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Vol. 79/No. 27      August 3, 2015

 
(front page)
Fight against cop brutality grows
in year since Eric Garner was killed

Militant photos by Mike Shur
Rally July 18 in Brooklyn, N.Y., was among events to commemorate anniversary of chokehold killing of unarmed Eric Garner by New York cop. Inset, Garner’s wife, Esaw Garner, spoke to crowd.
BY MAGGIE TROWE  
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — “I can’t breathe,” said Esaw Garner, widow of Eric Garner, at a rally of hundreds across from the federal courthouse here July 18. The crowd repeated the words Eric Garner cried out 11 times as New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in a chokehold that killed him July 17, 2014. The event was part of two days of actions and church services marking the anniversary of Garner’s death, an occasion to take stock of events of the last year and the gains scored in the fight against police brutality.

Bystander Ramsey Orta’s video of the killing of Garner was seen by millions around the world. Broad protests took place in the weeks following Garner’s death, ruled a homicide by the coroner.

The outrage galvanized by Garner’s death grew in response to a series of killings by cops of other unarmed Black men. Among them: Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Aug. 9; Akai Gurley, shot and killed in a Brooklyn stairwell Nov. 20; 12-year-old Tamir Rice, carrying a toy gun, shot by Cleveland cops two seconds after they pulled up next to him Nov. 22; Walter Scott, shot in the back by a cop in North Charleston, South Carolina, April 4; and Freddie Gray, who died of spinal injuries sustained after being arrested in Baltimore April 12.

After grand juries let the cops who killed Brown and Garner walk, Black Lives Matter protests, many spontaneous, broke out across the country, with tens of thousands marching in New York Dec. 13.

This movement has overlapped with and reinforced the growing fight for a $15-an-hour minimum wage and unionization, spearheaded by fast-food and Walmart workers, with many young people joining actions around both questions.

While Garner’s killer was allowed to walk free, the surge of protests since his death, a manifestation of greater confidence, combativeness and solidarity in the working class, has resulted in some victories and led the ruling class to begin reining in the cops to a degree.

Vincent Liang, the cop who killed Gurley, was charged with manslaughter in February. Michael Slager, Scott’s killer, was indicted for murder and fired in April. Militant protests forced Maryland officials to bring serious charges against six Baltimore cops involved in Gray’s death. On June 11 a Cleveland city judge found probable cause to prosecute two cops who killed Rice, though the county prosecutor has refused to file charges.

Barely three weeks after the massacre of nine African-Americans at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white supremacist terrorist, the Confederate battle flag — a symbol of racist terror — was removed from the state Capitol. This victory was the result of the mass struggle for Black rights that overthrew segregation in the 1950s and ’60s and its social and political consequences over decades, reinforced by today’s struggles.

Several hundred people took part in a rally at Columbus Circle at the corner of Central Park July 17. Sponsors included Millions March NYC and Stop Mass Incarceration. They then marched through Midtown, eventually dispersing at Union Square later in the evening.

Significant union presence

The Brooklyn rally, which was marked by a significant union presence, was sponsored by the National Action Network, 1199SEIU, New York Nurses Association, NYC Communities for Change and the Working Families Party. Participants included SEIU Local 32BJ janitors, members of the New York Civil Liberties Union and a contingent from the Nation of Islam mosque in Harlem.

Speakers demanded the U.S. Department of Justice file civil rights charges against Pantaleo and that he be fired. Pantaleo was moved to a desk job after killing Garner and is under review by New York police internal affairs.

Speakers included Eric Garner’s mother, Gwen Carr, and his daughter Emerald Garner. Also present were Constance Malcolm, mother of Ramarley Graham, killed by New York cops in 2012; Wanda Johnson, mother of Oscar Grant, killed by a transit cop in Oakland, California, in 2009; Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, killed by a vigilante in Sanford, Florida, in 2012; and Leslie McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown.

“Without you, we couldn’t do this alone,” said Carr. “We need your support, because we know next time it could be you or your son. We want no more members” of the club of bereaved families. “This club is full. It’s closed.”

“I support the families of people killed by police,” said Olga López, 70, a cleaner who came with her son, a hospital worker and member of 1199SEIU.

“I came because I have a close-up view of the systematic institutional racism perpetrated by the justice system,” Nora Carroll, 33, a public attorney who was born in the South, told the Militant.

Members of People’s Organization for Progress were at the rally passing out handbills for the July 25 Million People’s March Against Police Brutality, Racial Injustice and Economic Inequality in Newark, New Jersey, a protest being built widely in the region.
 
 
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