GARY, INDIANA—Over 30 multiracial and multi-generational women and men gathered today in downtown Gary, Indiana, to protest racist police terror and the capitalist injustice system that protects it.
A local Black Lives Matter (BLM) group, with Progressive Labor Party members and friends organized the action to support the family of Kemonte Cobbs, a 15-year-old Black student killed by police on August 1, 2017. We marched through the city’s downtown area, calling for an end to racist police terror, and for the murderous cop in question, Justin Hedrick, to be fired and arrested.
KKKops and courts work hand-in-hand
Kemonte was allegedly involved in the robbery of a cellphone store earlier in the day that he was murdered, but instead of allowing him “due process” and to be tried by a “jury of his peers,” he was executed, shot in the top of his head.
Immediately following the murder, cops and hospital officials began the process of withholding information from Kemonte’s mother, Tasheena Brooks, while also pressuring her for information to find her son’s alleged partners in the robbery.
Three local police departments were on the scene of the incident, and they withheld their detailed reports from Tasheena and the public. Three months after his death, his mother had to take the police departments to court because she still hadn’t received the reports and video from the killing.
Finally, Tasheena was given three different police reports. One stated that he was running while shot, another saying he was “lying in wait” to ambush police, and the last claiming he charged at officers with his gun drawn. At first they told her no weapon was recovered near Kemonte. A week later, they called her back to inform her that “a weapon was recovered near his body.”
Despite the police story’s incoherence and lack of evidence, the county prosecutor, Bernard Carter ruled the murder justified. This is the same Black prosecutor who is notorious for locking up Black and Latin youth. Most infamously, Carter fought to get legislation passed to fine and possibly arrest youth for “sagging pants,” a racist law that would be used disproportionately to profile and criminalize Black youth.
Taking the fight back to the kkkops
The first stop of the rally was the Gary Police Department, home base for racist kkkop and proud #BlueLivesMatter thug Justin Hedrick. We formed a picket line and chanted for them to stop hiding Hedrick and other racists like him. Fired up in spite of the freezing Midwest weather, we next marched on to Kemonte’s school.
At the school his friends spoke up for him. The story they told contradicted the vile racist image the police and media have tried to present, that of a hardened criminal at age 15. His friends spoke about how much of a generous person Kemonte was, and how he would go without so his friends and family would be okay. Upon leaving the school, we marched to our final destination: Gary City Hall.
At this time, a PL’er called out the profit system of capitalism as the real culprit that emboldened Hedrick to murder Kemonte. She stated capitalism has enabled countless racist killer cops and vigilantes alike to murder and maim working-class people around the world.
At City Hall, a member of Black Lives Matter read the press release and demands, culminating with the demand to fire Justin Hedrick. The rally was finalized with a heartfelt speech from Tasheena, a fighter who, in spite of police intimidation, a county prosecutor who justified her son’s death, and a stalling lawyer, has chosen to stand up and fight.
Black workers are key in the struggle for revolution, and Tasheena’s courage further highlights that Black women workers are an essential aspect of that force.
Reform must build toward communist revolution
The capitalist bosses are more than ready to unleash their police attack dogs on workers, because their system can only be profitable when the majority of workers are so weakened through intimidation, division, and violence that they can’t organize to fight back.
And alongside this developing fightback here, we can’t be content with just getting Hedrick fired. Building an electoral campaign to oust county prosecutor Bernard Carter cannot be the end of the tunnel either. Until we destroy capitalism, someone else will replace these two fascists in the role of suppressing Black and Latin working class youth. No matter what face capitalism uses—Obama’s or Trump’s—the result is exploitation of our labor, unemployment, racism and war for our class.
Deepening our ties with workers everywhere, sharing leadership and experience as we challenge our enemies, provides our class and its Party with the skill and confidence that we can and will win. Together through constant struggle we will crush this racist, sexist profit system and build an egalitarian communist world that meets the needs of all workers and youth.