Minneapolis, MN – On February 16, Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Minnesota rallied and marched to demand justice for Amir Locke, a 22-year-old Black man murdered by the Minneapolis police in a relative’s apartment earlier this month.

80 people gathered outside the Student Union on Washington Avenue, chanting “What do we want? Justice!” and “Say his name! Amir Locke!” A banner reading “Justice for all stolen lives” was at the front, along with signs demanding justice for Amir Locke and community control over the Minneapolis Police Department. Signs announced SDS’s own referendum campaign for community control over the University of Minnesota Police Department. Members handed out fliers calling for police accountability and justice on and off campus.

Bella Harbison, speaking for SDS, said, “Police departments and political leaders across the country are not afraid of committing acts of violence against our Black and brown community members; they are afraid of being caught, and being held accountable for crimes against humanity.” Harbison declared to the powers standing in the way of accountability that “Amir Locke’s name will never be forgotten, and that we will always be ready to fight for him.”

Jae Yates from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization made clear that “it is no coincidence that police and slaveowners have so much shared history; both seek to keep oppressed nations and members of the working class in place.” Yates continuing in saying that in order to fight for real accountability, “you should join the fight for community control of police in Minneapolis both on and off campus. We cannot rely on the same people that benefit from policing to defund, demilitarize, or abolish the police. We have to fight for the self-determinative power that Black people have fought for for 400 years.”

Loretta Van Pelt, speaking for the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar raised the peoples’ demands: community control, a permanent end to no knock warrants and the charging and arresting of Amir Locke’s killer, Officer Mark Hanneman, and all other officers involved in the murder.

Allison Leopold, a member of White Coats for Black Lives, a student group from the UM medical school, made clear that when police are threatening the lives of Black community members it is a health issue, and that we have a duty to fight back against racist police crimes.

After chanting and listening to the speakers, students marched down Washington Avenue, ending up at the UMPD station. As they turned the corner, the chants of “Indict, convict send those killer cops to jail! The whole damn system is guilty as hell” were heard throughout the area.

Closing out the protest, Sasmit Rahman, another SDS member said, “We need you guys to sign [the referendum petition], we need more energy, because it is too easy right now for Joan Gabel and the regents to ignore us and to ignore our demands. We need people to share it with their friends, we need consistent action and consistent pressure on Joan Gabel and the regents!”

UMN SDS is currently running a campaign to get Community Control over the UMPD on the ballot in the all-campus elections of Spring 2022. This would be in the form of a democratically elected, all-civilian Civilian Police Accountability Council, that represents students, staff, faculty and the communities surrounding the campus – such as Cedar-Riverside where the UMPD are regularly present – so that they all have the power to decide UMPD’s budget, to hire and to fire, to discipline and carry out other accountability measures.

For students who want to join the fight, keep an eye out for SDS tabling and petitioning around campus. Sign and share the petition, and to keep up with the campaign follow SDS on instagram @umnsds. If you want to help organize around it, join the SDS weekly meetings, Thursday at 6 p.m. in Tate 105.

#Minnesota #StudentsForADemocraticSociety #AfricanAmerican #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil #AmirLocke

TCC4J statement on court hearing for George Floyd’s murderers

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar.

We are here today, outside this barricaded courthouse, because the four murderers who choked the life out of George Floyd are trying to escape justice, even after the world witnessed their crimes. Unfortunately, we have to be here protesting and bearing witness at these hearings, because the whole damn system IS guilty as hell, and we cannot expect justice unless we are pushing every step of the way.

The Twin Cities Coalition 4 Justice 4 Jamar would like to express our love and respect for George Floyd’s family. We salute the brave family members who have spoken out. We also send healing strength to those who are still deep in the shadows of grief. We love you. We support you. We got your back!

As for the proceedings today, we are not lawyers and can’t get into the lawyers’ heads — but we must ensure that these four killers are convicted and imprisoned for murder, by any means necessary!

Our opinions on some of the motions today:

-- All four defendants have filed motions to dismiss their charges. Some, in a sickening twist, are trying to blame Mr. Floyd for his own death. We, the city, the state, country and the WORLD will not stand for that. NO to dismissing the charges of these killer cops!

-- All four defendants have filed for change of venue – out of the county where they perpetrated these murderous acts and where some of them have inflicted brutality for years. They say they got “negative publicity” here in the Twin Cities. This is nothing but a racist dog-whistle that hopes a whiter, more conservative community will be more sympathetic to these murderous cops. But the whole world saw what they did to Mr. Floyd, and the whole world is outraged. We demand that these trials stay here, where they have to face the wrath of the communities they have terrorized!

—As for the upward sentencing guidelines called for by the prosecution – bring it on. Black, brown and indigenous people have endured systematic attempts to destroy our families and communities by the imposition of ridiculous sentences, forfeitures, high bails, and long stays in jail for small infractions. Actual murdering cops should be actually prosecuted.

-- The prosecution has a motion to try all these cases as one. The cops’ lawyers are against it. We are not legal experts, but we know what the world saw. All four conspired to choke the life out of George Floyd. Together, they crushed not just his neck, but his back, his legs. They pushed back and threatened people who were trying to save Mr. Floyd’s life. They should ALL go to prison – together or separately – whatever it takes.

There are a lot of things our communities need – beyond this courtroom – to get justice. TCC4J is fighting for CPAC – a CIVILIAN Police Accountability Council, to get community control of the police. If we had that, these killer cops would not even be on the force. New recruits would NOT be trained to kill, maim and brutalize as a first resort. Bystanders would have been empowered to step in and save Mr. Floyd’s life, without fear of being killed themselves.

TCC4J, along with the rest of the nation and the world, will be watching these court proceedings. George Floyd’s murderers and all other violent officers should not escape justice like the many other officers before them. Minneapolis must set a new precedent for our state and country where police are no longer above the law. Justice must be served in this case if we’re to have a future where we can exist in our neighborhoods without fear of police brutality. This is not a future we’re requesting; it’s a future we demand. We know that true justice will not be delivered by this “injustice” system. It can only be given to us via the power of the people and community control of the police.

Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail! The whole damn system is guilty as hell!

#MinneapolisSaintPaul #AfricanAmerican #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil #GeorgeFloyd #TwinCitiesCoalition4Justice4Jamar

Chicago, IL – This week, Charlotte, North Carolina, became the fourth city in the U.S. in the past two years to experience an uprising against the police murder of Black people. The rebellion in Charlotte is a response to the killing of Keith Scott, a father shot while waiting in his car for his son.

Chicago joined the list of cities holding solidarity actions. Called by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, a Sept. 22 speak out took place on Chicago’s West Side which drew 50 people.

The gathering had a dual role, as it was also a protest against Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as he presented his plan to address violence in Chicago. Emanuel began by making the event invitation only, refusing to allow activists or even community residents that weren’t vetted by the mayor’s office. With his by-invitation-only crowd, he said nothing about the crisis that caused the majority of the people of Chicago to agree he should resign: his role in the cover-up of the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Instead, he spoke only about the rise of gun violence in the neighborhoods where the unemployed, the poor and the oppressed nationality communities live. Emanuel’s only solution was to hire 1000 more cops.

Before that, he had pronounced that the Chicago police were “rebuilding critical relationships with the community, especially communities of color.” And then, “our police department is on a path to earn the respect of every community in the City of Chicago.” When this came over the life feed, the crowd outside erupted. Frank Chapman of the Alliance called out, “This mayor is a criminal. He should be on trial. He covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald for 400 days.”

The crowd took up the chant, “16 shots and a cover-up,” referring to the number of bullets fired into the body of the slender young man, Laquan McDonald, by the racist copy Jason Van Dyke.

LaCreshia Birts of the Alliance led the gathering in rejecting directly Emanuel’s claim that the police are respected in the nationally oppressed Black and Chicano/Mexicano communities. “No respect without accountability,” she shouted, and people took it up in agreement.

Most in the crowd held signs that read, “Enact CPAC now.” CPAC is the elected, Civilian Police Accountability Council that is uniting the movement here as a way to stop police crimes.

As the protest ended, everyone present pledged to be at the city council on Thursday morning, Sept. 29, the next time Emanuel has scheduled to present a packet of what several speakers called, “fake police accountability legislation.”

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil #CPAC #CharlotteRebellion #KeithLamontScott

Chicago, IL – When thousands of people gathered at Federal Plaza Saturday, August 29, LaCreshia Birts and Michael Sampson of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression started the rally with a chant: “When we say fight back, you say CPAC!”

CPAC stands for an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council. The masses of people that rallied in Federal Plaza had all arrived at the same conclusion. As Mike Elliott, Chair of the Labor Committee of the Alliance put it, “It’s time to end the cycle: the cops kill a young Black or Latino; we protest and demand a killer cop go to jail; the protests die down, until another young man or woman is killed, and then the cycle begins again.”

The answer put forward was to demand that the city enact community control of the police. The Alli-ance has created legislation to do just that, and named it CPAC.

The mobilization was also the largest protest in Chicago against police crimes since the death of Mike Brown and the uprising in Ferguson. The organizers in the Alliance worked all year to build the coali-tion, and organize the affected communities.

The coalition included families of the victims who were murdered and tortured by the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Speakers at the rallies before and after the march included Bertha Escamilla, whose son, Nick, was tortured into a false confession; Dorothy Holmes, whose son Ronnie Johnson was shot in the back in October 2014; Emmett Farmer, who had to watch a dash cam video of his son, Flint, being shot to death by a cop as he laid on the ground; Howard Morgan, a retired Chicago Police Officer, victim of attempted murder by active members of the CPD who shot him 28 times; and Martinez Sutton, whose sister, Rekia Boyd, was killed by officer Dante Servin.

For this past year, the Alliance has spent days petitioning and leafleting in the working class, Black and Latino communities of Chicago such as Woodlawn, South Shore, Austin, Humboldt Park and others, where the level of police crimes is rampant. Over 21,000 signatures have been gathered, all these at street corners.

United front: Powerful weapon in the struggle against national oppression

The protest was a majority oppressed nationality: Black, Chicano, Latino immigrant, Arab, South Asian, Filipino and others. It included contingents from the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), whose national director, Charlene Carruthers, invoked the memory of the most famous murder victim of the CPD, Fred Hampton of the Black Panther Party. The day after the march was Hampton’s birthday.

The Arab American Action Network marched behind a banner carried by community icon, Rasmea Odeh. Odeh is under attack by the U.S. government for her continued resistance to the occupation of Palestine. Raped and tortured by the Israeli occupation forces in 1969, she has been a citizen and a leader among Palestinians in Chicago for many years. The Black Liberation movement and the Palestinians have struggled together over the years in support of each other.

The Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicagoland also had an impressive contingent, which include Dr. Alia Ammar, executive director of PEACE, a grassroots organization whose mission is to fos-ter collaborative interfaith and intercultural social justice activism.

A new force that helped swell the size of the march were a number of unions and labor organizations. The largest was the Fight For $15. Adriana Sanchez, a McDonald’s worker, addressed the larger rally at Daley Plaza, demanding $15 an hour minimum wage and a union.

Also, wearing their signature red shirts, was a big crowd from the Black Caucus of the Chicago Teachers Union. Michael Brunson, chair of the Black Caucus of the Illinois Federation of Teachers and recording secretary of the Chicago Teachers Union, brought up to the stage one of the hunger strikers from Dyett Green Technology High School, the last public school in the historic Black community of Bronzeville. These parents and teachers there are fighting to stop the closing of their school.

SEIU Locals 73 and Health Care Illinois/Indiana, United Electrical workers, AFSCME Local 2858, Graduate Employees Organization, and UAW Local 551 all brought out members to support CPAC.

Alliance Field Organizer Frank Chapman said, “This is what united action for community control of the police looks like. We've initiated a new stage in the struggle with a clear political objective demanding systemic change. CPAC is about power to the people!”

Lift every voice

Angelique Fullwood, a young activist who traveled from Florida who had previously been an organizer with the Tallahassee Dream Defenders, explained her views of the struggle. “CPAC is a radical demand because it establishes real people power that can be used as a template for Black and Latino communities across the country to address police terror.” She added, “I believe the people of Chicago are at the perfect place in history right now to set the tone for the rest of the Black Liberation Movement.”

Numerous spoken word artists came up to perform, speaking out against Black national oppression and police crimes. At the closing rally, the crowd joined in singing the Black national anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing. The song was led by Pastor Rosalind Morgan, Church of the Living God and wife of Howard Morgani; and by actress and activist Mzuri Moyo Aimbaye, creator of the one-woman play, The Fannie Lou Hamer Story.

Sing a song, full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing a song, full of the hope that the struggle has brought us. Facing the rising sun of a new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won.

#ChicagoIL #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #FrankChapman #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil #CPAC

The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) is calling for a march on August 29 to demand civilian control of the police. They have written legislation to create a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC), elected by the voters. Fight Back! interviewed Frank Chapman, Field Organizer of the Alliance, about the fight against police crimes, the march in August and CPAC. Fight Back!: Why is the Alliance campaigning for this legislation? Doesn’t Chicago already have a civilian review board?

Frank Chapman: Our campaign for an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Council was agitated into existence by the present epidemic of police crimes here in Chicago and the nation. In the last four years Chicago police have shot over 90 people and 75% of them were Black. There has been only one police charged in 20 years and none disciplined or suspended without pay. So we have police crimes that get reviewed by the Independent Police Review Authority – IPRA – and the police are rarely charged and never punished.

CPAC would replace IPRA, which is appointed by the mayor, and, as an elected body it would be empowered to hold the police accountable for the crimes they commit. Members of CPAC will be elected from each police district. This is the democratic solution to the problem of police crimes and torture.

Fight Back!: Is the Black Lives Matter movement in Chicago behind CPAC? What about the unions? The families of the victims of police crimes?

Chapman: Yes! Black Lives Matter is definitely a supporter of our campaign for CPAC. We have a broad base of support coming from the Black Caucus of Chicago’s AFT [American Federation of Teachers], United Electrical workers Western Region, SEIU Local 73, Fight (4) 15, Black Youth Project 100, Church of the Living God, Howard Morgan and other victims and their families as well as the NAACP Southside and community-based organizations like Reclaim Our Community on the Westside. We have a long list of endorsers from all the various strands of the people’s movement.

Fight Back!: There is a national movement that has emerged in response to the uprisings in Ferguson and now Baltimore. Why is it so hard for this movement to win justice for the families of the murdered Blacks and Latinos?

Chapman: The youth-led movements which have emerged nationally are momentous and yet they face perhaps the most corrupt, racist and insidious police force on earth at this moment of history. The task of politically winning the struggle for community control of the police is enormous but doable because it is a broad democratic demand capable of rallying millions of workers and oppressed people of color to the cause. To get justice, we must wage a relentless struggle for a democratically elected Civilian Police Accountability Council. There is no royal, velvet-covered road to victory. There is only the dirt and blood of battle that arises out each outrage of police brutality and this will continue to agitate into existence more massive movements against police tyranny. In this protracted struggle we must remember the words of our martyred comrade, Amicar Cabral: “Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories.”

Fight Back!: What are the origins of the idea for an elected, civilian police accountability council?

Chapman: The idea of community control of the police in the 20th century originated with the Black Panther Party in Berkeley, California in 1971. This movement was successful in getting an initiative on the ballot but they lost the election. In the wake of the murders of Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression made stopping police crimes a national priority at its founding convention, held in Chicago, in 1973. So we have been in this struggle for over 40 years and what we have learned from our history is that it is going to take a massive, grassroots-organized movement to win.

Fight Back!: What do you say to people who say that the elected civilian police accountability council can also be co-opted?

Chapman: So what! Are you afraid to fight because you might lose? In that case there would be no struggle. If we insist that struggle must proceed in a straight, uncompromising line then we are doomed before we start. All we can guarantee is that we will keep losing if we don’t fight. We may not get all we fight for but we must fight for all we get. At any rate I believe in the people and not the democratic superstitions of the 1%. Every democratic struggle we win becomes the basis for fighting for another one. Freedom is a constant struggle.

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #FrankChapman #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil

Chicago, IL – 200 community activists met here June 13, to learn how civilian control of the police can curb police crimes in oppressed nationality communities. The event was organized by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which has been organizing to win an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

The public forum featured talks by activists with the Alliance, including Larry Redmond, Legal Counsel for the Alliance; Jeff Baker, a recent aldermanic candidate; Alma Montes of First Defense Legal Aid; Frank Chapman, Field Organizer; and Mike Elliot, chair of the Labor Committee. These speakers were joined by Howard Morgan, who was targeted for murder by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and Martinez Sutton, brother of Rekia Boyd, who was murdered by CPD officer Dante Servin. Together they examined specific cases of police crimes to show how the cases would have been handled differently had CPAC been on the books, and how the cops could have been brought to justice.

One of the conference organizers, LaCreshia Birts, a co-chair for organizing with the Black Youth Project 100, said, “The turnout was good, and the forum was a success. Now we’ll have more activists who can join us in the work to organize a mass march on Aug. 29 to win CPAC.”

#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil

Within three days, however, Slager and the police's story unraveled before the eyes of the world. Cell phone video taken on the scene by an eyewitness clearly shows Slager firing shots into Scott's back as he runs away. Scott never reaches for Slager's taser, as the police said. When Scott is shot down, Slager seizes the opportunity to handcuff the dying man, call in his bogus story to his superior officers, and plants a taser on Scott's body as false evidence.

The video, taken by 23-year-old Dominican immigrant Feidin Santana, fueled protests against this latest police murder of an unarmed Black man. Having been caught in a lie, the North Charleston police arrested Slager on April 7 and charged him with murder.

The murder of Walter Scott is the most recent case of racist police violence to draw national attention and protests. In August 2014, the murder of 18-year-old African American Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked a protest movement against racism and police brutality across the country. Similar cases, like the murder of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, emerged since that time.

Thousands of activists, particularly young people, took to the streets to demand justice around the slogan “Black Lives Matter.” In many cities, activists have linked these nationwide high-profile cases with local police crimes, like the Dream Defenders' campaign in Miami, Florida, to win justice for a mentally disabled Black man who was killed by police earlier this year.

In all of these high-profile cases of police killing unarmed African Americans, the officers involved were not charged. This includes the murder of New York man Eric Garner, who was choked to death by police while being filmed on a cell phone camera. Garner's last words, “I can't breathe,” became a rallying cry for the thousands of activists who took to the streets demanding justice. Despite clear video footage of the murder, a New York grand jury refused to indict the officer responsible for killing Garner.

Now, the murder of Walter Scott by South Carolina police has ignited further debate around the usefulness of body cameras on police. The non-indictment of the police officer who choked and killed Garner highlighted a major flaw with this demand, since the entire murder took place on camera. The racist criminal injustice system, which prosecutes African Americans and Chicano/Latinos more than whites for similar offenses, allows police plenty of legal loopholes to inflict brutality on oppressed nationalities. Furthermore, the grand jury system gives state prosecutors – many of whom are bought off during elections by the police – a tremendous amount of power to frame these cases in a way that usually benefits the police.

In Scott's case, the release of the video footage led to the prompt arrest of officer Slager. Although activists should welcome this positive development, an arrest alone is still a far cry from justice. Many of the same freedom fighters of the Black Lives Matter movement were active in the movement for justice for Trayvon Martin in 2012. While mass protests led to the arrest of George Zimmerman, the racist vigilante who killed Martin, the criminal injustice system found him not guilty on all charges, including second-degree murder.

The video footage of Scott's murder is significant, but the travesty of justice in Eric Garner case reminds us to not overstate the significance of video evidence alone. The key to winning justice for Walter Scott and all victims of racist police crimes is to continue organizing and building a mass movement against the system of national oppression in the U.S.

In places like Chicago, major groups in the Black Lives Matter movement have united around the demand for “community control of the police.” To better exercise this control, Chicago activists are organizing neighborhoods and communities to establish an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). The proposed CPAC in Chicago would have the power to appoint and dismiss the Superintendent of Police and issue subpoenas in investigations of brutality cases.

The growing popular outrage at racist police crimes and the criminal injustice system continues to fuel the Black Lives Matter movement. Activists and organizers have a real chance to strike a blow at the heart of this system by continuing to build the mass movement against racism and national oppression.

#JacksonvilleFL #OppressedNationalities #PoliceBrutality #NationalOppression #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #Antiracism #BlackLivesMatter #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil #WalterScott #michaelSlager

The Joint Bargaining Committee (JBC) of Local 73 at UIC represents 3500 workers throughout the university. The JBC is made up of the members of the four bargaining committees for Local 73 at UIC: Service and Maintenance, Clerical and Administrative, Technical, and the Professional unit.

The JBC voted last week to endorse legislation drafted by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. This legislation would replace the current Police Board and Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA).

The resolution adopted by the JBC states, “Our union fights to protect us on the job, but as we all know, there are dangers to our members that are present in the communities where we live as well. Recently, the whole country has been made aware that for African American and Latino communities, there is a crisis of police crimes that go unpunished.”

“SEIU Local 73 Joint Bargaining Committee at UIC hereby endorses the call for an elected, Civilian Police Accountability Council.”

Andre Reed, co-chair of the JBC, said, “Our next step will be to take this proposal to the Local 73 General Membership meeting in April.” Local 73 is an amalgamated union with contracts representing 28,000 workers in state, county and municipal employment.

#ChicagoIL #SEIULocal73 #CivilianPoliceAccountabilityCouncil