Newark, NJ, April 1—Earlier this month, the ruling class and their injustice system charged a 14-year-old with murder and attempted murder of two KKKops in Newark. While the bosses’ media frames this killing of a racist stormtrooper in blue as a tragedy, juxtaposing it with questions as to how “someone so young” could do it (NJ.com, 3/25), the true tragedy remains the countless Black and Latin workers victimized by racist police terror in Newark and beyond. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades have been active here in antiracist struggles against police brutality for years, specifically helping the Rodwell/Spivey family in their successful battle against a racist attack by the Newark Police Department (NPD) in 2021. But no wins in capitalist courts will ever erase the fact that reforms won’t liberate workers from kkkop terror. Only a PLP led communist revolution will do that!
Baraka says “It’s not a police problem”
Predictably, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka tried to All Lives Mattersplain the shooting: "We just have to do a better job, I have to do a better job, our families have to do a better job, the community has to do a better job at making sure that our children are not handling guns in the street, shooting at police officers. This is not a police problem. This is our problem, is our collective problem."
Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Lakeesha Eure–a former anti-police brutality activist!—echoed the official police narrative, claiming sympathy for the arrested child, but not daring to question the officers’ narrative. The liberal fascist politicians’ parroting of the police narrative, just as they did in the Rodwell Spivey case, is sickening. However, it should come as no surprise; Liberal politicians will always reveal their true colors as big fascist stooges(see glossary on page 6).”
Newark—Owned by the Big Fascists
This is happening in a city terrorized by racist police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for decades. This is happening in a city with some of the most corrupt, racist cops, courts and prisons in AmeriKKKa. This is happening in a city whose politicians – aligned with the Big Fascist, gentrifying finance capital firms like Goldman Sachs – portray as progressive with “cops who care.” Remember, the chief of police took a knee during the George Floyd protests! (NJ.com, 6/1/20) The following year, Newark PD and the SWAT teams attacked the Rodwell Spivey family in their own home, arresting four of the brothers and imprisoning Justin Rodwell in the vile Essex County Correctional concentration camp for 18 months without a trial. Just as workers across the country fought alongside the Rodwell Spivey family to free Justin, we should fight to prevent a modern day legal lynching of this 14-year-old child of Newark.
The killing of Newark Detective Joseph Azcona was used as a pretext to terrorize a North Newark neighborhood for the funeral held on Friday, March 14th. Residents were told with less than 24 hours notice that the streets would be blocked from Thursday to Friday afternoon. Police set up porta potties on Mount Prospect Avenue for two blocks. Thousands of police from across the tri-state area invaded a 10-block radius in the 7th Avenue neighborhood. Residents were essentially a in our homes for eight hours until the police mob cleared around 3 pm. Families had to keep their children home from school because the funeral took place right next to Barringer High School.
While the South Ward is typically the epicenter of racist police terror, the North Ward is no stranger to it either. During COVID, Essex County sheriffs routinely detained, harassed and arrested Black and Latin youth in the areas of Branch Brook Park. Ten years ago, a youth was shot in the vicinity of 6th Avenue by police. NPD routinely terrorizes the residents of the Stephen Crane and Mount Prospect public housing complexes with harassment and raids. Politicians, in cahoots with finance capital and real estate developers, often direct police to crack down on neighborhoods deemed ripe for gentrification. The site of the shooting is a couple blocks from a planned new commercial development (Tapinto Newark, 3/19).
Sanctuary City? What a joke!
While Newark politicians claim to be a sanctuary city, we have all seen the ICE raids for decades, from Ironbound to Ivy Hill. These raids are being ramped up now with President Donald Trump, but Joe Biden and Barack Obama both deported more workers than Trump–so far. One of the first ICE raids under Trump happened in January at a Newark fish market, where agents harassed and detained undocumented and documented workers, including a Puerto Rican military veteran (njspotlightnews, 1/24). Newark ICE arrested a second student involved with the Columbia University Palestine protests and disappeared her into the deportation system (NBC New York, 3/14). Her whereabouts are unknown at the time of this writing.
The Department of Homeland Security is contracting with GeoGroup, a multi-billion dollar private prison company to turn Delaney Hall in Newark into another ICE detention facility, after the community rallied to shut it down in 2022. Baraka, who is running for New Jersey governor, gave a nice speech about how un-democratic ICE is behaving–what a shocker! Like other Big Fascists of the Democratic Party, he says pretty words while behind the scenes making deals and controlling any opposition so ICE is tactically permitted to do whatever they please in Newark.
The Essex County Correctional Facility, next door to Delaney Hall, is one of the most notorious prisons in the country, where one of the Rodwell Spivey brothers, was held unjustly for 18 months without a trial after NPD and the Essex County Prosecutor's Office terrorized their family (Ark Republic, 2/22/22). From 2022-24, there were at least six deaths at the Essex County Correctional Facility and Jayshawn Boyd was put into a coma as a result of the deplorable conditions in the facility (New York Times, 12/28/21). The conditions in the facility, which then housed ICE detainees as well, were so bad that it was investigated. Conditions have not improved; the capitalist media just stopped covering it.
In 2021, Carl Dorsey, an unarmed Black father, was killed by Newark Police officer Roy Simpkins, who had previously had complaints of racist harassment against him documented by the ACLU when the Newark PD was under investigation through a federal consent decree. Dorsey’s family is still waiting for justice as Dorsey’s killer walked free.
Building communism is the solution
The cold hard truth is that no victim of police or ICE brutality will get justice while capitalism is alive. The capitalists control the courts, the cops, the prisons, and they created the Klan–they’re ALL the same. tools of terror. Capitalists use police to brutally quash any fight back and displace Black and Latin workers; they use prisons for modern day slave labor, raking in billions in profits. With the U.S. capitalist empire in decline and Chinese, Russian and U.S. imperialists fighting each other to control oil, gas and mineral resources in the initial stage of another world war, these are dangerous times for workers. But if we unite as an international working class to destroy capitalism, we can take control of our destinies. Join PLP, the ONLY party fighting the capitalists and uniting the international working class. There’s nothing to lose but our chains and a better world to gain.
