the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
May 10, 2021
In the middle of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd, where police higher-ups themselves were calling Chauvin’s choking of George Floyd unacceptable, 26-year-old Mario Gonzalez lost his life in Alameda, California at the hands of cops—in almost exactly the same way Chauvin killed Floyd.
It can all be seen on video from the cops’ body cameras. Gonzalez appears drunk and incoherent in a city park, but he is calm when he is talking to several cops. Then the cops pile up on Gonzalez, with one of the cop’s knee on Gonzalez’s back for more than four minutes—until the cops end up choking Gonzalez’s life out of him.
As Gonzalez appears to lose his breath, one cop suggests to roll Gonzalez on his side. The cop kneeling on him answers: “I don’t want to lose what I got, man.” It’s a video that’s very hard to watch.
After Gonzales was killed, the official explanation was that Gonzalez had died of a “medical emergency.” The protests and outcry from Gonzalez’s family and other community members finally forced the Alameda Police Department to release the body camera footage NINE DAYS after the incident,
No, the George Floyd murder was not the action of a rogue cop. Every day across the U.S. and especially in poor neighborhoods, cops bully and brutalize poor people, leading to officially sanctioned killings somewhere in the country every single day.