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Last Thursday in North Minneapolis a police squad car ran a stop sign at high speed–no siren–and smashed into a passing car, and called for backup before calling for emergency medical services. They also totaled a parked car.
Today, also on the Northside, Minneapolis police brought at least five squad cars to lay siege to a boy who had run into a house— whom police clearly treated as armed and dangerous and escalated while people gathered to protest and put police on notice that they were watched.
Neither of these incidents of Minneapolis Police Department conduct have made the news nor even Twitter as far as i can tell. I just happen to know about them from friends.
Most people probably never heard about the police attack on @NNmutualaid camp.
Most people probably never heard about the police attack on @NNmutualaid camp.
How many people who support policing or more police do so mostly because they don't even hear about what police actually do with their time, their vehicles, their privileges of near-total-impunity (qualifiers pending result of #ChauvinTrial, but privileges NO ONE should have)?
Meanwhile, a couple miles away in a city bordering North Minneapolis, Brooklyn Center police killed someone this afternoon: https://twitter.com/kimvhyatt/status/1381371001603297286
This is inevitable with armed and dangerous police officers who think any challenge to their authority is justification to kill people.
In the interest of harm reduction, any lawyers who can (affordably, sorry) take on (assessing) suing police for instances of police brutality, i think there are people from the uprising last summer and also who defended @NNmutualaid camp who really could use legal counsel.
The police reaction when they kill a person is to go to war with the community rising up against them. https://twitter.com/DPet_KARE11News/status/1381393419713527808
Policing exists to control society, not stop crime. See how police dress, see how they act, even, especially, when they are in the wrong.
Not only is it their job— police know repression is key to their impunity.
Do we know it? We will never get liberation through the courts.
Not only is it their job— police know repression is key to their impunity.
Do we know it? We will never get liberation through the courts.
The police are here primarily for controlling workers, unemployed people— people who are having the most stolen from them by capitalism, historically and day in and day out.
The racism inherent in policing is not mystifying when looking at the role policing has in the ongoing control of Black people for the benefit of the (mostly white) oligarchy in the United States.
If Black people win social and economic justice, the system of exploitation falls.
If Black people win social and economic justice, the system of exploitation falls.
Almost all workers are exploited— this is how capitalism works. Establishment economists try to justify economic injustice by conflating profit with rewards for risk-taking or managerial skill, but there are markets for that. Profit is stolen from workers who produce the value.
Black people are both more likely to be exploited and more likely than other exploited people in the US to be aware of that fact and to organize to stop it.
Brutal repression against Black people is part of propping the whole system up.
Brutal repression against Black people is part of propping the whole system up.
In more than one very real material sense, no lives matter until Black Lives Matter.
Getting to exercise arbitrary authority–up to and including extreme violence–against any (Black) person not showing sufficient deference is just a perk of the job for a racist cop, but Black police officers still have the same job— enforcing social control and protecting wealth.
That's why swapping out the personnel doesn't stop violence from police officers, and why policing broadly isn't reformable.
It's why police stand in the way of most social progress.
It's why police stand in the way of most social progress.
And it's why we are strongest standing up to police as part of a movement that includes economic demands.
If you are near Minneapolis and can join one such struggle to defend @NNmutualaid camp from police attack, please install Signal app and use it to text HELLO to 904 844 0976
If you are near Minneapolis and can join one such struggle to defend @NNmutualaid camp from police attack, please install Signal app and use it to text HELLO to 904 844 0976
You'll receive alerts when defense is needed... and food and camaraderie opportunities.
When we defend the most marginalized, it sets real boundaries on policing and a floor on how badly any of us can be treated.
Renters and unhoused need to unite!
When we defend the most marginalized, it sets real boundaries on policing and a floor on how badly any of us can be treated.
Renters and unhoused need to unite!
E-mail [email protected] to ask about (or suggest!) other ways you can help— getting the word out is still critical. People need to know what their police department (and Office of Community Planning and Economic Development) is up to in order to stop it.
First priority is always the people living at @nnmutualaid camp— 0.6 acres of land a short biking distance of public transit and walking distance to at least one corner store, or the money to buy that, makes confrontation with police much less likely. https://opencollective.com/mpls-northside-mutual-aid
If you think police serve a purpose to protect regular people from violent people…
and you think police need to have the numbers and equipment to hold back an entire uprising after police commit violence…
you exclude most people from "regular" and you are a fascist.
and you think police need to have the numbers and equipment to hold back an entire uprising after police commit violence…
you exclude most people from "regular" and you are a fascist.
Case in point: https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1381467312419602434
Two weeks ago, again in North Minneapolis, police full-force punched a teenage boy and terrorized the community that came out to protest and bear witness. https://twitter.com/CopsRBad/status/1375894150109929477
And a week before that, Northside again, Minneapolis police attacked @NNmutualaid camp (at the behest of CPED) and arrested five defenders, and brutalized many more, including fracturing the foot of an elderly legal observer. https://mobile.twitter.com/SeanLimMN/status/1372673962677825536
The camp still needs your help. It remains under threat from CPED. And as everyone can see, local police are even more emboldened when national guard is in town and no matter what they do the Governor will send in more military and state troopers to repress a fed up population.
