THE BRONX, NY, February 7 — Once again, “New York’s Finest” have demonstrated the true purpose of the kkkops: to protect and serve the bosses’ state, not the workers of the world or in the Bronx. These fascist, racist cops use petty crimes to racially profile, beat, illegally frisk and search, and even kill our young, especially in impoverished neighborhoods where the majority are black and Latino.
On Thursday, February 2, an unarmed black man, Ramarley Graham, 18, was chased into his grandmother’s apartment and shot dead in front of her and his six-year-old brother by Richard Haste, an NYPD cop. The police initially claimed that Ramarley had a gun, but no weapon was found, only a small amount of marijuana. The police then dragged Ramarley’s grandmother to the 47th precinct and held her for seven hours, refusing to release her until she gave a statement.
Not long before Ramarley’s murder, another young black man, Jatiek Reed, 19, was beaten viciously by the NYPD. This pattern of violence is the copsÂ’ real job. It has the single purpose of keeping working-class people, and black and Latino workers in particular, terrified and quiet.
But the bosses’ strategy isn’t working, because the outraged neighborhood has not stood passively by. The Monday after the attack, a demonstration of many hundreds marched on the 47th precinct. The crowd was angry, and some young workers had to be held back from physically attacking the precinct house. CHALLENGE has been sold for years in this neighborhood. After the incident, Progressive Labor Party distributed nearly 800 copies of a leaflet that explained why these attacks are on the rise.
New York’s bosses fear the working class, especially the workers in the Bronx. The Bronx is the poorest of New York’s five boroughs, with up to 45 percent living in poverty and 54 percent youth unemployment in some neighborhoods. As the capitalist economic crisis in the U.S. and worldwide continues to get worse, workers can only expect more repression. There will be more murders and beatings, in the Bronx and elsewhere.
We believe there is only one way to rid the Bronx of its racist murders, along with the violence, drugs, unemployment, and substandard education and healthcare that capitalism imposes on us. We must destroy the profit system at its roots. The only reason these conditions prevail, and the only reason that the mad-dog police ruthlessly enforce them, is because the bosses are making money on workers’ misery.
Capitalism must be wiped out once and for all. Workers, students, soldiers; black, Asian, Latino and white, unite and FIGHT BACK!