The NYPD Lynched Eric Garner!
This Police Murder Cannot and Will Not Go Down Like So Many Others
by Carl Dix | July 21, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The NYPD choked Eric Garner to death for nothing; nothing other than being Black and being tired of being harassed by the cops. Oh they’ve got excuses—they always do. They say Eric Garner was selling loose cigarettes. He expressed completely justifiable anger and outrage over being continually harassed by the police. Now, tell me when did those so-called crimes become capital offenses where a pig can choke you to death in plain sight and full view? Let’s face it: every time they murder a Black person, they call it “justifiable homicide.”
This was a lynching caught on videotape, so they can't say it didn't happen. They can't say Eric Garner was reaching for a weapon or that his actions made the cops fear for their lives (as if that should be a license to kill someone).
Look at the damn video—the cops just grabbed him in a chokehold and kept choking him, even as he said, “I can't breathe, I can't breathe,” over and over again. Then they left him lying on the sidewalk in handcuffs, and the pigs did nothing to try to save his life.
How different is this than the old lynching days, where a Black man could be strung up and burned alive or killed in front of everyone for looking at a white man the wrong way, or not stepping off the sidewalk when a white man approached? When the bodies of Black people hung on trees like “strange fruit” as Billie Holiday used to sing.
This is no isolated incident The NYPD has gotten away with murder repeatedly, killing more than 240 people since September 2001. Cops across the country do the same damn thing. Most of the victims of police murder are Black or Latino, and most of them weren't doing anything wrong when those who are sworn to protect and serve stole their lives.
That’s part of the reason I, Cornel West, and many others have called for A MONTH OF RESISTANCE TO MASS INCARCERATION, POLICE TERROR, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION! October 2014 must be a month where thousands and thousands of people stand up and say NO MORE to the horrors the cops, the courts and the prisons inflict on people. To get with the Month of Resistance, go to: www.stopmassincarceration.net.
When killer cops almost always get away with murder, there is a SYSTEM behind it. And I see now some of these pigs are posting on their “police officer” websites that people like Eric Garner are “savages” who deserve to die. This is a system with a genocidal agenda at home that enforces oppression and mass murder all around the world—like they’re doing now backing their enforcer Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians. It is a system that needs to be gotten rid of through revolution as soon as possible.
Now the Mayor and the Police Chief say they need to do an investigation of what happened to Eric Garner. No, we don’t need an investigation. We don’t need a cover-up. We don’t need a whole lot of run-around to try to chill people out and make people forget about this. What we need is mass protest.
THIS SHIT MUST STOP!
NOBODY should be quiet or put up with what they did to Eric Garner.
Now is no time for silence, fear, or bullshit. However you come at this, if you have an ounce of justice in your heart, if you're tired of being treated like criminals by the cops and courts, if you refuse to stand by while others are subjected to this kind of mistreatment, then step out and protest now! We cannot let this police murder go down like so many others. And while we do that, let’s build for the October Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration, Police Terror, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation.
Go to the website revcom.us to get with the movement for revolution, and connect with the movement for a month of mass resistance against mass incarceration, police terror, repression and criminalization of a generation in October. Or go to the Stop Mass Incarceration Network website at stopmassincarceration.net.
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