 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. On February 2nd, a 22-year-old black man, Amir Lok, was killed by the police in a raid in Minneapolis in the United States. The police stormed into an apartment where he was sleeping, and as he was startled into wakefulness, shot him. The killing led to a wave of protests across the city. It is important to know that Minneapolis was also the city where George Floyd was killed by the police in 2020, leading to a countrywide movement. Lok's murders, one second brought to the fore the question of police brutality, of the issue of no-knock warrants, and structural racism. Eugene Pourriere of Breakthrough News analyzes some of these questions. Well, you know, I have to say, what we have seen with the murder of Amir Lok is just seem, it really feels that even in the wake of George Floyd's murder, there has been very little substantive change in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities more broadly. Of course, his murder also involved the St. Paul police. This is, people may have heard the term Twin Cities, it's Minneapolis, St. Paul, they're right next to each other. And there's a range of suburbs, of course, that surround them all. Many of them, of course, have their own long, tragic histories of police violence. Of course, Philando Castile, who was also killed in the suburbs of the Twin City, was another major case in this regard, and there have been many that have come to light because of the murder of George Floyd. But I think we can connect this to what we've seen since the George Floyd case is that there was a huge uprising, but that as time went on, the officials, really, of the Minneapolis area were not, in fact, that serious about changing any of the basic realities around policing. We, of course, saw the defeat of the Charter Amendment and the elections towards the end of 2021, which would have set the stage for at least some potential changes to how the police department would operate in the city of Minneapolis. Nothing was written in stone, but it at least changed some of the basic nature of the Charter, the constitution of the city, to allow some changes. And I think that there was a no-knock warrant issue here, and there have been calls for banning no-knock warrants, but there also was a normal warrant that was also used in this. There's some dispute over whether or not it was like a no-knock situation because of what's come out of the body cam footage. You know, some police officers saying that they, you can hear them saying, you know, announcing themselves to some degree, but there's more that we can say about that, and there's a lot of sort of chaos to it. But I think what's important to the question that you asked is that it really does show that the rootedness of the challenges of police terrorism in the United States are extraordinarily deep. They cannot be dealt with with any sort of, you know, band-aid solution, just like in the case of George Floyd, where the officers were actually violating their own training and protocol. What we see time and time again is that the reality of policing in the United States is that the police are judge, jury, and executioner, and that when it comes down to quote, unquote, benefit of the doubt, they are always given the benefit of the doubt. And in the context of what took place with Amir Lak, where he was killed, essentially while asleep, I mean, you look at the body cam footage, they come into the place, he's wrapped in a blanket, they kick the couch that he's on, you know, they're making a big deal that he had a weapon, but you know, you startled out of sleep, and the next thing you know, you're surrounded by a bunch of people with guns drawn, yelling in different ways, obviously, you know, it creates the situation where something can be misperceived as hostile or just not misperceived, portrayed as hostile, even though it is not by police officers who are looking to justify their actions, but whichever one it is, I think it just does show that when it comes down to quote, unquote, judgment calls, no matter what, the police are almost always going to get the benefit of the doubt. So we'll see what happens with the state investigation and other things like that, but I think it does show that in Minneapolis, St. Paul and the broader areas of the Twin City, that we've seen quite a bit of protests, we've seen quite a bit of anger, we've seen quite a bit of outrage, we've seen cities set up, all sorts of, you know, task forces and this, that and the third, but at the end of the day, the basic realities of why these incidents continue to happen, which is the structure of the laws of this country. I mean, it's important to recognize that reality, this sort of adversarial mentality between the police and working class communities of color continues to be there and it continues to, you know, generate situations like this. In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, the countrywide protests that broke out demanded serious reforms to the policing system. Two years later, where does this movement stand and what are the challenges it has faced in getting its demands into practice? A number of reform measures have been introduced or suggested in various states. What have been the most successful of these steps, which can perhaps lay a road map for the future. Well, one thing I will say is that I believe that the Amir Lat cases helped re-energize a lot of these movements. I mean, I think that one of the biggest challenges is the fact that there is so much resistance to making any sort of substantive change on the issue of police terrorism that, you know, there are always sort of rises and falls and this is the history of police brutality in the United States. Really, going back to the 1930s, black working class communities were complaining heavily about almost the exact same issues. And again, going back to the 1930s, you can see, you know, many similar rounds of large mass protests. I think what we've seen in Minneapolis in particular, huge protests that have taken place, you know, the thousands of high school students walking out, thousands of just general citizens marching through the streets of Minneapolis. And so it certainly seems to have created even around the country and other places a new momentum and a new feeling by people that they have to continue to struggling and have to continue to push forward. So I think it really leaves the movement out of crossroads because you see that there are many people in this country, tens of millions of people in the United States that view this epidemic of police terrorism as totally unacceptable, that in moments of crisis, you know, as we saw in 2020 with the uprising after George Floyd's murder, like we saw with the thousands of students walking out of school around a mere lock just this week. I think what we can see is that there's a lot of people who want to do something, but there has to be a clear connection from the movement in the street to the broader policymaking apparatus. Because clearly the Democratic Party, you know, you can see right now this is a very Democratic Party heavily area, Democratic-controlled state. And you still have all of these different challenges. These cannot be the vehicles for pushing forward these things. You look at states like California, for instance, where you have a Democratic supermajority in the state legislature and you still can barely pass extremely watered down bills that are supposed to address some of the issues around police shootings. So really sort of no matter what, it seems clear that the two major parties are not going to do anything on these issues. So I think there is going to be renewed emphasis on getting out into the streets. I think that's important. I think that will continue. But I think the movement is really at a crossroads, especially here during the midterm election year of how they link the desires of the masses of people to see change on this issue with, you know, who is at the ballot box, who is voted for and the types of actions that need to be taken, the level of disruptiveness that needs to be put forward to actually put these things on the agenda in a real way. And it seems quite frankly that only when cities burn down, do politicians take any serious look at this issue. And as soon as they feel the crisis has passed, they immediately go back to business as usual. So it's a tricky strategic tactical problem that I think confronts these movements. And I think it's deeply bound up in the deep nature of the state, the role of the state, the role of the state in defending capitalist property and the role of the two major parties as instruments of property rights. You know, I think some of the things that have come up that have been the most notable have been those that address the issue of community violence happening in communities and how to address that without bringing in the police. We've seen all around the country, Washington, D.C. here in New York City, you know, certainly in multiple cities in California and Chicago, other places like that, that there's been a renewed emphasis on things called violence interruption, which are essentially programs that use community members that have a certain level of respect in their own community to de-escalate and disrupt situations. And in many cities around the country, it's resulted in amazing results, 30 to 70% reductions in shootings and murders in one to three years. And you've seen that in the places that are considered the quote-unquote worst, Chicago, Baltimore, you know, East New York, places like that that are so notorious for gun violence, they've had huge success. And I think part of the reason that's important is because really reducing the scope of policing is maybe the number one way to address these issues because if there's a need for fewer cops, there are gonna be fewer interactions where the police are potentially gonna kill someone and certainly reducing the levels of violence in general is the easiest way to reduce the massive presence of cops in a number of the more press working class jurisdictions where this is such an epidemic. So I think the move towards that has been very positive, there's been tens of billions of dollars pumped into that. There's at least a possibility the federal government will try to supplement that with billions of dollars in grants. And I think that in and of itself could make a big change in how we are looking at this issue. I think that, or really the prevalence of the issue. I think the other factor that comes in here and it's a little bit more unsure how this would play out but I do think it's something that is relevant is we've seen some movement although we've never seen anything pass yet to have more substantive bills put forward both at the state and the federal level that would essentially lower the standard by which a police officer can be charged with murder in these cases. Now that being said, there is a lot that can be said that there many more officers could be charged, charged more aggressively already, but to make it less of an insulation system there's just total insulation around police officers in terms of these police shootings and to really treat them more like average everyday people who are put in front of the dock there and that that potentially could increase the number of individuals who are held accountable for these murders and that that could certainly have a ripple effect and a through line in terms of the way police are then willing to act because of the fact that the consequences and the accountability could be more significant. So I think those are two of the things that have really come up that address really the issues in a huge way which is that one, the role of the police in working class oppressed communities in resolving the contradictions of capitalism is far too large and is the number one reason there are all these negative incidents. And then secondarily, there's a huge amount of both cowardice and legal impediments in order to actually charging police officers that can also be dealt with. And I think that we'll continue to see those things come up and I think that we'll continue to see them, if they succeed, I think have an impact or at least a potential impact in reducing police terror in this country.