Vol. 80/No. 19      May 16, 2016

 

Letters

 

Justice for Dontre Hamilton

Some 300 people braved the cold rain April 30 to protest the brutal murder of Dontre Hamilton at the hands of police officer Christopher Manney two years ago that day. On the day of the shooting, Hamilton, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was sleeping in the park. The first cops on the scene determined that Hamilton wasn’t doing anything illegal. Officer Manney showed up later, claimed Hamilton resisted his pat down, and shot him 14 times. Manney was not charged.

Nate Hamilton spoke for the Coalition for Justice. The rally was held at Red Arrow Park, the site of his brother’s killing.

Rich Gaeta
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Railroad safety

Your April 25 article about the Amtrak crash in Chester, Pennsylvania, that killed maintenance worker Joe Carter Jr. and supervisor Peter John Adamovich was on target. You quoted John Staggs, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, saying the real source of the crash is the dangerous conditions and pressures created by the capitalist bosses.

Those conditions include the fact that rather then notifying train crews in writing of the location of a work crew and having the train engineer talk directly to the work supervisor by radio before they proceed through their work area, Amtrak uses what the Federal Railroad Administration refers to a simplified method of establishing working limits called Foul Time.

The work crew informs the dispatcher that they are working on a particular track and this dispatcher is supposed to route all trains to an adjacent track.

While notifying train crews of track work and having them talk to the supervisor in charge is obviously the safest course, it can lead to delaying of some trains. Rail bosses, more concerned with on-time performance than with safety, have successfully lobbied to increase the use
of Foul Time

This is something all rail workers must organize to fight against.

Mike Galati
Fredericksburg, Virginia

Defend right to abortion

Planned Parenthood-Gwinnett Health Center in Lawrenceville, the only Atlanta metro area Planned Parenthood clinic with Saturday hours, was picketed by about 60 opponents of women’s rights April 23. Planned Parenthood Southeast Inc. organized a presence of about 40 defenders of a women’s right to choose abortion.

Among participants were a number of younger women and men, including a contingent of five students from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. Ruvani Jayaweera, a student there, told the Militant, “We came because it’s important to stand with a women’s right to choose.”

Staci Fox, CEO of Planned Parenthood Southeast, said, “These protests are about shame and intimidation. Women deserve to access safe and legal health care without judgment.”

Lisa Potash
Atlanta, Georgia

 
 
 
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