Statement on the Murder of Harris County Sheriff’s Officer
by Out of the Flames of Ferguson
This past Friday, a Harris County sheriff deputy was shot and killed at a gas station in Northwest Houston. He was pumping gas in his patrol car when a man walked up from behind and began shooting him. Shannon J. Miles, a 30-year old black man living in Cypress, has since been arrested and charged with capital murder.
Immediately, local politicians, police and media outlets capitalized upon the incident, expressing outrage and disbelief that such an act could be committed against a law enforcement officer. At a press conference this weekend, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman called the shooting “cold-blooded” and “cowardly.” Harris County District Attorney (DA) Devon Anderson said, “What happened [Friday] night is an assault on the very fabric of society. It is not anything we can tolerate.“ [1]
Their strong emotional language cannot disguise the hypocrisy in their words. Where is the outrage and indignation when they regularly beat, degrade and murder black and brown people in the streets of Houston? Where was their shock a day later when a Latino man was gunned down by police in San Antonio while his hands were raised in the air? [2] Where was their moral outrage when Harris County Sheriff’s deputies sexually assaulted a woman at a gas station earlier this summer? [3] Where was their concern for the “fabric of society” when HPD and other law enforcement collaborated to surveil, physically assault and arrest protesters engaging in last fall’s Mike Brown protests?
We do not yet know the full details of Friday’s shooting or the motive of the shooter. What we do know is that there has been an increase in physical attacks on police in the last year, under circumstances similar to Friday’s shooting. Such attacks on police should come as a surprise to no one. It makes sense that the daily acts of police violence, harassment and humiliation provoke the kind of “lone gunman” violence against police that we are seeing. What the DA sees as a “senseless” and “unprovoked” act, we understand as the inevitable result of life under white supremacy. As Malcolm X once said about the assassination of JFK, this is a case of the chickens coming home to roost. The police create a violent environment and then blame us when someone lashes out.
The police and the DA are treating this shooting as a political case. At their press conference, Sheriff Hickman and DA Anderson both blamed the Black Lives Matter movement for the growing anti-police sentiments among people across the U.S. Hickman said that anti-police rhetoric “has gotten out of control.” While they use the courts to prosecute and probably execute Miles, they will also use this case to justify ramping up surveillance and repression of any organizing and protests in Houston that call out police violence.
What’s worse, the DA is openly inviting a rightwing response to the Black Lives Matter movement. The DA said, "It is time for the silent majority in this country to support law enforcement.” Those words are being heeded. A massive march is being held on September 12th in Houston under the title, “Police Lives Matter.” [4] Make no mistake, this is a thinly veiled white nationalist rally in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Already, thousands of people are expected to attend. Comments on the event page claim the shooting of the Harris County deputy is part of an ongoing “race war” against white people. There has been a white supremacist resurgence in recent months - from the church massacre in Charleston to the KKK rally in that same city to the church burnings across the South - and it is finding a home in “police lives matter” events like this all over the country.
We expect no sympathy from the police for the wounded and murdered brothers and sisters on our side. The roots of policing in the U.S. go back to slave patrols in the 1700s and 1800s, when armed groups hired by slave owners and the political elite would go hunting for runaway slaves. Today, the police function in pretty much the same capacity. They are a military entity given the power to kill with impunity. Their priority is keeping us “slaves” in our place within this rotten, unjust capitalist system. Any act of resistance is met with repression.
Landlords work with police all across Houston, signing Trespass Affidavits that allow police to stop, harass and detain anyone who looks “suspicious,” a code word used to target black and brown youth. Schools work with the police to smash on rebellious youth who no longer tolerate being disrespected and bossed around by school authorities. [5] In underfunded hospitals with overworked staff, the police are called in to brutalize patients who have mental health issues. [6] This also happens nationally but the rates of police violence locally are staggering. Texas has the second highest rate of police murders of any state in the U.S. and Houston is ranked #2 of all U.S. cities for police murders in 2015. [7] Every single day, the police terrorize people in the name of “law and order.”
While the police and DA put up the smokescreen that they, and not us, are under attack, Out of the Flames of Ferguson, a Houston-based grouping that is part of the broader Black Lives Matter movement, encourages all opponents of police violence to organize to Disempower, Disarm and Disband the police. ALL police. Police violence is not a case of a few bad apples nor is the system broken. It is working exactly as it is intended to. The only community safe from police violence is a well-organized community ready and able to have each other’s back whenever the police set foot on our streets. We need to organize ourselves to remove the police from our schools, our homes, and our streets. Copwatches, “no cop zones” and counter-recruitment actions against police recruitment are just some of the ways that we can begin to get organized. We also need to form anti-repression and self-defense committees to begin to protect each other against violence, whether at the hands of the police or anyone else.
We will not accomplish the goal to Disempower, Disarm, and Disband the police by lobbying politicians or by voting into office this or that “progressive” Democrat. Politicians weaken and endanger our movement by policing our dissent and attempting to channel it back into the false hope of reform. We can only rely on ourselves and our own collective strength. We condemn the attempts by the police and the DA to divide our movement against police brutality and to fan the flames of rightwing, racist reaction against us. To other groups in the movement, we want to encourage that now is the time to maintain the highest levels of solidarity with one another. [8] Together, let’s build a movement strong enough to Disempower, Disarm and Disband the police, once and for all.
If you or your organization would like to sign on in support of this public statement, hit us up at [email protected] or text/call us at (832) 356-4682. Follow us at www.facebook.com/OOTFF and http://ootff.tumblr.com.
[1] http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Officer-shot-in-NW-Harris-County-6472466.php
[2] http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/08/29/3696815/bexar-county-texas-police-shooting/
[3] http://jezebel.com/cops-forcibly-search-womans-vagina-after-smelling-weed-1723207106
[4] https://www.facebook.com/events/1662350760645048/
[5] http://www.khou.com/story/news/local/neighborhood/2014/09/03/student-tackled-by-officers-over-cell-phone-tells-her-side-of-the-story/15040013/
[6] http://fusion.net/story/191185/outrage-builds-over-mentally-ill-man-shot-by-off-duty-cop-at-hospital/
[7] http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-map-us-police-killings
[8] The Can’t Touch This NYC Anti-Repression Committee has developed some solid principles that could inform such solidarity here in Houston: https://canttouchthisnyc.wordpress.com/5-principles-for-the-anti-police-brutality-movement/
