(en) US, 1st of May Anarchist Alliance (Minnesota) - Rebellion Against Police Violence -- Towards Community Defense, Dual Power and Revolution

Introduction ---- The murder of Mike Brown at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson, 
MO evoked rage among the people, both in his neighborhood and across the country. The 
militant protests that followed were an understandable and appropriate response. In many 
communities where people are just struggling to get by, there is the additional constant 
worry of becoming a victim of police violence. This force has its roots in the brutal and 
racist institutions of colonial America, and still serves to enforce and maintain economic 
and racial inequalities. To deal with the problem of police violence we must rebel against 
police occupation, build the capacity to defend ourselves as well as our neighbors, and 
create alternative institutions where people can turn to solve problems within our 
communities in a fair and healthy way.


Police Brutality Everyday

A study conducted by the Malcolm X Grassroots
Movement reported that police officers, security
guards, or self-appointed vigilantes extrajudicially
killed at least 313 African-Americans in
2012, according to a recent study. This means
police killed a black person every 28 hours!
Similarly, even though African-Americans use or
sell drugs about the same rate as whites, they are
far more likely to be arrested for drugs than
whites and receive longer prison sentences than
whites. Consequently, while African-Americans
constitute 13.1% of the nation's population, they
make up nearly 40% of the prison population.

Many of those killed, 68 people or 22%, suffered
from mental health issues. 43% of the shootings
occurred after an incident of racial profiling,
meaning the conflict began with racist cops
needlessly harassing a person of color. Only 24%
of the shootings actually occurred during a
criminal investigation. According to the report,
136 people or 44%, had no weapon at all the time
they were killed by police officers. Another 27%
were deaths in which police claimed the suspect
had a gun, but there was no actual proof. Those
who did, in fact, possess guns or knives were only
20% (62 people) and 7% (23 people) of the study,
respectively. Only 13% or 42 people fired a
weapon "before or during the officer's arrival.?

Of the 313 killings, the report found that 275 of
them or 88% were cases of excessive force. Only
8% were not considered excessive as they involved
cases were suspects shot at, wounded, or killed a
police and/or others. Additionally, 4% were
situations were the facts surrounding the killing
were "unclear or sparsely reported". Police,
security guards and vigilantes are almost never
held accountable for their killings.


The State as a monopoly on violence

As long as we have a State we will have rebellions
against it. Why? Because the State is a tool by
which a small group of people rule a large group
of people, against their interests. Can you
imagine people being ok with 1% of people
owning 40% of the world or your boss making 100
times as much as you do if there wasn?t violence
keeping that relationship in place? When people
are struggling to eat? People call police the
biggest gang around for a reason.

German sociologist Max Weber defines the state
as a ?human community that (successfully)
claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of
physical force within a given territory.? This
monopoly is portrayed as ensuring law and order,
but when we realize whose law and order we are
talking about things begin to look different. The
State is an instrument of the ruling class, and
depends on violence to maintain its authority and
domination of the people and control of power
and resources. As long as it continues to promote
the concept that it is the only source of legitimate
violence, it maintains the capacity to enforce this
monopoly.

The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we
use to describe the overlapping interests of
government and industry that use surveillance,
policing, and imprisonment as solutions to
economic, social and political problems. Being
the repressive branch of the state, the PIC helps
and maintains the authority of the ruling class,
those who have greater access to power and
resources, through racial, economic and other
privileges. There are also individuals in the
private sector making huge profits through
ownership of private facilities, slave labor done by
people who are incarcerated, buying products
made by slave labor in the prison system, or
selling products needed for the continued
functioning of the prison industrial complex. The
PIC is also instrumental in eliminating social and
political dissent by oppressed communities that
make demands for self-determination within the
US.

The State claims to be the only source of
legitimate use of violence, but the ruling class is
made of only the few most powerful elites. In
order to secure and maintain its control of power
and resources, the ruling class must grant
permission or employ some of the population to
carry out violence against the rest of us. This is
the function of the police, to enforce the decisions
and to protect the interests of the ruling class
and impose their will on the people, through
violence.


Who Will Protect And Serve Us?

It is clear that in instances of police brutality and
murder, we cannot count on the court systems to
bring those who commit acts of violence under
authorization from the state to justice, as they
are a part of the system that is responsible for the
many violent acts committed against working
class people of color. Since we know we cannot
depend on the police to protect us, we must build
the capacity to protect our own communities. The
people affected must organize and challenge the
state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence
and establish themselves as a parallel source of
legitimate power run by their own communities.

We must establish community defense councils,
which are capable of defending working class
neighborhoods from police, as well as providing
mediation to resolve conflicts between members
of the community and others nearby. The focus of
these formations should be on accomplishing
three things: First we should be able to mobilize
and respond quickly in our neighborhoods in
order to prevent, defend, or retaliate against
police terrorism. Second, we should be able to
hold regular meetings in the community in order
to address conflicts between neighbors so as to
eliminate our dependence on police to resolve our
disagreements. Finally, should one someone in
our communities become a victim of police
violence, we should have the ability to create
enough of a disruption in the lives of the ruling
class in order to force them to give us justice by
meeting the demands of the victim and/or their
family.

It should be noted that the defense councils
should not be another gang, or hierarchical
organization over the people, like the police. Our
capacity for self-defense should be generalized,
and the divisions that allow our community to be
enslaved in the first place must be knit together
to create a power that can defend everyone within
it with care, respect, and justice.


Conclusion

To deal with the problem of police violence we
must rebel against police occupation, build the
capacity to defend ourselves as well as our
neighbors, and create alternative institutions
where people can turn to solve problems within
our communities in a fair and healthy way. Of
course this will not happen overnight. Nor will it
happen if we wait for someone else to do it. We
must be realistic about this process, but
determined in advancing it.

There are lessons and examples from the past of
tactics to embrace and those to avoid. There are
charismatic leaders that may have suggestions
about how to react as a community when people
are murdered by the police, but we all need to be
present making decisions from the framework
that we need more than simply prosecuting the
police and justice for one murder.

The people in the communities affected should
control the movement for dignity, justice and
13freedom. The police are propping up a system of
violence that condemns us to live under unequal
conditions. The entire policing system needs to be
done away with, along with the state it protects.
Who has more legitimacy to police a community
than the community itself? All power to the
people.


Written and published by
1st of May Anarchist Alliance Minnesota

Want to discuss or join this
work in Minneapolis? email FirstMayMN@gmail.com