Oshkosh, WI – Over a dozen community members rallied in downtown Oshkosh on Saturday afternoon, September 25, to demonstrate their support for a Civilian Police Accountability Council, or CPAC, in their city.

The rally took place at Isaiah Tucker Square, recently renamed by the community in memoriam of Isaiah Tucker, a father of three children, who was murdered by officers Aaron Achterburg and Kyle Roberts of the Oshkosh Police Department in 2017. Several grassroots community action groups united to organize the demonstration, including United Action Oshkosh, Food Not Bombs, and Hope Fridge.

Sophia Rose, an organizer with United Action Oshkosh said, “I helped to organize this event because I believe that it’s important that cities across the U.S., including Oshkosh, begin to look at solutions to the policing problem. CPAC is a great start to police accountability and community control.”

Rose continued, “We’ve gotten to a point where police are seen as above us when they are not, they work for us. We pay them, they are supposed to ‘protect and serve’ us.”

The event drew a positive response from the community and passersby who stopped to talk, learn, and enjoy hot food and refreshments from Food Not Bombs. The rally ended with a call to action, for people to support their local grassroots community organizations, join them and help them grow.

#OshkoshWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #UnitedActionOshkosh #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC

Oshkosh, WI – Over a dozen community members rallied in downtown Oshkosh on Saturday afternoon, September 25, to demonstrate their support for a Civilian Police Accountability Council, or CPAC, in their city.

The rally took place at Isaiah Tucker Square, recently renamed by the community in memoriam of Isaiah Tucker, a father of three children, who was murdered by officers Aaron Achterburg and Kyle Roberts of the Oshkosh Police Department in 2017. Several grassroots community action groups united to organize the demonstration, including United Action Oshkosh, Food Not Bombs, and Hope Fridge.

Sophia Rose, an organizer with United Action Oshkosh said, “I helped to organize this event because I believe that it’s important that cities across the U.S., including Oshkosh, begin to look at solutions to the policing problem. CPAC is a great start to police accountability and community control.”

Rose continued, “We’ve gotten to a point where police are seen as above us when they are not, they work for us. We pay them, they are supposed to ‘protect and serve’ us.”

The event drew a positive response from the community and passersby who stopped to talk, learn, and enjoy hot food and refreshments from Food Not Bombs. The rally ended with a call to action, for people to support their local grassroots community organizations, join them and help them grow.

#OshkoshWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #UnitedActionOshkosh #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC

Denver, CO – Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) rallied here April 29, as a part of their campaign to disarm and defund the Auraria Campus Police Department.

SDS has been working to disarm and defund ACPD since the summer of 2020. Since then, police funds on campus actually did go down by 6%, but when compared to a 9.7% general budget cut due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the police are actually receiving a larger percentage of the total budget – despite only one in three classes being held on campus.

SDS demonstrations on campus were cited by the police as one of the key reasons for the establishment of a Police Advisory Board at the end of 2020. SDS demands were to create a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC), but, instead, a toothless advisory board was created.

Kyle Burroughs, of SDS, quoted the ACPD Community Advisory Board’s mission statement in his speech, noting the claim the board has been founded “in an effort to increase dialogue.” Burroughs stated, “The main problem is that the mass demand surrounding police is not to increase dialogue, but, rather, to allow for punitive consequences for bad police, to prevent police violence, to put an end to racist policing and police injustice, and, ultimately, to have community control of the police.”

Further language in the Community Advisory Board’s mission statement indicates that the non-democratically elected appointees will “make recommendations,” “provide feedback,” “address topics,” and “generate new ideas or solutions for consideration” by the ACPD. The rally renewed the demands by SDS to establish a CPAC in place of the Advisory Board for the ultimate goals of disarming and defunding ACPD. Burroughs spoke on this, saying “The relationship between the police and campus community should be one where the campus community has complete control over the police, not one where the community has ‘open dialogue’ or ‘discussion’ or ‘suggestions for consideration.’”

Further concerns about the activities of the ACPD were addressed by Burroughs in his speech, who spoke of a Black SDS member experiencing the problems of police injustice firsthand after being banned from campus for voicing dissent against the police on his social media. The police went as far as obtaining a warrant to search the student’s home for weapons only to find nothing there. Even after winning his court case, the student is still banned from campus and has to attend weekly meetings with the dean which he has described as “belittling” and “dehumanizing,” and he says his experience is one of racial bias on the part of the university.

The ACPD enjoys a $4.2 million budget. It is unwilling to disclose what its expenditures are, even after students attempted to gain this information via the Colorado Open Records Act. It was deemed “contrary to public interests” to tell the public what weapons were held by the campus police. The police can apparently lie and withhold information from the community, but the community gets punished for speaking out against the police.

SDS has resolved to continue fighting for CPAC on campus and in the surrounding community. Disarming and defunding are the main demands of the campus community surrounding the police and establishing community control of the police would get the campus closer to those demands.

#DenverCO #InJusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC #DenverStudentsForADemocraticSociety #AurariaCampusPoliceDepartment

(Fight Back! News/staff)”)

Milwaukee, WI – On the evening of April 9, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a rally at Spaights Plaza at UW-Milwaukee to call for a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) in Milwaukee and renew their demands to defund campus police and refund programs that support students.

“SDS is here supporting CPAC because it is an all-elected civilian accountability council with the power to draft MPD’s budget, a council that can and will conduct independent investigations into police crimes, a council that has the power to hire, fire and discipline Milwaukee’s police,” SDS member Jack Rongstad said, addressing the people in attendance. “As members of the CPAC coalition coordinated by the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, we know that CPAC is the program we need to guarantee that the people have real control over the police.”

Rongstad continued by elaborating on the importance of CPAC to redirect public resources to community alternatives that address harm, instead of continuing to funnel them into an institution built to inflict it. For example, funding should be redirected to affordable housing, access to physical and mental health care, replacing police in schools with counselors, transformative justice models, youth programming, and investments into Milwaukee’s chronically underfunded public school system.

Another SDS member, Mike Nelson, said, “CPAC is good for students too because we don’t want to defund campus police only to have more Milwaukee police presence on our campus, who, without CPAC, have no true accountability to the people. We need CPAC now!”

SDS also used this rally to renew their demands to defund the UWM police department and redistribute their funds to programs that actually support students. Chancellor Mone has given flawed reasoning for why they should not and cannot defund the campus police, even though they have a $3 million budget (according to the UW Redbook). Meanwhile, services like mental health, multicultural student offices, and ethnic studies programs face budget cuts. If the $3 million budget of the UWM police department were redistributed, it would be enough to hire four new faculty across 15 departments. The solution is simple: defund UWM PD and redistribute its funds to programs that actually support students.

#MilwaukeeWI #StudentMovement #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #MilwaukeeSDS #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC

The Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR) has announced their campaign to rename Lindbergh Park, at the corner of North 16th and Nash, in order to honor long-time activist, Lucille Berrien, whose life and work better represents Milwaukee than that of a Nazi sympathizer.

Lindbergh Park was dedicated to Charles Lindbergh in September 1927 following his transatlantic flight from New York to Paris. Although Lindbergh’s piloting career cemented him as an international icon, his political involvement with the America First Committee (AFC) and repeated expressions of admiration for Hitler and his Nazi regime cannot be overlooked.

Lindbergh’s established connections to white supremacy and anti-Semitism have recently garnered more mainstream attention. There is no room for the commemoration of racist figures in our neighborhoods, especially in those near Lindbergh Park, which are predominantly Black.

While Lindbergh’s racist legacy remains crucial to MAARPR’s campaign, it is the connection between the origins of Lindbergh Park and the current movements to defund the police that are at its heart.

As the Milwaukee Sentinel reported on the day of Lindbergh Park’s inauguration, it was part of an initiative led by Mayor Daniel Hoan to protect neighborhoods and provide the youth with recreational possibilities in order to reduce “juvenile crime.” Hoan stated at the inauguration that, “parks are a saving, not an expense to the community. Four years ago, the city wanted to hire 150 additional policemen, but I vetoed the measure because we were opening many new parks, and we hired only fifty. Each policeman costs the city $2,000 a year, and we saved $200,000. We are putting that money into the establishment of more parks.”

In 1927, Hoan recognized that hiring more police was not the solution to successfully reduce crime. On the contrary, hiring more police would swallow up a significant portion of the city’s budget, resulting in less funding for fiscally responsible solutions like recreational opportunities and education. Nearly a century later, this remains true.

Today, Lindbergh Park is located in one of the most heavily policed neighborhoods in the city, which has some of the highest incarceration rates in the nation. Milwaukee has continually poured millions into the police budget, but such strategy has remained ineffective in reducing crime.

The lessons drawn from the history of Lindbergh Park teach us that Milwaukee was a pioneer in funding the people and not the police. We must carry these lessons as we address our present conditions. Prioritizing the needs of the people means a substantial reduction in the police budget.

MAARPR has found no better person to dedicate the park to than Lucille Berrien. Lucille lived across the park for many years, fostering over 120 children and acting as a mother for many more. She was a founding member of MAARPR, a member of the Black Panther Party, and the first Black woman to run for mayor in Milwaukee. Lucille has shown a relentless spirit in the struggles for justice in Milwaukee.

Much more could be said about Lucille, but even through the few aforementioned accomplishments, it is evident that her life and work truly represents Milwaukee. The time is now to rename the park, Lucille Berrien Park.

Make no mistake, MAARPR’s campaign to rename Lindbergh Park is not just about changing a name or disposing a white supremacist’s legacy. There is much more to come from MAARPR as we help lead the efforts to not just defund the police, but to establish community control of them.

Through an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC), the people of these communities have the final authority over who polices them and how they are policed. CPAC ensures that all matters related to law enforcement, including the budget, hiring and firing power over all officers, full authority on disciplinary measures against officers, and negotiation on police union contracts, are subject to the will of the people.

Milwaukee deserves better. The origins of Lindbergh Park and Lucille Berrien have shown us that Milwaukee has been and can once again be a pioneering city that places the needs of the people ahead of all else. This campaign to rename the park after Lucille is only the beginning.

For more information on MAARPR please write to us at: milwaukeealliance@gmail.com

#MilwaukeeWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC #MilwaukeeAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression

Milwaukee, WI – On January 9, nearly 100 people joined a car caravan starting at Kops Park put on by the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR) to say no to the COPS grant and yes to CPAC (Civilian Police Accountability Council).

The COPS grant would give the Milwaukee Police Department $9.7 million to dedicate 30 officers to Operation Legend, a program that unfairly targets Black and Latino communities. The Milwaukee Common Council voted no to the COPS grant in December only to have Alderperson Nikiya Dodd put it back up for reconsideration. That revote is scheduled for later this month.

The People’s Revolution, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Los Brown Berets Milwaukee and the Martin Luther King Coalition all came out to join the caravan.

The line of cars stretched out three blocks with protesters honking to show solidarity. The caravan first stopped at Alderperson Nikiya Dodd’s house to demand that she vote no to the COPS grant. The crowd chanted “No justice! No peace,” and “CPAC! Fight back!”

“Today is a new day. It's a new age and the people are watching now. Every major vote from now on will be looked at,” said Ulysses Thomspon, a member of MAARPR and a rank-and-file trade unionist with Teamsters Local 200. “If your records aren't to our liking, the people will vote you out of office or make you want to leave office because there will be no peace as long as there is no justice.”

The caravan continued toward Common Council President Cavalier Johnson’s house. A speaker from The People’s Revolution, Kamila Ahmed, stated, “Cavalier Johnson has misled many people. He misled us. He told us his constituents said they wanted him to vote yes. We’ve been all up through this neighborhood, I’ve not met one person that says they need more police on these streets.” The caravan remained on Alderperson Cavalier Johnson’s block to make some noise and make sure his neighbors knew that he’s not listening to the community’s demands.

The caravan circled back to Kops Park to hear veteran organizer and founding member of the original Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Brian Verdin, give a speech. Verdin stated the importance of showing up to stand for what’s right. Verdin also gave praise to the Alliance.

“On the heels of the anti-war movement, there was the struggle to free Angela Davis. After that was the founding of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression in 1972 and, when I heard that the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression was going to be refounded, I was so proud,” said Verdin. “We need unity more than ever,” he added, “and that is why I love the Alliance so much. It’s strong ideologically and it’s strong organizationally. And we need national organizations more than ever. Stick with the Alliance, stick with the movement because the movement will never let you down.”

#MilwaukeeWI #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC #MilwaukeeAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression

Minneapolis, MN – On November 14, over 150 people gathered in North Minneapolis to honor the five-year mark since Jamar Clark was killed by the Minneapolis Police department on November 15, 2015. It also marks the five-year anniversary of the heightened struggle locally against police terror and its progression to demand community control of the police to stop killer cops.

New and veteran members of Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar (TCC4J) lead the protesters from the neighborhood that Minnesota Attorney General Elision lives in, to the memorial site of Plymouth and James Avenues, where Clark was killed.

Precautions against COVID were taken, including shifting to a well-organized car caravan protest.

In addition to the call for justice for Jamar and TCC4J’s longtime demand of community control of police, the demands for the march include calls to: -- Reopen all the cases against killer cops -- Free all political prisoners, such as Myon Burrell and the protesters who were jailed during the summer uprising -- Ban the use of memory-altering drugs and reassess EMT training, specifically addressing the racial bias within it; hold EMTs accountable for their complicity with the police in administering drugs such as ketamine, and their delaying treatment of victims.

Speakers from the movement, families and TCC4J echoed the lessons learned in the struggle for justice for Jamar and to continue to build the movement. TCC4J encourages people to attend the new member meetings to build the fight for CPAC!

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #JamarClark #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC #TwinCitiesCoalition4JusticeForJamarTCC4J

Chicago, IL – During a series of questions around racial injustice and law enforcement, the issue of community control of police was raised during the September 29 presidential debate, the first of three scheduled between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. An issue that only had strong roots in a few cities six months ago is now a topic of national interest in the campaign for the highest office in the land.

“The power of our movement manifests itself in the biggest and boldest way in the wake of the George Floyd protests. In the demonstrations that we called, we had over 100,000 people mobilized across this country under the Alliance banner,” said Frank Chapman, Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression. “That is what got us into the debate: cause and effect.”

For those who missed it, moderator Chris Wallace asked this direct question, “I do want to talk about this issue of law and order though, and in the joint recommendation that came from the Biden-Bernie Sanders task force, you talked about quote ‘reimagining policing.’ What does re-imagining policing mean and do you support the Black Lives Matter call for community control of policing?”

Biden avoided the question, advocating instead for ‘community policing,’ and sidestepping the issue of putting communities in control of the law enforcement patrolling the streets.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC #CommunityControlOfThePolice

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following August 25 statement from 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 protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Sometime after 5 p.m. on August 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. They shot him while his 3, 5- and 8-years old children were screaming. Blake was taken to the hospital where he is still struggling for his life. This morning, his father announced that Jacob is paralyzed from the waist down.

Protesters gathered at the site of the shooting, agitated by the militarized aggressive actions of the Kenosha Police Department, began to express their anger. They chased cops away and some police cars were burned. This uprising was greeted by SWAT team trucks and rioting cops resisted by people with arms locked, standing firm and chanting “No justice, no peace!”

It’s the same old tired pattern of state-sanctioned racist violence where the police wantonly murder us in the streets and when our people in justified anger rebel they call out the militarized police, the National Guard and set the stage for mass arrests with curfew.

What should be our response? To put more people in the streets in organized protests. We don’t reject rebellion, we call on all the various strands of the peoples movement, every friend and ally we have in the struggle for justice to join with the protesters in Kenosha and throughout this country to take it to the streets. Here are our demands:

We demand that the National Guard deployed by Governor Tony Evers to brutalize protesters be recalled.

We demand the Kenosha cop who shot Jacob Blake be immediately arrested, charged and convicted.

We demand real police accountability through an all elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) establishing community control of the police, shifting police funding to essential public services like education and regulating police to address the real demands for safety of the people.

We must protest until all the demands of the movement are met, until we have our unalienable democratic demand to determine who polices our communities and how our communities are policed.

#KenoshaWisconsin #KenoshaWI #PoliceBrutality #civilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncilCPAC #NationalAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepressionNAARPR #KenoshaPoliceDepartment #JacobBlake