The Nov. 25 shooting of 23-year-old Sean Bell by the New York City Police Department sparked a wave of protests across the city. Demonstrators marched to the police headquarters on Wall Street, and down Fifth Avenue. Over a dozen protests took place in the month following the shooting ranging in size from hundreds to tens of thousands.
The protests reflected outrage not just over the murder of a young man on his wedding day in a hail of 50 gunshots. It was a reflection of pent up outrage over constant police terror and the military-style occupation by the NYPD of New York’s poor and oppressed communities, especially the Black communities.
Sean Bell’s shooting in November was like a straw that broke the camel’s back. Many New York residents, particularly people of color, recognize the day-to-day repression and racism of the NYPD. But every now and then, acts like the barbarous abuse of Abner Louima or the murders of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell transform people’s perspective, exposing the NYPD as a murderous, criminal institution.
At least four people were killed in New York City by cops in the weeks after Bell’s killing. With such shootings occurring on a regular basis, building a movement that can overwhelm the state’s ability to continue its repression is a critical challenge for revolutionaries and activists.
It would be fair to say that if they ever put up a monument to victims of police brutality, it would make the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., look small.
A tragedy, not an accident
Sean Bell’s killing was a tragedy, but it was not an accident. The NYPD, like every other police department in this country, does not exist to “protect and serve,” despite their propaganda. It exists for one purpose: to protect the property of the rich and the tiny elite that runs this society.
Not every person who becomes a cop goes in to shoot their brothers and sisters or to terrorize poor people. That goes for white cops as well as Black and Latino cops. But the problem is not whether this cop or that cop is racist—although plenty of them are.
With 37,000 armed cops, the NYPD is nothing short of an army—almost twice the size of the Dominican Republic’s army. As the forces of “law and order” in the city with the most riches in the United States, the NYPD commanders are highly political and conscious of their repressive role in the city.
Police are deployed against poor and working-class communities, especially Black and Latino communities. In primarily Black neighborhoods, community groups teach young people how to protect themselves from cops who use every excuse to round up people who “fit the profile”—meaning that they are Black or Latino—and interrogate, harass and arrest them.
So when we look for a way to stop the wave of police violence against poor, Black and Latino communities, we have to remember that we are up against an institution that exists not to protect common people but to protect the rich and their system of exploitation.
The streets as a training ground
When a law-enforcement institution like the NYPD commits a gross criminal act like murdering Sean Bell, tens of thousands of people come out into the streets. The streets become a training ground for the struggle. Mass mobilizations are an opportunity to overcome the sense of powerlessness that is widespread among working-class and oppressed people. This creates new opportunities to widen the struggle in terms of scope and militancy.
For example, the Dec. 16 march down Fifth Avenue had a moderate political approach. The official placards stated “March for Justice: Improve Police and Community Relations.” It was supposed to be a silent march—different from the more militant and angry protests that took place before the Dec. 16 event.
Nevertheless, the demonstration was a tremendous step forward for the movement. For the first time in decades, up to 50,000 African American people and their supporters marched down Fifth Avenue in a tremendous display of anger. People who went to that demonstration got a taste of their own power.
Despite organizers’ efforts to keep the march tame, the anger of the masses of people came through. It was not long before anti-racist and anti-police chants spread through the march. Many marchers rejected the demand for “improved relations” with the cops and tore the official placards in half, displaying only the “March for Justice” slogan.
That march, like others before and after, was an important step toward a truly mass movement against police repression. The demonstrations are an important step in giving shape to the anger that is widespread but diffused. Efforts to channel this anger into the system by calling for this or that reform can only frustrate the communities’ desire to live without the feeling of military lockdown.
Lessons from the anti-war movement
So what would this mass movement look like and what kind of stages would it have to go through? Here is a recent example that seems unrelated but is in fact very closely related: the movement against the war in Iraq.
Just a few weeks after September 11, 2001, the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) was formed. It organized a demonstration of 25,000 people against the U.S. government’s plans to use the attack on the World Trade Center as an excuse for “war without end.”
Then, in April 2002, 100,000 came out in Washington, D.C., against Bush’s war plans and against Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people. In October 2002, hundreds of thousands more came out in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities. More demonstrations took place in January and February 2003.
The war began on March 20, 2003. Many people said the anti-war movement had not made a difference. Millions around the world had taken to the streets, and the war went on anyway.
It is the same problem that the movement against police terror faces. We have been in the streets, and the police still shoot us down. People feel powerless—like there is nothing we can do.
Revolutionaries do not have any illusions about the challenges we are up against—whether it is U.S. imperialism’s drive to dominate the Middle East or the occupation of our communities by the police.
But look at where the Iraq war stands today. The same Bush administration that had declared “mission accomplished” in May 2003 is now in crisis. They are losing the war. Their billions of dollars in tanks, bombs, prisons and warplanes are being matched and beaten back, first and foremost by the efforts of the Iraqi resistance that is courageously facing off against the brutal occupation of their country. But the effect of mass demonstrations has also entered into the political equation here in the United States.
A November 2006 poll released in January by the Military Times found that “the American military—once a staunch supporter of President Bush and the Iraq war—has grown increasingly pessimistic about chances for victory.” More and more troops that are being called on to kill or be killed know that this war is not in their interests.
Building people’s power
Building a mass movement—whether against the imperialist crimes of the U.S. government or against police terror in our neighborhoods—is not about pressuring Democrats or Republicans. The main task is building people’s sense of power and strength—that we can fight and together we can win.
But that power cannot be tapped without organization. That is the real challenge today. Our communities lack organization capable of fighting back.
There are more developments coming in the Sean Bell case. The cops who shot him are still walking free. As of January, no charges have been filed—much less trials or convictions.
But all the groups and organizations that have stepped to the front of the struggle against police terror in New York—from the December 12 Movement to the many community groups that mobilized for the massive Dec. 16 demonstration—have contributed to increasing the level of organization in the Black and other oppressed communities.
And as the level of organization deepens, the seemingly impossible task of pushing the cops back becomes possible. If two or three people intervene in an instance of police harassment or abuse, they become targets for arrest or worse. But when hundreds step in, even the cops’ pistols cannot protect them.
With greater organization, we can talk about real investigations of the NYPD—not by the cops themselves or by the government that it protects, but by a people’s inquiry with the power to open the NYPD’s secret files and jail the racist killer cops.
But that cannot be achieved unless we set our sights on it from the beginning.
Tens of thousands march down New York’s Fifth Ave., Dec. 16, 2006. Sean Bell’s family (center)
Photo: David Brabyn/SIPA Press
Photo: David Brabyn/SIPA Press
Over 1,000 rally in front of the police department calling for the police commissioner to resign, Dec. 6, 2006.
Photo: Erik Sumption/SIPA Press
