Under Lock & Key

On July 9 at around 2:30 p.m. the announcement was made that the official verdict on the trial of Johannes Mehserle, the transit pig who shot Oscar Grant in the back and killed him, would be released that day, and immediately people started gathering at the major intersection of 14th and Broadway in downtown Oakland, California. At about 4:15 p.m., the verdict of involuntary manslaughter was released. This is the lowest charge that the jury could have chosen to give Mehserle, and as expected, the people of Oakland were pissed. Our comrades attended the protest, equipped with fliers emphasizing that the movement needs to be elevated from rioting into conscious revolutionary struggle generally, and national liberation struggles specifically, if people want to stop the murders of more Oscar Grants. The flier suggested Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Black Panther Party original documents as good starting points for a successful transition into a movement to truly end police brutality.

Government employees in the downtown area were under a mandatory evacuation, and business people were high-tailing it out of there as fast as the freeways could take them. The state and the media had hyped it up to be L.A. in 1992. That was far from the case. Still many large buildings were boarded up 20 feet high for days; others were frantically drilling in plywood as protesters converged. The hype was so extreme that even one discount grocery store located a mile from the epicenter of the protest boarded its windows as soon as the jury went into deliberation - as if a crazed mob would travel so far to loot their expired yogurt.

The City of Oakland set up a sound system in front of Town Hall that was supposed to serve as a speak-out, but was just playing funk for a few casual dancers, sometimes so loud that it seemed like they were attempting to drown out the actual protest. The rest of the 1000 people were gathered around a much smaller sound system in the adjacent intersection, having their own speak-out. The soap box ran from about 5-8 p.m., and the “don’t tear up Oakland” position that was emphasized so strongly at past protests seemed to have taken a back seat on the collective agenda of the group. Most messages were that this verdict is bullshit, the system isn’t going to give justice for Oscar Grant, and we need to organize. There was also a strong recognition that Black people were the targets of this violence and of the need for Black nationalism.

The typical divisive tactics that we had reported on at previous at Oscar Grant movement events was also present. One man insisted on addressing “just the Oaklanders” and advised the Black youth to not get “pimped” by “outside agitators.” The response from the crowd was cold. The next speaker said he was also asked to speak on “outside agitators” and went on to point out that Martin Luther King, Jr. was called an “outside agitator” everywhere he went in the South. He said that no one is “outside” the struggle for justice, and went on to point out that the only people who are coming from outside the movement to cause problems were the pigs. This brother received enthusiastic cheers.

This theme was one that had been playing out for weeks within the organizations preparing for the verdict. Reportedly, non-profit leaders and those working with the City government were spearheading the line that the Black youth of Oakland couldn’t rebel without white people from the suburbs telling them what to do. This racist bullshit had already been struggled against for weeks leading up to the verdict. While some in the crowd were dismissive of white speakers, telling them to get down, ultimately it was the content of what was being said that the protesters recognized. While there was a strong contingent of self-proclaimed locals saying “be cool” and using the local slang to attempt to create divisions, their effect seemed minimal.

During the speak out, pigs were lined up several blocks from the protest, controlling foot traffic and warning “unsuspecting” bicyclists of the “danger” ahead. At 8 p.m. the soap box was shut down by the City and everyone was hanging out in the streets, occupying several blocks of Broadway. After about thirty minutes, a trash can was lit on fire but protesters put it out within a minute. Occasional bottles were thrown at the pigs, and when any excuse was given to the pigs to attack, many of the protesters would run like hell. The pigs were surprisingly non-reactive, however, and would just occasionally change positions, pushing the protest north on Broadway. This didn’t prevent “Fuck the Police” from being the most popular chant of the night.

A Foot Locker was looted, and many people made out with fresh kicks and jerseys. A group of three to four protesters started guarding the Foot Locker and tried to appeal to the protesters to not loot, which they said would prove that they are just ignorant Black people and would prove “them” right (“them” presumably being the white legislators and City officials who they hope to ask for justice). On the other hand, the guards correctly emphasized that there are Black organizations to get involved in to deal with these issues, and that looting the shoe store won’t stop killings. If there was a strong Black vanguard in the area, MIM(Prisons) would have worked with them at this event rather than promoting study and building of new cadre groups. That’s not to say there aren’t a number of small, semi-underground formations that are worth working with, but none of them wield the power or influence to have led the rebellion.

The Black Panther Party asserted the need for a vanguard to organize and lead the masses down the most effective path to power in The Correct Handling of a Revolution, following the uprisings in 1968 across the country. It states, “There are basically three ways one can learn: through study, through observation, and through actual experience.” They go on to say that the Black community generally learns through observation and participation. Unfortunately, the lessons put forth in this article were not observable at the demonstrations this year or last, indicating that study is needed. While the fires, graffiti and smashed windows grab our immediate attention, it is the serious organizing efforts that will allow the Oscar Grant movement to have a lasting effect. While it is hard to quantify these efforts now, the mood of the speakers indicate that despite the lack of a vanguard organization leading the rebellions, many are thinking and moving in this direction.

Over the next few hours the crowd gradually dwindled, smoke bombs and fire crackers were set off, windows broken, over a dozen dumpsters and trash cans lit up, graffiti was sprayed, garbage cans tossed into the transit stations, as the crowd was constantly pushed north, sectioned off, and divided by the pigs. At one point the street lights went out and three gun shots were fired from an unknown source, but apparently nobody was hit. Unlike the usual large demonstrations in the Bay Area, many protesters tonight were armed, but attacks on police were limited to rocks, bottles and, according to police, a few molotov cocktails. By 11 p.m., the protest had reduced to small groups launching hit-and-run tactics on stores. Their movement seemed guided by the police, who vastly outnumbered them. At the end of the day, there were 78 arrests.

Although our comrades were not on the front lines for the whole showdown, a tazer was only heard once, and while there were regular explosions heard, no reports are claiming that they were caused by the kkkops. Overall it seemed like the pigs were on their best behavior (for being stinking fucking pigs, anyway). This was clearly unexpected behavior by most protesters, who were constantly running at the slightest sign of action, only to return a few minutes later when they realized the tear gas and rubber bullets had yet to arrive. Activists were expecting the worst, including the use of the a $675,000 long-range acoustic device (a machine that produces sound waves that can cause permanent damage) that the Oakland Police Department recently purchased. Again, it never showed up.

The pigs outnumbered and outlasted the protesters. When the rebels had been reduced to a couple hundred, the pigs still had reinforcements coming in and surely more on standby. The fact that there was no need to resort to severe repression demonstrated their control over the situation. Evidently, they were willing to sacrifice a few downtown businesses as a pressure release. The next morning, the Oakland police chief was celebratory about their ability to control and contain the rebellions.

Mehserle’s sentence is due out in November, and could range from 14 years in prison to probation. We expect the day of sentencing to re-ignite these protests all over the state.

Notes: Prisoners write us for a copy of “Oscar Grant: organization, line and strategy” printed on the anniversary of the initial rebellions following Grant’s murder.

The ECCO has taken it upon itself to confirm and clarify what the ECCO is as well as our purpose, which is defined by examination and analysis on the dynamics of our main organization, so that an understanding of us is built within other Crip affiliates, and political and non-political lumpen organizations and individuals. ECCO is the East Coast Consolidated Crip Organization, an anti-imperialist cadre that works in conjunction with the internationalist united front against imperialism. We propose that the main organization adopt the acronym Community Revolutionary Internationalist Party.

ECCO is a prison-orchestrated, clandestine movement that acknowledges and utilizes a doctrine of reformism as a tactical maneuver necessary within our organization to help advance the individual and collective direction of our organization. We accept reform within our organization to better fight the oppressive system and ignorance overwhelming our ranks; we do not apply reform as unprincipled class collaboration with our enemies. We advocate the value of reformist concepts as a tactic in overall revolutionary struggle, understanding that we only do so because on one level no revolutionary situation in respects to armed struggle exists at present within the United $tates, and on another level because our organizational structure is flawed in numerous ways and a revolutionary war cannot be entered, managed, maintained and won without addressing the contradictions within us and other external complications affecting us.

We function under the ideology of Neo-Cripism, engendered from within the ECCO to help attain the goal of injecting political, socio-economic and revolutionary consciousness into Crips’ core, along with one centralized belief to govern the whole of the organization. Recently, an ideology was non-existent within this state, at least one that was correct and effective. What existed was and still is an eclectic collection of ideas incorrectly adopted and bastardized from our 1993 alliance with the Gangster Disciples. Is this to say that the Disciples’ concepts are wrong? No. This is to say that our “leaders” took on a system that wasn’t based on the specifics of our organization’s characteristics and socio-economic conditions; city-to-city, state-to-state. In doing so, they stunted the development of Crip and each of our organizations individually.

An ideology is the systematic, scientific, cultural, economic, political, social and moral values of a people. It enables the organization and/or movement to coordinate its set aims/goals through its organized activities/social practices via the ideological indoctrination of its members as it relates to concrete conditions that define the organization. Without an ideology an organization or movement will fail in the primary factors it claims to represent.

For the Crips to exist in this state as in other areas it has to be understood that a doctrine needs to be established in every area that complies with all internal and external activities of the organization so it functions. It’s not possible for the Crips to truly aggregate (become whole) with no common organizational structure created for them. Those of us who are conscious of the contradictions within our organization, who seek to develop a genuine concept for the organization without fear of internal repression, opt for the ECCO and Neo-Cripism - an ideology established with the revolutionary-internationalist influences of scientific Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Frantz Fanon, the Black Panther Party, The New Afrikan Black Panther Party- Prison Chapter, George L. Jackson and the Black Liberation Army.

Our goal is not simply to establish a new design into the Crip history books, but to make it a common belief within our organization that we hold an extreme amount of revolutionary potential as a multinational lumpen organization comprised of the oppressed New Afrikan, Latino, Samoan, Asian, poor white and Indian races to name a few. This gives us an advantage in our resistance to oppression, white supremacy and imperialism.

No change within the reality of the Crips or the society around us is possible without those of us who step forward, risking suppression and taking the initiative upon themselves to bring that change about. We err in this state by not creating a system to go with the conditions here and fail again in denouncing our East Coast Crip identity. To identify ourselves as West Coast Crips because a number of the Crip gangs we belong to in this state migrated from California is an overplayed concept that is unrealistic and based in subjectivity.

All thought within the ECCO is put forth from universal objective observation and rationalization to understand situations in every aspect and angle. Our reality as an urban counter-cultural paramilitary unit and pro-community organization is our own to uphold. If we fail to advance then it’s from our own failure to seize the time and shape the reality to our desire and uplift ourselves from the multiple layers of oppression we’re faced with.

“The mistakes of the past must be exposed without sparing anyone’s sensibilities, it is necessary to analyze and criticize what was bad in the past with a scientific attitude so that work in the future will be done more carefully and done better… In treating an ideological or political malady, one must never be rough and rash but must adopt the approach of curing the sickness to save the patient, which is the only correct and effective method.”
- Quotations from Chairman Mao, p.263

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is applying the strategy of “unity from the inside out” as developed by MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within (USW). Unity among progressive forces must begin from within. Different organizations cannot unite on principles if the organizations themselves have no principles. Therefore we encourage others to work with USW and MIM(Prisons) to develop unity within themselves and with each other as part of the Anti-Imperialist United Front.

In this statement, the ECCO applies the word “race” to address the multinational character of their organization. Races do not exist, and race is a concept created by the racist oppressor nations. Nations do exist, and there are many oppressed nations within the borders of the United $tates. MIM(Prisons) sees the principal contradiction within U.$. society to be between the oppressor and oppressed nations. At the same time, the oppressed nations themselves have been more integrated and bourgeoisified than at any other point in history. While history has shown the usefulness of nation-specific parties and organizations, the lumpen class often finds itself organizing across national lines in spite of the strong divisions that the state has encouraged. What form future revolutionary movements take will depend on the development of the different contradictions along both class and national lines.

The concept of “reform” presented here by ECCO is related to the question of the nature of a contradiction. There are antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. Contradictions among the oppressed are non-antagonistic, because ultimately their interests are the same. The contradiction between the oppressed and imperialism is antagonistic, meaning you cannot reform imperialism to serve the oppressed. But you can reform an organization of the oppressed to serve the oppressed as is proposed here. This does not mean that it is always possible or that it is the most effective path. Often times, organizations are entrenched in their ways and new ones must be formed. It is up to the comrades in each situation to determine whether internal reform and unity from the inside out is the fastest route to mobilizing the oppressed around them for anti-imperialism.

As Lenin best explained, without a scientific vanguard party a revolutionary movement cannot reach the point of overcoming the status quo. So as MIM(Prisons) works to develop unity with other organizations we will also struggle with our most advanced comrades to join or form vanguard elements that are distinct from the mass movements that most of us start out in. This is an application of the law of unequal development.

In the March 2009 Peace issue of ULK, I submitted an article entitled “More Police Not the Answer.” Since the writing of that piece, pig chief Joe Mowka has been forced into retirement after an investigative report surfaced that his estranged daughter (who has a history of drug abuse) had been using vehicles confiscated by the St. Louis City Police and held at a towing company with a lucrative contract by the City Police. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Since December 2008, there have been 13 St. Louis City Police officers charged in state and federal indictments. New pig chief Don Isam, the Black face in a high place, says that he is committed to “rooting out those who violate the laws they are sworn to uphold.” Yeah right, we’ve heard it all before… Brotha!

The first week of October 2009, one pig was fired and another suspended after they filed criminal charges against a man for allegedly trying to run over one of them with his car. But due to the diligence of the man’s girlfriend, a videotape surfaced which showed that the officers had in fact lied. All the charges were subsequently dropped.

Two other pigs were caught lying in search warrants. Pigs Vincent T. Carr, and Bobby Lee Courrett, were recently given slaps on the wrists, after being indicted in December 2008, along with pig Leo Liston (indicted in April 2009). They were indicted for stealing drug-linked money and planting illegal evidence on an innocent man and lying to cover up their wrong doing. As a result, over 1,000 cases in which these pigs were involved have to be reviewed.

Some other cases involve pigs lying in court proceedings, doing computer database checks for buddies and theft of U.$. government property. Pigs Ronald H. Jackson and Christian A. Brezill were caught in a scheme in which they would take stolen goods from thieves and keep them for themselves, sell off what they didn’t want and break bread with the rat who set up the other crooks. The indictment involves them taking what they thought was the thieves property, which actually belonged to the FBI.

But these things are not “new” to anyone, nor are they “isolated” incidents. Corruption is part of the pig culture. I can remember back to the late 1980s when George Peach was the city’s head prosecutor, sending thousands of men and wimmin to prison, only to be caught in a federal prostitution sting.

Pig abuse and pig corruption are a part of the capitalist-imperialist system. So while some “citizens” cry for more pigs to be added to the city’s payroll, we say that the imperialist system is the root of all of these problems and that the entire system must go and not just a few greedy, fucked-up pigs!

MIM(Prisons) Adds: We’d like to emphasize the argument that this comrade makes against the “bad apples” theory, which comes from the false bourgeois psychological idea of persynalities and persynality traits. The idea of persynalities serves the bourgeoisie by focusing the masses on getting rid of the few people who are inherently “bad,” instead of analyzing society and how it feeds into some people having antisocial behavior. “If we just lock up so-and-so the rapist, and so-and-so the thief, and fire so-and-so the racist pig, then society will be a better place.” This incorrect logic is used for cleaning up the pig herd as well as locking up oppressed nations. In reality, people are a reflection of the society that they live in. If you live in an oppressive society where we have unequal power, and we’re taught to behave in antisocial ways, then it’s necessarily true that some people will abuse that power, and some will have antisocial behavior.

Not only is corruption a part of the pig culture, like this comrade says, but it’s their job to do fucked up things, that’s what they get paid to do. It’s their job to kill people, exploit people, rape people, and get away with it. Pigs of all kinds are specifically hired and promoted based on their loyalty to the amerikan nation. It’s like working at a burger joint in this society. If you don’t flip the burgers and serve them to the customers, then you aren’t enabling the restaurant to work how it needs to in order to be a restaurant. Similarly, as a pig, if you’re not locking up thousands of people, or planting drugs on them, or stopping them from organizing for liberation, then you’re not enabling society to function properly. The only way to truly get rid of the “bad apples” and corruption is to address these problems on a societal level.

At night I see your light through my bedroom window
But I ain’t got shit but the pad and pencil
I can’t wait till I hear you say, ” I’m going down, mayday, mayday”
I’m gonna clown ’cause every time that the pigs have got me
–from Ghetto Bird by Ice Cube

Oakland, California is not quite like Los Angeles. Having to fall asleep to the sound of helicopters overhead night after night is not routine. But in the last week that changed with three nights of uprisings and demonstrations in response to the murder of Oscar Grant, a 22 year old Black man who was shot in the back by a cop while face down on the ground.

Chemical warfare, tasers, armored vehicles with mounted guns and numerous helicopters were used by the city of Oakland against its residents the first night of the uprising. Over 100 people were arrested for various trumped up charges. Those who were not bailed out have already been given hearings where 21 of 24 people had their charges dismissed. One of the 3 remaining charges is a felony arson charge against JR, the Minister of Information for the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, indicating clear political motivations behind these arrests. Last night another couple dozen people were arrested. It took 2 weeks to arrest someone who shot a man in the back, but the OPD saw it as appropriate to jail over 130 people, most, if not all, of whom have no substantiated charges.

Just as they tried to do the night of the murder, Oakland pigs confiscated all cameras and cell phones from those arrested. Some who were arrested have not got their cameras back and others have gotten theirs back with the material erased from them. Numerous people videotaped the shooting of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Eve, leading pigs to go around seizing peoples’ cell phones in an attempt to destroy evidence.

JR is one of many who reported being rushed and tackled by police while merely standing on a downtown street during the demonstrations. In another instance, a group of pigs marched across the street towards a group of protestors when one of the thugs approached a Black youth and shoved him in the chest. The pigs waited for a response and then seized the kid, leading to a scuffle between the two groups followed by the youth running away.

After the roundups the first night, JR reported, “Behind enemy lines, the inmates at Santa Rita put their fists in the air, smiled, cheered and gave us dap when we told them that we were being held captive because we were in the streets during the rebellion. Mexicans were congratulating Blacks, Blacks were congratulating whites, Norteños (a Latino street organization) were congratulating Bloods (a Southern Cali street organization), who are their rivals, for their participation in fighting the police and the city for justice against police terrorism.”(1) In our next issue of Under Lock & Key we will focus on the question of peace between lumpen organizations. Practice demonstrates that great injustice is often the only thing that can undo the work the pigs do to keep oppressed youth at each others’ throats.

As many have pointed out, this case has gotten so much attention because it was so blatant and it was videotaped by numerous people. The sick part is that many people are still saying things like, “you don’t know what you’d do in a high pressure situation like that” and that the cop “has already suffered enough.” The guy shot an unarmed persyn in the back while he was on the ground!

The only way to do justice to Oscar Grant is to prevent incidents like this again in the future, which requires eliminating the biggest and deadliest gang plaguing the streets of cities across the united $tates - the pigs. While this was going on in Oakland, comrades in New York were organizing a demonstration for Justice for Imam Morales, who was killed by the NYPD on September 24th, 2008. Two other Black men were killed by the pigs on New Year’s Eve, the night Oscar was shot in cold blood. We can keep adding to the list of names, or we can stop the perpetrators.

The movement for justice for Oscar Grant has demonstrated the pitfalls of coalition based organizing and the need for a vanguard organization to provide leadership.(2) There has been a lot of talk about the Panthers in the last couple weeks, and their presence is missed. Without the vanguard party, a coalition of interested parties have decided to work together. To do so requires reducing the coalition to the lowest common denominator, and in this country in this time, that’s not very good. One of the leaders of the the coalition linked the recent murder charges brought against the cop who shot Oscar to the new hope that comes with a Black man in the white house. Such hopefulness ignores the real reason why the police exist, and why their presence is so strong in certain communities.

MIM(Prisons) joins in the demand for criminal prosecution of the pig who killed Oscar Grant. But we don’t have to sit down with the state to make this demand. The city is clearly responding to the demonstrations in the street, first when it made a statement to quell the first uprising after a week of silence and then when it arrested the shooter the night before the last demonstration. Lesson 1: The people can exert power independent of the state.

Ain’t shit changed cuz Obama in the house.
O P D had 15 murders, man
that’s all we know about
cuz that’s all that we heard of
all the peckerwoods better hide tonight,
cuz my city frustrated, they ‘gon riot tonight.
I don’t condone the riots
cuz we burnin’ down our own shit.
But I ain’t mad at them cop cars that they hit.
–from My Life, a tribute to Oscar Grant by Mistah F.A.B.

As all this goes down, there has been much debate in the streets about what is OK to smash and burn, if anything. The smashed windows and burning cars are only the expression of anger towards the pigs. It is out of fear and a sense of powerlessness that people cannot attack the object of their anger and lash out on inanimate objects instead. We don’t condone random property destruction as a tactic for change, but if a real solution is to come of all this, it is not going to come from those who are working within the capitalist state. Anarchists want to expand the actions of the more radical sections of the demonstrations, while focusing on more “corporate” targets. But nights of Black youth roving the streets among groups of riot cops, being videotaped and snatched to prison cannot continue much longer. Lesson 2: The spontaneous youth must come together and exert their power in more meaningful ways, within the context of national liberation struggles and anti-imperialism.

They discover that the success of the struggle presupposes clear objectives, a definite methodology and above all the need for the mass of the people to realize that their unorganized efforts can only be a temporary dynamic… you’ll never overthrow the terrible enemy machine, and you won’t change human beings if you forget to raise the standard of consciousness of the rank-and-file. Neither stubborn courage nor fine slogans are enough.
–from Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

notes: (1) Oakland rebellion: Eyewitness report by POCC Minister of Information JR. http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/oakland-rebellion-eyewitness-report-by-pocc-minister-of-information-jr/, see sfbayview.com to donate to JR’s legal defense
(2) see MIM Theory 14: United Front and What is MIM?

In July 2008, the St. Louis City Police Department, under the leadership of Joe Mowka, Chief of Police, initiated a program to reduce the city’s homicide rate. The city at this time had 89 homicides, on pace to reach the highest total in 13 years. As of November 23, 2008, there have been a total of 161 homicides.

The police department says that since its program of “saturation” patrols (as they began to call the increased police presence), 123 arrests were made in one week with the help of U.S. Marshals. Yet the crime rate hasn’t gone down and murders are still happening at an alarming rate.

It is my contention that more police in the neighborhood isn’t going to change a damn thing. More police, more brutality. more police, more poor Blacks on their way to jail, penitentiary, probation and parole.

Of course, everyone has a right to be safe in their home, on the street and in their neighborhood. But if no social, educational and employment opportunities are being made available, it doesn’t matter how many mobile command units sit on the street corners, crime is gonna continue unabated. If you change the social conditions that caused the social ills, then there would be no need for more police. People will not behave according to truly human standards until they live under truly human conditions.

The people need power to determine the destiny of their own communities. The masses needs access to more educational and employment opportunities, not the penitentiary and graveyard!

Power to the people who don’t fear real freedom!