BOSTON, MA, September 5—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and friends rallied outside of Brigham and Women's Hospital to protest the police murder of 41-year-old Juston Root, a white working-class man with mental illness. His story shows that the same racist police force that terrorizes  Black and Latin workers is the same police force that is unleashed on the entire working class. PLP calls for multiracial unity against capitalism and its kkkop thugs.
On February 7, two Boston cops at Brigham and Women’s Hospital shot Root, who was in the midst of a mental health crisis, for holding a clear plastic paintball gun. He was hit along with a bystander, who  attempted to evade police in his car. After a short chase, Root crashed and stumbled from his vehicle. Unarmed and bleeding profusely, Root collapsed by the side of the road.
As an EMT ran up to provide emergency care, Boston and State police ordered them away, and then proceeded to execute Root by shooting him 31 times, without warning, within the span of three seconds. The six cops, heard boasting and discussing how to cover up their actions, were later cleared of wrongdoing.
Murdered by the police state
 In August, Root’s family filed a wrongful death suit, seeking justice for his murder. Root was white, and yet his story is disturbingly similar to the slate of racist lynchings of super-exploited Black and Latin workers by kkkops across the country. Due to the inherent racism of this profit system, police disproportionately terrorize Black and Latin workers. Cops are a force to oppress and control the entire working class. Without a unified working class fightback, these murders will continue unabated.
PLP demonstrators distributed hundreds of flyers and sold copies of CHALLENGE to pedestrians and passing cars. They held signs that read: “STOP KILLER KKKOPS,” “Smash Racism with Multiracial Unity,” and “We Need a Revolution to End Racism.”
They also made speeches through a megaphone, illustrating the need for communism and for a multiracial fightback against racist police terror.
One PLP member exposed the long history of lynchings by Boston Police, and the politician-led cover-ups. Another revealed the hidden history of how racism rose with capitalism as an intentional means of dividing the working class along racial lines to prevent uprisings. Colonial plantation owners, terrified of the power of their Black slaves and white servants unifying to resist their rotten profit system, indoctrinated the population in racist ideology and used force to divide families and enforce segregation. Another speaker cautioned the local population about the rising threat of fascism and asserted that communism is the only way to resolve the contradictions in our existing society.
Hospital workers, patients, and others responded enthusiastically to the Party’s message of militant multiracial unity and the need for communism. Many stopped to talk about the police terror in their own community, while others honked horns and raised their fists in support. The working class has had enough!
Racist police terror harms all workers
The ruling class relies on police violence to maintain their racist exploitation of the vast majority of society. Their wealth and everything of value in society comes from the labor of the working class and the super exploitation of Black and Latin workers. The bosses understand that their daily theft would be impossible without an unaccountable, militarized, and loyal force of armed guards to protect them and their stolen wealth. This is the real purpose of the police.
The police’s racist treatment of Black and Latin workers is meant to allow the extraction of super profits and to divide workers and prevent a unified resistance to our exploitation. They maintain a heavy presence in Black and Latin neighborhoods, where workers are disproportionately stopped, arrested, and brutalized. This racism serves as the justification for the build up of legal protections and military hardware, which the police then turn on white workers as well. This is why Root  was murdered, and why no officers have been arrested. Had Root  been the son of a billionaire, the officers would already be rotting in a jail cell. The multiracial working class has had enough!
This is a matter of life and death. Justice cannot be achieved without a unified and committed working class. This is the movement that Progressive Labor Party is building. We fight for an end to the bosses’ profit system, and for a communist society run by and for workers.