CCNY Protests Killer Cops

By Mark Turner

At two campus events during the week after an Albany jury exonerated the four cops who murdered Amadou Diallo with a fusillade of 41 bullets, City College students, faculty, and staff members acted to protest the outrageous not-guilty verdict. They joined a movement of thousands who took to the streets in the Bronx, Midtown and at the United Nations to demand “Justice for Amadou.”

Forty-plus people attended a teach-in on the Diallo case February 29. From the podium, Bill Crain of the Psychology Department read a moving statement by one of his students. Shumon Alam gave a political analysis, outlining the role of the police as defenders of capitalism who victimize Blacks and Latinos disproportionately in order to maintain a race- and class-biased order. He also proposed a rally against the New York Police Department recruiters on campus.

Matthew Richardson of the League for the Revolutionary Party supported this analysis, criticizing political, labor union and religious leaders who aimed to turn the widespread protest movement that arose after Diallo’s killing last year toward voting for Democratic politicians, most of whom defend and fund the cops as much as Giuliani and the Republicans do. He also noted the overall ineffectiveness of commonly proposed reforms, like civilian review boards over the police or federal intervention. After a year of protests when thousands were chanting, “No Justice, No Peace,” now that the absence of justice has been established, the leaders preach peace. Their concern is far more to control mass anger than to express and organize it.

Issues debated at the teach-in included why the prosecution had lost in Albany and why the trial had been moved away from the Bronx in the first place. Several speakers observed that the courts had ruled that a Bronx jury likely to include a majority of people of color who are rightfully suspicious of the police would be “biased,” while a pro-cop, mainly white jury would be “unbiased.”

During the discussion, a Black woman in the audience identified herself as a member of the NYPD who opposed the Diallo verdict and hoped to help reform the force from within. Others pointed out that police racism is inherent and not reformable, given the cops’ role.

In the debate over where to go from here, popular suggestions from the floor were abolishing the Street Crimes Unit and planning a “Million Person March” on Wall Street whenever the next police outrage occurs. If Rev. Al Sharpton had gone on TV with such a call, one speaker noted, the response would have been infinitely more powerful.

The proposed rally against police recruiters became a reality on Thursday, March 2. During club hours, several dozen students gathered in the NAC Rotunda planning to march to the NYPD recruiting table. But word came that the administration had advised the cops to take the day off so as not to become a target of a much larger angry assemblage.

The need for continuing and vastly stronger protests was brought home by another police murder. On the night of March 1st, police in the Soundview area of the Bronx, a few blocks from where Amadou Diallo had been shot, killed another unarmed young Black man, Malcolm Ferguson, with a single shot to the back of the head. Ferguson had been a high-profile protester against the Diallo cops and had filed a five-million-dollar lawsuit against the NYPD for breaking his hand while arresting him. In the light of the teach-in discussion, it’s worth noting that the cop who shot Ferguson was Latino.

The rally ended with a call for a CCNY contingent to the Thursday evening demonstration in Soundview to protest the execution of Malcolm Ferguson.

Mark Turner is on the staff of the Math Department and a supporter of the League for the Revolutionary Party.