Prairie View, Texas
Police Brutality, “According to Policy”
October 13, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Jonathan Miller is a 26-year-old city council member in Prairie View, Texas. On Thursday night, October 8, Miller was calmly standing in front of his own home, enjoying life with some college friends. Then Prairie View cops pulled up. They forced Miller to his knees, tasered him in the back to the point that his shirt was bloodied, and arrested him!
Yes—this is the same town where Sandra Bland was pulled over and beaten for driving while Black and female, thrown into the Waller County jail, and lynched. Like Sandra Bland, Miller is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University. Some friends from school had come to stay with him during Homecoming Weekend. They all had spent the afternoon working on a cleanup of the subdivision where Miller lives. They were hanging around together, working on dance steps they could use at homecoming events.
But Prairie View cops, including one of the same pigs who harassed and brutalized Sandra Bland—determined through their pig logic that these young Black men were in a “suspicious area ... known for drug activities”. And they decided to fuck with them. The Prairie View police chief already has announced that the cops who assaulted Jonathan Miller acted “according to policy.”
Standing in front of your home in Prairie View ... walking down the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan ... shopping in a Walmart near Dayton, Ohio ... riding a train home to Oakland—Black people are subjected to being brutalized and beaten by police at any moment, like Jonathan Miller in Texas or James Blake in New York; or outright murdered by police, like John Crawford III in Ohio and Oscar Grant in California. It is all “according to policy.” It is all hardwired into a system that has oppression of Black people as a cornerstone.
And it must STOP! WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
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