SILVER SPRING, MD—Over 100 Montgomery County residents held a multiracial rally and march protesting the racist police murder of Robert White, a 41 year old mentally ill Black man on June 13. His crime? Walking while Black. Progressive Labor Party (PLP)distributed leaflets and connected the murderous Ku Klux Klan and the killer cops as part of the racist state power that must be overthrown with multiracial communist revolution.
The prosecutor ruled Robert’s murder was justified and released body camera footage of the encounter. The cameras show that the police officer, Anand Badgujar, got out of his car and started following Robert who was walking in his neighborhood as he did daily. Robert became agitated with the cop, and understandably so, because there was no real reason to stop him. The officer persisted, harassing him and even using pepper spray on him.
Kkop Badgujar claimed Robert knocked him down and continuosly hit him, so he responded by shooting him instead of backing off and de-escalating the unjustified confrontation. At one point on the video evidence showed footage of, Badgujar  saying, “This looks like suicide by cop” and called for backup. Despite thisProsecutor Broccolino stated, “We have, unanimously, concluded that [the officer’s] actions were justified under the circumstances,” and closed the case.
Mental illness is not a crime
Speakers from the community who knew Robert White were incensed that he was harassed and then killed simply for “looking suspicious.” A neighbor from the Silver Spring Justice Coalition said that she walks the same routes.
Robert often exchanged pleasantries with him at the store or library. No one had called the police to investigate. He walked the neighborhood daily.
He lived with his mother and father (retired school teacher and minister) and had no history of violence. Mental illness is not a crime. Walking is not a crime. Robert just “wanted to be left alone” as one speaker put it, and their is no crime in that. But don’t tell the bosses’ racist media that!
This rally followed a protest held in June at the time of the murder that highlighted the murder’s systemic, racist nature, even at the hands of a non-White cop. At that protest, Lakshmi Sridaran, Director of National Policy and Advocacy of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) declared, “It is unfortunate that in this case [the cop] is a South Asian American and we will not stand behind that person simply because of their identity.”
After all, it is every cop’s ultimate task—whether they’re Black, white, Latin, or South Asian—to protect this rotten capitalist system at workers’ expense.
Another speaker, mother to Emmanuel Okutuga, who was murdered by cop Christopher Jordan of the same police force in February 2011, spoke passionately about the need to fight for justice and called on the Black community to realize that this can happen to them also.
Her son was about to graduate from college at Bowie State University. Video showed he was not a threat. Somehow, though, the prosecutor’s office “accidently” deleted the video and left the judge free to rule in favor of cop Jordan, calling the death “justifiable homicide.”
Montgomery County borders Washington, D.C. and appears, on the surface, not to have the level of police brutality and murder that has characterized its neighboring Prince George’s County. But the police play the same role everywhere.
Robert’s case echoes the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson—murdered for walking while Black. The struggle against racist police terror will continue under capitalism until all workers unite to create a communist world.