One Year Later—Fight Against KKKiller Cops Continues

BROOKLYN, NY, June 15 — “If you hate these racist killer cops, put your fist in the air!”  Scores of fists were raised in response to this chant from a motorcade led by family members of Shantel Davis and Kimani Grey through the Flatbush neighborhood.  It has been one year since racist murderer Detective Philip Atkins shot and killed 23-year-old Shantel Davis in her car. The resolve of her family, the Shantel Davis Committee for Justice and Beyond, and members of Progressive Labor Party to continue the fight is as strong as ever. 
Only nine months after Shantel was murdered, police from Atkins’ precinct gunned down a 16-year-old young man, Kimani Gray, less than a mile from where Shantel was murdered.  As Shantel’s sister put it again during a Friday night vigil, where Constance Malcolm, the mother of another murder victim, Ramarley Graham, spoke, the NYPD is creating a new family of fighters determined to keep the memory of their loved ones alive and the fight against racist police murder strong. 
The women from these families boldly defy the bosses’ laws by taking over the streets in demonstrations to seek justice. They are living proof that through struggle, women can and will break through the passivity that the bosses push on working-class females in particular.  The women of the Graham, Davis and Gray families point the way toward a future where the capitalists and their sexist, racist system will be smashed once and for all.
After one year, there has been no movement by District Attorney Charles Hynes to indict Atkins. His promises to the family to investigate thoroughly were a blatant lie. To continue our fightback, the Shantel Davis committee organized a vigil on the one-year memorial, followed by a motorcade through the neighborhood and a barbecue the following day.
The vigil was an important memorial on the one-year anniversary of Shantel’s killing. Several of her friends not seen at the many marches over the past twelve months made a point of coming out and speaking.  Traffic was blocked. Some spoke of reform and voting “wisely” and PLP advocated the need to continue the struggle against this racist system until a communist world is ours. Once the bosses’ system of capitalism is smashed, the need to divide the working class and super-exploit some will no longer exist. Only then will we be able to smash racism, sexism and all other anti-working class ideas.  CHALLENGE remains the paper of record in this struggle and was enthusiastically received by passersby from our motorcade. 
Over the past year, members of PLP have struggled with committee members over what fighting for justice means. If Atkins was indicted, would that be justice? Through the class struggle, committee members are beginning to see that the working class cannot rely on preachers and politicians who serve to pacify the movement or courts that serve the ruling class.  While we still have a long way to go to show that only communism will bring about the justice we seek, the working class is teaching members what it means to be fearless fighters against this system.

Join PL Summer Project

As the bosses’ schools are dismissed in NYC on June 28, PLP will spring into high gear on June 29 with our national youth Summer Project against racist police murders. In subsequent days we will sustain daily picket lines at the offices of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes who refuses to bring criminal charges against the plainclothes officers working the 67th precinct responsible for the Brooklyn murders. We stand in unity with the families and friends of the slain in the fight for justice even as we remain firm in our conviction that victory lies in the advancement toward building for communist revolution. Family and friends who marched on May Day with us and who ensured that our communist message is heard at rallies reflect the very growing unity that rulers fear.
The onslaught of racist kkkop murders of black youth continues unabated worldwide. Progressive Labor Party’s response in NYC has been to dig deeper and fight harder around the killer cop cases of Ramarley Graham, Shantel Davis and Kimani Gray. PLP has been deeply entrenched in these struggles and will continue to intensify the fight.
Communist justice will be swift and lasting. In a communist world our young people will not be herded by police through metal detectors into schoolrooms where teachers and students are set up to fail, and they will not be chased out of the schoolroom by school closures and left to idle on streets in cities with no jobs and killer kkkops on the prowl.
When school lets out this coming week, young people with a growing commitment to the fight for communism will gather under the leadership of the PLP, and give leadership to the PLP — by participating in rallies, study groups, movie reviews, barbeques, antiracist history tours, and reading and writing for CHALLENGE. We will cap off our Summer Project with an intensive communist school from July 7 to July 11 where we will deepen our understanding of dialectical materialism, the universally applicable philosophy of revolutionary communism. Come join us!