Police Brutality

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Whose Violence - The Police of Course

These are two responses to last months criticisms of the Oct. 22 March Against Police Brutality and what transpired. Last month we printed Michael Novicks additional response. Due to a miscommunications, (faulty email) we were not ware that Michael preferred that his part not be published. He felt the informality of email might give a wrong impression of his views, which he would have liked to address more formally. Ed.

RE: Letters in December, 2000 issue, concerning October 22nd Protest

Dear Editor:

As the letters of Tom Louie and, to a lesser degree, of Michael Novick sadly demonstrate, some in the movement to end police brutality still fall into the trap of blaming the victims of police abuse and repression, rather than the police, themselves, when violence erupts at an anti-police abuse demonstration.

The truth of what happened at this year's October 22nd protest against police brutality is clear: a completely peaceful and orderly demonstration of several thousand marchers, in total compliance with a parade permit signed by the head of the L.A. Police Commission, were brutally attacked by the LAPD with rubber bullets, clubs and horses, with absolutely no provocation or justification. Proof of these facts is found in the video of the event taken by Ralph Cole, himself a victim of police brutality that day, the video taken by a member of the Independent Media Center, and the eyewitness accounts of numerous Lawyers Guild legal observers, including former Santa Monica City Attorney Robert Meyers. All confirm that the police opened fire on the demonstrators before any demonstrators threw any objects at the police or committed any other illegal acts.

Its one thing to criticize the general tactical approach of the October 22nd Coalition; its quite another to issue public writings that place the onus for any of the violence on October 22nd on either the protestors, themselves, or those who organized the march and rally. This principle is so elementary and so well-established in the progressive movement for social change that its disappointing to have to chastise fellow activists for violating it.

On another point: the October 22nd Coalition is a very broad-based national and local coalition. Certainly, its membership and its leadership extends way beyond the confines of the RCP. It includes the A.C.L.U., CARECEN, CHIRLA, the Congress of Racial Equality, the National Lawyers Guild, many family members of victims of police violence, and religious leaders like the Rev. Andrew Robinson-Gaither. And it includes the signers of this letter. There is a name for attacks on a broad-based coalition which has, amongst its leadership, members of a communist party, where the attacks treat the coalition as though it were no more than that communist party: its called "red-baiting" and, like "violence baiting", it has no place in our movement.

Tom Louie goes so far as to call for a "boycott" of October 22nd! We would ask brother Louie these few questions: "What group, other than the October 22nd Coalition, has consistently brought thousands of people into the streets of Los Angeles and dozens of other U.S. cities, to protest police abuse?" "What group, other than the October 22nd Coalition, has distributed over 100,000 educational broadsides about police abuse in the communities of color in L.A.?" "What group, other than the October 22nd Coalition, has for the first time in our nation's history, united dozens of family members of victims of police brutality and repression?" "What group, other than the October 22nd Coalition has compiled anything to match the Stolen Lives book, a compilation of over 2,000 cases of police murders which has, among other distinctions, been made part of the Congressional Record, used in hearings by the Congressional Black Caucus, and been featured in numerous national magazines and newspapers?" Would brother Louie really prefer that, instead of several thousand people marching up Broadway protesting police abuse, we all stay home and wait for some un-named 'others' to do the job that only the October 22nd Coalition has so far been willing and able to do?"

Finally, we extend the hand of comradeship to brother Louie and brother Novick, and we say to them that now is not the time for sisters and brothers of goodwill to fight with one another. Now is the time for militant, united actions against our common enemy: a police department in Los Angeles that is determined to crush political dissent and to brutalize, at will, the population it seeks to keep under its iron heel. The October 22nd Coalition would be the first to admit that it doesn't have all the answers, that sometimes it makes mistakes, and that it doesn't "own" the movement to end police abuse. And we say to all those who believe in a united movement; to all those who are willing to stand up and fight for an end to police repression and violence; to all those whose hearts go out to the families of Tyisha Miller and Juan Saldana, and Julio Castillo, and Danny Ray Smith, "work with us in the October 22nd Coalition; work with us to make it even bigger and better than it has been. In unity and comradeship we will find the strength to finally end police repression and abuse".

Yours in Solidarity,

James Lafferty,

Executive Director,

National Lawyers Guild

Rev. Richard Meri-Ka-Ra Byrd

Christ Unity Center

Dear Editor and Tom Louie.

Tom asked a number of questions which need answering. First is the use of harsh, even insulting language towards the police. Tom, you miss the point of what makes O22 special; for one thing, this is the most powerful day of the year when survivors of police brutality, families of victims, and ordinary citizens simply terrorized by living in a police state feel safe to vent their feelings and express their anger and pain. You've seen the police at work, and you've heard the agony of families who make the statistics real: over 2,000 stolen lives! That hurts, Tom, and this is the one day all year when the police have to confront the emotions their actions cause. Where in the Constitution does it say we not only have to obey the law, but be polite and obsequious to those who ABUSE the law under color of authority? Words are not illegal, no matter how egregious. In addition, you didn't seem to notice that many of the most powerful and sustained chanting, which included words you found offensive, were uttered by youth, who have seen their whole generation criminalized, marginalized, denied, and incarcerated for their age, their attitudes, their clothes, even their music! They have a right to be angry, and they will be leading the next generation of activists who will not take it any more. In addition, they were also excited and hopeful, and wanted to share it with everyone. People were chanting, singing and celebrating; no one I saw who used the "p" word did anything worse to provoke the police.

The police hide behind a line of thin blue lies and full government support to brutalize, gather intelligence about the masses and community activists, label, blame and divide people; with their power and seemingly limitless authority to dispense street justice, they try to make that line an ocean of divisiveness. Police think that the honorary piece of tin they wear on their uniforms gives them the right to assault and brutalize and disrespect people without restraint. But they're wrong! Words may hurt like bullets, but they don't kill; they don't steal lives or leave innocent people with nothing below the waste but memories.

There's no excuse for the police using their batons like baseball bats and shooting children in the face because of a few choice epithets hurled at them by a legitimately furious, but peaceful, crowd.

The police were primed for a fight, planned this assault in advance-despite being fully informed of the legality of our march. They had consciously removed their name-tags, rendering themselves anonymous and immune from individual complaints. Who planned for violence, Tom? Us or them? You ask how responsible the planners could have been to put families and children in a march that was, you seem to imply, clearly manipulated to provoke a media-witnessed attack which we could use to "prove" how violent the police were all along, just like we had been saying. I don't know what Coalition meetings you attended, but nothing I saw or heard indicated to me that there was any cynical desire to provoke violence. Furthermore, you ask whether or not there were any plans for contingencies, or directions from the stage during any violence; maybe you missed Jim Lafferty, standing on stage with the families of the victims, exhorting people to stay calm, sit down, and remember who had the right to be there. At the same time, he was negotiating with the police to move their dangerously skitterish horses, and then themselves, beyond the crowd's perimeter, thereby defusing the situation.

Finally, you speak of the O22 Coalition and the march itself as something dominated, organized and manipulated by the RCP. You seem to put the blame squarely on the RCP's shoulders for the violence, not the police. Tom, do you even really know who and what the RCP is? I do. In my own experience of them, I have been privileged to work with disciplined, committed human beings who DO NOT provoke or stage violence, or running amok at demonstrations. They DO treat people in the struggle as responsible adults who are capable of taking responsibility for their own actions, and they recognize that when disenfranchised people are angry and tired of being brutalized with the full support of the political system, they will sometimes rise up and resist their oppression. The demonstrators MARCHED, legally and responsibly; they did not start the ruckus at O22, the police did! The RCP did NOT call for it, and in my own further experience, which has been so different from yours, they also do not work by dominating and controlling. I have seen them far more often work behind the scenes, organizing but in a facilitative way-encouraging other organizations and individuals to take up a particular campaign as their own, thereby truly diversifying the popular movement. They do not control, Tom. They have a program of social change to advance, one that is based on the equality and participation of everyone, and it would be contrary to their own vision to behave in the way you accuse them of. They do provide non-coercive leadership, direction, facilitation, and a certain framework for analysis. That's not domination, Tom.

There are many more comments you made which saddened and disturbed me, but surely the most detrimental to the movement is to call for a boycott of O22 next year! You need to look at the historical context of this incredible march, and the impact it has had on so many people nationwide, before you advise something like that again; you need to look at where the violence is coming from, Tom, and what it means to have held the streets in spite of massive police repression. To boycott O22 would be to legitimize the power and the right of the police to control this city by force and subterfuge. Understand something, Tom. They were humiliated by the power of the people in the Battle for Los Angeles during the DNC; they have been looking for payback ever since, and their violent reaction was a blatant attempt at exactly that.

It was totally inexcusable, and they have to be called on it; otherwise, blaming the organizers is tantamount to blaming the victims, and Tom, there have been far too many of those.

Henry L. Howard

Ed Note. Tom's original piece was not an excuse for the police and their brutal actions but a concern about how we react to them and the responsibility those organizing demonstrations have.