-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 27, 2000
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
WWP CANDIDATE MOOREHEAD: YET ANOTHER RACIST COP
ATROCITY IN PHILLY
[Workers World Party 2000 presidential candidate Monica
Moorehead issued the following statement on July 19.]
Six days after the savage beating of Thomas Jones by a
crazed mob of Philadelphia police was captured on
videotape, another police atrocity has enraged that city.
On July 18, Robert Brown, an African American man with a
history of mental illness, was shot and killed by an Amtrak
cop at the crowded 30th Street Station.
What was the motive behind the shooting? Was Brown
threatening the cops or any other people with a dangerous
weapon? No. Brown was waving a metal chair in the air when
he was gunned down. There was no doubt that he was in an
agitated state. The fact that Brown allegedly screamed
"Shoot me, I don't care" was a cry for help, not a death
wish.
Eyewitnesses screamed in horror as the police shot Brown--
not in the arm or in the leg but in the abdomen, an injury
which is more certain to cause death.
Some of those same eyewitnesses reportedly shouted at the
cops, "You didn't have to kill him, he only had a chair." A
young Black mother told the local ABC affiliate that while
Brown was yelling at her child, she did not feel that her
child was endangered by his actions.
There are two real reasons for this tragic shooting.
Reason number one: Brown was Black. Reason number two:
Brown was homeless. As a result, to the police and the
wealthy ruling class whose interests they protect, Brown
was another poor, expendable Black man--less than human.
But this second incident of police brutality, coming less
than two weeks before the opening of the Republican
Convention in Philadelphia, must be creating nightmares for
the bourgeoisie. They must wonder why the cops cannot keep
their racist behavior under wraps until the convention is
over.
They forget that at times their cops act independently
from the way they would want them to. The last thing that
the ruling class wants to see is the Black community
explode into a rebellion before or during this convention
of racist, pro-cop, pro-death penalty millionaires and
billionaires--a rebellion that would be totally justified.
The police say they are planning to carry out a "full
investigation" of this incident. Investigation has
historically meant whitewash. The police commissioner is
also urging that the Black community remain calm until all
the "facts" are in--the same stance he took following the
Jones beating.
The cops are hoping that what happened to Jones and Brown
will eventually die down and it will be business as usual
in terms of the police continuing to terrorize Black and
Latino neighborhoods.
But the Black community of Philadelphia will not forget
what happened to these two men. Nor will they forget what
happened to Donta Dawson, Delbert Africa, the MOVE family,
Mumia Abu-Jamal and the long list of other victims of
Philadelphia police violence.
One day all of the suffering that the Black people and
other oppressed peoples in Philadelphia have had to endure
will come back to haunt these vicious rulers and their
fascistic mercenaries in blue.
- END -
(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
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