NY State AG Admits: “The System Was Built to Shield” the Pigs

Meaningless Reforms + Black Elected Lackeys = Same Oppressive Shit, as Murdering Pigs STILL Go Free

| revcom.us

 

More than five years ago, after New York City pigs murdered Eric Garner with a deadly chokehold as he cried out repeatedly, “I can’t breathe,” the State of New York formed a “Special Investigations and Prosecutions Unit” to supposedly investigate and prosecute cops who have killed people.1 Then, in 2018, the Democrats put up and elected Letitia James as New York’s state attorney general. James is a Black politician who made her name as “public advocate,” an elected position in New York City.

This week, James announced that she had been unable to convince a grand jury to indict Rochester police for the cold-blooded suffocation murder of Daniel Prude.

In fact, this is part of a pattern. In the years since the unit was formed, here’s its record:

# of investigations: 43
# of cops charged: 3
# of convictions: 0

There’s a pattern here.

One of these cases was the 2020 murder of Daniel Prude, who was having a mental health crisis when pigs in Rochester held him down and put a “spit sock” over his head until he stopped breathing. On February 23, 2021, a grand jury decided to bring NO charges against the murdering cops. Daniel Prude’s brother Joe Prude said, “The justice system doesn’t give a damn about us. That’s not built for anyone in the community. That’s built for the police to keep slaughtering people.”

Even many prosecutors admit the legal system works in favor of the police. Letitia James, who heads up the state prosecutors as the attorney general, said she was “disappointed—extremely disappointed” in the grand jury’s decision. She also said, “The system was built to protect and shield officers from wrongdoing and accountability.”

Contrary to Shakespeare’s famous point about “the sound and fury signifying nothing,” the sound and fury of James’ outrage at the grand jury is significant. It points to the fact that whoever occupies what slot in this so-called system of “justice” makes virtually no difference whatsoever.

James is a politician, a representative of the system she purports to criticize.

But to those of you who are not bourgeois politicians, yet who continue to work for reforms in what you claim to see is a system: Have you truly gone deeper to find out WHY that system was set up, HOW it works, and WHAT it will take to get rid of this heart-crushing outrage that is built into it?

It is time, and past time, to confront the one scientific analysis of that. As Bob Avakian has written in his New Year’s Statement, A NEW YEAR, THE URGENT NEED FOR A RADICALLY NEW WORLD—FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF ALL HUMANITY:

To understand why we are confronted with the situation we are, it is necessary not merely to respond to—and in effect be whipped around by—what is happening on the surface at any given time, but to dig beneath the surface, to discover the underlying mainsprings and causes of things, and arrive at an understanding of the fundamental problem and the actual solution. This means coming to the scientific understanding that we are living under a system, and what that system actually is (the system of capitalism-imperialism); working to grasp the deeper relations and dynamics of this system and how this is setting the framework for how different sections of society spontaneously think and react to events in society and the world, and what is the possible way forward to transforming all of this in the interests of the masses of humanity and ultimately humanity as a whole.

“The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.”

Bob Avakian
BAsics 1:24

 

The New York Times published an exposure of the “special unit” after the failure to even charge the murderers of Daniel Prude. Among other things, they exposed that:

  • The system’s built-in racism is also clearly reflected in the reporting by New York’s special unit itself. A 2019 biennial report found that of 13 people killed by cops, seven were Black and four were Latino.

And New York is no exception to the rule. Other sources report that:

  • Every year about 1,000 people are killed by the police across the U.S.2 A recent report found that between 2005 and 2020, only FIVE cops (non-federal) were convicted of murder. And only 21 were convicted of some level of manslaughter. So in 15 years, about 15,000 people have been killed by the police in the U.S. and only five pigs have been convicted of murder. Do the math: that’s .033%.
  • A report released at the end of 2020 by researchers at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania found that over the past five years there’s been no reduction in the racial disparity in victims of fatal police shootings despite the increased use of body cameras and closer media scrutiny.

1. “A Special Unit to Prosecute Police Killings Has No Convictions,” New York Times, February 26, 2021. [back]

2. Washington Post database on police shootings. [back]

Police body camera video shows pig putting spit hood over head of Daniel Prude.Police body camera video shows Rochester, NY pig putting a "spit hood" over the head of Daniel Prude, March 23, 2020.

Joe Prude, brother of Daniel Prude, and Daniel's nephew Armin, with a picture of Daniel PrudeJoe Prude, right, brother of Daniel Prude, and Daniel's nephew Armin, with a picture of Daniel Prude in Rochester, N.Y. On February 23 a grand jury decided that the pigs who murdered Daniel Prude will NOT face any charges. (Photo: AP)

 

 

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