Patrick Lynch blamed Eric Garner for his choking-death by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo
[Op-Ed]
It is outrageous and unconscionable that media and the head of Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) have lied and distorted reality by condemning the Rise Up October (RiseUpOctober.org) by using the fact that a New York police officer was killed last week.
The protest in New York was from October 22 to October 24 and involved of thousands of people, including scores of families whose relatives’ lives have been stolen by police from across the country the country.
Distorting reality and attacking the people fighting for justice they now assert “there is a war on police” and that “people must support the police all the time and on every corner.” They say that people should stop protesting the rampant, ongoing, systematic killings carried out by the police. This is wrong and upside down.
Let’s talk about the reality: Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Natasha McKenna, Andy Lopez, Walter Scott and many more people have had their lives stolen by those who are sworn to protect and serve. In almost every case, the system has exonerated the killer cops and the media has criminalized their victims, aiding and abetting the justification of these killings. This must stop. Not be incrementally reduced, but stopped; and it will take determined mass resistance and protest to stop it.
Pat Lynch, the loudmouth bigot and head of the PBA has called for a boycott of the films of Quentin Tarantino for his support of people fighting for justice. Tarantino was right to join us and everyone needs to pick a side: are you for or against police terror and killings? Lynch said a year ago that Eric Garner, “died from a number of bad life choices.”
What life choices led to Garner’s being choked to death at the hands of the NYPD? Being born Black in a country where police patrol Black neighborhoods like an occupying army?
I challenge Pat Lynch and anyone else to a debate over what’s the real problem: our protest of killings by police or police getting away with these killings?
Carl Dix is a co-initiator of Rise Up October and national spokesperson for RCP, USA
RiseUpOctober.org
