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The Michigan Socialist | News |
Michigan News
Welcome to the police state
Deaths of 2
Detroit cops spark more racist repression
By MARTIN SCHREADER
Editor, the Michigan Socialist
WHAT BEGAN AS what most people describe as a
“tragic event” has become the basis for an all-out drive for racist
repression and the imposition of a police state in Detroit.
In the early morning hours of February 16, 2004,
two Detroit police officers, Matthew Bowens and Jennifer Fettig,
were shot and killed on the southwest side of the City.
Within hours, Detroit police had arrested Eric Lee
Marshall at his home on the northwest side. Marshall had been pulled
over by Bowens and Fettig, and was alleged to be the perpetrator of
the crime.
Bowens and Fettig had been shot 22 times by a .40
caliber pistol — like many police departments use.
Bowens died at the scene; Fettig died of her
wounds later that day.
BEYOND THESE FACTS, however, the story becomes a
mix of confusing and illogical assertions.
When Marshall was arrested that morning, he was
not hiding or taking any precautions that someone who had just shot
two cops dead would.
In fact, he had been out shopping for dog food,
and was returning from the store when police cornered him.
He did not run; he put down the dog food, raised
his hands and reportedly said, “I know why you’re here; I didn’t do
it.”
He has maintained his innocence consistently
since.
As for the chain of evidence, there is much that
is suspect.
For example, Detroit police are refusing to
release the videotape from the squad car driven by Bowens and Fettig.
The videotape is important in this case, since
there was a question of whether or not their car was in front of or
behind Marshall’s pick-up truck.
As well, the videotape could answer the question
of whether or not Marshall actually did the shooting.
After all, if the two cops followed procedure and
parked behind his truck, and Marshall did get out of the vehicle
with a gun, all of that should be visible on the dashboard camera,
even if the actual shooting is not.
Also, police have not found the alleged murder
weapon. At the same time, Bowens’ service pistol — which is also a
.40 caliber automatic — remains missing.
Initial reports after the shooting said there were
two people in Marshall’s truck. Shortly after arresting him,
however, that story changed to a “single shooter.”
But Marshall himself — or, more to the point, his
history — is perhaps the most important element.
Apart from a relatively minor juvenile offense,
Marshall had never been in trouble. He was studying to get his GED,
and was looking to move to Arkansas with his sisters.
Moreover, according to his family, Marshall never
associated with any people who had a history of crime.
The cop mouthpiece, the Detroit News,
reported that Marshall’s brother, Aaron, said Marshall and a friend
of his were going to set up a “spot” for dealing illicit drugs —
implying that Marshall shot the two cops because he was a dealer.
However, no drugs seem to have been found either
on Marshall, at his home or in his truck. If they had, that piece of
information certainly would have been conveyed to the press and
public by now.
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Michigan
driver's license photo of Eric Marshall, the man accused of
killing two Detroit cops. |
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ALL OF THIS raises the inevitable question: what
really happened?
To be certain, the only people who can answer that
are Bowens and Fettig (both of whom are now dead), and Marshall
(currently in jail, and not talking).
Nevertheless, even with all these inconsistencies,
an all-out drive for greater repression and attacks on the City has
begun.
Ever since the shootings, Detroit police have been
working 12-hour shifts, resulting in a 50-percent increase of police
presence in the City.
Let me rephrase that: a 50-percent-plus police
presence patrolling the border between the City and the suburbs.
This placement of police patrols only reinforces
what many already know: the suburban areas demanded the increased
police presence, so their “interests” would be better protected.
The increased patrols by Detroit police have been
matched by similar actions by suburban departments, resulting in the
City’s residents being surrounded by a wall of heavily armed,
trigger-happy (and violently racist) cops.
Within the City, the police have been lining up
all sorts of public figures to make appeals to “change the culture
of violence.”
Such calls are meant to do little more than warm
the hearts of “liberal” racists in the City and suburbs; they are
not meant to save even one single life. The relatively “liberal”
Detroit Free Press made this point in its Feb. 18 editorial.
While it correctly pointed out the ties between
economic crisis and crime, it went on to make a cheap appeal to
“change the culture” while refusing to be critical of the local and
state governments for letting the capitalists loot the state
treasury.
Meanwhile, attacks against the City and its
residents escalate.
Incidents of racist attacks by suburban whites
have increased throughout the metropolitan region, with residents of
Detroit being regularly harassed and intimidated wherever they go.
Several African American residents of Detroit have
told the Michigan Socialist that they have been harassed at
suburban malls and shopping centers, including being followed by
suburban police until they reach the City-suburb border.
This harassment and intimidation reached a peak
with the defacing of the bronze Joe Louis monument in downtown
Detroit by a pair of little-league fascists from the suburbs. (See
article, this issue.)
ON TOP OF ALL this, there has now begun a push by
certain elements within the two major parties to allow the death
penalty in Michigan.
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, in a typical show
of subservience to the Right, has supported a proposal by State Rep.
Larry Julian (R-Lennon) to amend the state constitution to allow the
death penalty.
They are given a platform by the two major Detroit
dailies, even though both have editorialized against the proposal
(though the News is less enthusiastic about opposing it).
There is little doubt that the City government,
and especially Kilpatrick, would like to see a swift trial that ends
with Marshall behind bars for the rest of his life.
With Detroit hosting the Super Bowl in 2006,
Kilpatrick would like nothing more than to present himself as the
man who “cleaned up the City.”
We can only figure that is one of the reasons why
the Wayne County Circuit Court has been systematically excluding
African Americans from juries, leading to a near-explosion of the
prison population in the area. (See
article, this issue.)
LIKE ALL OTHER residents of the City, Socialists
are just as concerned about the problems of crime. After all, our
goal is to build a new society, and that means dealing honestly with
issues like this.
However, our approach to such issues is
fundamentally different from those we see undertaken by the
capitalists, its armed enforcers, “justice” system and its two
political parties.
We Socialists understand that the root of crime
and associated violence is the capitalist system itself, primarily
its treatment of working people as commodities or “surplus
population.”
Nobody steals because they can; nobody kills
because they enjoy it. Human beings are forced to take such drastic
measures as a way to survive in a society driven by exploitation and
oppression.
For Socialists, the solution to crime is found in
the building of a new political, economic and social system that
values human beings and gives them real access to a better life.
Beginning with the expansion of democracy, not
only in politics but also in the managing of the economy, and
cultural and social relations, a Socialist government administering
a democratic workers’ republic would work to eliminate the material
basis for social inequality and the crime that stems from it.
This is the kind of system the Socialist Party of
Michigan will be promoting during the 2004 electoral campaign.
In the meantime, however, we must deal with the
situation that immediately confronts us.
That means not only mobilizing to oppose any
attempts to bring the death penalty to Michigan, but also to
organize working people to be on the watch and prepared for elements
looking to “avenge” the deaths of Bowens and Fettig — whether they
wear civilian clothes or a police uniform.
Finally, all working people should keep a close
eye on the trial of Eric Marshall, to watch and make sure he is not
railroaded by the combined power of the cops, courts and government.
See related articles:
Why is there no death penalty in
Michigan?
Little-league fascists deface Joe
Louis monument
A 'democratic' outburst in a sea
of repression |
