PASADENA (US), Jan. 8 – An angry multi-racial crowd of close to 100 packed a meeting of the Pasadena (California) City Council to protest the Nov. 9 police assault on Chris Ballew. Pasadena cops Esparza and Lujan accosted Chris, a 21-year-old black man, in an Altadena gas station because his car had tinted windows.
Video evidence shows clearly that these cops immediately escalated what should have been a simple “fix-it ticket” encounter. Within two minutes they beat him, pointed a gun at him at close range, broke his leg and smashed his face into the pavement. They are apparently members of a “Black Gang Task Force.” (!)
Fortunately, Chris came out of it alive, unlike Kendrec McDade (2012), Reginald Thomas (2016) and too many others. But Esparza, Lujan and others like them are still on the loose. No disciplinary action has been taken against these racist thugs—or the murderers of RT and Kendrec. The police union even mobilized a dozen or so cops to defend Esparza and Lujan before City Council.
Near the end of a protest planning meeting on Thursday, Jan. 4, a comrade noted that two strategies had been proposed. One, she said, was to pressure elected officials to reform the police. But police forces in the US grew out of slave patrols and Pinkerton strikebreakers. They still protect racist capitalism. The other strategy is to rely on the masses and promote wide discussion about an alternative to the racist system itself.
That alternative is communism. With no ruling class of exploiters there will be no reason to have a police force to intimidate and repress the masses. Instead, Party collectives will mobilize workers to handle problems in their own neighborhoods. About 20 of our friends at these meetings, and others we’ve just met, took copies of Red Flag. We invite them and others to meet with the Pasadena party collective to discuss why and how we can better mobilize for communism to end racist police terror.
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