Stop Courtney Hill, Killer Cop

CHICAGO, June 8 – “I’m here now trying to explain to you how my grandfather was killed by his next-door neighbor, who is a cop and is getting away with it. It just doesn’t make sense.” That’s how one relative described the April 24 murder of 86-year-old Joe Huff by Chicago cop Courtney Hill.  Hill also shot Joe’s 92-year-old wife Hazel three times, then had her arrested on charges of aggravated battery against a police officer. The Chicago Police Department (CPD) immediately cordoned off the Huff yard and tampered with the evidence to take the blame off killer cop Hill and his wife Kathy. The next day, the CPD announced that the shooting was justifiable.  
Joe’s relative made his comments during today’s march, organized by the Huff family and friends to expose the CPD cover-up and demand that Hill be charged with murder.
As we marched down Carpenter St. with over 100 family and friends, many wore #HuffNation t-shirts. The streets echoed from neighbors and friends chanting, “Justice for Joe,” “Hill you murderer,” and “Everywhere you go, justice for Joe.” Neighbors came out of their homes raising their fists in solidarity.  The march ended in front of the Huff’s home, as family and friends chanted, “Racist Hill you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”  Hill and his family were on their porch laughing and making obscene comments as we marched by.
The Hills are black racists. For years they have harassed the Huff family and other neighbors on the block, where they are also landlords. Kathy Hill tries to run the neighborhood through bullying, intimidation and terror, showing the same racist disrespect for her black neighbors that the big capitalists exhibit toward black workers every day. Capitalism uses intimidation and terror to keep the working class in line.  That’s what the police are for. Why should his neighborhood be any different?
After years of racist harassment and continued abuse, Joe Huff had enough and went to get his gun. When he came back out, cop Hill killed him and shot his wife. Kathy Hill was also shot during the melee. Family members and neighbors were outraged.
Communists Fight Racist Terror
Progressive Labor Party (PLP) was invited to the march by transit workers from the neighborhood. Several of Joe’s relatives also work at Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), where we hope to build the fight against police terror. What would it have mean if hundreds of anti-racist transit workers walked off their jobs and marched to police headquarters to protest Joe’s murder?
Transit workers know plenty about racist terror: the two-tier wage system that punishes younger workers; the blaming of workers whenever the bosses’ conditions cause an accident; the constant harassment and terror on the job. CTA bosses have fired 800 mainly black workers over the last three years, as the union sat idly by. One worker was fired after the police filed a false report against him.
Back in the 1940s and 1950s, Chicago’s communist-led meatpackers had a better idea. They fought racism on the job and racist terror against black workers who moved into previously all-white neighborhoods, linking the two. We can do the same.
There is no justice for the working class under the racist profit system. For that, we need communist revolution. We will try to organize more CTA workers to join the Huff family Monday, June 23, at the 111 Street Courthouse at 1 PM.