March for a World Without Police – Denver Alliance for Community Self-Defense

Callout from the Denver Alliance for Community Self-Defense

Join us for Denver’s Third Annual International October Day of Action Against Police Brutality.

Saturday October 20th, 7:00 PM
Sonny Lawson Park at 24th and Welton

https://www.facebook.com/events/435654896476875/

This city is under attack. A powerful gang roams the streets – organized, brutal, and extremely dangerous. Their colors are blue and black. They carry guns and engage in organized crime: from prostitution and dealing meth to selling illegal weapons.(i) They rape, beat, and kill with impunity.(ii) When their deeds are brought into the open, they conspire, under the guise of a brotherhood, to maintain a strict code of silence. They control everything that goes on. The city’s leaders are in their pocket. The City is Denver. The gang goes by the name of “the police.”

The police are not to be taken lightly. In America, you are eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist,(iii) and your odds of being killed are dramatically increased if you happen to be male-bodied, queer or trans, of Latin-American descent, African-American, or from a migrant community, for example. The FBI admits that in the US the police “justifiably” kill at least 400 people every year,(iv) in addition to the 100 acknowledged annual cases of excessive use of force, a number of killings that is probably drastically underestimated.(v) Police violence is inherently excessive. From Anaheim to New York, from Oscar Grant to Sean Bell, police brutality is felt in every corner. The damage cannot be quantified.

In Denver the situation is hardly any different. Denver police are viscious, in-fact more brutal than any other force in America.(vi) Many police in Denver do not live in Denver, and are not part of the communities that they claim to serve. Exploits of the police in the Denver metro area range from drug dealing to recent cases of sexually exploiting children, sexual assault of children, multiple instances of rape and numerous killings.(vii) But high profile cases of police abuse can distract from the common, everyday occurrences of police beatings and even murders. Booker, Ryburg, Gidenko, Ashley, Berlin, Yeager: these are just some of the names of people murdered by Denver area police. Police beatings are even more common. Just a few high profile cases of brutality include DeHerrea and Johnson, Landau, Kraus, Mukherjee, and the Martinez family. With heads thrown into walls, jumping on victims’ bodies, assassination in the back seats of squad cars, tazer-induced heart attacks, and execution-style shootings, Denver pigs hold their own against metropolitan police forces from coast to coast.

Criticizing the police can bring reprisal and repression. Yet, sometimes those who criticize will misrepresent instances of their own repression as equivalent to the acts of brutality common in the most oppressed communities. Some people choose when they face police oppression, others face it every minute of every day. At the same time, local police have become emboldened by the timid response to the suppression of speech in the streets of Denver. Additionally, they exploit the confusion amongst those who attempt to confront systemic abuse, confusion about the role of the police – serving the rich and defending the powerful. Ultimately, the police defend social forces which promote foreign conflicts, global poverty, and ecological catastrophe. Yet destruction abroad is paired with oppression at home, and they play an instrumental role in the ever-expanding role of surveillance and expansion of the police state. The police are not our friends, they are not on our side, and our interests are not the same.

We march for a world without police. We know that we can do better by and for ourselves. We do not need an occupying army telling us how to live our lives. We also remember the victims of the police in the Denver area. We will voice our opposition – our total rejection of outside control. But we also seek to liberate space where, however briefly, we engage in a collective gestures to give form and substance to our vision of the future. We are still here. We never forget.

March for a World Without Police!

In love and solidarity,
Denver Alliance for Community Self-Defense

Solidarity with the silenced in the Northwest!

References:

i. Patrick Sullivan – Meth for Sex. The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/recomm…
and Eric Lee, selling sillencers. The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/breaki…

ii. Just one example of rape, Hector Paez – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/c… Brutality and Killings are too many to cite.

iii. The CATO institute – http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/y…

iv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li…

v.Probably way to low, according to the Orlando Sentinal: http://articles.orlandosentinel/….

vi.The city of Denver ranks number one in the nation for publicised excessive force complaints, The CATO institute. National Police Misconduct Reporting Project. http://www.policemisconduct.net/…

vii.ee above plus Brennon Lonergon assaulting a teenager, Michael Mangino exploiting a 15-year old runnaway, etc. The Denver Post. http://www.denverpost.com/breaki…http://www.denverpost.com/breaki…

1 Comment

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI