The cops work for Jeff Bezos

Not for you or me

The NYPD gave us all a hell of a lesson yesterday. In the space of a few short hours they conducted two different operations in two very different parts of New York City. Their actions, when held side by side, clarify the role of police in society so completely that the truth is impossible to avoid.

First, they went to Queens. You might not know about Maspeth, the neighborhood where the first of yesterday’s scenes took place, and that’s because things like Amazon warehouses are located there. Tourists don’t make it over too much, because there’s a bunch of homes and a bunch of industrial stuff that doesn’t merit a lot of visitors. But this week a crowd was drawn to the neighborhood, because the Teamsters launched a historic strike at multiple Amazon facilities across the country. One happened to be here in Maspeth, Queens.

From Luis Feliz Leon at Labor Notes

Over at this warehouse, a strike began in the 6 a.m. darkness. For the first couple hours Amazon delivery drivers with the Teamsters picketed and successfully disrupted the flow of commerce. But then, as Labor Notes details, “cops swarmed and arrested an Amazon driver who stopped his van in support of the strike. Then they forcibly broke the picket line.” The NYPD set up barricades to keep striking workers away from the vans coming in and out of the facility. This disruption of protected strike activity is illegal, but that’s of no concern to New York’s finest. A few years ago, when the first Amazon union ever was being organized on Staten Island, the cops repeatedly harassed and even arrested organizers. Yesterday, the NYPD was camped at that same Staten Island facility before the strike even began, according to Natascha Uhlmann, ready to protect Amazon’s corporate interests.

From Alex Press of Jacobin

One thing to know about the historic Amazon strike is that the Teamsters and the workers organized with them are trying to win union recognition and a contract. This action is being taken because Amazon is refusing to acknowledge that the thousands of drivers they employ are actually their employees. Despite federal regulations saying the corporate giant can’t just hide behind sub-contractors, Amazon refuses to budge. So the striking workers are forcing the issue, and in fact trying to enforce the law. But the police are siding with the ruling class lawbreakers, using violence to enforce the will of the capitalist class, and revealing their true role to us in the process.

In the afternoon, something that might initially appear very different happened across town. Luigi Mangione was extradited from Pennsylvania and flown to the Wall Street helicopter pad. The NYPD proceeded to ‘perp walk’ him in front of countless cameras. Photo after photo was taken of the alleged CEO killer flanked by 15 heavily armed cops, and corrupt Mayor Eric Adams.

Treating a man who may have killed one person, deliberately and targetedly, like he’s El Chapo mixed with Osama bin Laden has one purpose: assuaging the fears of the owning class. The CEOs, the billionaires, the executives who have been sweating so profusely that New York Governor Kathy Hochul is considering a special hotline for them might feel a little better now. The rich and powerful will be taken care of, their safety will be guaranteed -- the rest of us can figure it out.

Strangely enough, these two events on opposite sides of town come down to the same thing. One was a perp walk and the other was an attempt to break a strike, but both are police doing their real job – serving the ruling class. Billionaires want the resources of the police force devoted to their safety, and devoted to crushing worker organizing. The repression of protest, the enforcement of evictions, the removal of the homeless who may lower property values: here are the ways the rich and powerful like to see police forces used. The NYPD is often the most visible example in the country of all of these behaviors and more, but they are emblematic of cops everywhere.

Take from the poor and give to the rich; the forces that are sold to us as public safety workers are really anything but. They violently enforce a status quo that is itself violent to most people in society so that the ruling class may live in peace. The real public safety that would come from resources being poured into education and housing and care of all kinds is denied us because of policing. It’s become a common refrain that we don’t get those resources becuase the cops take them from our cities, and when you look at the nearly $12 billion siphoned off to the NYPD, it’s hard to argue with that. But there’s a much bigger issue, which is that when people organize and struggle for more resources, more power, more justice, it’s cops who stand in the way.

The workers at the Amazon facility in Queens are the perfect example. While Jeff Bezos dines with Donald Trump, as he did this week, scheming to limit our collective power, police work to limit worker power on the ground. They don’t just take money from our city budgets, cops prevent us from reorganizing society, redistributing wealth, and building a more just world. There’s a long history of police attacking any sort of protest for the greater good, arresting organizers, and breaking strikes. This is their role. Kill one CEO and you’ll feel their wrath, kill a million people with your policies and they work for you. That’s how policing really works, and the veil has been pulled back too far for us to deny the truth.

We must work towards a radically different vision of safety, one rooted in caring for each other rather than punishment that ultimately helps no one. And we must work towards a comprehensively different society, one where we all have enough and there is no class hoarding everything, distributing crumbs at their discretion to divide and conquer the rest of us. Organize, build, and struggle forward towards this new world. Unionize, join picket lines, build power with your neighbors. And, as we progress, let’s leave the police forces of capitalism behind.

P.S. For anyone who wants to read more, here are a few great books:

We Do This ‘Til We Free Us - Mariame Kaba

Becoming Abolitionists - Derecka Purnell

A World Without Police - Geo Maher

Practicing New Worlds - Andrea Ritchie

Abolition Geography - Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis

The End of Policing - Alex Vitale