Keenan Anderson, 31-year-old Black man... Tyre Nichols, 29-year-old Black man... Jor’Dell Richardson, 14-year-old Black youth... Eddie Irizarry, 27-year-old Puerto Rican man... Niani Finlayson, 27-year-old Black woman... and on and on! 

These are just some of the at least 1,243 lives stolen by the cops across the U.S. last year—murdered in cold blood. (See Lives Stolen by Murdering Police, 2023.) The research group Mapping Police Violence said this was the highest in the 10 years it has been keeping track. This means, on average, three people were killed by pigs in this country every day last year. Black people were killed at double the rate of their proportion of the population. Native Americans were killed at a rate 2.2 times higher than white people. The Washington Post reported that “Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate.” 

And here is an important fact: Most of these killing "began with police responding to suspected non-violent offenses or cases where no crime was reported." (from Mapping Police Violence "2023 Police Violence Report") In other words, the cops weren’t threatened, there was no violent confrontation—until the cops made it violent.

Pigs Getting Away with Murder—It’s How the System Works

98.1 percent of murders by cop over the past 10 years have resulted in no charges against the killer cops. (See 3 years since George Floyd’s murder, police killings of Black American's rage on.)

Think about it: Most of the people that the pigs kill have done nothing that should warrant being killed, yet 98 percent of the murderers don’t even go to trial (and remember that a very high percentage of pigs who DO go to trial either walk or get very light sentences).

Refusing to hold brutalizing and murdering cops accountable for their actions is baked into this country’s injustice system. The laws and policies themselves—state, local, federal, backed up all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court—enable cops to perpetrate violence. These laws and policies include allowing cops to use deadly force when there is no immediate threat to the cop; without attempting other options; against a perceived threat that is not considered deadly, and many others. In fact, it is almost always enough for a pig to claim that he or she “felt threatened” to avoid charges or get off.

New “accountability laws” passed after the protests of 2020 are the same shit in new wrapping. In December 2023, the first trial of police in Washington state was held under a new “police accountability” law passed after the historic protests of 2020. Tacoma cops were charged in the murder of 33-year-old Manuel “Manny” Ellis. The basic facts weren’t in dispute. These cops “beat, choked and hogtied” Manuel Ellis, and put a hood over his head. They claimed Ellis fought them with “superhuman strength,” which they said justified the violence they used to kill him. The jury acquitted the murdering pigs. 

REFORM WILL NOT AND CANNOT WORK—END THIS MADNESS BY ENDING THE SYSTEM THAT REQUIRES IT!

Even as they’re locked in ferocious struggle with each other, both Democrats and Republicans are calling for and working towards severe escalations in support for the police. Trump is blatant: He calls on pigs to shoot those they think are shoplifting without a trial, and goes on from there. Biden talks about “Fund the police, fund the police, fund the police” like some kind of windup puppet. And self-proclaimed “progressives” continue to diddle around trying to make minor adjustments within the framework of a system that requires massive brutality against, imprisonment of, and murder of Black, Latino and Native people.

The fact is this: we cannot end this scourge on oppressed people without a real revolution. And that means millions fighting to defeat and dismantle the machinery of repression of this system, to establish a new power, and to set about building a system that could actually end this madness and uproot the causes of police murder and mass incarceration.

Don’t say that’s not possible! As we have written, “Think of the millions of people, of all races and genders, who rose up with righteous anger, all over the country, in 2020, when the murder of George Floyd by a heartless pig was just too much…. [Then] think what could be possible if millions were mobilized into the streets again—not just to express their anger, but with the understanding and determination to do what needs to be done to really put an end to police terror and murder, to white supremacy, male supremacy and gender oppression, and to all the inequality, discrimination, exploitation, plunder and destruction of people and the environment that is built into this system of capitalism-imperialism—to put an end to this in the only way it can be done: by putting an end to the system itself, and bringing something much better into being.” (From REVOLUTION: BUILDING UP THE BASIS TO GO FOR THE WHOLE THING WITH A REAL CHANCE TO WIN! Strategic Orientation and Practical Approach)