A police state won’t protect us from climate change

The remnants of hurricane Ida passed over NYC on the night of September 1st, dropping a record setting three inches of rain in under an hour. The flash floods had a devastating effect, flooding basement apartments and washing cars away in the streets, killing 13 people in NYC alone. Across the region the storm carved a path of destruction from Deleware to Upstate, leaving 46 people dead.

Ida is just the latest in a string of climate change fueled storms to hit NYC. Less than two weeks earlier hurricane Henri dropped a record setting 1.94 inches in an hour on Central Park, the previous record had been in place for over 150 years. It has now been broken twice in less than two weeks.

Only a few weeks before Henri was tropical storm Elsa which flooded streets and the subway system in July. While politicians point fingers, a climate assessment of infrastructure in 2018 had already declared our infrastructure “not designed for the projected wider variability of future climate conditions compared to those recorded in the last century”

The fact is all recent mayors have supported increasing the police budget while neglecting infrastructure critical to our lives. New York state has ten bridges that are structurally unsound and 424 dams that are considered potential hazards, on top of unregulated basement apartments and crumbling subway tunnels in the city. Democratic nominee, Eric Adams, a former pig himself, will be no different. He has already decried calls to defund the police. But the bloated NYPD budget of over six billion dollars represents a waste of resources essential to building our infrastucture and fighting climate change.

We Need an Abolitionist Vision of Security

As it stands, our communities are often left with no other recourse but police resources to survive climate chaos. During super storm Sandy Black and brown communities that lost power were cleaver enough to put the NYPD flood lights used to terrorize the community during normals times, to good use. As the lights are powered by generators, neighbors gathered around them to share electircity to charge phones and other devices. In response the NYPD gave more of the lights to FEMA to be deployed as generators in other neighborhoods until power was restored.

The fact that our communities must rely on resources deployed to control and oppress us makes clear that we need new a vision for our security. One which can grapple with the disasters climate change is sure to bring. Plowing more resources into an already fat police budget will prove unsustainable in the face climate chaos.

‘Crisis’ at rikers is a crisis of the carceral state

Robert Jackson, a 42 year old Black man, was taken to an isolated cell at Rikers the evening of June 29th by a guard who had been working for nearly 24 hours. That guard then left Robert trapped in the cell and went home without another guard taking his place. Fifteen hours latter Robert was found dead in that same cell. Robert was the nineth captive to die at Rikers. Just last week a tenth captive died at the island prison, Esias Johnson.

What happened to Robert Jackson is not uncommon. According to DOC records over 1,000 guards are calling out sick every day. The reason why is clear: nobody wants to be involved in the human rights atrocity that is Rikers island. Even the pigs who signed up to take a check for keeping their brothers in sisters in cages have had enough… [continued below]

…‘Crisis’ at rikers [continued]

Local politicians touring the facility found areas littered with feces and insect infestations, and prisoners who have been denied medical care, access to facilities, and time in the open air for months. From overcrowded cells to solitary confinement, Rikers, like all prisons and jails, is simply one big torture chamber. Over half the deaths this year have been from suicides. Even as the politicians were touring the jail, they witnessed an attempted suicide. As one politician said after touring the jail: “simply being in custody is a potential death sentence.”

The present plan to close Rikers seeks to open four new prisons. This is like shutting down one nuclear reactor and opening four smaller ones instead, only multiplying the danger. In this case we are only multiplying the human rights atrocities. We must close rikers and dedicate ourselves to building no new jails and take this moment as an opportunity to build the abolitionist future we all wish to see in the here and now.

Shut It down actions in August

Stop Line 3 Delegation:

Comrade Mike Bento was part of a delegation to Minnisota in August to show solidarity with the water protectors fighting the Line 3 pipeline, on behalf of NYC Shut It Down in coalition with the Black and Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM). As part of the delegation we met with Anishinaabe elders at the pristine headwaters of the Mississippi river. The elders explained that these waters are not simply a habitat for wildlife and resources essential to support their people but are also the spiritual center of the Anishinaabe universe which the pipeline threatens to destroy: an act of cultural genocide.

For African Americans these waters offered an escape route from the hell of chattel slavery for our ancestors. For Black people, water is liberation. Defeating the line 3 pipeline and protecting these waters is made all the more urgent by the compounding climate catastrophes currently unfolding across the U.S. such as the flash floods in NYC which have killed so many in recent weeks.

Black and indigenous peoples uniting across the continent right now is essential not only to the successful struggle for our shared liberation but also for the successful fight to stop worsening climate chaos. 

FTP The Bronx:

Feed the people in The Bronx continues while Harlem and Brookly are on hiatus. On August 21st and September 18th, Shut It Down, in collaboration with Take Back The Bronx served hundreds of hungry Bronxites. Baked Zitti, cous cous and pasta salad was on the menue. Stop by and take a plate or help out at the next one. Please message us on any of the social media links below if you have donations or want to volunteer.

Care Package to Piñan:

On September 3rd, Shut It Down sent a $500 aid package to the village of Piñan. Isolated by four hours drive and accessable only by a dirt road that takes you 12,000 feet into the Ecuadorian Andes, Piñan is an old plantation who´s owners kidnapped indigenous peoples from the surrounding areas and forced them to work as peseants. The decendants of the workers, now comprising a village of over 200 people, have only in the last couple of years succeeded in fighting for ownership of part of the plantation as depicted in the upcoming documentary: “Como Los Tiepos de Antes” (As in Old Times). As a result of the struggle the village has organized internet access for the first time just last year. Through our Ecuadorian comrades, the aid package will provide school materials for the first class that will go on to graduate high school in the village.

Upcoming actions in October

October 12th: No one discovered us. Fuck Christopher Columbus Day

Feed The People

The Bronx: Date and time TBA @ Hunts Point Plaza and Bruckner Blvd

Further Actions To Be Announced Join Us On:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

-In Solidarity, NYC Shut It Down