PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MARYLAND—Ten cops from three jurisdictions surrounded and murdered Leonard Shand, a 49-year old Black worker on September 26.  Despite years of struggle against racist police terror (which led to two separate Department of Justice civil rights consent decrees directed at the police department), the County continues to be another glaring racist failure of capitalism.
While the Black and white liberal misleaders tried to whitewash the racist actions of the police, members of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) called for these killer cops to be convicted for murder. Antiracists at the meeting agreed with this idea.
What does justice for Leonard look like? It looks like revolution, because a vicious system of racist repression won’t stop until the working class makes a revolution to abolish this capitalist system. Police in a capitalist society have a job to do: protect the bosses’ private property and power by terrorizing and dividing the working class through daily racist intimidation and violence. Leonard Shand is the latest target of this state terror. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is similarly used as an intimidating force against immigrant workers. PLP will continue to be in the forefront of every battle against brutality and intimidation by the police and ICE, while always pointing to the need for multi-racial, anti-racist, communist revolution to end such oppression permanently.
Vigil, conviction, and revolution
Forty protesters and family held a vigil where the kkkops gunned down Leonard Shand. The police murder and the whitewash was already underway: the police department that committed the crime will be in charge of conducting an investigation.PLP distributed CHALLENGE and the flyer condemning the racist murder. We also made connections with protesters, thus expanding the base for revolution against the racist capitalist system.The next steps in this fight are to intensify the campaign to convict these cops for murder and recruit more fighters into the struggle for communist revolution.
City’s hypocrisy reveals the failure of identity politics
The police are continuing an intense public relations campaign to protect the killer cops. Henry Stawinski, Prince George’s County Police Chief, publicly complimented the officers for their “wisdom” and “correct procedure.” Hyattsville Mayor Candace B. Hollingsworth and Police Chief Amal Awad—both Black, women, and pro-capitalist misleaders—tried to create a false narrative that the police acted appropriately at the community meeting, justifying the cops’ murderous actions.
This exposes the failure of identity politics. One might be hesitant to criticize these liberal misleaders because they are Black women. But the mayor and chief’s justification of this racist murder prove that multiracial capitalist apologists are still capitalists. The working class needs Black women leaders for communist revolution, not capitalism. Many appreciated the PLP flyer that verbally confronted the mayor and police chief over their efforts to whitewash the cops’ actions.
A second vigil and rally will be held on October 25, and the movement to demand justice in this case will continue. As our comrades in Baltimore declare at the West Wednesday rallies, “We won’t stop, can’t stop, until killer cops are in cell blocks!” And that day will arrive when the working class seizes power and abolishes the reign of capitalism.