Thursday, April 09, 2015

#ShutDownA14 What Are YOU Going to Do?

The murder of Walter Scott in South Carolina, shot down by a cop the way a slave chaser would gun down a rebellious slave, on top of everything else that has happened in the past few months, calls out to us – What are you going to do now?

On April 14, people in cities across the country will take to the streets to disrupt business as usual because business as usual in this country includes police getting away with murdering Black and Latino people. What will you do on this day?
 
Will you join Cornel West, Eve Ensler, Arturo O'Farrill, Reverend Calvin Butts, Cindy Sheehan, Jasmine Guy, Jasiri X, many family members of police murder victims and others in the streets on that day? 

Will you add your voice to those speaking out against the system to stop giving a green light to brutal, murdering cops? Will you make a serious financial donation to make this mobilization as powerful as it needs to be to STOP murders by police?

Go to the Stop Mass Incarceration Network web site, which has talks given by Cornel West and me at an Emergency Meeting on April 6 in NYC.

Get back to me as soon as you can by email, or twitter.

What you do, or don't do, could make the difference between taking big strides toward stopping the horror of police getting away with murder, or seeing this horror continuing to happen again and again.

Carl Dix
@carl_dix
carlmdix@gmail.com

Wednesday, April 08, 2015

South Carolina Killed Cop Caught on Video Murdering Black Man

One More Reason Why We Must Shut Down Business As Usual on April 14!

Another cop caught on video murdering a Black man. This time the victim was Walter Scott, a 50 year old man who had been stopped for a traffic violation. The murderer was Michael Slager, a South Carolina cop, who shot Scott 5 times, 4 of them in the back as he ran away. And this murdering pig didn't stop there. He handcuffed Scott's lifeless body, ran back to the spot where he initially confronted Scott. It appears Slager picked up the taser he had shot Scott with and carried it to where Scott lay and placed it beside the body, shooting him in the back as he ran away.

This case was shocking, and not at all surprising. Shocking because you can see the cop chasing Scott and gunning him down as he tried to flee, AND because it appears Slager planted evidence to make it look like Scott was some kind of a threat. Also shocking because you see other cops come onto the scene and watch this evidence planting occur. But none of them said anything about it before the video got out.

Not at all surprising because there have been many, many cases of cops murdering people, including more than a few where the murders were caught on video tape. There have been many, many cases where witnesses to these murders have said that the cops planted evidence to try to justify their criminal actions. And in almost every single one of these cases, the system let the killer cops walk.

This time the killer cop has been charged with murder, but let's be clear. This would never have happened if there hadn't been a video that made it impossible to claim that the cop had reason to fear for his life. Slager hasn't yet been convicted for the murder that we can all see him committing. We saw Eric Garner get murdered by police last year, and the system still exonerated his murderers. The prosecutors may still forget how to prosecute in this case, and this killer cop may still be allowed to walk.

This is not a case of the system working. The system was working the way it always works; well on the way to exonerating another killer cop, until the video came to light. The real message from this case is not that there is one bad cop who murdered someone and planted evidence to try to justify that murder. It's that police are still wantonly murdering Black and Latino people. And that the system still works to exonerate cops when they murder people. THIS MUST STOP!

Anyone with a shred of justice in their hearts needs to join in acting to STOP it by taking to the streets on April 14! to stop the “business as usual” of killing by police.

Carl Dix  @Carl_Dix