Vallejo, Calif.:
Pigs Take 3 Seconds to Act as Judge, Jury and Executioner… 20-Year-Old Willie McCoy Murdered … for Sleeping in His Car
| Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
It was Saturday night, February 9, and Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old Black man, was seen asleep or passed out in his car in the drive-through lane of a Taco Bell in Vallejo, California. Then someone called the police.…
According to police, when six cops arrived on the scene, they found the driver “unresponsive,” and they allege that he “had a gun on his lap.”
“In a video that contains audio of the shooting—posted to YouTube [on February 13]—police can be heard yelling commands to McCoy and firing at him less than three seconds later. Many shots can be heard,” the San Jose Mercury reported.
3 seconds!!
“It seems like an execution,” David Harrison, Willie McCoy’s cousin and manager said. “It looks like my baby cousin was executed by a firing squad.”
Once again, loved ones describe a beautiful human being whose life was snatched away. Willie was a rapper and in a group called the FBG. Harrison said he loved making music and spending time with his nieces and nephews. “If you needed a few dollars, he was there. If you needed a ride, he was there.”
“My boyfriend was shot by the police,” Willie’s girlfriend said. “I just want him to get justice—this hurts me so much. My baby was an angel and they took him from me.”
How Many More Times Will the Lives of Loved Ones Be Stolen by Police?
The Vallejo police declared their officers fired their guns “fearing for their safety.”
“Fearing for their safety”?
Twelve-year old Tamir Rice was murdered 2 seconds after the pigs rolled up on him (based on a 911 call saying someone at the playground had gun that was “probably fake”) … the police said they feared for their lives!
Seventeen-year-old Laquan MacDonald was holding a knife at his side and moving away from the cops when he was murdered by 16 shots, seconds after the killer cop rolled up on him…the police said they feared for their lives!
And now, Willie McCoy joins them … and countless others.
“Feared for their safety” is just a justification for the pigs to execute any Black, Brown, or Native person—for any reason or no reason at all—that is upheld by the so-called justice system, which is really the injustice system! It’s a death sentence hanging over every Black, Brown, or Native person whether it’s carried out or not.
How Many More Times Will Police Get Away with Murders Because They “Feared For Their Safety”?
The execution of Willie McCoy is part of a raging epidemic of police murder taking place across this country. This remains a continuing and horrific epidemic of needless deaths of mainly Black and Brown youth at the hands of the police, even if it is not in the news, or there is far too little mass protest and resistance demanding it STOP!!
White supremacy and the vicious oppression of Black and other oppressed peoples—from the nightmare of slavery… to the horrors of lynching and Jim Crow… to the epidemic of racism, mass incarceration, and police brutality, terror and murder today—are woven into the very fabric of this capitalist-imperialist system. This system cannot be reformed. It can and must be overthrown—through an actual revolution. The time to be working toward that revolution is NOW!
HOW LONG MUST THIS GO ON!?
HOW MANY MORE WILL BE MURDERED BY POLICE BEFORE THIS ENDS!?
THIS IS INTOLERABLE AND UNACCEPTABLE, AND IT MUST STOP!
THIS SYSTEM CANNOT BE REFORMED, IT MUST BE OVERTHROWN!
Willie McCoy
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Editor’s note: Tyisha Miller was a 19-year-old African-American woman shot dead by Riverside, California police in 1998. Miller had been passed out in her car, resulting from a seizure, when police claimed that she suddenly awoke and had a gun; they fired 23 times at her, hitting her at least 12 times, and murdering her. Bob Avakian addressed this.
If you can’t handle this situation differently than this, then get the fuck out of the way. Not only out of the way of this situation, but get off the earth. Get out of the way of the masses of people. Because, you know, we could have handled this situation any number of ways that would have resulted in a much better outcome. And frankly, if we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would sooner have one of our own people’s police killed than go wantonly murder one of the masses. That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re actually trying to be a servant of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just wantonly murder one of the people. Fuck all this “serve and protect” bullshit! If they were there to serve and protect, they would have found any way but the way they did it to handle this scene. They could have and would have found a solution that was much better than this. This is the way the proletariat, when it’s been in power has handled—and would again handle—this kind of thing, valuing the lives of the masses of people. As opposed to the bourgeoisie in power, where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses, including wantonly murdering them, murdering them without provocation, without necessity, because exactly the more arbitrary the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses. And that’s one of the reasons why they like to engage in, and have as one of their main functions to engage in, wanton and arbitrary terror against the masses of people.
—Bob Avakian, BAsics 2:16
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