LA Workers Turn Up for Brendon Glenn

LOS ANGELES, January 16—While criminal charges are being recommended for the racist cop who killed Brendon Glenn, an unarmed, homeless Black worker last May, workers and members of the Progressive Labor Party fighting for justice are not holding their breath.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck’s recommendation was made on January 11, and can only be carried out by a District Attorney or grand jury.
As of January 15, hypocrite Beck had not done what is within his power: initiate disciplinary proceedings against cop Clifford Proctor, who has been on paid leave since he killed Glenn.
Antiracist Workers in Churches Take Lead
During the summer, workers and PL’ers in our local church’s social justice committee took the lead in organizing three marches on Venice’s Ocean Front Walk. One of our chants at these marches was, “No justice, no peace—no racist police!” One of our demands was that Proctor be indicted. We also raised that demand November 29 at a march in Koreatown against racist police killings, organized by anti-racists from another church in that area we’ve been working with. During that march, as we wound through the streets, we called out the names of many of those mowed down by police in LA and throughout the U.S., and chanted, “The whole damn system’s got to go.”
Another demand of our marches—and of hundreds of angry Venice residents at a town hall meeting two days after the May 5 shooting—was that the video be released to the public. According to their attorney, Glenn’s family will demand release of the video.
While an indictment is welcomed for Brendon Glenn’s murderer, true justice for Glenn or anyone in the working class will never be found under capitalism. In the midst of these rallies and marches, we are building PLP to build a mass party to lead a revolution and build a communist society. Under communism there will no such thing as kkkops or racist police terror.
Capitalism: Bosses’ Dictatorship
Capitalism is based on the injustice of exploiting all workers, and was founded on the enslavement of Africans. Capitalism’s development depended, and its survival depends, on the racist super-exploitation of some workers over others. The bosses developed and refined their racist state apparatus like their prisons, cops, and political system over centuries to defend murderers like Proctor and Beck.
Even if Proctor is charged, history has shown that cops tend to be acquitted or, less often, found guilty of relatively low-level crimes with light sentences. According to the LA Times (1/12/16), “prosecutors have not charged a law enforcement officer in an on-duty shooting in 15 years.”
Top kkkop Beck served in the same elite, fascist LAPD “CRASH” unit whose goal was to arrest gang members “by any means necessary” (PBS 8/14/12). This meant carrying a supply of illegal weapons to plant on Black and Latin workers, with plaques and honors awarded for shootings that killed their victims. Much of the LAPD’s internal investigation into CRASH is still suppressed, including a 40-page report on three officers investigated for the murder of rapper “Notorious B.I.G.”
This is a taste of the bosses’ dictatorship that only a mass communist PLP can destroy, when millions of workers are organized and fighting for armed revolution. Our movement is growing —one of the marchers just agreed to be on the Party committee that is organizing our April 30, PLP May Day dinner.
May Day is the only international working class holiday. It’s a day we celebrate our class’ history of fightback all over the world, and gather our forces to look forward to smashing the bosses’ capitalist dictatorship, its imperialist wars, killer kkkops like Clifford, and the bosses they serve.
We will continue the immediate struggle with a rally at the District Attorney’s office. We join the workers demanding that Proctor be indicted for murder, and continue fighting and organizing for a communist society where our class rules the earth.