Community control of the police demanded in Chicago

[ckaihatsu]

Community control of the police demanded in Chicago

http://www.fightbacknews.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/article-lead-photo/CPAC.jpg

By staff

Chicago, IL - 150 community activists met here June 13, to learn how civilian control of the police can curb police crimes in oppressed nationality communities. The event was organized by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, which has been organizing to win an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

The public forum featured talks by activists with the Alliance, including Larry Redmond, Legal Counsel for the Alliance; Jeff Baker, a recent aldermanic candidate; Alma Montes of First Defense Legal Aid; Frank Chapman, Field Organizer; and Mike Elliot, chair of the Labor Committee. These speakers were joined by Howard Morgan, who was targeted for murder by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and Martinez Sutton, brother of Rekia Boyd, who was murdered by CPD officer Dante Servin. Together they examined specific cases of police crimes to show how the cases would have been handled differently had CPAC been on the books, and how the cops could have been brought to justice.

One of the conference organizers, LaCreshia Birts, a co-chair for organizing with the Black Youth Project 100, said, “The turnout was good, and the forum was a success. Now we’ll have more activists who can join us in the work to organize a mass march on Aug. 29 to win CPAC.”

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]acknews.org

[ckaihatsu]

Video exposes brutal police killing

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By C. R. Manor

Salt Lake City, UT - The family of Dillon Taylor organized a rally on June 13, demanding justice for Dillon Taylor. Taylor was shot down by SLC police officer Bron Cruz in August of 2014 in the presence of his brother and cousin as they exited a 7-Eleven. Taylor was unarmed, had committed no crime, but was reported as being suspicious by a person who called 911.

Since the shooting, the body camera footage from Officer Bron Cruz has made waves online through social media. The footage clearly shows Taylor complying with Cruz’s instructions to show his hand. When Taylor lifts his shirt, Cruz shoots twice, mortally wounding Taylor. Taylor’s shirt showed no signs of bullet holes, as he was holding it up with both hands.

What the body camera shows next is Cruz rolling Taylor’s limp body over and immediately handcuffing him. Cruz then proceeds to search Taylor, saying “What were you reaching for?” Several minutes go by before Cruz attempts to provide first aid. The footage shows Cruz rolling Taylor over, his face is now covered in his own blood, and using gauze to wipe away blood from the entry wound. The evidence is clear; Cruz left Dillon Taylor to die in a pool of his own blood.

Taylor’s brother and cousin were detained in handcuffs for several hours by Salt Lake City police. They were kept in isolation and were not notified that Taylor had died from Cruz’s bullets. The family has now filed lawsuits for civil rights violations on behalf of Taylor, and both his brother and cousin.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the SLC District Attorney justified the shooting according to the letter of the law. In Utah, the law states a police officer can use deadly force if the officer “reasonably believes” their life is in danger. Now-resigned police Chief Chris Burbank affirmed that Cruz’s actions were “the appropriate force necessary.”

The rally was called for on location of Taylor’s shooting, bringing out around 50 of Dillon Taylor’s family, friends and community supporters. The group marched around the busy intersection, chanting “No justice, no peace, no killer police!” and “If you can’t respect us, you can’t protect us!”

The rally ended with a moment of silence in the spot where Dillon Taylor’s life was ended.

Dillon Taylor full length Body Camera (http://fightbacknews.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=a29530af96a02fc55d345e735&id=5698f91a18&e=d323598fe4) [GRAPHIC CONTENT]

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[cyu]

The oppressed cannot ask for power. They have to take it.

[BIXX]

Fuck community policing anyway. Communities are violent enough as it is for those who don't conform to their standards of behavior/sexuality/fashion/etc... Will granting then a legitimizing apparatus of violence really be any better than regular cops now?

[ckaihatsu]

Momentum builds toward August 29 march against police crimes

March on Chicago City Hall for community control of police

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By staff

Chicago, IL - Prominent ministers, labor organizations and national figures in the movement against police crimes are joining the call to march on Chicago City Hall, August 29.

In August, the Black Lives Matter movement will mark the anniversary of the police murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) will cap a month of commemorations with a march of thousands to demand an all-elected, Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

Frank Chapman, Field Organizer of the Alliance, said, "It's time to end the daily count of African American victims of police crimes and the recurrent denial of justice when the killer walks free." Chapman explained, "To get justice for our community, we need an elected, Civilian Police Accountability council."

The Reverend Otis Moss III, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, has added his voice as an endorser of the call for the August 29 march, joining the thousands that will march to City Hall that day.

On June 28, the renowned academic and former political prisoner, Angela Davis, came to Chicago to support a modern day victim of political repression by the U.S. government, Rasmea Odeh. Professor Davis also spoke about her support for CPAC. "This is not a ‘review’ board, but an ‘accountability’ council to be sure that victims of police crimes receive justice.” Davis added, “It's not only controlling how the police are policed, but also how our own communities are policed."

Other organizations and leaders recently adding themselves to the snowball of support for CPAC include the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists - Chicago Chapter; the Coalition of Labor Union Women; Fight For 15; Black Caucus, Illinois Federation of Teachers; SEIU Local 73; and Malik Mujahid, Chair of the Parliament of World's Religions.

On August 29, the march will kick off at 12:00 noon from Federal Plaza at Dearborn and Adams.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[Troika]

Fuck community policing anyway. Communities are violent enough as it is for those who don't conform to their standards of behavior/sexuality/fashion/etc... Will granting then a legitimizing apparatus of violence really be any better than regular cops now?

Community policing can be a good thing as long as it isn't done by the bourgeois community. Each individual community should have its own police. This would work quite well considering the US is still segregated. Black communities could have police that aren't racist. Queer communities could have police that aren't homophobic. It would be amazing. They probably won't do it that way though.

I just want to see all pigs put up against the wall. Our communities can and should police themselves. These pigs are just the private military of the ruling classes and should be treated like the nazis they are.

In my town, right after the SCOTUS ruling, the pigs raided a queer space and arrested almost everyone. They came back later to write bullshit tickets for "not enough no smoking signs" and shit like that. They've killed trans people. They love to bully black people and lgbtq people. I've been bullied by the pigs for being with a boyfriend in public.

I have seen them go after the homeless violently countless times. They beat and berate them as if they are punching bags. It's horrifying. There's nothing we can do to stop them because they hold too much power.

[Sewer Socialist]

Community policing can be a good thing as long as it isn't done by the bourgeois community. Each individual community should have its own police. This would work quite well considering the US is still segregated. Black communities could have police that aren't racist. Queer communities could have police that aren't homophobic. It would be amazing. They probably won't do it that way though.

How is this anything other than an enforcement of segregation? The homophobic cops to the black communities, the racist ones to the queer communities? And, of course, the biggest bigots to the straight white communities.

Much of the most terrible shit happens through of this sort of territorialism. "I don't hate black people, but he was in the wrong part of town." "I don't hate queers, but this one was dating my sister." "I don't hate the Jews, they just don't belong in this country."

[BIXX]

Community policing can be a good thing as long as it isn't done by the bourgeois community. Each individual community should have its own police. This would work quite well considering the US is still segregated. Black communities could have police that aren't racist. Queer communities could have police that aren't homophobic. It would be amazing. They probably won't do it that way though.

I just want to see all pigs put up against the wall. Our communities can and should police themselves. These pigs are just the private military of the ruling classes and should be treated like the nazis they are.

In my town, right after the SCOTUS ruling, the pigs raided a queer space and arrested almost everyone. They came back later to write bullshit tickets for "not enough no smoking signs" and shit like that. They've killed trans people. They love to bully black people and lgbtq people. I've been bullied by the pigs for being with a boyfriend in public.

I have seen them go after the homeless violently countless times. They beat and berate them as if they are punching bags. It's horrifying. There's nothing we can do to stop them because they hold too much power.

So you think that creating another grouping that will enforce the same basic bullshit such as worse will be the answer? Forgive me if I think that's fucjing stupid.

[Cliff Paul]

Fuck community policing anyway. Communities are violent enough as it is for those who don't conform to their standards of behavior/sexuality/fashion/etc... Will granting then a legitimizing apparatus of violence really be any better than regular cops now?

Are you implying that there is any sense of illegitimacy to their actions currently?

[BIXX]

Are you implying that there is any sense of illegitimacy to their actions currently?

No, its about giving them an apparatus of legitimate violence.

[Ele'ill]

Community policing can be a good thing as long as it isn't done by the bourgeois community. Each individual community should have its own police. This would work quite well considering the US is still segregated. Black communities could have police that aren't racist. Queer communities could have police that aren't homophobic. It would be amazing. They probably won't do it that way though.

I just want to see all pigs put up against the wall. Our communities can and should police themselves. These pigs are just the private military of the ruling classes and should be treated like the nazis they are.

In my town, right after the SCOTUS ruling, the pigs raided a queer space and arrested almost everyone. They came back later to write bullshit tickets for "not enough no smoking signs" and shit like that. They've killed trans people. They love to bully black people and lgbtq people. I've been bullied by the pigs for being with a boyfriend in public.

I have seen them go after the homeless violently countless times. They beat and berate them as if they are punching bags. It's horrifying. There's nothing we can do to stop them because they hold too much power.

I think I understand the frustration but I don't want to be policed at all I don't care what community the person is allegedly from and I don't like the idea of supporting what would basically be armed borders. There is also overlap in communities but not everyone within those communities are allies.

[ckaihatsu]

Chicago protesters demand end to police crimes

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By staff

Chicago, IL - The Chicago Police Department has shot 400 people in the past eight years, but city officials have declared that only one of those shootings was unjustified. The government body that decides this is the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA).

This week, Lorenzo Davis, a former investigator for IPRA, revealed he had been fired because he refused to change the results of his investigation into two shootings. In those cases, he ruled cops were “unjustified” for shooting civilians. IPRA bosses said because he didn’t change his conclusions, he wasn’t a “team player.” When Davis spoke out, he said IPRA management had an “agenda” to justify all the shootings.

On July 23, 40 protesters from the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression gathered outside the offices of IPRA to demand an end to the rubber stamp body, and its agenda of police impunity. The crowd was Black, Latino, Asian, Arab and white, with significant number of trade unionists, as well as leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement.

A statement from the Alliance read, “IPRA has failed in its supposed mission to hold the police accountable, while it has succeeded in its real mission of generating an untouchable police force. The answer is clear: IPRA must go.”

Beyond condemning IPRA, the Alliance demanded of the City Council the enactment of an elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC).

LaCreshia Birts of the Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression said, “We are calling upon everyone in the Greater Chicago Area to join us this August 29, 2015 in a militant protest march on City Hall and the Federal Building demanding that CPAC be enacted and that the DOJ investigate and prosecute police criminals who are violating constitutional and human rights under the color of their police authority.”

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

Marching against police crimes in Chicago’s Bud Billiken Parade

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By Angelique Fullwood

Chicago, IL - On August 8, about 100 people marched to stop police crimes at the historic Bud Billiken Parade. The parade, the oldest and largest African American parade in the U.S. attracted thousands of residents in Chicago’s South Side.

The Stop Police Crimes float, featuring an eight-foot-tall red fist, along with the marchers, were orga-nized by the Chicago Alliance against Racist and Political Repression. Groups such as Fight 4 $15, BYP100, Anakbayan, Elephant Rebellion and other community members also joined in.

These community organizations and others are calling for a demonstration and march on City Hall on August 29 to demand the city create an elected civilian police accountability council to establish com-munity control over the Chicago Police Department.

Field organizer and educational director of the Alliance, Frank Chapman, in an interview on public radio, spoke on the purpose behind the Stop Police Crimes float. “There’s already an acute awareness in the African American community about police crimes. We are not educating African Americans as to whether or not police crimes exist; they know it exists because we’re the victims of it. What we’re doing is talking about what we can do about it and how we can fight back.”

During the event, the group was stopped by marshals and Chicago Police Department (CPD) who or-dered them to leave the parade because they were protesting.

The day before, parade chairman Colonel Eugene Scott went on the WBEZ Morning Shift show and commented on the Stop Police Crimes float saying, “We welcome their participation.”

But that didn’t stop the group from being approached and told they were not allowed to continue.

“We have the right to be here,” said Mike Siviwe Elliott, UAW Local 551 activist and chair of the Alliance labor committee. Elliott repeatedly refused their orders to leave the parade. The marshals then de-manded that the contingent lower its main banner. After Elliott said the banners were staying, the marshals gave up and the group continued to march to the end of the parade with the overwhelming support of the attendants and spectators.

The contingent was also accompanied by Dorothy Holmes, the mother of 25-year-old Ronald Johnson, also known as “Ronnie Man” who was unarmed and murdered by CPD officer George Hernandez on Oct. 12, 2014. Today Holmes is still fighting the city to release the dash cam footage of the shooting.

The group stopped on the 5300 block of South Martin Luther King Drive for a moment of silence where Johnson was murdered.

“On August 29, I want to send a message out to the system to let them know that we are not going to tolerate police brutality any more in Chicago,” said Holmes. “I want to let other mothers and families of victims of police brutality know that they are not alone. This is a nationwide attack against our youth.”

This weekend also marks the one-year anniversary of Mike Brown’s death at the hands of Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson and the subsequent uprising by Ferguson residents. “We consider murder a crime and it’s an extraordinary crime when the police do it. It’s even worse when they don’t get pun-ished for it, and that’s what happened in Michael Brown’s case. That’s what happened in Chicago in the case for Rekia Boyd and Flint Farmer. What we’re saying is that the police need to be punished for the crimes that they commit,” said Chapman.

In the honor of the late teen, the group and parade goers joined together and chanted “Turn up, don’t turn down, we do this for Mike Brown!”

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[Hezadukii92]

I am all for police who commit acts of brutality and in some cases murder being charged with assault/murder and sentenced accordingly, up to and including the death penalty. For example the officer who shot Walter Scott, if (when) found guilty should receive` the death penalty.

However where on earth is the outrage at the thousands of brutal horrific murders in Chicago within the black community. The number of police cases of brutality and murder pale in comparison to the harm carried out by black people against other black people.

Where are the black lives matter crowds swarming Chicago and shaming those within the black community killing each other at completely insane levels? When the police reaction was hands off the black community famously protested that the police did not care and did not police in the black community with enough force and visibility and that was because of racism.

Since the massive crackdown members of the black community are complaining that the police are too heavily concentrated within the community and too heavy handed and their response too robust, because they are racist.

So what exactly can the police force take without being racist?

[ckaihatsu]

I am all for police who commit acts of brutality and in some cases murder being charged with assault/murder and sentenced accordingly, up to and including the death penalty. For example the officer who shot Walter Scott, if (when) found guilty should receive` the death penalty.

However where on earth is the outrage at the thousands of brutal horrific murders in Chicago within the black community. The number of police cases of brutality and murder pale in comparison to the harm carried out by black people against other black people.

Where are the black lives matter crowds swarming Chicago and shaming those within the black community killing each other at completely insane levels? When the police reaction was hands off the black community famously protested that the police did not care and did not police in the black community with enough force and visibility and that was because of racism.

Since the massive crackdown members of the black community are complaining that the police are too heavily concentrated within the community and too heavy handed and their response too robust, because they are racist.

So what exactly can the police force take without being racist?


My understanding about the hundreds of homicides in the city every year is that they're intimately tied to the 'Wild-West'-type of markets that exist for illegal drugs, and the profitability for the same, due to prevailing laws and the legacy of the War on Drugs political paradigm.

Bourgeois society has made a point of turning its back on treating recreational drugs as being anything near to 'regular' products, and, worse, such drugs are proactively *criminalized*, thus increasing the risks and costs for anyone who is involved in any of the (black) markets for them. This greatly dichotomizes the *products* from the *people* around them -- lives are cheapened with jail time and deaths (due to heightened competition for the artificially inflated profits, due to increased risks), while the products themselves have inflated prices, for the same reasons.

I don't think the deaths from the drug trade can be compared even-handedly to the deaths meted out by police officers, since the former are a resulting phenonmenon of prevailing *economics*, while the latter is an institutionalized phenomenon of prevailing *politics* -- more comparable to homelessness, I would argue.

In other words, a populist-type campaign -- like Black Lives Matter -- can have some hope of changing public attitudes about *policing*, as the Civil Rights Movement did from the '40s through the '70s, and could conceivably affect real-world policing practices for good. On the other hand the *economics* of the drug trade will *remain* entrenched, barring legalization, with poorer people (racial minorities) disproportionately willing to take on life and bodily risks that other, more-mainstream demographic groups would *never* have to consider, to realize comparable standards of living.

Certainly there's nothing to be accomplished with populist politics, public-awareness types of media campaigns, or different policing strategies, when the *economics* of the black-market drug trade remain what they are, due to prevailing monolithic legal norms for such substances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago

[ckaihatsu]

Mass meeting plans August 29 March to Stop Police Crimes

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By staff

Chicago, IL - More than 50 people representing 20 different organizations gathered August 12, to make final plans for the August 29 march to stop police crimes.

Organizations present included the Chicago Teachers Union, Anakbayan (patriotic Filipino youth), Arab American Action Network, Black Lives Matter, Black Youth Project 100, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicagoland and Fight For $15.

Jeff Baker of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression referred to the goal of the march to win an elected, civilian police accountability council (CPAC). He said, “This march has clear demands which cause the powers that be discomfort.” LaCreshia Birts of the Alliance explained that her objective is that this protest will launch the movement to win CPAC, and “that people will leave the march knowing how to continue the struggle for community control of the police.”

The rally at the march will feature survivors of torture and families of victims of police crime, including Carolyn Johnson, mother of police torture survivor Marcus Wiggins, who was present at the meeting.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

March against police crimes August 29

Interview with Frank Chapman

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By staff

The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) is calling for a march on August 29 to demand civilian control of the police. They have written legislation to create a Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC), elected by the voters.

Fight Back! interviewed Frank Chapman, Field Organizer of the Alliance, about the fight against police crimes, the march in August and CPAC.

Fight Back!: Why is the Alliance campaigning for this legislation? Doesn’t Chicago already have a civilian review board?

Frank Chapman: Our campaign for an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Council was agitated into existence by the present epidemic of police crimes here in Chicago and the nation. In the last four years Chicago police have shot over 90 people and 75% of them were Black. There has been only one police charged in 20 years and none disciplined or suspended without pay. So we have police crimes that get reviewed by the Independent Police Review Authority - IPRA - and the police are rarely charged and never punished. CPAC would replace IPRA, which is appointed by the mayor, and, as an elected body it would be empowered to hold the police accountable for the crimes they commit. Members of CPAC will be elected from each police district. This is the democratic solution to the problem of police crimes and torture.

Fight Back!: Is the Black Lives Matter movement in Chicago behind CPAC? What about the unions? The families of the victims of police crimes?

Chapman: Yes! Black Lives Matter is definitely a supporter of our campaign for CPAC. We have a broad base of support coming from the Black Caucus of Chicago’s AFT [American Federation of Teachers], United Electrical workers Western Region, SEIU Local 73, Fight (4) 15, Black Youth Project 100, Church of the Living God, Howard Morgan and other victims and their families as well as the NAACP Southside and community-based organizations like Reclaim Our Community on the Westside. We have a long list of endorsers from all the various strands of the people’s movement.

Fight Back!: There is a national movement that has emerged in response to the uprisings in Ferguson and now Baltimore. Why is it so hard for this movement to win justice for the families of the murdered Blacks and Latinos?

Chapman: The youth-led movements which have emerged nationally are momentous and yet they face perhaps the most corrupt, racist and insidious police force on earth at this moment of history. The task of politically winning the struggle for community control of the police is enormous but doable because it is a broad democratic demand capable of rallying millions of workers and oppressed people of color to the cause. To get justice, we must wage a relentless struggle for a democratically elected Civilian Police Accountability Council. There is no royal, velvet-covered road to victory. There is only the dirt and blood of battle that arises out each outrage of police brutality and this will continue to agitate into existence more massive movements against police tyranny. In this protracted struggle we must remember the words of our martyred comrade, Amicar Cabral: “Tell no lies. Claim no easy victories.”

Fight Back!: What are the origins of the idea for an elected, civilian police accountability council?

Chapman: The idea of community control of the police in the 20th century originated with the Black Panther Party in Berkeley, California in 1971. This movement was successful in getting an initiative on the ballot but they lost the election. In the wake of the murders of Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression made stopping police crimes a national priority at its founding convention, held in Chicago, in 1973. So we have been in this struggle for over 40 years and what we have learned from our history is that it is going to take a massive, grassroots-organized movement to win.

Fight Back!: What do you say to people who say that the elected civilian police accountability council can also be co-opted?

Chapman: So what! Are you afraid to fight because you might lose? In that case there would be no struggle. If we insist that struggle must proceed in a straight, uncompromising line then we are doomed before we start. All we can guarantee is that we will keep losing if we don’t fight. We may not get all we fight for but we must fight for all we get. At any rate I believe in the people and not the democratic superstitions of the 1%. Every democratic struggle we win becomes the basis for fighting for another one. Freedom is a constant struggle.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

Salt Lake City activists call for Community Controlled Review Board

By Alyssa Ferris

Salt Lake City, UT - On Oct. 22, the national day of action to fight police brutality, 30 activists and community members gathered outside a local library to attend a vigil honoring victims of police brutality. The event, organized by Utah Against Police Brutality, called for attendees to participate in a telephone call-in to Mayor Jackie Biskupski to demand a Community Controlled Review Board.

“Until we have a voice on how we are being policed, we are not being policed, we are being occupied. And the police are the occupying force,” said Gregory Lucero, a founder of Utah Against Police Brutality.

Moses Hughes also addressed the crowd, “The cops are supposed to protect us, not hurt us. They are supposed to be the shield, not the sword. That is why people respect them, but if they refuse to do their part, why should we?”

Chalk outlines representing Salt Lake City's victims of police brutality surrounded the rally. “You're looking at 25 chalk outlines, but it's not just 25 deaths,” Hughes said. “It is the children those victims will now never have. It is all the people sitting at home crying, because their children, their father, their brother have been killed.”

“Nationally, the government has taken power away from the people and given it to blue uniforms with guns whose best interest isn't the communities they're supposed to be serving,” said Carly Halderman, an organizer of the protest. “We are taking back that power and our humanity at any cost. This is what democracy looks like.”

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[Zoop]

How will community control really change anything? They'll still serve the bourgeoisie and will still be subservient to THEM, rather than us, so our control will be limited.

Abolish the police. Don't reform it.

[Marshall Tito]

How will community control really change anything? They'll still serve the bourgeoisie and will still be subservient to THEM, rather than us, so our control will be limited.

Abolish the police. Don't reform it.


Agreed. Abolish the police and replace them with community-based revolutionary brigades who serve and protect the proletariat, not robber barons.

[Emmett Till]

Agreed. Abolish the police and replace them with community-based revolutionary brigades who serve and protect the proletariat, not robber barons.

And what will those revolutionary brigades do when a desperately poor black kid breaks into a liquor store and robs the place?

Look the other way? Shoot him? Put him in some sort of proletarian jail?

No, let us not be setting up any police forces until after the revolution, when it will be possible to create revolutionary workers order. Until then, any such *revolutionary brigades* would inevitably find themselves in the position of being defenders of private property and the class rule of the bourgeoisie.

[Rafiq]

Whether we oppose this or not, it is stupid to base your position on the matter on stupid abstractions about what you 'want' for the whole of society.

"I oppose this because I am in favor of armed militias" is absolutely meaningless.

Federal control of the police would not be a measure Communists would oppose, in fact only the petty bourgeoisie would oppose such a development. The reason of course is simple: Federal control over the police at a nation wide scale could allow the growing waves of anti-police brutality to have but a single target. Campaigning for laws to be passed about police conduct, for example, would have no consideration for the local laws of reactionaries and it would allow such a movement to coordinate at a nation wide scale. Much of the excess comes from the fact that police are answerable only to local powers - they have different standards to abide by and are not answerable to nation-wide politics.

The biggest impediment to engaging in politics in the US is the separation of powers at a federal and local level. Think about the civil rights movement and desegregation. All of this, of course, stems from slavery, but in the case of gay marriage this was not necessarily the case: My own state, Michigan, voted against the legal recognition of gay marriage. This is not even including right-to-work laws, and whatever.

For the record, NO ONE IS CLAIMING that this would end police brutality or whatever. Police violence as we know it is absolutely a result of mass marginalization, ghettoziation, etc. - That doesn't mean it cannot be curtailed. Police brutality in Europe and Canada is nowhere near as bad. Of course this may very well be a pipe dream - perhaps there is something inherent to the structure of powers in the US that would make it impossible.