STATEN ISLAND, NY, April 16— On May 13, a phony NYPD departmental “disciplinary” trial will be held for Daniel Pantaleo, the racist cop who murdered Eric Garner on July 17, 2014, using a banned chokehold. While Eric was being murdered, Ramsey Orta, a neighborhood resident, turned on his cell phone and took a video of the murder of his friend. Ramsey filmed the killing while seven other callous cops and Emergency Medical Techincians watched and did nothing as Eric said, “I can’t breathe” eleven times.
These criminals with badges have not been  charged with any crimes yet, and they certainly have not been fired. Mayor Bill de Blasio allowed current and former police commissioners to permit  Pantaleo to continue to working (and even make an excessive amount of overtime). The trial is phony because it only makes a recommendation to the Police Commissioner.
SiaraPB (Staten Island Against Racism and Police Brutality), formed after Eric’s murder, will demonstrate for justice for Eric Garner and demand criminal charges against Pantaleo at the NYPD headquarters at 1 Police Plaza at 9am on Monday, May 13.
Ramsey Orta’s journey through prison system is not over
Because Ramsey Orta made sure the video was made public, workers all over the world became aware of the racist brutality of the New York Police Department. This created an international firestorm and made Ramsey a target of the police. We won’t forget that if it were not for Ramsey’s courage, we would not clearly and vividly know the truth about Eric Garner’s death. There are many other cop murders of unarmed Black and Latin people, but their details are not known because they are covered up by the police and the media—there is no video.
Yet, Ramsey was released and arrested many times after the video went public. Two of the charges led to his imprisonment and he is now serving a harsh sentence of close to four years. As an essentially political prisoner, Ramsey has been treated very badly during his time in prison: he has been transferred six times to different prisons very far from New York City, where his family and friends live;he is frequently harassed, given violations for minor infractions, and even put in solitary for very minor infractions.Siara PB and the Progressive Labor Party have organized to help people visit Ramsey. We continue to support him. He will be in prison serving until July, 2020 and will likely face police harassment when he is released.
Anti-racist struggles help build communism
 One of the things we’ve learned participating in anti-racist, anti-killer cop movements in the last few years is that many, many workers and students talk about the fact that we must change the whole system, usually meaning reforming the police and judicial system.  Our job as communists is to help them understand that the capitalist system needs racism to divide the working class and make more profits and that the cops and the courts are part of the state apparatus that keeps the capitalists in power. Only by destroying capitalism and by the working class taking power under a mass communist party will we be able to abolish the capitalist injustice system. Bringing workers and students to that level of understanding is our job as members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party. Join us on MAY DAY!