South Central LA Protest: "If you're sick of the murdering police—out of your houses, into the streets!"

September 23, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader:

On September 20, people again took to the streets in the neighborhood where Ezell Ford and Omar Abrego were murdered by LAPD Newton Division police last month. About 50 people marched for miles through South Central, demanding justice and calling others into the streets (including explicitly, with the chant "If you're sick of the murdering police—out of your houses, into the streets!").

In front of Newton Division, people spoke and shouted and cried their bitterness and anger, in front of a line of pigs smirking and laughing at the horrific suffering the people were throwing back at them. Tkeyah Boyd, whose boyfriend Tyler Damon Woods was murdered by Long Beach police last year at the age of 19, yelled and demanded at the police: I have a two-year-old son, what am I supposed to do? Tell me what I'm supposed to do! A youth angrily told how police killed his cousin who was blind and had a twin brother, and how those twins relied on and helped each other. People demanded the arrest and jailing of the cops who killed Ezell and Omar, and a stop to the murders by police.

A youth who had been arrested for blowing a whistle at the police was brought up to the front. Ceebo tha Rapper, who has been targeted by police for his video "Fuck tha Police" in honor of Ezell Ford, explained that the whistles are a way people are protecting themselves from the police, and he exposed the police for harassing this youth, challenging them to arrest him now for blowing a whistle, while dozens of people blew whistles as loudly as they could. On the march back through South Central, people blew whistles the whole way, to the chant "Yo brother/sister, we got your back, we blow that whistle when the pigs attack!"

As the march arrived back at its beginning on 65th and Broadway, people stood in the intersection and immediately the pigs decided they were now going to try to put people back in their place. When people did not leave the intersection, more and more police cars showed up and dozens of pigs filled the streets—wearing riot gear, with tear gas/rubber bullet guns in hand, running in formation to block off the streets and push people back. People fell back off the main street and into the neighborhood but did not leave the street, and some people began to come out of their houses and join in. People blew whistles and refused to back down. Eventually the police retreated, and as they did one woman began a joyous chant: "Get on out!"

At the march on September 20 against the murders of Ezell Ford and Omar Abrego, the call went out to join the October Month of Resistance. Photo: special to revcom.us.

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