LOS ANGELES—“No Night Out for Racist Murderers” echoed through the streets as the family of Bryan Bostic and members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) marched from a busy intersection in Inglewood into the National Night Out block party hosted by the local police department. The police chief, mayor, entire city council, and even Congresswoman Maxine Waters were in attendance. We drowned out their attempt to raffle prizes to young people with our chants and speeches letting the few residents in attendance know who the police really are. The fight for a communist world is the only way to get justice for the victims of police violence.
Racist KKKops murder another Black worker
On the evening of March 10 Bryan Bostic, a 37-year-old Black man, a husband and father, was on his way from his home in Compton to visit his mother in Inglewood. He never made it there. Bryan was stopped by the Inglewood Police Department near the corner of Hillcrest and Locust. He was ordered out of his car.
Witnesses and a video recording captured what happened next. Bryan was beaten by the police and lay on the ground face down with an officer kneeling on his back and pulling his arm back to handcuff him. Like George Floyd and Eric Garner, Bryan cried out that he could not breathe. An ambulance and someone from the coroner’s office arrived, but instead of taking Bryan to a hospital, he was taken in the back of the police car to the Inglewood Police Station. Bryan died while in transit.
Bryan’s family and supporters recognize the murder of their loved one as a racist murder! Bryan Bostic sadly joins the thousands of Black and Latin workers disproportionately killed by the police in the U.S. Since the uprisings in 2020 following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, and despite widespread police “reforms”, the number of people murdered by the racist cops has increased year over year!
In Inglewood alone, since the start of racist gentrification there after the groundbreaking of Hollywood Park and Sofi Stadium in 2014 and Intuit dome in 2021, about a dozen Black and Latin workers have been killed. In the shadows of sports arenas, luxury condominiums, and forced displacement, five killer cops opened fire into a parked car, murdering a Black couple, Kisha Michael and Marquintan Sandlin, who were sleeping in their car in 2016. In 2023, they murdered 34-year-old Ivan Solis Mora in front of his family while he was in a mental health crisis.
Klan in Blue can’t be reformed
While the Bostic family has been very committed and extremely brave in fighting for justice for Bryan, we know that police murders will always exist under capitalism. The function of the police is to protect the profits of business, real estate, and banking interests while terrorizing the workers from whom they extract their profits. From their origins as the first slave catchers to now, whether the IPD or ICE, they hope to oppress our class and stifle rebellion from the most militant in our class. So, of course, the workers most heavily oppressed under capitalism are not surprisingly disproportionately murdered by police as well.
The residents of Inglewood are open to the line of Progressive Labor Party (PLP). The vast majority of people were not in attendance at this KKKop hosted event. They showed support by honking or taking leaflets on their way home from work that night or shared their contact information with us. The 50 or so people in attendance at the block party mainly listened closely to us to figure out who we were and what we were doing. But within minutes, several were chanting with us or nodding their heads. Even though the police and city leadership tried to buy their loyalty with a few bouncy houses and some free ice cream and popcorn, our presence demanded they not be fooled.
Liberal misleaders exposed
The dangers of liberals were also on full display that night and for the past five months. The mayor and entire city council are either Black or Latin Democrats. The Bostic family has spoken every week at the city council meetings looking for answers to no avail. The mayor, a Black man, is a former cop and police chief, and has already exposed his role as a protector of racist murderers.
The icing on the cake was the presence of Congresswoman Maxine Waters at the event. She came over to talk to the Bostic family and told them they should try and take over the stage to tell their story. When the Inglewood mayor called the Congresswoman up to the stage, she yielded her time to a Bostic family member. Bryan’s aunt shared in great detail what happened that night and demanded answers and accountability, only for Waters to take the microphone back and say “See, this is democracy.”
Our sentiments exactly - democracy means when your loved one is murdered by racist police, tell your story and then go home, which is exactly why PLP calls for revolution! Democracy just keeps the same capitalist system in place and therefore can never be the solution to racist murder.
And liberals just like Maxine Waters have historically been able to pacify our class by convincing them that they have a stake in the system with them as their representatives.
The ruling class also needs liberal politicians who pretend to fight openly racist politicians like Trump. But as PLP continues to grow stronger and bigger, we will be able to spread this understanding to wider sections of our class until we eventually smash all the liberals and conservative politicians, their police, and the whole racist system. Fight for communism! Power to the workers!
