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    Vol.61/No.17           April 28, 1997 
 
 
Young Socialists Demand: Stop Police Brutality  
This column is written and edited by the Young Socialists (YS), an international organization of young workers, students, and other youth fighting for socialism. For more information about the YS write to: Young Socialists, P.O. Box 14392, St. Paul, MN 55114. Tel: (612) 644-0051. Compuserve: 105162,605

The following statement was issued by the New York Young Socialists.

Stop Police brutality! The recent killings of Kevin Cedeno and Librado Sánchez should be condemned and the cops put on trial and sent to jail.

The fight against police brutality has become a major issue in New York City. Through this struggle, many people have been rudely awakened to the brutal nature of cops. It has become clearer to many fighters over the past year that the police are an enemy of the working class. They prowl through our neighborhoods, harassing and beating up young people, especially youth from oppressed nationalities.

The big business media attempts to portray workers and youth as criminals to justify the cops' role as judge, jury, and executioner on the streets.

Far from being crime fighters and defenders of justice, cops perpetrate and participate in criminal activity. This gang also sells drugs and guns, and terrorizes working-class communities. The police force is a racist and sexist organization through and through. There aren't "just a few rotten apples" in the police force, as they want us to believe. The entire organization is rotten and corrupt.

As the capitalist system sinks deeper into crisis, the rulers of these countries compete intensely with each other to maximize profits. Part of this competition includes going after the social gains of the working class and squeezing more money out of our hides.

The attacks on welfare and other entitlements like social security, closing down factories and laying off of workers, destroying unions, assaults on affirmative action, cutting funds for education, chipping away at women's right to choose abortion, and the superexploitation of immigrant workers are all a part of this offensive. But as the attacks on our standard of living intensify, growing numbers of workers and youth begin to resist these measures.

The ruling class is aware of this, so they deploy more cops on the streets, while at the same time clamping down on basic democratic rights, like the right to assemble, freedom of speech, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and other rights. The police serve the interests of the capitalist ruling class, and enforce these crackdowns. Whether they're breaking up a picket line of striking workers or brutalizing young people who are trying to defend an abortion clinic from rightist forces, the cops will always be defending the enemy of working people.

How do we end police brutality once and for all? Cops under capitalism guard the property and interests of the wealthy. They uphold the capitalist state. As we struggle against police brutality, gaining confidence in our capacity to fight and win, we must link up with other fighters and build a movement capable of overthrowing this bourgeois government and creating a new society based on human solidarity.

Workers, youth and all those fighting against injustice should demand: "Jail the Guilty Cops!"

 
 
 
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