by Oliver Wells
On Sunday, the NYPD opened fire on 37-year-old Derell Mickles after he boarded a subway without paying fare in Brooklyn, NY. Police officers followed Mickles onto the subway, tased him twice, and proceeded to shoot him, claiming that the individual had a knife on him. Two other bystanders were also shot by the police during the confrontation—including one who was shot in the head—as well as another police officer. The officers handcuffed Mickles after shooting him in the stomach.
Despite police claiming that a knife had been recovered at the scene, the following day the department alleged that the knife had been stolen after the shooting.
The subway fare is currently $2.90, a rising cost that squeezes poor and working class people. This is in addition to the high tax rates that fleece them and funnel their money to fund the same police that shoot and repress them.
In a news conference on Tuesday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams stated: “I think that those officers should be commended for how they really showed a great level of restraint.” Adams has been pushing for increased police presence at subway stations—along with the national guard, deployed by Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul—to supposedly make the subways safer and enforce the rising metro fare, a price the people are paying in blood.
A witness of the shooting spoke with The Worker, stating that there was no knife at the scene and that the police fabricated the story. She also described how the police immediately went to rescue their own officer they shot, passing by the civilians they shot and leaving them to bleed.
On Tuesday evening, a protest gathered outside of the Brooklyn subway station where the shooting occurred. Protesters chanted “Show us the knife” and “Free Palestine and fuck the police”. One speaker stated that “$3 is not the cost of a life, not the cost of four lives”, with another adding: “the NYPD has committed a mass shooting over $2.90.” Protesters put forward the demand for justice for the victims of the police shooting, an end to racist police terror, and that the metro should be free while raising slogans of international solidarity with Palestine, the Congo, Sudan, and Somalia. Several emphasized the need for a revolution, with one speaker stating: “This is a system that can’t get fixed, we’ve got to get rid of it. We need a revolution.”
The rally turned into a march to the local precinct, where protesters confronted hundreds of police officers. The police officers brutalized several protesters on a number of occasions, using mace, squeezing protesters against cars, and charging at protests and beating them. Protesters remained combative and in high spirits, pushing back against the police, throwing objects at them, and quickly regrouping and pushing back against the cops after skirmishes.
One protester and resident of the area shouted, “if you want to play, burn the precinct down.” Another protester called to attention that Black officers were acting the most brutal toward the protesters, and how the state uses identity politics to traffic in the oppression of the masses and as a cover to facilitate reactionization. This sentiment was repeated throughout the demonstration, with one demonstrator noting how NYC Mayor Eric Adams rode off the back of the 2020 May Uprisings to get elected as mayor despite formerly being a high-ranking cop—similar to Kamala Harris. The speaker noted how Adams has been able to get away with more reactionary policies because of his identity, but that his time is coming to an end as mayor amid the unrest and a number of recent resignations from his cabinet due to an ongoing federal corruption probe.
This article has been edited following our guidelines on 09/18/2024.
Photo: Protesters confront police officers outside of the police precinct near the Brooklyn subway station where the shooting took place.
