ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN, `Police Terror in Hell's Precinct' id BAA13077; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 01:22:08 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||| ||| ||| A N T I F A ||| ||| ||| ||| I N F O - B U L L E T I N ||| ||| _____ ||| ||| ||| ||| * News * Analysis * Research * Action * ||| ||| ||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ***** ||/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\|/\||/\|| || * -- SPECIAL -- * September 09, 1997 * -- EDITION -- * || ||\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/|\/||\/|| * SPECIAL EDITION * _____ EDITOR'S NOTE: The contribution below from Ron Painter, a member of New York Workers Against Fascism, provides a Marxist perspective on the nature of police brutality in light of the torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima by NYC cops. Additional submissions on the subject of police violence and its relationship to institutionalized racism, fascism and the state are welcome. Please address specific comments on the article to the author * * NEW YORK WORKERS AGAINST FASCISM * P.O. Box 100532 Staten Island, NY 10310 Tel: 718-983-9686 or 718-259-9145 E-mail: ronp@nyct.net - Tuesday, September 02, 1997 - ----- _________________________________________________________________ POLICE TERROR IN HELL'S PRECINCT _________________________________________________________________ By Ron Painter (New York Workers Against Fascism)* * The brutal beating, horrific sodomy-rape and attempted murder of Abner Louima by New York City cops has stunned all New Yorkers. The black, latino, and asian communities are particularly outraged. For good reason -- they live in a racist reign of terror. What separates Abner Loiuma's case from so many other police atrocities is that he still lives and it occurred during an mayoral election campaign. Before 4:30am Saturday, August 9, Abner Louima, 30, is almost stereotypically law-abiding. To support his family, he works two jobs, one for a security agency, the other at a car dealership. He has a wife, Micheline, and a one-year old son, Abner Jr. He attends church regularly every week. Having a clean record, he avoids the police. Abner Louima has a degree in electrical engineering. His uncle is a prominent minister with ties to City Hall. Yet he fails to fit the mass-media racist stereotype in two ways -- he's not "white" and he's an immigrant. 1. MURDEROUS ASSAULT BY COPS On the morning of Saturday August 9, Abner Louima's life almost ended. The following account is based upon statements Abner Louima has made to the press while recovering from his injuries in the hospital and from press reports between August 13 and August 26. Club Rendez-Vous, a popular nightclub in Brooklyn's Haitian community, closes around 3:30 Saturday morning. As usual, people take some time to chat for a few minutes before leaving the area. However, two women get into a fight and someone calls the 70th Precinct. 15 to 20 cops respond with the notorious Seven-O racist belligerence -- a fight breaks out between the self-styled "Laws of Flatbush" and Rendez-Vous customers. According to the New York Times (August 26, p. B3) during the melee, someone knocks police officer Justin Volpe on his ass. Now it's payback time and the sacrificial victim is Abner Louima. He is arrested and police officers Thomas Wiese and Charles Schwarz take him to the Seven-O with a couple of stops on the way. Justin Volpe and another cop, Thomas Bruder follow in another car. Both squad cars stop and all four cops beat him with nightsticks and radios. Another Haitian immigrant, Patrick Antoine witnesses the beating and is arrested and beaten too. Volpe and Bruder take Antoine ahead to the Seven-O while Wiese and Schwarz stop again to beat Louima. According to the August 20 Daily News, Volpe greets Louima at the precinct "brandishing a toilet plunger handle." Louima, bleeding from the beatings, is strip-searched at the precinct front desk. Schwarz then takes Louima to the restroom, 20 feet away, while, according to the Daily News, Volpe borrows a pair of gloves. * [Selections from an interview of Abner Loiuma by columnist Mike McAlary (New York Daily News, August 13, 1997)] "They said, 'Take this, nigger,'" Louima said, "and stuck the stick in my rear end." "Was it a nightstick?" I asked, leaning over the bed so I could hear his gasping voice. "It was the plunger from the police man's bathroom," he said. "It was brown. When they were done they stuck it in my mouth and broke my teeth." It all started early Saturday morning after a party in a club near the corner of Glenwood Road and Flatbush Ave. As the club emptied out, a fight broke out between two women. "I didn't know the women," said Louima, a 30-year-old Haitian immigrant. "I was there with my brother and my cousin." The cops showed up, as they are supposed to, and scattered the crowd. "The white cops started with some racial stuff," Louima whispered. "They said, 'Why do you people come to this country if you can't speak English?' They called us niggers. "A cop said to shut up. I didn't think he was talking to me. He pushed me to the ground and handcuffed my hands. Two cops put me in their patrol car and drove me to the corner of Glenwood and Nostrand. There was another car there. They kicked and beat me with their radios. They were yelling, 'You people can't even talk English, I am going to teach you to respect a cop.' None of the cops had their nametags on. They put me back in the car and drove me to the corner of Glenwood and Bedford. They met two other cops and beat me again. This time in the legs, too." Then, he said, he was driven to the 70th Precinct stationhouse, led to the duty sergeant's desk and strip- searched. "My pants were down at my ankles, in full view of the other cops. They walked me over to the bathroom and closed the door. There were two cops. One said, 'You niggers have to learn to respect police officers.' The other one said, 'If you yell or make any noise, I will kill you.' Then one held me and the other one stuck the plunger up my behind. He pulled it out and shoved it in my mouth, broke my teeth and said, 'That's your s--t, nigger. Later, when they called the ambulance, the cop told me, 'If you ever tell anyone...I will kill you and your family." Louima is lying in critical condition in Coney Island Hospital's trauma unit with a pierced lower intestine and a torn bladder. His doctor told me it would take three or four months for him to recover. His left hand was shackled to the bed. A cop sat guard across the room.... * [Selections from an interview of Abner Loiuma by columnist Mike McAlary (New York Daily News, August 14, 1997)] "The cops pulled down my pants in front of the desk sergeant," He said. "They were grabbing my wallet. They found some money and took it out. Then they marched me across to the bathroom." "They marched you naked across the precinct?" "Yes" "There were other cops around?" "Yes. There was the sergeant and other cops. They saw." "And they said nothing?" "I kept screaming 'Why? Why?' All the cops heard me, but said nothing." "What they said to me I'll never forget. In public, one says, 'You niggers have to learn how to respect police officers.'" ..."No cops said anything," Loiuma said. "None came to help me." "Could the cops in the precinct see into the bathroom?" "No," he whispered. "They didn't open the door." ..."The other one said, 'If you yell or make any noise, I will kill you.'" * [New York Daily News, August 15, 1997, p. 3] He said cops had boasted, "This is Giuliani time, not Dinkins time" and twice warned him, "If I scream, everyone in my family will be killed." That Volpe was waiting for Abner Louima with the toilet plunger demonstrates a premeditated sodomy-rape-torture crime. But it gets worse. Having viciously mutilated him, the Seven-O police try to cover up their crime by letting Abner Loiuma bleed to death. At about 5:20 they place him in a holding cell with Patrick Antoine. At 6:01am Emergency Medical Service (EMS) receives a low priority call for "lacerations." The police later claim three calls were made. Yet the record only shows one. The EMS ambulance arrives at 6:25am and the medics try to treat Louima but are unable to deal with his internal injuries. For the next one-and- a-half hours, no cops are available to escort Abner Louima to the hospital. Finally, after the EMS crew makes two calls to their supervisors, a police escort is found. Abner Louima reaches the Coney Island Hospital at 7:58am. According to the New York Times (August 26, p. B3): ...the general rule for police prisoners in Brooklyn is that they should go to Kings County Hospital, which has a prison ward and an emergency room regarded as superior. Obviously, unable to bleed him to death in the precinct, the cops hoped that Abner Louima would die on the operating table. Thus, the entire precinct is implicated in the attempted murder of Abner Louima. Abner Louima's account highlights what most blacks, latinos, asians and immigrants know about New York City police. Cops believe that they can get away with murder. And usually they do. 2. LOCAL TELEVISION STATION BREAKS THE MAJOR MEDIA WALL OF BLUE Usually, as soon as evidence of police brutality surfaces, the machinery of cover-up goes into high gear. A blue-curtain descends over the major presses: Daily News, New York Times, New York Post and the major television networks. In fact this happened in Abner Louima's case. There was no mention of it in the major news medial for four days. That is until a local, independent cable television station, New York One, broadcast on the evening of Aug. 12 a program on Abner Louima. On Wednesday, Aug. 13, the Daily News carried a front-page headline: "Tortured By Cops." Apparently, the Daily News is backing the Democrat mayoral candidate in the elections and the New York Post is supporting Mayor Giuliani's re-election bid. Once the story broke, the Daily News played offensive tackle while the New York Post ran Giuliani's defensive interference. 3. POLICE: SOCIAL CONTROL AND DOMINATION Normally, the need for damage-control in police-brutality cases override considerations of newspaper sales and TV audience rating. The police maintain social control over the working class and oppressed minorities and nationalities. As capitalist exploitation intensifies, police brutality increases to dampen the resistance and militancy of the oppressed. Police terror is a well-tested means of capitalist class domination over the workers and oppressed minorities. Low-level police terror -- harassment, beatings, frame-ups and legal biases against blue-collar crime (harsh penalties for minor crimes) -- are widely used when capitalist regimes can maintain stable class domination through bourgeois democracy. Even so, police death squads are used against militant opponents who begin to gain a following. During the murderous FBI/police COINTELPRO program over 30 Black Panther members were killed between 1969 and 1972. Other groups on the left were targeted as well, though not as violently. When anti-capitalist struggles reach mass proportions, the capitalist class turns to fascist gangs (neo-Nazis, Christian Identity, Klu Klux Klan, racist skinheads, right-wing militias, etc.) to terrorize the oppressed. Today, in the absence of mass struggles, they rely on police terror, so the far right has to resort to bank and armored truck robberies for financing. Yet when police terror can no longer keep black, latino, asian, and white working-class masses in line, the money starts pouring into the bank accounts of the fascists. History shows that if social tensions reach the breaking point and the survival of capitalism itself is in jeopardy, the capitalists have no qualms about resorting to a fascist coup- d'etat as in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. At that point, police/fascist terror reaches genocidal proportions. Unions are crushed and scapegoats in the population are wiped out. 4. POLICE/INS REIGN OF TERROR AGAINST IMMIGRANTS The long-running police/INS reign of terror against immigrants is not intended to keep "illegal" immigrants out -- it is intended to keep wages down. Employers use the fear of deportation to keep immigrant workers locked into starvation wages. These same employers rely on racist hysteria to pit U.S.- born workers against immigrant workers. This has the effect of holding down the wages of the entire working class. The only way to combat anti-immigrant hysteria is for working people, especially through their unions, to fight for FULL CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS FOR ALL IMMIGRANTS. All workers -- black, white, asian, and latino -- must come to the defense of their fellow workers. AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL! 5. POLICE: AGENTS OF RACIST TERROR Since the dawn of history, ruling classes have incited race hatred to divert the attention of the working masses from their oppressors. They have maintained power by hiding the reality of class oppression behind a fog of communal hatred. The U.S. capitalists have raised divide-and-conquer to a hideous art form. Their CIA pals organize the flooding of working-class neighborhoods with crack and heroin -- particularly targeting Black, Latino, and Asian communities. Corrupt lawyer- politicians rig laws with stiff penalties for "blue-collar" crimes while white-collar criminals steal millions and get off with a pat and warning not to get caught again. Millions of working-class youth caught with minute quantities of drugs are condemned to low-paying jobs and barred from voting -- victims of systematic racial and class oppression. The press contributes to racist hysteria by constantly highlighting crimes committed in the black, latino, asian, and gay and lesbian communities. If that is not bad enough, there are the cops. The police are the front line of racial oppression. They brutalize minority youth, especially young black men. They follow and harass Blacks in white neighborhoods. And often the "Teflon Cops" gun-down unarmed minority youth with no fear of justice or retribution. Police brutality legitimizes violence against working poor, but especially it legitimizes racist violence. Klan, neo-Nazi, and racist skinheads are quick to raise their heads when police violence is on the rise. We cannot afford to ignore police brutality-terror. As long as the cops are able to get away with beatings, rape, and murder, other racists will become more active, too. Only through multi- racial mass, independent, struggle for power can the working class and oppressed peoples throw off the racist reign of police terror. Only by sweeping the murderous capitalist class out of power can the problems of police brutality, racial oppression, and working class oppression come to an end. 6. MASS OUTRAGE AGAINST DESPICABLE RACIST COP TERROR The assault of Abner Louima symbolizes the vicious reign of NYPD terror directed against the black, latin, asian, gay and lesbian, and immigrant communities in New York City. As their economic situation becomes increasingly desperate, these communities are subjected ever more brutal and violent forms of terror. As with Abner Louima, no one is immune. In response to the massive outpouring of anger that swept the city, several demonstrations were quickly organized. On Saturday, Aug. 16, the 70th Precinct was the focus of several rallys and marches. Mayoral candidate Rev. Al Sharpton held a 1:00pm rally in front of the Seven-0 that drew several hundred participants. Several thousand protesters rallied at the Club Rendez-Vous at 11:00am and at 2:00pm began a long march looping several miles through Brooklyn in sunny, blisteringly hot and humid weather. By the time it reached the 70th Precinct, the demonstration had swelled by several thousand. Another contingent arrived shortly after the first one with thousands in it. At its peak, 10-12,000 protesters rallied in front of Hell's Precinct. The content of the speeches at the various rallies ranged from liberal outrage to socialist appeals for revolutionary working- class opposition to capitalism and its brutal police regime. Of the Louima demonstrations held recently, this was the most politically diverse. Several smaller events occurred over the next two weeks. Saturday, Aug. 23, about 100 demonstrators gathered outside. Once again, there was a wide range of political speakers from liberal to socialist. On Sunday morning New York One offered extensive coverage of the event. The largest march and rally occurred on Friday, August 29. Protesters assembled at the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn and at 10:00 began the march to City Hall via the Brooklyn Bridge. At its peak, approximately 15,000 attended the City Hall rally. This demonstration was solidly controlled by the Democrat Party and the conservative Haitian American Alliance. Typical of mainstream bourgeois "democracy," it excluded leftist political groups from the speakers list. Speakers included Rev. Al Sharpton, former Mayor David Dinkins, Ruth Messinger, Rev. Philius Nicolas (Abner Louima's uncle and member of Little Haiti's power elite), and numerous other speakers. The speakers emphasized outrage at the atrocity against Abner Louima, the need to "dump" Giuliani, the need to respect "good" cops, and the need for a more effective Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRP). Only the speaker for Parents Against Police Brutality, the father of police murder victim Anthony Rosario, attacked the fraudulent nature of the CCRB with its Giuliani hand-picked, pro-cop majority. The protesters enthusiastically cheered the speakers' comments against police brutality. But the response to "good" cops was scattered boos and hissing. Many militant opponents of police brutality, especially Parents Against Police Brutality, see replacing Giuliani with a Democrat as the first step to stop police brutality. However, as Mayor, David Dinkins did not "approve" of police brutality but was powerless to prevent 30,000 cops from doing what they do best -- terrorizing the black, latino, asian, lesbian and gay, and white working-class communities. As the desperation of the masses increases, so does police terror. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can or are willing to prevent that. Indeed, the capitalist system relies on it. In fact, the NYPD now has 38,000 cop-terrorists. Likewise, an "independent" government agency is never independent. Overall, they function as delaying mechanisms or as outright rubber stamps. An illusory "independent, community- controlled" board with "subpoena" powers can only be controlled by "prominent community leaders," i.e., local businessmen whose profits police brutality protects. Only multi-racial united, mass, independent actions by the working class and community organizations can put the cops on notice that working people will not tolerate police terror. The better independently organized the working masses are the less the police will be able to get away with. Even so, as long as the capitalist class is in power, it will use police terror to protect its profits. Reliance on the capitalist parties has had no effect -- in fact, conditions have gotten worse for the majority of working people in the U.S. The working class must wage a resolute struggle for power. For that it needs a multi- racial working-class party based on a class-struggle program. We need a state controlled by the workers, based on mass- participatory democracy and common ownership of all the means of production (factories, transportation, etc.) -- a workers state. In the meantime, we must bring the organizations of the oppressed together in joint struggle against all forms of oppression. Racial oppression, poverty, police terror, unemployment -- all hold down our standards of living. White workers must join in the struggle for social and economic equality for all -- Black, Brown, Yellow, White -- All Workers Must Unite!; male and female; heterosexual and lesbian and gay, young and old. The fight against police terror; the fight for complete integration of neighborhoods, school, and work; the fight for full-time jobs for all (a shorter work week with no loss in pay: 30 hours work -- 40 hours pay); the fight for equal pay for equal work -- these are all part of the struggle to defend our standards of living and to provide a better world for all of us and our children. * For information purposes only. (The views expressed here may or may not be held by other members of NYWAF.) * * * * * ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN (AFIB) 750 La Playa # 730 San Francisco, California 94121 E-Mail: tburghardt@igc.org * On PeaceNet visit ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN on pol.right.antifa or by gopher --> gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:7021/11/europe Via the Web --> http://burn.ucsd.edu/~aff/afib.html * ANTI-FASCIST FORUM (AFF) Antifa Info-Bulletin is a member of the Anti-Fascist Forum network. AFF is an info-group which collects and disseminates information, research and analysis on fascist activity and anti-fascist resistance. More info: E-mail: aff@burn.ucsd.edu Web: http://burn.ucsd.edu/~aff +:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+ +: A N T I F A I N F O - B U L L E T I N +: :+ :+ +: NEWS * ANALYSIS * RESEARCH * ACTION +: :+ :+ +: RESISTING FASCISM * BY ALL MEANS NECESSARY! +: +:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+:+ ++++ stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal ++++ ++++ if you agree copy these 3 sentences in your own sig ++++ ++++ see: http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg-l/sigaction.htm ++++ ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-09.12.97-01:22:16-24326