October 22nd marks the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. 

This day of action—a day strategically chosen for when students are in back in school and the public is gearing up for elections—has occurred every year since 1996.   That’s when a group of revolutionary activists saw a need for nationally-coordinated resistance against the escalating epidemic of police brutality.

The Oct 22nd Coalition also houses the Stolen Lives Project, which is the only comprehensive source of killings by law enforcement throughout the United States.

Many journalists and organizations are shining a light on this racist violence.   For a few media sources, check out:

• This recent 13-minute documentary about NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk policing, which includes the only audio recording of a stop-and-frisk in action (recorded by a Harlem teen) and police testimony on how the NYPD essentially requires police to engage in this racist tactic.
• This article by PapaBear, a houseless poverty journalist, on the terror that houseless people are experiencing under the Sit/Lie law in SF, passed by voters in 2010. 
• Malcolm X Grassroot’s Movement’s report that Every 36 Hours a black person is killed by law enforcement of self-appointed vigilantes in the United States.

What these sources begin to point to is that police brutality is not isolated to “a few bad apples” but built into ours laws and the structures of our police departments.  

For those in Oakland, this is nothing new.  Over $58 million taxpayer money has been shelled out on police brutality settlements in the last ten years.  The movement for Justice for Alan Blueford is alive and well.  And OPD remains on the brink of federal receivership for failing to sufficiently implement reforms required by a federal judge in 2003.

To join the movement:

1.     1. If your phone has a video camera, always be ready to film if you need to.

2.  Join Oakland’s Oct. 22nd march TODAY, at 4pm at Oscar Grant Plaza, marching to the Oakland jail.