CHICAGO IL — Dorothy Holmes wants to know why. Why, on October 12, 2014, did a Chicago Police detective, George Hernandez, fire seven shots at the back of her son, Ronald “Ronnieman” Johnson, killing him? Johnson was unarmed and had no criminal record.
Most of all, the grieving South Side mother wants to know why detective George Hernandez is still at large and not in jail, charged with Ronnieman’s murder?
On a rainy April afternoon, Ms. Holmes came with her family and activist supporters to protest outside the Cook County annex building downtown and ask State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez those questions. Chicago police officers blocked the building’s doors to them.
What does Ms. Holmes want her to do? “Convict George Hernandez for the murder of my son, Ronald Johnson, a.k.a. Ronnieman. He was 25 years old with five kids and I’m holding them [the police] accountable for his murder.”
Not far away, on the same day, the trial finally began of Chicago Police officer Dante Servin, who is accused of fatally shooting 22-year-old Rekia Boyd near a West Side park in 2012. Servin is charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless discharge of a firearm and reckless conduct.
And on April 4, in the town of Zion, Illinois, north of Chicago near the Wisconsin line, a police officer chased 17-year-old Justus Howell of Waukegan and fatally shot twice in the back. His funeral was held on April 10 with a protest planned for the next day.
Deep down, it is capitalist greed for maximum profits that is behind these police murders.
Corporations owned by millionaires and billionaires replace human workers with computers and robots. They throw the unemployed into permanent poverty. As jobs vanish and poverty worsens, millions of people need help with surviving. Instead, the government destroys the social safety net because it will not take responsibility for people who will never work again. It closes public schools because it will not train children who are forever shut out of the economy.
America falls into a deep social crisis. The corporations and the government deal with it by tearing up the Constitution and creating an environment where they disrespect our humanity and treat us as criminals. And so the police kill, beat, tase, torture and harass anyone without justification. That environment is called fascism.
We unite with grieving mothers who, like Dorothy Holmes, hold the police accountable for their attacks on our liberty and our lives. We must fight against these attacks with the understanding that this system must and will be replaced with a new society built on justice for all.
