Tampa, FL- The Hillsborough County state attorney has filed charges of animal cruelty, resisting or opposing a cop without violence and battery on a cop, against me. The charges can land me in a Florida prison for up to seven years.
The county employees, who accused me of being cruel to my dog, JJ, harnessed him, dragged him out of my house, tossed him in a truck, and took him somewhere and caged him, until they killed him by lethal injection.
The cops who arrested me cuffed me, pushed me around, kicked me and then accused me of battery.
The fact of the matter is, I was not cruel to JJ—my 13 year old Rottweiler that is the subject of the issue—medical records, stating that JJ was a normal, healthy dog except for the mass on his paw, prove that. I didn’t batter a cop, either. Video footage of my arrest proves that.
Tampa cops, including several members of the Rapid Offender Control (ROC) squad, did not converge on my residence to execute a search warrant for my dying dog.
They came to antagonize an already sensitive situation, in an effort to provoke me to give them a reason to kill me. When that didn’t work, they piled a bunch of trumped up charges on me.
Build to win
A study by the Malcolm X Grassroots Organization states that Africans in America are killed by police, security guards or vigilantes every 26 hours (The only reason I was not killed by TPD that day is because of my well-documented connection to a revolutionary organization).
That statistic is just one manifestation of our existence as colonized people in this country. The State’s ability to capture us and cage us is another. The State’s ability to storm into my home and take my pet is another manifestation of the same colonial reality.
The court papers that summon me to court say the state of Florida vs. me. “The state of Florida,” in that context, is not referring to a place on a map.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela has pointed out that the State is a team made up of judges, police, state attorneys, public defenders and everybody else connected with that apparatus.
The reason we lose 90 percent of the time we appear in front of a judge in a courtroom is because we try to fight that team by ourselves.
We don’t have to fight by ourselves, though. The African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP) and the International Peoples Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) are the teams of the African working class.
It is our responsibility to build the APSP and InPDUM to a capacity where we can even the playing field when the State attacks us individually or collectively, in the courtroom and in the streets.
Not intimidated by the State
The State offered me probation – I refused. I am not taking a plea deal.
I do not fear the very real possibility of going to prison for these bogus charges, not because of some false sense of confidence that justice will prevail, but because the worst thing that can happen is I am sent to prison where I can organize the brothers there. Like Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party in Chicago said, “You can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail a revolution.”
Comrades, sisters, brothers and allies, it is our responsibility to back the State down, in my case, and in every instance when they attempt to subject us to their colonial whims.
We cannot allow them to intimidate African working class communities by locking me up to make me an example of what happens when you are courageous enough to organize against colonial oppression.
My trial is set for December 15, 2014. Call the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s office at (813) 272-5400, between now and then and demand—“Hands off LIFE Malcolm!”
We will win; we are winning!
“Peace through revolution!”
Uhuru!
“Peace through revolution!”
Uhuru!
