Vol. 78/No. 47      December 29, 2014

The Staten Island grand jury decision not to indict the cops who killed Eric Garner has changed the terrain for the fight against police brutality and killings, making it clearer that cop violence is above all a class issue. This is how the police act.

Millions watched the video of the cop putting a chokehold on Garner. They do so to stop your breathing and incapacitate you, so they can get the cuffs on. They Taser workers for the same reason. And the prosecutors and courts defend these actions as necessary and prudent, part of the cops doing their job, which is to keep working people in their place.

Esaw Garner, the widow of Eric Garner, raises the level of political leadership in the fight against police brutality when she explains that her husband’s killing was not a question of race. Above all the working class — the revolutionary class — is the target. Within this framework, such cop actions are directed disproportionately against workers who are Black.

The police cannot and will not be reformed by “better training,” community policing, video cameras or police review boards. They carry out the role dictated to them by the class they serve, part of maintaining the dictatorship of capital. This is why it is so hard to even get them charged, much less convicted.

Working people need to organize independently of the Democratic and Republican parties. The workers movement needs to organize its own party — a labor party to champion our own interests. Through collective struggle, from the fight against police brutality to the fight at Walmart and elsewhere for $15 an hour, full-time work and a union, and other working-class battles, we can advance solidarity and self-confidence as we fight independently along a course toward the conquest of power.
 
 
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