state that harms communities and activists while empowering the police.

From the very beginning, the CCRB’s ability to investigate complaints of police misconduct during the 2020 protests was severely limited by the agency’s jurisdiction, which only allows it to investigate complaints that involve use of force, abuse of authority, and offensive language. As a result, of the over 750 complaints received, the agency was able to investigate only 321.

This basic weakness of the CCRB – which it shares with unelected review boards across the United States – should be alarming. If the agency intended to exercise oversight of the police cannot even hear the majority of our complaints, it enables the police to act against us with impunity.

But the roadblocks to the CCRB’s ability to investigate only worsened from there. For example, one of the first steps in investigating any complaint is to identify the cops involved. However, during the protests, NYPD officers wore black bands to cover their badge numbers. The NYPD claims that cops were told to wear the armbands to honor officers who died from COVID, an obvious bit of irony, given that the NYPD has repeatedly refused to comply with COVID safety regulations like masking and vaccine mandates, even during the height of the pandemic when New York City was the epicenter of cases in the U.S.

This supposed concern for COVID became even more blatantly false when NYPD officers refused to participate in virtual interviews with CCRB investigators throughout 2020. In doing so, individual officers had the support of the immensely powerful police union, the Police Benevolent Association (PBA).

The PBA was able to force the Civilian Complaint Review Board to negotiate with it to get officers to agree to be interviewed and won a deal extremely helpful to the cops: officers could have their union representative present during the interviews and could keep their cameras off, while investigators had to have their cameras on, and in some cases had to rotate their computers to show the cops the inside of their homes and prove that they were alone during the interviews, creating an unequal power dynamic that favored the police.

This example shows why it is crucial that an effective review board have the power to negotiate with police unions from a position of relative strength. Whatever else the PBA does, it is incredibly good at protecting officers at the expense of working class communities, organizers, and others in the labor movement.

Another key part of the CCRB’s investigations was video evidence of the incidents at hand. But once again, the CCRB’s inability and unwillingness to exercise real power over the police grants an obvious advantage to the NYPD. The CCRB is reliant on the NYPD itself to provide body camera footage that is relevant to investigations and the NYPD determines what counts as relevant footage. Unsurprisingly, in the investigations of the 2020 protests, CCRB requests for body camera videos routinely turned up irrelevant and unhelpful footage – if the requests were answered at all.

Beyond official investigations, access to body and dash camera footage is a common demand of the families of those impacted by police violence. For example, the family of Ronald Anthony Smith, a Black man struck and killed by a speeding police officer in Brooklyn in April 2022, spent most of that year demanding the CCRB get the NYPD’s footage of Smith’s death released.

So, an oversight body’s ability to access police footage is incredibly important for both the purposes of investigating police misconduct and for providing emotional closure to victims of police violence. To be effective, an elected oversight board would need to have direct access to police footage – the CCRB’s reliance on the NYPD for footage distracts organizers’ and sidetracks their time and effort toward pressuring the CCRB, while the NYPD retains the real power.

Finally, the CCRB’s lack of funding further hamstrings the agency. As the investigations dragged on into 2021 and 2022, ex-cop Eric Adams was elected as mayor of New York City. Since being elected, Eric Adams has slashed the budgets for several city agencies, including the CCRB, leaving the agency critically understaffed with one in five positions unfilled.

Meanwhile, Adams continues to inflate the already bloated NYPD budget, which has reached over $11 billion. The very officers involved in the complaints the CCRB is supposed to investigate continue to receive raises, with many officers making nearly $200,000 a year, despite the laundry list of allegations against them. It is therefore critical that an elected review board take away the power to set the police budget from cop cronies in city hall so that those resources can be used to fund programs that help rather than harm the community.

“Protests against police brutality bred more instances of police misconduct,” wrote Civilian Complaint Review Board Chair Arva Rice in the introduction to the report, adding “If this misconduct goes unaddressed, it will never be reformed.” Yet, in the final report the CCRB substantiated just 88 complaints related to the 2020 uprising, and the NYPD has imposed discipline in only 42 cases. As an unelected, toothless body, the CCRB is incapable of addressing police misconduct; it is limited in its scope, it is dependent on the NYPD’s cooperation, and it has no ability to enforce its findings. The CCRB creates the illusion of oversight, while in practice empowering the NYPD to act with impunity.

As the NYPD continues to gain even more power to terrorize our communities through Eric Adams’ despicable pro-cop policies, the fight for community control of the police is more important than ever. We need a civilian police accountability council that can address the long legacy of police brutality, and put the power to decide when and how our communities are kept safe in the hands of the people.

#NewYorkNY #PoliceBrutality #CommunityControlOfThePolice #StopPoliceCrimes

Chicago, IL – 300 Chicagoans braced against the cold night, January 30, to protest the brutal police slayings of Tyre Nichols, Keenan Anderson and Manuel “Tortuguita” Teron. The eight-degree weather did not deter the crowd as they clustered together to stand in solidarity with protests that have broken out across the country in the wake of the release of the video footage that depicted multiple officers beating Nichols to death.

Frank Chapman, field organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), made it clear that there is an answer to the people’s cries for justice. “We’ve got a solution in Chicago; February 28 is the solution.” On February 28, Chicagoans will be voting for the first time ever to elect civilians to District Councilor positions, which is seen by many as a step in the fight towards gaining community control over the police.

The rally was called by CAARPR with support from organizations such as Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL), Rainbow PUSH, Good Kids/Mad City, and United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN). Referring to the district council elections, Nick Seuss from USPCN, told the crowd that, “The first step is to take power from the police and give it to the people.”

Bishop Tavis Grant from the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition reminded the crowd, “We’ve got a democratic option: vote.” This point could not be more true with the February 28 elections for District Councilors quickly approaching for Chicagoans.

12th Police District Council candidate, William “The Kid” Guerrero, drew parallels to what happened in Memphis to what goes on in Chicago: “This is for Adam Toledo, Tortuguita, and Tyre Nichols.”

After a brief march and chanting, “I believe that we will win!” and “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe!” the group disbanded. Overall, one of the messages that rang loudest Monday night was first said by 15th District Council candidate Arewa Karen Winters, who quoted Assata Shakur: “We have nothing to lose but our chains!”

#ChicagoIL #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CommunityControlOfThePolice #TyreNichols

Two weeks before, on January 5, the Tampa city council passed the city charter amendments in a 5-3 vote to be put on the March ballot. Mayor Castor’s veto, which came two days before the veto deadline, effectively prohibits this charter amendment from appearing on the ballot for Tampa voters. However, it was possible for the Tampa city council to override the mayor’s decision at their January 19 city council meeting.

Demonstrators urged that the Tampa city council unite in overriding Mayor Jane Castor’s veto and give the opportunity for Tampa residents to vote this year.

The protesters waved signs such as “Castor vetoes democracy” and “Community control of TPD” as their peers gave passionate speeches about the importance of independent counsel on the Citizens Review Board (CRB). The proposed charter amendment for independent counsel would’ve allowed voters to decide whether the CRB could obtain independent legal counsel.

The Citizens Review Board was created in 2015 due to public pressure against the discriminatory “Biking while Black” program, to investigate and review disciplinary cases and issues of importance regarding the police department and Tampa community members.

The January 18 action was led by the Tampa Bay Community Action Committee joined by speakers from the American Civil Liberties Union, Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society, and the Restorative Justice Coalition.

Demonstrator Angel D’Angelo from the Restorative Justice Coalition stated, “The veto from Mayor Jane Castor is yet another example of the abuse of power government officials have enacted on the people in Tampa. If she has any respect for the people, she would not once again deny us the option to vote on matters we care about like she did with rent control. The next best step is that our city council override the veto and that we elect council members that will stand up to this abuse.”

The mayor’s decision to veto the amendment thwarts the democratic process of allowing taxpayers and concerned citizens alike the opportunity to vote on the matter. Unsurprisingly, Mayor Jane Castor was in the Tampa police force for 31 years and served as the police chief from 2009 to 2015. Her tenure in the Tampa Police Department has made her presence a strong barrier for police accountability in the city.

On January 19, the day after the protest, the Tampa city council overrode four out of the five of Mayor Castor’s vetoes. The issue of the Citizens Review Board obtaining independent legal counsel was the charter amendment that did not receive the supermajority vote necessary to override the veto.

Council members Joseph Citro, Charlie Miranda and Guido Maniscalo voted against. The majority of residents who spoke during the public comment section were in favor of the overriding Mayor Castor’s veto on the CRB charter amendment. Later that night, Councilwoman Lynn Hutak introduced an ordinance with the same language as the CRB charter amendment that city council will put to vote on February 2. If it passes, it will go into effect without the need of Tampa voters.

Simon Rowe from Tampa Bay Community Action Committee said, “We know that people have a right to determine how they’re policed. It may be an uphill battle, but that doesn’t mean we’ll stop fighting until real progressive change happens in Tampa. Jane Castor cannot stand in the way of democracy forever.”

#TampaFL #PoliceBrutality #CommunityControlOfThePolice #TampaBayCommunityActionCommitteeTBCAC

In the 18 months since Chicago reached a turning point with the passage of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance, the coalition that won the ordinance has fought against the obstruction of the mayor and pro-police members of the city council to implement it. The current stage in the fight against police tyranny is the elections for the local office of police district council coming up on February 28.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization calls on all progressives to be a part of the next step forward in the history of liberation struggles for Black people and other oppressed nationalities by getting out the vote for pro accountability candidates.

ECPS was won by a broad coalition of progressive organizations representing diverse sectors of the working-class and oppressed communities. The ordinance established a citywide Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) with the power to set Chicago Police Department (CPD) policy, give input into the budget and the hiring and firing of CPD leadership.

The current CCPSA is an interim Commission nominated by the city council and selected by the mayor. Future Commissions will be nominated by the district councils, who will also have the task of gathering the ideas and experiences of the people in their districts regarding the police. Throughout 2022, the ECPS coalition searched for district council candidates interested in holding the police accountable. Over 100 candidates, mostly Black, brown and working class, stepped forward to run. The coalition helped them gather petition signatures to get on the ballot, and now over 60 pro-accountability candidates are on the ballot for February.

Candidates who are running to expand democracy and hold police accountable are up against those backed by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), who want to protect the status quo of police killing and torturing oppressed people with impunity. Fortunately, the FOP-backed candidates are vastly outnumbered by pro-accountability candidates. However, the FOP represents the white supremacist ruling class, which has far more money to put into elections than progressive organizations do. In order for our advantage in numbers to overcome the FOP’s war chest, we need the active participation of as many people as possible in the upcoming elections.

The passage of ECPS was a massive step towards Black and indigenous people, Chicanos, immigrants and other oppressed people being able to democratically govern their own communities. We encourage all people who want an end to police tyranny to get involved in this fight.

We call on the people not only to vote for pro-accountability candidates on February 28, but also to help mobilize voters whether or not they themselves are eligible to vote. We all have a part to play in determining who polices our communities and how our communities are policed. We have a world to win and nothing to lose but our chains.

Go to http://chicagoecps.com to find out who's running in your district.

Go to https://www.caarpr.org/volunteer to get involved in mobilizing people to vote.

#Chicago #PoliceBrutality #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganizationFRSO #CommunityControlOfThePolice

Chicago, IL – The November 8 midterm election is important around the country, as the seemingly formidable reactionary wave in electoral politics continues. In general, the task in most states is to defeat the most reactionary and backwards candidates.

In Illinois, we can make some gains, passing the Workers’ Rights Amendment. In Chicago, we have progressive candidates like Delia Ramirez for Congress, and Anthony Joel Quezada for 8th District Cook County Commissioner.

But the leading edge of the struggle to defend democratic rights is the movement for police accountability. In Chicago, election day is an opportunity for grassroots activists to get petitions for the municipal elections in February. There are over 100 people running for the newly created position of councilor in the 22 police districts. These district councils will be the front line for holding the Chicago Police Department accountable, to help determine who polices in Black and Latino communities, and how those communities are policed.

Each candidate needs a minimum number of signatures of voters registered in the police district where they live. Because 80% of the people running have never run for office before, many candidates for district council will be at the polling places in their community to ask for their signature to get them on the ballot.

These district councilors will nominate people to sit on a citywide Commission for Public Safety. The councilors have some powers; the commission has more, including the power to hire and fire the head of the body that investigates the thousands of complaints received every year against cops. It will also have the power to rewrite the police rule book, to eliminate foot chases, eliminate raids of homes where doors are kicked in, and end stop-and-frisk and other racist practices.

Frank Chapman, field organizer for the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, says about this election day, “Here is an unprecedented opportunity for us to strike a blow for democracy by doing all that we can do to get people on the ballot.”

Former Black Panther Lovie Bernard runs for District Council

In the 4th Police District on the far South Side of Chicago, Lovie Bernard is circulating petitions. Lovie was prompted to run by Alderman Greg Mitchell, one of the members of the Black Caucus of the City Council, which was key to the passage of the legislation Empowering Communities for Public Safety that brought about the district council elections. Alderman Mitchell suggested her to run because she has been an organizer in his election campaigns for many years.

The borders of the 4th District are 75th Street on the north; Lake Michigan on the east; and it includes Ford Motors’ Chicago Assembly, their oldest continuously operated Ford plant in the country.

As a teen, Lovie joined the Black Panther Party (BPP) in Chicago. She lived on the West Side at that time, just a few blocks from the Panther Party office. She attended meetings and rallies with Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois party. She remembers being in the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany on the Near West Side at Ashland and Adams where the Panthers would hold rallies, and remembers the Young Lords being there as well.

She remembers the night that the Chicago police killed Fred Hampton in a 4 a.m. raid. She went to his apartment that morning when Defense Minister Bobby Rush and the other Panthers opened it up so the community could see that Fred and Panther member Mark Clark had been assassinated. She also remembers attending the funeral.

Her family moved back to the South Side after Fred was killed.

If you search “Lovie Bernard Black Panther Party Chicago,” you’ll see a Getty Images photo of her. The caption reads: “At the opening of the Black Panther Party's Spurgeon Jake Winters Free People's Medical Center (at 3850 West 16th Street), the clinic's first patient, Lovie Bernard (left), is examined by nurse Florence Watson, Chicago, Illinois, January 4, 1970.”

The clinic was named for Panther Jake Winters, a Panther who was killed in a shootout with the Chicago police a few weeks before Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated.

Community control of the police

Black Panther Party chairman Bobby Seale coined the term community control of the police to describe the aim of the Panthers in their campaign to police the police. After the laws in California changed and didn’t allow armed patrols, the Panthers changed tactics. The party in Chicago developed a campaign in the 1970s to get community control of the Chicago Police Department through a petition drive to have it as a binding referendum.

When asked why she is running to hold the police accountable, Lovie Bernard shared an incident that came to mind. She was in the car with Alderman Mitchell, and a police car rolled up on her and the alderman. The cops started to give the alderman the business. Mitchell informed them, “I am the alderman of this ward.” The cops stopped harassing him, and apologized for their treatment of him, but Lovie said to them, “How you gonna harass the alderman?”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CommunityControlOfThePolice #EmpoweringCommunitiesForPublicSafetyECPS