Statement on Brooklyn, N.Y., shootings: Uprising must stay strong

The New York City Peoples Power Assembly Movement issued this “Don’t let this incident be used to crush the uprising” statement on Dec. 21:

The police have been desperately searching or waiting for some occurrence that they can use as a weapon to crush the most powerful, widespread, national mass uprising against racist police terror and murder since the 1960s.

Until yesterday, the frame-up of activists from #MillionsMarchNYC on Dec. 13 was the weapon. We demand immediate amnesty for those targeted activists accused of the alleged attacks on New York Police Department detectives on the Brooklyn Bridge.

But now, the police — and the powers that be who rule over society and whose interests the police “protect and serve” — have got a much bigger weapon. The killing of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, allegedly by Ismaaiyl Brinsley, who afterwards allegedly killed himself in a subway station, is NOW that weapon.

We underscore the word “allegedly” because all we know about what happened is what the police have told us.  And while at the moment we have no information that counters the police story, we always suspect whatever the police say because they lie all the time.

One of the reasons that many of us prefer the strategy of a mass, social and political uprising against the whole system, over individuals targeting police, is because history has shown that more often than not, when people engage in individual, random attacks on police, it’s used by the government, the police and the system to attack the movement with violence baiting, in order to justify ratcheting up repression against the masses.

That said, we also know that anger over police repression and murder is so deep that it should come as no surprise to anyone that somebody would, sooner or later, act on that burning rage. Especially when the so-called justice system demonstrates time after time after time that police can, and do, murder with impunity.

Neither do we forget that 99.9 percent of the violence comes from the police.

‘No repression against the movement’

From this point on, the establishment media and all who benefit from or serve the system will insist that we forget that the police have been waging a racist, violent and deadly war against Black and Brown people, especially young people.

The new narrative coming from on high will be that the murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Ramarley Graham, Aiyana Stanley-Jones,John Crawford III and thousands of other young people of color don’t matter anymore.

We are about to witness a no-holds-barred campaign to criminalize and break the powerful movement sparked by Ferguson, Mo., which every day has brought many thousands of people into the streets of cities and towns across the country.

The rhetoric from rulers about “respecting the right to protest” will be replaced with “the protesters are guilty of murder” — and so the right to protest will be revoked.

The strength of the uprising has rocked the system and weakened the capacity of the police to crack down on the protests, which, after all, is the ultimate goal of the police. How else can they continue their war against Black and Brown people?

Let us not forget: It is the police who kill without mercy, without regret, without concern for the families of their victims. It is the police who function like a gang, alien and hostile to most of society that’s not privileged by class or race.

The only concern of the police is that their violence, their cover-ups and lies not be questioned.

The people who really value all life, who want a world free of repression, violence and all forms of injustice, are the people who have been marching with signs that say “Black Lives Matter.” It is within this tremendous new movement against police violence that genuine humanity and the understanding of the pain of those who must face the holidays without their slain loved ones are rooted.

Most importantly, we must not let what happened in Brooklyn on Dec. 20 be used to destroy, harm or shake this movement for justice. We demand no escalation of repression against the movement.

This movement is the hope of the future. The oppressors hate it and fear it. We must see that it is not set back.