Dexter Reed, center, along with his mother Nicole Banks and sister Porscha Banks, 2019. Chicago cops shot 96 times in 41 seconds, killing Reed for "suspicion of not wearing a seat belt" on March 21, 2024. Photo: AP
Once again, the police have murdered a young Black man for… bullshit. Utter and complete bullshit.
In this case, for suspicion of not wearing a seat belt. And once again, these pigs have done their crime in a particularly sick, murderous, lynch-mob-style orgy of violence—96 shots in 41 seconds, pumping lead into this young man after he was down… over and over and over again. Watch the video—if you can.
The authorities admit that “there are questions” around this case. No. There is only one question: How long will the system that carries out such murders and that has treated Black human beings as property to be used, dominated, brutalized and if necessary murdered before we overthrow that system?
Chicago, April 10, 2024. Photo: Special to revcom.us
Who Was Dexter Reed, Jr.?
Who was the young man they killed? Let’s start there. He was not a statistic. He was a human being.
Dexter Reed, Jr. was known as "Dex" by his high school and college basketball teammates. He was very fondly remembered by his coaches as a team leader "who put his own personal goals aside for the good of the team over and over again." “Dexter was one of the kids you don’t just coach, you actually really love him because he was an incredible hard worker,” said Bill Curry, who coached Reed for all four of his years on Chicago’s Westinghouse High School basketball team from 2013 to 2017.
At the age of 26, Dex was “pulled” over on the West Side of Chicago by a CPD jump-out squad in an unmarked car and in plainclothes. They came at his car from all sides, guns drawn. The reason? These pigs claim he wasn’t wearing a seat belt! Are they fucking serious? Five pigs for a seat-belt violation?!? And it is highly doubtful the pigs could even have known because his car windows were tinted.1
The videos released last week of what happened in this “routine traffic stop” are beyond sickening. It is hard to imagine his family having to watch these videos. In a brutal and shocking execution, the police unloaded 96 shots at Dexter in just 41 seconds! It sounded like rapid-fire machine gun in a war zone. It was a residential block at dinner time. Even after Dexter stumbled out toward the back of his car, he is shot again, falling to the ground where pigs continue to empty bullets into him. Three of the pigs reloaded their weapons. As Dexter lies bleeding and motionless, these pigs handcuff him. One pig is clearly heard shouting, “Nobody say anything, do you hear me?”
Porscha Banks, sister of Dexter Reed who was murdered by Chicago cops, at a protest. Photo: Special to revcom.us
Three days before this, Dexter Reed bought a car and was enjoying driving it. Three minutes before this, he spoke with his sister on the phone, urging her to take their mother to the gym. Now he is dead in another brutal execution by pigs.
When the videos were released, there was an outpouring outside the police station where these thugs in uniform are based. Lines of police protected the building. Ahead of the release, pigs reportedly called community influencers to demand that they not “stir up trouble.” People were outraged and came out to protest this vicious murder. Dexter’s family spoke out and protested outside the station. Dexter’s brother was arrested and dragged off for standing up against the murder of his brother. The protest blocked the street in front of the station. The Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity was on the scene, its presence captured in the coverage, including on the front page of the Chicago Tribune newspaper.
In the wake of the videos being released, the city continues to be rocked by the fact that a “traffic stop” ended in a hail of 96 bullets. Meantime the pigs, the mayor all scream that Dexter fired the first shot at a cop! First of all, this has not been proven at all by any weighing of the evidence. But second, these pigs did not identify themselves. They just jumped out of their unmarked car, in plainclothes, and descended on Dexter Reed with their guns pulled. No! In that kind of situation, people have a right and responsibility to defend themselves.
RevCom Corps protest murder of Dexter Reed, Chicago. Photo: revcom.us
After All These Reforms… How LONG?!?
Again, we ask—we shout!—the question: How long before this madness ends?! After all the reforms—the police have body cams so we can see and hear them execute another Black man... these pigs have undergone "sensitivity" training… CPD is under a consent decree, put in place after the murder of Laquan McDonald when the federal Justice Department’s examination of the pattern and practices of the CPD documented the brutal marauding that goes on especially in communities of the oppressed. There even exists an elected community control board that is supposed to make these horrors a thing of the past. The community oversight panel for the police district where Dexter Reed was shot—while expressing dismay—still called for calm to allow the investigation to play out!
So WHY are we once again burying one of our youth!? WHY is this still happening?!
Bob Avakian: "How Long?! How Many More Times Do the Tears Have to Flow?"
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What's It Gonna Take To Put an End to These Horrors?!
The problem is this system of capitalism-imperialism. It requires this violence against the people to function. It cannot be fixed or reformed... a real revolution is the only solution.
First it was the slave catchers, then it was the KKK and now it's badge-wearing murdering thugs treating the masses of people as "things" to be used… abused… and "put down." When the death and devastation of Black and Brown people is part of how society works… when millions of people are forced to leave their homes in order to survive, only to be demonized and hunted like animals… when this country has poisoned the air and water and is #1 in destroying the environment… this system must be overthrown! We need and we demand revolution for a whole new way to live, a fundamentally different system!
We don't have the time or the patience to let these horrors go on any longer. And the reality is that this is a time—a rare time—when such a revolution is more possible in a powerful capitalist-imperialist country like this. Why? Because the rulers at the top of this system are sharply divided and fighting with each other, and for one thing, that weakens their ability to keep everything locked down and in control in society.
As the flyer put out by the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity puts it, “We can no longer afford to allow our oppressors, the powers-that-be, continue to dominate the world and steal our future!”
NOW Is the Time
Now is the time to get with the Revcom Corps for the Emancipation of Humanity to bury this system of capitalism-imperialism and bring a much better society into being, a world without hell-hole prisons and police who terrorize and kill us.
With the powers-that-be in crisis... with them usually able to unite to smother the people but now at each other's throats… with everybody talking about civil war... THESE are the times when revolution becomes more possible... this is our chance to bring down their whole system and give life to a new society, a far better world.
The revolutionary leader Bob Avakian says:
With thousands organized into the ranks of the revolution, millions can be won to revolution; and with millions won to revolution, there could be a real possibility for this revolution to win.
You can't ask for more than a chance to get this whole fucking system off our backs. From Chicago to Gaza... from Bangladesh to Mexico City… we need REAL REVOLUTION for a whole new way to live!
If you have the heart to fight for something truly worth fighting for… RISE UP!
Show up on Revolutionary Internationalist May Day. Be one of the thousands needed now to fight for a far better future.