LOS ANGELES, November 18—The headline almost says it all. He Checked into a UCLA Hospital While Suffering From a Mental Illness, and a Sheriff Shot Him Nine Times While Trying To Use the Restroom  (LA Taco, 11/16).  
On October 6, Nick Burgos, 38, was gunned down by LA County Sheriffs while hospitalized at Harbor UCLA hospital. Not even within a so-called "health" institution are workers safe from these kkkops. A healthcare mass organization, in which Progressive Labor Party is active, responded with protests. One  family, survivors of previous police terror, joined the fight. Their loved one Ruben Herrera was killed in the same hospital by the same racist sheriffs six years prior.
What LA Taco didn’t say was that the only way to live in an unlivable system is to build a new one. Between the choices of a racist system spiraling out in crisis and the aim of an antiracist system built on the foundation of need and collectivity, we must intensify the side we want to win. That’s communism, a system run by and for the working class.
Killing a worker with an IV drip in his arm
Nick was suffering from mental illness and went to the hospital voluntarily. In fact, he was in his third week at the hospital. The medical staff and sheriffs knew him. He had become agitated at being prohibited from going to the restroom. He was still pulling on his IV (intravenous) pole with the line in his arm when the cowardly kkkops claimed “fear” of a “metal object.” Nick was shot nine times. He then underwent nine surgeries, with large open abdominal wounds and a partially amputated leg. After three weeks of suffering, he succumbed. While the coroner ruled his shooting a homicide, these killer cops remain roaming our medical wards.
The healthcare mass organization responded quickly after hearing about the shooting. The first protest we—antiracists and PLP—organized drew over 100 healthcare workers and students. We rallied in front of the hospital and called for the sheriffs to be immediately removed from all healthcare spaces. We held our second march and protest on October 22, at LA County USC Hospital, the largest of the county hospitals and home to a sheriff substation. This drew about 50 healthcare workers and students.
Family left in the dark
At this point, Nick’s name wasn’t released to the press and we had not yet made contact with his family. In fact, Nick’s family was not informed for over a week.
In the weeks prior, Nick had regular visits from his mother.  As his brother Benjamin said, for weeks while Nick struggled to survive, the medical staff did not provide proper Spanish translation to his mother. Moreover, as his body lay riddled with bullets and with open surgical wounds, he remained handcuffed to the bed.
His only crime was being a young Latin man suffering from mental illness and wanting to use the restroom! Nick Burgos joins the thousands of our sisters and brothers stolen by this rotten racist system, and the fact that this happened at a "safety net" hospital is a further indictment of this whole capitalist system. A system that kills and terrorizes workers does not deserve to breathe.
If this nearly nine-month period living within this pandemic has unveiled anything, it is that systemic racism is part and parcel of capitalism and leaves no institution spared. From George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, just as police plague our Black, Latin, indigenous and working-class
communities, so does this virus, disproportionately infecting and killing us.
In fact, every day millions of our class sisters and brothers suffer from preventable health ailments caused by the stress of living under capitalism. Nearly every chronic illness or leading cause of death can be attributed to the inequity and terror generated by capitalism's need to divide our class in order to extract maximum profits. The bosses' public healthcare institutions, like Harbor UCLA, are designed to only maintain the minimum amount of health to keep workers working and profitable and have historically been underfunded and under-resourced.
Workers and families vs. Mahajan
Nick Burgos is the second worker to be shot and killed while being cared for in this hospital in the last six years. Meanwhile, the current Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anish Mahajan, has made it clear he intends to continue this fascist policing and "healthcare" model as opposed to well established methods of medical personnel intervening with patients in a mental health crisis. He created a task force which is to "really think about — within the bounds of existing law which enables law enforcement to carry weapons in the hospital — how do we best collaborate with our law enforcement partners when situations arise, where patients become violent?" (LAist, 11/16).
Clearly, Mahajan does not intend to meet the demands of workers and families who want these murderers off our streets and out of our health care spaces. We will continue to work within our mass organizations to not only to point out the limits of the reform struggle, but also to expose the whole public health system as part of a larger state apparatus that serves the needs of capitalism.
We have already begun having these conversations and two friends have been meeting regularly in a Party study group for over six months. They have also been joining the protests we've been having with families like Alex Flores who was murdered by LAPD last year. They need to help us fight for communism, a system run by and for the working class.
What connects Nick and Alex?
A couple of days ago, Nick's sister-in-law found the social media page of Alex Flores and sent us a message. (CHALLENGE readers may remember that Alex Flores was murdered by LAPD nearly one year ago on November 19, 2019. The Flores family, antiracists, and PLP have been fighting in the streets since.)  We were then informed that Alex and Nick grew up together and were really good friends!  
This is more than a "small world" story. It is case in point to just how widespread racist police terror is!  In fact there are countless stories we've heard from families who describe other family members being killed or brutalized by the police. It also reflects how racism is capitalism's Achilles heel. As the communist, antifascist saying goes, "They killed us and killed us until there were millions of us!"
Connect the dots, draw in a fighting spirit
We are already in the process of connecting the two families as we commemorate the "Angel-versary" of Alex Flores this week. We will continue this struggle—within our mass organizations, on the job, with the many families we are meeting—and expand this fight against racist killer cops and the whole capitalist system which they serve.
Help us intensify this fight by sharing this struggle with your friends, co-workers, and loved ones. And join the fight for the long haul. Communism, a system run by and for the working class, needs readers like you.