6000 protest King verdict in Twin Cities

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MINNEAPOLIS—Downtown traffic here came to a halt on Saturday, May 2, as thousands protesting the Rodney King jury verdict poured into the business district.

The action, organized by the Black community in just two days, was one of the biggest in the nation, and it was the biggest mobilization seen in the Twin Cities for some time. The organizers estimated the crowd size at 6000. The central theme of the march and rally was a call for the prosecution and jailing of the LA cops.

The march, which began in the heart of the North Minneapolis Black community, had quadrupled in size by the time it reached the culminating rally in tront of City Hall. The march brought out the Black community in force, with about a third of the protesters being white and Native American.

Conspicuously absent were uniformed Minneapolis police. Rally organizers told police their presence was neither needed nor desired. Minneapolis police chief Laux's decision to "honor" the wishes of the movement is being ascribed, by him and the local media, to sympathy with the marchers' cause.

The truth is that Police Chief Laux needs to save face, given the violent record of the Minneapolis police department and others in the Twin Cities area, and the effective exposure of this record by a powerful local anti-police-brutality movement.

In 1989, an elderly Black couple sleeping peacefully in their home was killed by a stun grenade lobbed by cops in a so-called drug raid in which no drugs were found. Neighbors of the couple who saw what the nolira mera nranarina tn dn warned the cops that the senior citizens were inside sleeping, but the cops went ..e. 2.!.i: ". .... .ak......... -M...I Araggrmn"My right ahead. Police Chief Laux's comment on the senseless killing of the couple was: "This is a war we are fighting, and in a war there are casualties."

A few days later, a party attended by young African-Americans at a downtown hotel was raided by Minneapolis police, who broke a young woman's wrist, showering on the party-goers such epithets as "coon," "nigger," "bitch," and "cow."

Again in 1989, a cop in the suburb of Inver Grove Heights shot two 13-year-old Hmong boys in the back while the boys were running away from him.

In early 1990, a multi-jurisdictional police force from four cities, including Minneapolis, used attack dogs to storm a peacefully assembled group of AfricanAmerican mourners outside a hospital. Those attacked were relatives and friends of a young man who had just died at the hospital.

Later that year, St. Paul police shot in the back and killed a mentally ill, homeless man who was fleeing them.

In late 1990, Tycel Nelson, a 17-year-old Black youth was shot by a Minneapolis cop in the back while Nelson was kneeling on the ground.

These are only some of the recent atrocities, all of which have been answered with militant protests led by Black community leaders who also led the May 2 march— such as Chris Nisan, currently Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Congress, Keith Ellison, attorney and leader of the Coalition for Police Accountability, and others. These protests have relied on mobilizing the community in rallies, demonstrations and picket lines that are laving hare that vicious underworld of officially sanctioned police violence in the supposedly liberal Twin Cities area. Wayne, Ind., singing "We shall overcome." In Philadelphia, 150 protesters rallied in front of City Hall the day after the decision. A larger demonstration was planned for Saturday, May 9.

Over 1000 took part in a May 1 protest march in Midtown Manhattan on May 1, and several hundred more marched in Harlem. Close to 400 teenagers demonstrated in Brooklyn.

Many of the protest marches were led by high school and college students. On some campuses, the day after the verdict was announced, instructors dismissed classes early to permit their students to attend protest meetings. Even grade-school children in some communities held protest On May 4, Black high school students led a demonstration in front of the Cambridge City Hall on "Cambridge Police Appreciation Day." On May 5, an emergency meeting of 350 was called by the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts and the Boston NAACP.

In Amherst, Mass., students at the University of Massachussets took over the administrators' offices to protest "institutional racism," which they said led to verdicts like the one concerning Rodney King.

At the same time, antiracist protests in solidarity with the U.S. actions were held in Stockholm, Calcutta, Toronto, Berlin, and other major cities of the world.