New York, NY – Tuesday evening, June 9, roughly 1000 New Yorkers gathered at City Hall for a rally and march organized by Justice Committee and the families of many of those killed by the NYPD. The rally featured a mix of speakers and cultural performances.

The families involved centered the action around these main demands: Defund the NYPD; fire all officers who have killed our loved ones; repeal Bill 50a; and pass the PoliceStat Act and the Bailey-Perry special prosecutor bill.

The families have since won all of the legislative demands – the New York state senate passed the bills over the past three days. The passage of the PoliceStat Act and repeal of 50a both provide more transparency and data on police killings. 50a had previously blocked access to many NYPD disciplinary records. The Bailey-Perry bill will now require a special prosecutor for all cases dealing with police killings regardless of whether or not the victim was armed.

These victories were not simply handed over to the people by New York’s elected officials. They are the direct result of an intense week of protests in the streets, and years of organizing work before that. While these are small reforms, they represent the power of the people when we organize and rise up.

#NewYorkNY #PoliceBrutality #PeoplesStruggles #NYPD #Bill50A

This rally, in particular, was called to bring attention to the injustices of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) housing and to demand the firing of Officer Garcia. On May 2, footage was released that showed an incident of police brutality. Two individuals were targeted by the cops, namely Officer Garcia, because they weren’t social distancing. However, the footage shows them 6 feet apart and following state guidelines.

The speakers of the protest echoed the sentiments that we’ve been seeing for the last few days since the murder of George Floyd. The speakers also highlighted the horrific housing situations affecting New Yorkers, and how they largely affect Black and brown people.

One of the speakers said mentioned, “There are 400,000 NYCHA residents. About 2% of the residents caught COVID-19, which equals to about 8000 people. Of those 8000, 1241 died, which equals approximately to 19%, which is double the 8% death rate of the rest of New York.”

The crowd was loud and angry as they heard these statistics. They began chanting “Black lives matter” and “Hell no, we won’t go.” Off to the side was a sorry group of officers holding zip-ties at the ready.

The march began with the chant “NYPD suck my dick!” Bystanders, cars, bus drivers and shopkeepers cheered the march. The protesters made a right on Delancey and headed towards the Manhattan bridge, where countless NYPD cruisers began following them.

As the protesters crossed the Manhattan bridge, you could overhear some of them wonder of the oncoming curfew and then chants rang out “Fuck your curfew!”

The sentiment was echoed as earlier that day Governor Cuomo called for an 11 p.m. curfew that aims to curtail protesters for expressing their anger. This comes two days after Governor Cuomo said he’s on the side of the protesters.

As the curfew fast approached, protesters continued to gather, regardless of the violence promised by the NYPD.

There are countless of protests planned for the next few days and the NYPD, Mayor De Blasio, and Governor Cuomo should understand that a curfew will not deter the people.

#NewYorkCity #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #NYPD #Antiracism #COVID19 #NewYorkCityHousingAuthorityNYCHA

New York, NY – For working New Yorkers, taking the subway is an essential part of their day-to-day life. Having a car in New York is incredibly difficult and expensive, which means unless you are rich enough to take a cab to work every day, the subway is basically the only viable option. So for the many New Yorkers with working-class jobs that do not allow them to show up late without risk of getting fired, it is very important that the subway runs smoothly and remains affordable.

However, the reality is that New York’s Metro Transit Authority (MTA) struggles to maintain a dilapidated subway system that faces constant delays. Only about 25% of stations are fully accessible, and the MTA estimates it will be $426 billion in debt by 2023. How does the MTA propose to solve these problems? Their ‘solution’ is to ruthlessly police the poor and the homeless in a new crackdown on fare evasion, and to further exploit transit workers, putting more money into the pockets of MTA officials and higher ups.

The MTA announced in late 2019 that they will hire 500 new cops to patrol the subway stations and stop people from evading the subway fare. This comes as part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s push for so-called ‘quality of life policing.’ In other words, Cuomo and the MTA want to police the poor and the homeless out of the subways, which will in their minds improve the ‘quality of life’ for those who can afford the subway fare.

Since the MTA announcement of crackdown, New Yorkers have released videos of officers using excessive force against people for evading the fare, or even just for selling churros in the subway station. The MTA claims the new policing effort against fare evasion will save them $200 million over the next four years. This is a ridiculous claim on multiple fronts. For one thing, people aren’t all of a sudden going to roll over and pay if they literally cannot afford the subway fare. Secondly, the expansion of police forces will cost $249 million over the next four years – much more than the MTA plans to save.

All of this shows how out of touch with reality the MTA leadership and Governor Cuomo are. Rather than pushing for, say, increased taxes on the rich to help fund the transit system, their logic says, let’s squeeze more money out of poor and working people, despite the fact that New York is one of the richest cities in the world. Clearly, Cuomo and the MTA do not value the lives of the poor, and are only motivated by ways to save and make more money.

The MTA is also attempting to save money off the backs of working people through the exploitation of transit workers. In May 2019, when the transit workers’ contract was up for renewal, the MTA made an insulting first offer that would have resulted in major concessions on the part of transit workers. The MTA’s stubbornness in pushing their agenda forced the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 to go through six months of contract negotiations to fight for workers’ rights. While the TWU Local 100 was able to secure wage increases and other wins for workers in the new contract that got approved in January 2020, the MTA forced through increases in workers’ healthcare costs, adding higher charges for emergency room visits and brand-name prescription drugs.

The MTA is also now pushing for workers to act as a kind of secondary police force in helping to stop fare evasion – something that is not in transit workers’ job training, and that puts them at risk of potentially dangerous and violent situations. The MTA boasts that it will save millions of dollars as a result of their new contract and budget plan. If the employer is saving so much money, this means that they plan to find whatever ways they can to further undermine the rights and wellbeing of transit workers.

Most resistance to the MTA’s new attacks on poor and working people has come in the form of demonstrations against the crackdown on fare evasion and the hiring of 500 new cops. Forces on the ground have mobilized around these issues, and two well-attended actions were held in late 2019, with a third held at the end of January.

In spite of this mass pushback and disapproval, Governor Cuomo and the MTA have chosen to spend the city’s money on hiring more cops rather than actually paying transit workers living wages and fixing the broken down subway system. This decision is an attack on poor and working people on many levels. First, the cops are literally attacking poor people who cannot afford the subway fare by brutally harassing them with excessive force. Second, the neglect to actually fix the broken down subway system is an attack on poor and working people who need to get to work on time to avoid facing unemployment, which could of course, for some, lead to homelessness. Third, the MTA’s incompetence is also an attack on transit workers.

When transit workers are forced to fix urgent problems with the subways that happen on a daily basis, their lives and health are put directly in danger as they work in the subway tunnels while subway service continues to operate. So by not setting aside greater resources to actually pay transit workers a living wage, give them sufficient healthcare benefits, and fix problems more proactively, the MTA is directly attacking the health and wellbeing of transit workers, which of course, in turn, results in a less functional subway system that continues to put poor and working people at risk of losing their jobs.

Bearing all of this in mind, when Cuomo and the MTA decide not to invest the resources (resources which they clearly have if they can afford to hire so many cops) in fixing a broken subway system, they are not just causing an inconvenience for people – they are actually putting poor and working people’s lives directly in danger.

The situation with New York’s subway system is yet another example of how capitalism time and again fails working people. The problem is, Cuomo and the MTA only see the subway system through the eyes of the bosses and the rich. If New York’s leaders and those in charge of the MTA acted from a working-class perspective, they would understand why the transit system is broken; they would understand that the system will remain broken until it actually pays transit workers living wages, and puts resources into ensuring that poor and working people can get to their jobs on time, rather than attacking them over a $2.75 subway fare. But such sensible thinking will never come out of a capitalist system because capitalism is all about more profit for the employers, no matter how much that means exploiting workers and neglecting the needs of the working class and poor.

Only under socialism can we imagine a system where transit workers get a living wage along with the healthcare and other benefits they need; where the transit authorities prioritize fixing broken subway equipment and infrastructure because they actually value the lives of working people who rely on the subway to get to work; and where there is no need for cops in the subway stations because there is no need for a constantly increasing subway fare in the first place. Only under socialism can we have a transit system that truly works for all and reflects the needs of poor and working people.

#NYCNY #CapitalismAndEconomy #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #NewYork #NYPD #Antiracism #MTA #Subway #FTP

New York, NY – The Committee to Stop FBI Repression-NYC held its first general meeting, Sept. 10, at Project Reach, addressing political repression in New York after 9/11, leading up to the creation of the Strategic Response Group (SRG) within the New York Police Department.

The purpose of the meeting was to educate attendees on political repression, and specifically the SRG’s role in promoting it. The various topics discussed included the history of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression’s (CSFR) work on cases such as the Anti-war 23, Carlos Montes, and Rasmea Odeh; the political atmosphere after 9/11; the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (which funds the SRG); the Bureau of Special Services (a defunct unit within the NYPD that infiltrated anti-war, Black liberation, and communist organizations in the 1960s and 70s, setting a precedent for NYPD repression of activists), and the SRG’s practices of targeting, using surveillance against, and arresting people at protests.

The meeting ended with a list of demands and CSFR’s campaign statement against the Strategic Response Group, as seen below. CSFR will be having its next meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 18 at 6:30 p.m. to continue strategizing on how to disband the SRG. Visit their Facebook page (facebook.com/csfrny) for more information.

If you are part of an organization that would like to sign on as an endorser of the campaign, please read the statement and follow the instructions below.

Disband the Strategic Response Group

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression NYC and the endorsing organizations call on the New York Police Department (NYPD) to stop deploying the Strategic Response Group (SRG) to protests.

The SRG started developing in 2014 when Police Commissioner William Bratton determined that New York City needed a “special force” of rapid response police officers, and was formally introduced in 2015. By the end of 2015, the amount of officers within the SRG expanded to 800.

The criteria for when the SRG can be deployed include cases of civil unrest, disorderly conduct, and large-scale terrorist attacks. In practice, SRG officers have targeted and arrested activists peacefully exercising their right to protest. They come equipped with military-grade weapons and surveillance tools to intimidate and threaten protesters. The SRG will also target known leaders of movements for arrest, especially people of color.

The SRG’s purpose locally is connected to a larger system that represses activists and human rights. Along with receiving funding from the city, the SRG also receives funds from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS was founded in response to the 9/11 attacks, repressing people’s rights in the name of counter-terrorism. Both treat those who speak out against war and human rights abuses as terrorists. It is the same system that invades sovereign nations and bombs countries abroad that wants to silence those who speak out against injustices in the U.S.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression NYC and the endorsing organizations demand the following:

-- Disband the SRG.

-- Stop targeting known activists and organizers.

-- Stop using surveillance technology and military grade weapons, such as long range rifles, machine guns, and Sting Rays on protestors.

Organizing is not terrorism and activism is not a crime. To get involved with the Committee to Stop FBI Repression’s campaign to Disband the SRG, contact us at facebook.com/csfrny or csfrny@gmail.com. If you witness the SRG targeting and harassing people at events, record video and photos and send them to us. If your organization would like to endorse this campaign, sign on and share this statement.

#NewYork #PoliceBrutality #politicalRepression #NYPD #CommitteeToStopFBIRepressionNYC #StrategicResponseGroupSRG

Los Angeles, CA – Facing intense pressure from the community, the Police Commission and Chief Beck fled a June 21 ‘community’ meeting.’ They could not take the heat and left out the back doors.

Chief of LAPD Charlie Beck, Police Commission members Kathleen Kim, Robert Saltzman, Sandra Figueroa-Villa, Steve Soboroff and Matt Johnson, along with over 25 police officers, gathered at Hollenbeck Middle School. The neighborhood of Boyle Heights, home to Hollenbeck Middle School, was the site for the first community meeting of the LAPD Police Commission to hear from the residents.

Black Lives Matter, the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, and Centro CSO met the LAPD meeting with much resistance. Bringing three families of LAPD police killings and shootings, and one victim family of LA Sheriff killings, Centro CSO was able to directly confront Chief Beck and the other LAPD officers present.

The family of a 16-year- old Chicano, Jose “Peruzzi” Mendez, killed Feb. 6 by LAPD; the family of Arturo Y Torrez killed by LAPD April 10; the family of Edwin Rodriguez killed by ELA Sheriffs Feb. 14, and Maria Banda, whose son was shot by LAPD in Boyle Heights and left for dead, only to be currently imprisoned, were all present and spoke out.

In Spanish, Juan Mendez, Peruzzi Mendez’s father, shouted into the mic, “I ask you now, who will bring me back my son? Which of you will bring my family the justice we deserve? Shooting my son in the back until he died, where is his justice? He was only 16 years old!”

“I should not be expected to believe the men who killed my son, Arturo Y Torrez,” shouted Blanca Duran.

At one point an LAPD officer pulled out a hand-held camcorder to record the public to which Mendez’s mother shouted, “Yeah go ahead and record us now, but refuse to record yourselves killing my son!”

Estela Rodriguez took to the mic to express her anger and fervor for justice, “While the LA Sheriffs were the ones responsible for killing my son I ask all of you today, when will we be able to close this file? I want justice! We will not stop until we obtain justice for Edwin Rodriguez!”

Three of the four families were Spanish-speaking only. LAPD speakers exceeded the two-minute comment limit, but whenever a Spanish-speaker would take the mic along with a translator, the buzzer would go off and the cops would insist on the speakers leaving the mic. The public immediately protested, shouting “Four minutes now!” until finally Spanish-speakers were given four minutes, a fairer amount of time to comment.

“One day I will have children while living Boyle Heights,” shouted Sol Marquez of Centro CSO. “I promise you now, Chief Beck and all you LAPD officers present that I will teach my children not to fear you; they will be taught to fight back. We are Boyle Heights, we are Chicanos, and we are fighting back against your crimes against us.”

Black Lives Matter rose in solidarity with the families and held a moment of silence to commemorate the lives taken by LAPD in Boyle Heights, and the greater Los Angeles area. At one point, they projected a video captured earlier that same morning of LAPD using excessive force against a senior citizen Black man who had exceeded his two minutes of public comments.

Longtime Chicano rights activist and member of Centro CSO Carlos Montes shouted, “We unite with Black Lives Matter’s demand to fire Chief Beck. We bring you these families to show you that Boyle Heights will not remain silent at the face of injustice. Justice for Jose Mendez, Justice for Edwin Rodriguez, justice for Arturo Y Torrez, and justice for all victims of police crimes.”

After the meeting, Marquez stated, “Killings of Chicanos is only one form of national oppression against us. Many of us will never be able to afford the luxuries of traveling outside of our neighborhoods, and much less to lobby politicians. We locally can organize ourselves and fight for our own justice, our own liberation, our own equality.”

Centro CSO is gearing up for more local actions and invites you to participate in monthly, meetings the third Wednesday of every month – 6:00 p.m. at Benjamin Franklin Library, 2200 E 1st Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033. One may contact them directly at centrocso@gmail.com, http://facebook.com/CentroCSO, http://twitter.com/CentroCSO, http://centrocso.wordpress.com

#LosAngelesCA #ImmigrantRights #PoliceBrutality #PeoplesStruggles #NYPD #Antifascism #California #LA #CSO

Repeated protests against this latest police killing of an unarmed African American 16-year-old gained international attention. Each day saw more people join the protests and they grew more militant. Police repression was met with growing resistance. People in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, like African Americans across the country, are fed up with police repression and violence. The militant response shows people are not going to take it anymore. The racist killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida lit a flame and now the response to the police murder of Kimani Gray shows the fire of justice is spreading.

In response to protests, the New York Police Department (NYPD) declared a portion of East Flatbush in Brooklyn a ‘Frozen Zone.’ This means media are not allowed in and people can be subjected to arrest for not following police orders. It is mini-martial law. The last times the NYPD declared a Frozen Zone was on the 10th anniversary of 911 and during the beginning of Occupy Wall Street. Fight Back! stands in solidarity with the protesters against this repression, especially those arrested. The NYPD needs to back off.

The murder of Kimani Gray at the hands of the NYPD is part of the criminalization of African-American, Chicano and other oppressed people in the U.S. Gray was only 16 years old with a whole future ahead of him. However, because he was African American, he was deemed a potential threat by the NYPD. Gray was eliminated because of who he was, not anything he did.

In this country, police repression of African Americans is all too common. The history of oppression of African-Americans, from slavery to Jim Crow segregation, have created an African American nation in and around the Black Belt territory of the South. This history of national oppression enforced by terror at the hands of slavemasters and the Ku Klux Klan leaves a legacy of racist vigilante and police violence against African Americans, even in places with African American mayors and police chiefs.

The tiny elite that rules the U.S. fears the power of African Americans and other oppressed peoples. They fear the threat to their continued rule. The goal of the billionaires and multi-millionaires, those who control the politicians and government, is to keep African Americans ‘in their place,’ unable to progress economically or socially as a people. They attempt to keep young men fearful of stepping out of line. They try to promote negativity, self-hatred and weakness. It shifts the focus off of a corrupt and violent system.

In New York, for example, the NYPD ‘stop and frisk’ policy terrorizes African-Americans and Latinos. Stop and frisk creates the conditions and the mindset for police to shoot unarmed youth like Kimani Gray, to shoot first and deny afterward. Then the NYPD works overtime covering for the killer cops involved. Politicians hem and haw, or even worse, justify, the killing of a child. The corporate press demonizes the victim and publishes police records produced by stop and frisk policies.

Besides police killings, the other twin tower is the school to prison pipeline that locks up African American, Chicano and other oppressed youth in much greater numbers than whites. This conscious targeting is a major form of national oppression today and promoted or condoned by politicians of both political parties. The prison industry is big business and, due to both privatization and the exploitation of prison labor, profits are growing. The justice system is rampantly racist in terms of who the police target, the composition of juries, the background and prejudices of judges and prosecutors, resources of public defenders, the categorization and severity of sentencing laws and the administration of prisons. The system is corrupt from bottom to top and needs to be abolished.

We praise Carol Gray for speaking out and the witnesses who bravely came forward to tell the truth. Due to strong families and communities who protest, we know the names of young African-American men and women like Kimani Gray, Reika Boyd, Trayvon Martin, and Sean Bell – killed by police and vigilantes. But there are countless others. Only through building a strong movement can we win freedom in our lifetime.

It is time for people in this country to rise up and stop the murder of African American young men by killer police. We need to combat racism in all forms that continue to oppress our communities and murder our children.

Stand up! Fight back!

Justice for Kimani Gray!

#NewYorkNY #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #NYPD #KimaniGray

The Communist Party of the Philippines further said that “the agreement with the U.S. NYPD, one of the most notorious fascist police organizations in the world, can only lead to worse human rights abuses by police operatives under the Aquino regime.”

The memorandum of agreement was signed by PNP Chief Nicanor Bartolome and the head of the NYPD's Singapore satellite office, Lieutenant Gustavo Gutierrez. It purportedly serves to advance “cooperation in addressing transnational crimes” and “capacity building and training” between the PNP and the NYPD. According to information earlier released by the PNP, the NYPD will open a satellite office inside the Philippine National Police’s general headquarters in Camp Crame.

“The PNP-NYPD memorandum of agreement will only serve as an additional legal cover for the U.S. government's heightening intervention in the Philippines. It will lead to more extensive and intrusive intelligence and other types of operations by U.S. police and military agents in the country,” said the Communist Party of the Philippines.

“Even before the memorandum of agreement, U.S. police and federal agents have already been operating in the Philippines clandestinely with the cooperation of the local police.” The CPP pointed out that political prisoners detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame were able to uncover the presence of agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) maintaining their own offices within the camp and in a condominium unit nearby.

Several Indonesian nationals accused of being ‘terrorists’ and arrested by U.S. agents in Indonesia and Malaysia have been renditioned by the U.S. government and given false Filipino identities at the behest of the FBI to justify their detention at Camp Crame. This is in violation of Philippine national sovereignty and the Indonesian detainees' human rights, added the CPP.

“The NYPD is notorious for being a fascist tool of suppression against the American people,” said the CPP. “Recently, the NYPD was employed in the suppression of protest actions at Zucotti Park near Wall Street by American workers, students and ordinary people against the pro-big monopoly policies of the American government,” said the CPP.

“Following the pattern of its new partner, the PNP is bound to become even more brutal in dealing with protests, urban poor anti-demolition barricades and other mass actions,” said the CPP.

#Philippines #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #NYPD #Asia

By CPP Information Bureau

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today condemned the Aquino regime and the Philippine National Police for allowing the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other intelligence agencies of the United States government to operate in the Philippines and use the PNP's Camp Crame as a base for its intelligence operations and facility for the rendition of several foreign nationals.

In a letter last April to the Commission on Human Rights, the Department of Justice, the Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights and other legal and human rights organizations, political prisoner Alan Jazmines and his co-detainees revealed that agents of the FBI and other intelligence agencies of the US have been allowed to interrogate political prisoners detained at the PNP Custodial Center at Camp Crame.

The FBI maintains an office inside the detention center itself and a unit in a nearby condominium.

Jazmines is a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH). In violation of immunity agreements between the NDFP and the GPH, he was arrested on February 2011 on trumped-up charges and has been detained since with several other NDFP peace consultants at Camp Crame. They are among scores of political prisoners and several hundred others detained in various jails and military camps nationwide.

In their letter, Jazmines et al narrated the conditions of political prisoners at Camp Crame and exposed that at least three Indonesian nationals who were arrested in Malaysia and Indonesia have been renditioned and detained at the prison facility at the behest of the US government. They have been given false Filipino identities to “legalize” their incarceration. The US government has similarly arrested and imprisoned foreign nationals at the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison facility of the US military in Cuba.

“The intelligence operations of the FBI within the sovereign territory of the Philippines are being undertaken underhandedly and without the Filipino people's full knowledge,” said the CPP. “The absence of a formal treaty allowing such operations makes such spy operations and renditions illegal even from the point of view of the laws of the reactionary Philippine government.”

“In allowing the FBI and other US intelligence and law enforcement agencies to operate clandestinely inside the Philippines, the Aquino regime in effect, allows the US to make full use of the Philippines to pursue its ultra-national interests and make the country a target of states and other entities being attacked by the US in pursuit of its hegemonism in the Asia-Pacific region,” said the CPP.

“The ongoing operations of the FBI in the Philippines dovetails with the planned setup of a satellite office of the New York Police Department (NYPD) within the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police,” added the CPP.

“All these form part of the heightening interventionism of the US government, its military, police and intelligence agencies inside the Philippines,” said the CPP.

“Under the Aquino regime, the US government has been provided more breadth for its espionage and counter-guerrilla operations in the Philippines in coordination with the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).”

#Philippines #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #FBI #antiimperialism #NYPD #Asia

New York, NY – March 17 was the sixth-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. In the late evening, a crowd of hundreds gathered in historic Zuccotti Park, now dubbed Liberty Plaza. Many organizers and progressive forces attending the annual Left Forum at Pace University, very close to the park, joined OWS activists.

The youth gathered in the park for hours, playing drums and refusing to leave. The crowd gradually swelled as the evening went on. A small contingent of youth from Workers World Party circled the square chanting, “Just like Ho Chi Minh! Occupy is gonna win!” Others joined in this anti-imperialist chant.

Michael Moore and Cornel West, who had addressed the Left Forum earlier in the evening, joined the crowd and gave words of support.

When the New York Police Department announced that the park was closed, several hundred youth sat down together, joining arms. They insisted on their right to stay there, citing a recent court ruling that required the park to remain open. When the police refused to listen, they chanted, “We are not afraid.”

Police pulled protesters out of the crowd and handcuffed them. They swung batons and pushed people to the ground. The media reported that police actions injured several people. These included shoving a woman’s head against the hood of a car and pushing a man’s head into a plateglass window. Another woman suffered a seizure because of a forceful arrest, and then police denied her help from OWS emergency medical technicians. It took loud protests from the crowd to get an ambulance to the scene.

A youth who witnessed the police attack told Workers World, “All I could see was batons high in the air, coming down on people.” Some of the 73 people who were arrested reported being held, handcuffed and left on city buses for hours, before finally being taken to holding cells.

A march was called the following evening in support of the arrestees. At the closing panel of the Left Forum, speakers urged the audience to attend the march and support the arrested youth.

#NewYorkNY #PoliceBrutality #MichaelMoore #Repression #OccupyWallStreet #ZuccottiPark #LeftForum #NYPD #CornelWest #LibertyPlaza