Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (CAARPR)  
1325 S. Wabash Ave. Suite 105, Chicago, Illinois 60605        
www.naarpr.org


PRESS STATEMENT
For release Thursday October 29th, 2015

For information contact:
Frank Chapman 312-513-3795 email: [email protected]  or
T
ed Pearson 312-927-2689 email: [email protected]
 

OUR RESPONSE TO OP ED: FBI ATTACKS ON BLACK LIVES MATTER  
Frank Chapman, Field Organizer, CAARPR

James Comey, Director of the FBI has gone on record against the Black Lives Matter movement and all mass protest against police crimes.

In a New York Times editorial (Oct. 27, 2015) it is stated: "In a speech at the University of Chicago Law School on Friday, Mr. Comey said that heightened scrutiny of police behavior - and fear of appearing in 'viral videos' - was leading officers to avoid confrontations with suspects. This, he said, may have contributed to an increase in crime." In other words reporting police crimes inhibits police performance, increases crime and therefore undermines public safety. Or to be more blunt this is a thinly disguised policy statement that implies that police brutalizing and murdering Black people is a necessary component of law enforcement.

We appreciate this ruthless formulation coming honestly from the Director of the FBI, and from an agency of government that has historically spearheaded racist and political repression in these United States of North America, ever since it was founded by J.Edgar Hoover.

The New York Times (Oct. 28, 2015) has also released a lengthy investigative report showing, after reviewing several thousand traffic stops and years of arrests data, that the police pulled over Black people at a rate far out of proportion to their share of the local population. Add to this the almost daily rate of a Black persons being killed by the police and we see clearly that Black people are targeted. We have no doubt that Comey also sees this. The problem is he thinks that is what the police should be doing, constitutional and human rights not withstanding.

When President Obama, Comey's political boss, spoke to the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference (IACP) in Chicago on Tuesday did he address this issue? No. What he said is too often police are "scapegoated" for broader failures of society and the criminal justice system, with many in law enforcement feeling under siege and not given the benefit of the doubt by the Black Lives Matter movement. President Obama was equivocal at best, he did not say to the IACP that Black Lives Matter and this is precisely the group he should of said this to.

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Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression 
 Stop Police Crimes Campaign
 

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