Update on last weeks murder of Corey Ruiz in Madison, WI by officer Kiel Peterson.
Somone said that everyone will forget by the next day and that’s probably true nationally but its definitely not true in Madison. The intersection now has a well stocked encampment around a large memorial of flowers and candles, with a monument, campfire, grill, library, donation system and two to three layers of barricades in all four directions.
Those barricades started as trash bins in a line, which I - in my arrogance - initially scoffed at. But now they’ve gone full Le Mis with pallets, scrap wood, trailers and vans. Early on the police car blockades got replaced with municipal pickup trucks. I interpreted that as a wise strategic move by the city or cops to avoid antagonizing the movement. Later those pickups were replaced by huge DNR dump trucks, which perplexed me. Some of those DNR trucks are still there and are now apart of the barricades. I still don’t know who in office was cool with this but its pretty metal.
The main call is to arrest and charge the killer cop. The larger call is to fully fund a police oversight commission. Its being contrasted on social media with the police departments own agenda for body cameras which the abolitionists oppose. This contradiction serves as perfect FUD since the average liberal considers police body cameras a bare minimum policy to address police brutality. But every abolitionist has since learned these are just more tools for the police to use at their discretion, not the public’s. They always have a nice big power button in the center.
The city was supposed to have some sort of relevant meeting about the police this week that got postponed until September 22nd, which we’ll just have to keep momentum up until then. Various protests and marches will happen in between. I’m sorry I don’t recall what this meeting exactly was
Broader direct actions have been threatend but never followed. I heard someone argue against a call to disrupt the buses, never heard the call, never heard of it being attempted. I saw a network news report debunk an AI flyer to calling to block the local major highway. They did both, “there’s not endorsements” and “these hands both have 6 fingers”.
I’ve seen three local socialist orgs active at the scene. PSL is out with its usual flyering and premade signs. Local DSA state assembly candidate Julianne Bennett showed up and voiced support. She has been criticized by libs for voting against body cams as a city Alder so I’ll trust her on this. Local DSA governor candidate (and AFAIK favored to win) Fran Hong voiced support for the protestors early on. Idk if she has shown up. She might have, her campaign office is literally two blocks away. I saw someone hustling with an FRSO shirt early on. I wish them the best. Anarchists dominate the scene as usual. IMO, any communist in America must reconcile with america’s anarchist tendencies to be serious.
This has been crystal corner news.
Before body cams, it was your word against that of probably multiple cops. With body cams, everyone on scene has to coordinate not switching them on in advance, they have to gamble that none of their buddies arrive with an already-rolling camera, and not having it activated (or turning it off) is an argument against them.
Say you wanted to get away with something. Would you want to be carrying a camera? Would you want everyone around you carrying a camera? Would you trust every one of your coworkers to not have hit record, either intentionally or by accident? It’s bonkers to me that some folks have talked themselves out of this just because (some) cops are for it. That’s just contrarianism.
The audit I linked to says proper usage varies, and is very high in some places. And the standard isn’t perfection, it’s whether this is a significant improvement over what it replaced.
The models which theoretically continue recording for some period after they are turned off can simply be covered or aimed in the wrong direction, among a litany of other tricks
However even if the cameras were not constantly malfunctioning or getting covered at convenient moments, the settler-bourgieos laws and courts are rigged in favor of the settler bourgieos paramilitary force. Most of the atrocities the police commit are infact legal (remember that three of the four pigs who murdered George Floyd on camera were found not guilty and it took a national uprising for the case to even go to trial) For every time we could successfully use body camera footage in court, they can use it several times to convict people they might not otherwise have been able to of bourgeois “crimes”. Obviously proof of police atrocities have a propaganda value, in addition, which is why civilians should film the police.
In addition to this, police body cam footage of egregious public behavior is often released by police officers in order to justify further funding and repression. Every police department now runs their own little “COPS” propoganda department.