Who Controls Chicago’s Cops?
Chicagoans have fought long and hard for police accountability, but the new ordinance is a step back for the movement and a win for Mayor Lightfoot. A sober assessment serves us better than claiming false victories.
Cops
BDS the Police
A central strategy of the Palestinian struggle for liberation is rich with potential for abolitionist movements. It’s time to boycott, divest, and sanction the police.
It’s Been Nothing but Fight
Dorothy Holmes describes her fight for a special prosecutor and carrying forward the citywide struggle for an end to police violence.
There Is No Justification for the Murder of Ma’Khia Bryant
Ma’Khia Bryant deserved a long, thriving life, period. While some have pointed to the circumstances of her murder in order to cast doubt on her right to live, none of these equivocations even have a basis in crisis intervention experience.
Adam’s Innocence Isn’t Even the Point
A Chicago cop put a bullet in a thirteen-year-old child, and many are spinning narratives laced with typical racist dehumanization in an attempt to obscure this fact. It’s the cops who should be under the spotlight, disbanded, and abolished.
Justice for Gerald Reed
This week Chicagoans have a chance to show up for a police torture survivor who is still suffering unjust incarceration.
The Arab Spring and Abolition of the Police
The Arab Spring was an anti-police movement brought to revolutionary levels. Its lessons will be crucial to a renewed abolitionist movement in the United States and around the world.
There’s Nothing Left but the Streets
The recent rebellion in Philly against the police murder of Walter Wallace Jr. is rooted in struggles of the past and reflects the uprisings of the future.
Support Survivors by Defunding CPD
New allegations of police rape and cover-up confirm that Chicago’s police will never play a positive role in supporting survivors, even among their own ranks.
Public Safety Without Police
In the wake of the summer antiracist uprising, one Chicago ward is forging ahead with practical alternatives to policing. Ald. Rossana Rodriguez discusses the progress and challenges of defunding the police and imagining a different kind of public safety.
Science in Service of Cops
The Crime Lab research center operated by the University of Chicago uses the illusion of scientific objectivity to support the racist violence of the Chicago Police Department.
Kamala Harris’s History: A List
Knowing Harris’s record of siding with big business and against innocent people locked in the carceral system can only serve everyone struggling for a world in which all Black lives are allowed to matter.
All Power to the Looters
Chicago police shot someone on the South Side last night. By looting downtown, protesters are addressing the root cause of police violence.
A Central Cog of Racist Order
Simon Balto's Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power tells the racist history and development of the Chicago Police Department.
I Saw My Friends Beaten by Police. This Is What Happens When Cities Prioritize Property Over Black Lives.
As city after city began to rise up demanding an end to racist police brutality particularly toward Black people, I knew — as everyone with eyes and ears knew — that it was only a short matter of time before Chicago had its own explosion in response to the horrific murder of George Floyd. The …
More Rebellion, More Results: A List of Victories
Three weeks of open rebellion in the streets have yielded even more victories for the nationwide movement against racism and police brutality. Here is a list of wins from the third week.
Poverty Policing Pandemic
An urgent poem for these times of rebellion.
Rebellions Get Results: A List So Far
Five weeks of open rebellion in the streets have yielded swift, unprecedented results. This is the definitive, updated list of the movement’s victories so far.
Sever All Ties with Police Unions
In Chicago and everywhere, the social struggle to defund police departments is only hampered by labor's ties with police unions. A movement to sever ties will have to come from the rank and file.
Rebellion is the Gateway to Our Future
If police brutality, the pandemic, and impending economic depression robbed us all of a future, this rebellion is the beginning of our collective struggle to take it back.
New Cop, Old Cop
Lori Lightfoot recently appointed a new head of police in Chicago. His record indicates a disturbing continuity of racist police violence.
De Blasio’s Pivot to Antisemitism
De Blasio’s crackdown on the Jewish community in New York has stoked antisemitism at a dangerous moment. He draws from a long playbook of state violence against Black and brown New Yorkers.
Inside Cook County Jail
Chicago police torture survivor Mark Clements talks to Rampant about the inhumane conditions he witnessed inside Cook County Jail when he was unjustly targeted and sent there last week.
Turning Pain into Action
Dorothy Holmes recounts her fight just to learn the basic facts of her son’s murder and how she has fueled her long struggle toward justice with generosity.