BOSTON, MA, February 6— Some 65 people demonstrated at the State House in Boston to demand, "Reopen the Juston Root case, appoint an independent investigator!". One year after cops killed Juston in cold blood, no cops have been prosecuted. That’s capitalism, a racist system where the cops protect the billionaire ruling class and intimidate and divide the working class. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) says we need a whole different system where workers run everything - that’s communism.
Family members of Juston and of Terence Coleman, another victim of police murder, spoke. They delivered a petition of 11,500 signatures to the Massachusetts Attorney General's office, demanding the case be reopened. Juston's sister said that if this could happen to her brother, it could happen to anyone. No one of us is safe from police violence, until this racist, sexist, profiteering system is totally eliminated. Let working people run everything..
On February 7, 2020, Juston Root, during a mental health crisis, was at Brigham & Women's Hospital to meet a mental health therapist. A hospital security guard called the Boston cops on Juston, and they shot him once. Juston, bleeding, trying to escape, jumped in his car and drove down Route 9 towards a shopping center in Brookline, where he crashed his car and fell on the ground. Six cops followed. As Juston lay bleeding, they drove away an EMT trying to help him, kicked him, and then fired 31 bullets into Juston, killing him.
Racism hurts all workers
Juston, who was white, was a victim of a racist police murder. Why do we say it was racist? The disproportionate targeting of Black and Latin communities for heavy policing continues to provide the excuse for militarizing the police and shielding them with legal protections. This then, also endangers white workers. The life of a beautiful young man was worth nothing to these racist killer cops. After the killing, one of the cops was heard to say, "I killed that [epithet]!"
On March 6, PLP members joined another demonstration called by Mass Action Against Police Brutality to demand that kKiller cop Derek Chauvin be convicted of murder, and to reopen all the cases of police murder in Boston. The families of Burrell Ramsey-White, Ross Batista, Juston Root, and Terrence Coleman, both Black and white, spoke at the rally demanding that their loved one’s cases be reopened.
The PLP leaflet and CHALLENGE newspaper, promoting multi-racial unity, and our revolutionary communist signs were warmly received. The divisive poison of identity politics was noticeably absent. We will try to work more closely with this organization and the victims' families. We will help fight against these racist cop murders now, as we fight for a future where racism and all capitalist exploitation is ended once and for all. That’s communism!
Racism hurts everyone in the working class. We need to unite to fight to destroy this stinking capitalist system of exploitation and oppression and fascist police murderers!