The demonstrations sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery are not riots. They are uprisings of millions against racist police violence.
It’s the cops who are rioting with their rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray and clubs.
Last year, police killed 1,099 people in the United States. Yet the thug in the White House says people protesting these killings are thugs.
Racist mob violence broke out in New York City on Sept. 16, 1992, when 10,000 cops rioted. Their target was David Dinkins, the first and so far only Black mayor of the metropolis.
Mayoral candidate Rudolph Giuliani was the riot’s ringmaster and main speaker. Giuliani denounced Dinkins while the virtually all-white mob carried obscene, racist signs attacking the Black mayor.
Giuliani, who is now Trump’s personal attorney, never expressed any regrets for his actions or of the cops.
The well-known reporter Jimmy Breslin was asked by cops how he liked having a “n—-r mayor” in City Hall. Black and Latinx people were threatened by thugs with badges.
City Council member Una Clarke and other Black people were called “n—–s” by police. After the rally, cops broke the jaw of the Black youth Ywunas Mohamed on the “J” subway train.
During the current uprising, hundreds of anti-racist protesters have been beaten and arrested for allegedly blocking streets and bridges. In their 1992 riot, police blocked the Brooklyn Bridge for over an hour, jumping on cars and terrorizing passengers.
On the bridge, cops punched Keith Meyers, a New York Times photographer, in the back and kicked Alan Finder, a reporter for the newspaper, in the stomach. Nobody was arrested for these assaults that were reminiscent of the attacks on journalists by a mob opposing the admission of African American James Meridith to the University of Mississippi in 1962.
Police routinely harass folks for drinking a beer, even if it’s on their own doorsteps. In 2016, 90,600 summonses were issued to people in New York City for having open containers of alcohol.
In 1992, many of the cops rioting were visibly drunk and hundreds were holding beer cans, some of which were thrown at City Hall. High ranking police officials didn’t even try to arrest any of these pigs.
Giuliani’s killer cops
The City Hall riot was part of a backlash against the Los Angeles rebellion that broke out four months before in May. Cops were furious that President George H.W. Bush’s administration was forced to bring federal charges against the four cops who clubbed Rodney King over 50 times.
Police wanted to prevent Mayor Dinkins from establishing a civilian complaint review board to review cases of police brutality. The cops also didn’t like the commission chaired by Milton Mollen that was investigating widespread police corruption.
The riot jump-started Rudolph Giuliani’s campaign to become New York City mayor. Giuliani narrowly defeated Dinkins in 1993 by 54,000 votes.
Key to Giuliani’s victory was winning Staten Island by almost 94,000 votes. White voters there were mobilized by a referendum authorizing Staten Island to secede from a majority Asian, Black and Latinx New York City.
New York Gov. Mario Cuomo stabbed Mayor David Dinkins in the back by authorizing this racist plebiscite that had no legal standing. Cuomo’s son Andy Cuomo is now the governor and has threatened to send the National Guard into New York City.
The great liberal Andy Cuomo also demands that prosecutors send “looters” to jail. The real looters on Wall Street paid for his election campaigns. So far, no one on Wall Street has been arrested.
Two of Giuliani’s volunteer bodyguards in his 1993 campaign — police detectives Patrick Bosnan and James Crowe — killed Anthony Rosario and Hilton Vega on January 12, 1995, in a police raid of a Bronx apartment. The two cousins were shot 28 times, most of them in their back, shot while lying down.
When Anthony Rosario’s mother, Margarita Rosario, tried to confront Giuliani on WABC radio in 1999, Giuliani cut her off and implied that she was a bad mother. No wonder this repulsive pig is Trump’s mouthpiece.
Other Giuliani victims include the unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, who was killed when police fired 44 shots at him on Feb. 4, 1999. Unarmed Patrick Dorismond, a father of two children, was killed on March 16, 2000, for saying no to an undercover cop trying to sell him drugs.
Guiliani’s cops attacked Dorismond’s funeral in Brooklyn’s Haitian community and arrested 27 people. One of those arrested was 80 years old.
Economic terror was linked to police terror. Giuliani bragged in 2000 that he kicked 640,000 poor people in New York City off welfare programs.
As Malcolm X would have said, chickens are coming home to roost. The millions of people in motion have the power to send all the Giulianis and Trumps to hell.
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