Revolutionary Worker #1197, May 4, 2003, posted at rwor.org
We received this correspondence from Chicago.
NOTE: Cabrini Green is an intense overwhelmingly-Black housing project in the heart of Chicago -- one of the poorest communities in the U.S. It has been the target of merciless police attack for years -- as the authorities try to drive out the residents of these projects, to destroy the buildings and their community.
Like a ray of brilliant sunlight, people have fought back, and this report from the people there shows what has been happening. One important factor is that there have been active, open revolutionary communist organizers living in the projects, mobilizing the people and raising revolutionary politics in the struggle.
Power to the People!
Suddenly a police car came squealing down the sidewalk. Cops jumped out and started grabbing people. Men, women, teenagers, and shorties stepped quickly to get out of the way.
Nightfall and three of his friends had gotten into their van moments before the police attack began -- on a mission to pick up some more beer for the repast. The funeral early in the day had been for Nightfall's grandmother. As the young men in the van tried to leave the parking lot, another police car pulled across the only exit. The cops approached the van, and Nightfall rolled down his window. Then a cop slugged him.
That was it--Nightfall and his friends rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and refused to "step out of the vehicle" as the police ordered. In a short time the van was surrounded by police with guns drawn.
The last police murder in Cabrini was just this past October, when an undercover cop shot 21-year- old Michael Walker (known among friends as Jappa D) in the face. The police kept him in the hallway for two hours--as he bled to death from the gunshot wound.
That murder was still fresh in people's minds--as well as the thousands of daily outrages at the hands of the brutal police. So when the cops looked like they were going to do serious harm to Nightfall and his friends, the people made clear they weren't having it. Residents began pouring out of the buildings, shouting at the police, trying to save the lives of the youths in the van.
People continued to pour out of the two buildings which flank the parking lot. The confrontation between the police and the people intensified. People were standing in the way of another murder.
Meanwhile, more police reinforcements arrived, coming up behind the growing crowd of angry people. Five cops beat a 50-year-old woman. Someone yelled, "This isn't Afghanistan, you can't do that here!" The cops jumped on him and arrested him. Altogether nine people were arrested.
Then the police retreated, jumping back into their cars and paddy wagons. They wove through the parking lot and out over the sidewalk.
But the people weren't through - they had no intention of letting the cops get away with the attack. A group 75 to 100 residents, including members of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, immediately marched on the 18th District police station, two blocks away.
The police attack and the resistance by the people of Cabrini became a major focus of controversy in Chicago. The night after the incident Reverend Paul Jakes, well-known in Chicago for his public activities against police brutality, brought Nightfall and his friends to a press conference where videotapes of the cops' attack on the van were played. The press conference and video footage were shown on all the local stations.
For two days after the police assault, youth from the antiwar and anti-globalization movements came to Cabrini Green to stand with the residents in case the police returned to mess with the people again.
A few days after the incident, the state representative for the area called an emergency meeting in the neighborhood. He brought with him some high-ranking oppressors: deputy commissioner of the Chicago police, head of the 18th District, head of the Public Housing Detail for the Chicago Police Department, head of the Office of Professional Standards (OPS--the part of the police department that is supposed to investigate wrongdoing by the cops), head of the "community policing" program, and assorted elected officials.