LAPD Murderers Strike Again! They Had To Kill The Baby To Save The Baby!

LAPD Murderers Strike Again! They Had To Kill The Baby To Save The Baby!
by Carl Dix

A baby? Yes, a baby! On Sunday, July 10th, an LAPD SWAT team ended what they called
a hostage situation by storming an office in a car dealership and firing dozens of
shots into a small room. When the smoke from the more than 60 shots had cleared,
Raul Pena and Susie Lopez, his 17 month old daughter, lay dead, both shot multiple
times by police bullets.
The authorities were quick to blame Pena for everything that happened on that day.
First they claimed that maybe Pena had shot Susie. Then after the coroner's
examination proved that police bullets had killed Susie, pig chief Bratton insisted
police had no choice but to storm the building to 'try to save Susie's life' and
that his cops had every right to defend themselves when Pena fired on them. Mayor
Antonio Villaraigosa called on the public to await the outcome of the police
investigation. He also said: "...we do know this: There was a man with a firearm
shooting at the public, shooting at officers." In other words, the people should
cool out while the authorities try to cover up their horrendous crime, but he's not
going to wait for the outcome of any investigation before he blames the man the
police killed for his own and his daughter's deaths.
We don't need to wait for their investigation/whitewash. What happened is clear. The
cops showed a callous disregard for the lives of both Susie and Raul. In the middle
of the afternoon the police received a report that a man was firing random shots.
When they came into the area they encountered Raul with Susie in his arms. Shots
were exchanged and Raul went back into the office of his auto dealership. Several of
Raul's family members begged police to let them go in and talk to Raul because they
felt they could talk him into surrendering, but the police refused. 80-100 cops came
into the area and laid siege to the place. Raul was on the phone with family members
and people in the neighborhood during the 3 hour siege. He was also negotiating with
the cops by phone.
Two hours into the standoff, a police sniper spotted Raul at a window of the office
and fired at him. Raul didn't shoot back, and the cops thought he was wounded and
maybe disabled. This is when they decide to storm the building.
The cops say Raul fired at them as they rushed his office and wounded one of them.
They stormed in with their guns blazing, firing more than 60 shots into the tiny
office. Susie and Raul were both killed by police bullets.
Police chief Bratton and mayor Villaraigosa are doing a two-step dance in the wake
of what we can only call cold blooded murder. Step one: blame Pena for everything
that happened. Step two: shed crocodile tears of sympathy for the family. Bratton
has even said that some of the SWAT members wish they could trade places with Susie!
Bullshit! When they stormed the office on Sunday, the cops showed whose lives they
cared about and whose they didn't. They said they were being fired at by Pena and
had no choice but to defend themselves--by finishing him off. They fired 60 rounds
into a tiny office they knew little Susie was in. Are these the actions of people
who were concerned about her well being? No, they are the actions of people who
didn't give a damn about her!
In commenting on the police murder of Tyisha Miller, (Tyisha was a young Black woman
who was shot 12 times in the back by 4 white cops as she lay passed out in a locked
car in December of 1998. None of the cops were ever charged in her killing.) Bob
Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, said the following:

"If you can't handle this situation differently than this, then get the fuck out of
the way. Not only out of the way of this situation but get off the earth-get out of
the way of the masses of people. Because, you know, we could have handled that
situation any number of ways that would have resulted in a much better outcome, and
frankly if we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would
sooner have one of our own people's police killed than go wantonly murder one of the
masses. That's what you're supposed to do if you're actually trying to be a servant
of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just
wantonly murder one of the people.
"Fuck all this "serve and protect" bullshit. If they were there to serve and
protect, they would have found any way but the way they did it to handle this scene,
they could have and would have found a solution that was much better than this. This
is the way the proletariat, when it's been in power, has handled and would again
handle this kind of thing-valuing the lives of the masses of people-as opposed to
the bourgeoisie in power, where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses,
including wantonly murdering them, without necessity, because exactly the more
arbitrary the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses. And that's one of
the reasons why they like to engage in-and have as one of their main functions to
engage in-wanton and arbitrary terror against the masses of people."

This speaks volumes about the role of the cops in this capitalist system--front line
enforcers for those who exploit and oppress the people. As do other events like the
pig killing of Devon Wilson in LA and cops firing of more than 100 shots at Winston
Hayes in Compton. This kind of brutality and even murder is built into the very
nature of this system. And cops are almost never punished when they abuse the
people. The 100's of people who've taken to the streets in the wake of this foul
murder and protested in other ways are doing the right thing. We have to fight for
justice everytime the pigs brutalize and murder. To stop this and everything else
foul this system perpetrates on people here and around the world, we have to go
beyond resistance. Doing that is going to take masses of people rising up in
revolution and going on to build a whole new society on the ashes of this messed up
one.

IT'S WAY PAST TIME TO THROW OFF THE CHAINS OF OPPRESSION AND GET WITH THE
EMANCIPATORS OF HUMANITY!

{Carl Dix is co-founder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. A
revolutionary communist political activist, he is currently on a national speaking
tour with the RC4 Speaking Tour with three other revolutionary leaders. Find out
about this tour at http://www.rc4tour.info\}

-30-
Office of Carl Dix, National Spokesperson

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York NY
10002-0900, (866) 841-9139 x2670