What Trump Seeks to Accomplish by Sending Federal Police Forces to Chicago Already Armed to the Teeth
- Voice of Revolution -
Chicago, June 28, 2020.
President Trump announced July 22 that he will
send hundreds of federal forces from the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice
Department to Chicago. They are being sent in the
name of helping with violent crime, particularly
homicides and shootings. But if Portland is any
guide, they will likely also be used against
ongoing demonstrations demanding an end to racist
police brutality and inequality and claiming that
the rights of all be upheld. The African-American
community in Chicago is large and politically
active as are the large Mexican-American, Puerto
Rican and immigrant communities. All are front and
centre along with Black Lives Matter in the
current protests.
It comes as no surprise that Black Lives Matter
organizers and others are being defamed as drug
traffickers and targeted by Trump's federal forces
in the name of fighting drugs. In this way, the
pretext differs from the one used in Portland,
Oregon, but the aim of presidential executive
power controlling police powers at all levels --
federal, state and local -- and suppressing the
resistance in the name of law and order remains
the same.
The federal forces include the FBI, Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)
-- all notorious for framing people, including
organizers of the people's movement for
empowerment, on drug and murder charges while
themselves supplying guns and drugs to the
cartels. DEA and FBI have long worked with the
Chicago Police Department (CPD), including at a
detention centre known as Homan Square. Here
thousands of people, mostly African Americans and
Latinx and protesters such as those against NATO,
have been illegally interrogated and tortured
using beatings, sleep deprivation, withholding of
food and water for long periods, threats of false
charges and more while being refused contact with
lawyers. Homan Square has been targeted by the
protests so many anticipate federal forces will be
used to protect it.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and an
elite squad from Customs and Border Protection,
BORTAC, are already present in Chicago and may be
augmented. BORTAC was sent to Chicago in February
as part of Trump's efforts to retaliate against
sanctuary cities that instructed local police not
to cooperate with ICE in detaining immigrants.
Chicago police also have a long history of
framing organizers as well as outright
assassination, such as of Fred Hampton of the
Black Panther Party. The movement in Chicago is
now bracing for police actions of this type by
federal and local police, along with felony riot
and similar charges. Also to be expected is
that DHS will send additional forces from
these agencies as well as the newly formed
"Protecting American Communities Task Force," with
responsibility to protect federal buildings and
property and prevent "civil unrest."
In announcing the deployment, Trump blamed
protesters for the violent crime they are
supposedly being sent to address: "In recent
weeks, there has been a radical movement to
defund, dismantle, and dissolve our police
departments. Extreme politicians have joined this
anti-police crusade and relentlessly vilified our
law enforcement heroes. To look at it from any
standpoint, the effort to shut down policing in
their own communities has led to a shocking
explosion of shootings, killings, murders, and
heinous crimes of violence."
In this manner Trump is providing the basis to
further criminalize and target the demonstrators
as being responsible for crime while also trying
to gain the support of the local police forces.
By-Passing Elected Officials
One of the aims Trump seeks to achieve in Chicago
is to increase federal control over the monopoly
to use force while not directly confronting the
powerful Chicago Police Department (CPD). This is
why negotiations are taking place and promises are
being made to address crime, not protesters. The
forces are supposed to be uniformed with the usual
FBI, ICE, DEA jackets, etc -- but all these forces
go under cover for drug operations, for example,
and could readily deploy undercover agents into
the communities. The FBI has long infiltrated
movement organizations and likely will step up
such efforts. As well, once deployed, it remains
unclear if the "coordination" promised will
materialize.
It is also possible that while local politicians
may object to actions by the federal forces, the
police may not. Direct relations are being
established between federal and local policing
agencies, bypassing elected officials, as already
exists with Homan Square. This enforces federal
control over the monopoly of the use of force
which is a main goal of the presidential executive
power at this time.
"If federal agents are deployed, it is critical
that they coordinate with the Chicago Police
Department and work alongside us to fight violent
crime in Chicago," Chicago police spokesperson
Kellie Bartoli said. No mention was made of
coordinating with local elected officials.
The head of the police union wrote to Trump
directly asking for federal forces. Echoing
Trump's attacks on city mayors, he said: "I am
certain you are aware of the chaos currently
affecting our city on a regular basis now. I am
writing to formally ask you for help from the
federal government. Mayor Lightfoot has proved to
be a complete failure who is either unwilling or
unable to maintain law and order here."
Elected officials have nonetheless already
expressed doubt about the role of the federal
forces. While both Mayor Lori Lightfoot and
Governor J.B. Pritzker have agreed to the
deployment, they initially rejected it and
continue to raise concerns.
"Our democracy is at stake, and I'll be darned if
I'm going to let anybody -- even if their name is
Mr. President -- bring those kind of troops to our
city and try to take on our residents," Mayor
Lightfoot said at first. "That's not going to
happen in Chicago. And I'm going to use every tool
at my disposal to stop them," she said.
Lightfoot also signed the July 20 letter from
mayors of many cities in the U.S. rejecting use of
federal forces in their cities. However, the very
same day, in a letter to Trump, she agreed to the
deployment on the grounds of fighting crime and
drugs. "What we do not need and what will
certainly make our community less safe is secret,
federal agents deployed to Chicago. Any other form
of militarized assistance within our borders that
would not be within our control or within the
direct command of the Chicago Police Department
would spell disaster."
Current experience is that the federal forces,
not the Chicago Police Department, will take
control, pitting two highly armed forces against
each other and against the people.
Governor Pritzker also initially opposed federal
forces saying, "We're going to do everything we
can to prevent them from coming. And if they do
come, we're going to do everything we can from a
legal perspective to get them out." Then, after
speaking with the FBI, he said, "I welcome
legitimate resources from the federal government
to reduce violence and help our residents stay
safe." Referring to the well-known "grab and
snatch" tactics of DHS, he added: "But it's this
other thing that's going on where people are
wearing camouflage uniforms, with no
identification about who they are, claiming to be
protecting federal buildings, when in fact they're
going blocks and blocks away from federal
buildings to do things like throw people into vans
and arrest them without telling them why they're
being arrested, and then keeping them for hours
before letting them go. That is not something that
is acceptable in the state of Illinois."
Reports claim that both the mayor and governor
agreed to federal forces in part because U.S.
Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois,
John Lausch, is "in the loop" on the deployment
and "helping to manage the additional forces."
Lausch is part of the federal forces and working
to secure their control, emphasizing that they
will work "collaboratively." African-American,
Puerto Rican, Mexican-American and Asian
communities and Indigenous peoples all know well
that such "collaboration" actually means brutal
dictate, betrayal and use of force; the
peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries
know well too what such "collaboration" entails.
The deployment of federal forces in Chicago, like
Portland and the other larger cities Trump plans
to target, are mainly a means to assert federal
control over policing forces and suppress
resistance -- a test of whether the president can
succeed in preserving the union which is wracked
by contending narrow private interests and
divisions. Since 9/11 all the new federal
agencies, including DHS, have been created with
this in mind -- to achieve the domination of the
narrow private interests over the United States
and over the entire world. The clash of different
levels of authority has given rise to determined
resistance and opposition at the state and local
levels and among and within the policing agencies
and military bureaucracy themselves. Many are
operating in the name of the U.S. Constitution and
division of powers despite the fact that the very
developments show that it can no longer contain
and manage the differences within the ranks of the
rulers and between the rulers and the people.
Chicago, July 11, 2020.
Which forces will be loyal to the office of the
president, which will not? Will Trump manage to
keep the presidency under the guise that law and
order will resolve the crisis in the U.S. or will
the ruling class decide that they can better
achieve their aim by finding a better champion who
can prove himself or herself to be stalwart by
uniting the civil, industrial and military
bureaucracies? Will the elections unfold without
violence at home, and without launching a war
abroad? These are the concerns on people's minds
which only the people's movement for empowerment
can deal with in a manner that favours the people
and averts the dangers which lie inherent in the
situation.
The workers' and people's movement in the U.S. is
very experienced. It knows that whether federal
forces are secret or uniformed is not the issue in
the deployment of federal forces into their cities
and communities. They know that state and local
police forces are militarized and their deployment
to suppress their protests is neither better nor
preferable. The fight within the ruling circles to
control the monopoly of the use of force is a
matter of where the decision-making power lies by
establishing whether the presidential office can
control local and state authorities or whether
local and state authorities defy this in favour of
those contending narrow private interests opposed
to Trump.
In the name of averting civil war and preserving
the union, a civil war is in fact taking place on
many fronts in myriad ways. Despite the contention
between state and federal authorities, they both
target the people's resistance movement and seek
to suppress it. Far from taking one side or the
other or both in the civil war between the rulers,
the people are taking their own side.
The developments in the United States reveal one
thing above all else: the need for a
people-centred modern democracy which opposes the
use of force to sort out the problems by
activating the human factor/social consciousness
and uniting the people tirelessly, courageously,
heroically -- as the movement is doing, as the
people in the communities are doing -- speaking
out in their own name, in favour of their
interests and the rights of all.
The growing resistance has made clear that the
people do not accept suppression by either local
or federal police forces and that they do not
accept the brutal attacks repeatedly unleashed by
both. Safety and security rests with defending
rights, with fighting for the human rights to
housing, health care, jobs and a modern democracy
of the people's own making. This is the movement
that empowers the people and defeats the
stranglehold of the oppressors and their rule and
brutality, killings, institutions and impunity.
Trump should "fund mental health services and
support outreach programs. He should fund public
education so that schools can safely reopen. We
know what works and the very last thing we need
are federal agents harassing people and violating
their rights," one Chicago organization said.
"Escalating the level of surveillance and
militarization of our communities does not make us
safer, whether it is by federal agents or the
Chicago Police Department," another said, and
added "Defunding the police and investing in
education, jobs, housing, and mental health care
is what is needed to make us safe."
Security Lies in the Fight for the Rights of All.
This is the principle guiding the actions of the
people across the country.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 27 - July 25, 2020
Article Link:
What Trump Seeks to Accomplish by Sending Federal Police Forces to Chicago Already Armed to the Teeth - Voice of Revolution
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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