In recent speeches, Biden has been coupling attacks on Trump and the Republicans as “almost like semi-fascism” with gushing praise for the FBI and police, endlessly proclaiming that it is he and the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are the true champions of the police. On August 30 in Pennsylvania, Biden called for 100,000 new police, repeating his mantra that “When it comes to public safety in this nation, the answer is not defund the police, it's fund the police.”

Meanwhile, on the day of his speech, pigs in Columbus, Ohio, and New York City murdered and brutalized Black people. Again.

Donovan Lewis, Murdered in Bed by Police

The very day Biden claimed police to be “protectors of public safety,” a pig in Columbus shot and killed unarmed Donovan Lewis, a 20-year-old Black man, as Lewis lay in bed. As captured on bodycam (for all the good much-vaunted bodycams did Donovan Lewis), police barged into the apartment where he was sleeping with the belligerent demeanor of slave catchers of old. First police threatened to have their dog bite Lewis if he didn’t open the door to the room he was sleeping in.

Then they opened the door to the bedroom, shined a bright flashlight in his eyes as Lewis lay in bed, and within seconds shot him. As fatally wounded Donovan Lewis lay nearly motionless in bed, they handcuffed him. Knowing their bodycam was recording audio, one of the pigs announced loudly “Stop resisting,” police code-words to justify brutality and murder. At least three pigs picked up Donovan Lewis by his arms and legs, hauled him out to the street and set him on the grass outside his apartment complex as if they were tossing out trash. An hour later he was pronounced dead at a hospital.

At the time he was murdered by police, Donovan Lewis presented no threat to anyone. The Columbus chief of police (a Black woman—again, a lot of good that did Donovan Lewis) told the press police had knocked on the apartment door for at least eight minutes, and that Lewis appeared to be holding a vape pen, as if these added up to legitimate reasons to murder him in bed. The pig who shot and killed Donovan Lewis, a 30-year veteran on the force, is on paid leave, not charged with any crime.

This was the third shooting by police in Columbus in less than a week. And part of an ongoing rampage of police terror and murder in Columbus.

On December 4, 2020, a Sheriff's deputy in Columbus shot 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr., a Black man, in the back five times, killing him as Goodson tried to enter his own home with a Subway sandwich. Goodson was not accused of any crime. Only after almost a year of large protests that included blocking downtown streets, a grand jury indicted the deputy on two counts of murder and one count of reckless homicide.

Also in December 2020, a Columbus cop shot and killed Andre Hill as he walked toward the officer while holding an illuminated cell phone in his left hand, body camera footage showed.

And in April 2021, a Columbus pig fatally shot Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old Black girl in a situation that could have been handled completely differently if police even made a pretense of serving and protecting people under this system. A grand jury did not indict the killer who shot her.

Giuliani… and the “Black Giuliani” Defend NYPD Thuggery

On August 30, a New York City cop cold-cocked Tamani Crum, a 19-year-old Black woman half his size, knocking her to the ground. The victim, the woman, was then handcuffed.

News accounts, and the police’s own bodycam footage, show that Tamani Crum was attempting to speak with Elvin James, who was being handcuffed outside the NYPD 32^nd Precinct in Harlem when she was shoved by a cop. As she appears to be defending herself by attempting to deflect the assault with her hand, the cop brutally punched her, knocking her to the ground. Police then handcuffed her, arrested her, and offered no medical assistance. She remains charged with “obstructing governmental administration.”

The New York Times reported that Kendo Kinsey, the cop who assaulted Tamani Crum, has a record of being “commended by the department and complained about by civilians” who have filed complaints against him, including for using a chokehold, like the one that killed Eric Garner.

Former mayor and close Trump confidant Rudolf “Adolf” Giuliani defended the police assault, saying “One of the reasons why cops are having a hard time... [is that] they can’t punch you!” So did NYC Mayor Eric Adams. He claimed police showed “great restraint” in not shooting the man they were taking into custody (without even claiming the man being arrested posed an imminent threat to anyone)! And he claimed, “The young lady came, smacked a police officer. The police officer responded.” Adams, who brands himself (appropriately) as NYC’s Joe Biden said in brutalizing this young Black woman, police “did what the system called for.”

There are intense and increasingly explosive differences between the Republi-fascists and the Democrats over how the rule of capitalism-imperialism should be enforced. This intensifying clash—these differences—could create an opening for revolution. But as revealed by both the original Giuliani, and his Black clone Eric Adams, both sides in that clash agree that the masses of oppressed Native American, Black and Latino people—people for whom this system has no future—must be subjected to a reign of police terror, brutality and death. Only if there are millions determined to fight for revolution is there a chance for something good to come out of that clash (to get into this, go here and here).