HANDS UP!, DON'T SHOOT!:
THE GENOCIDAL KILLING OF MICHAEL BROWN
AND A CASE FOR THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE
OF THE NEW AFKIKAImBLACK COMMUNITY

By: Uhuru Baraka-Rowe

Yes. It has happened again. Another unarmed
Black male murdered by the police. The location:
This time in the racially-divided, predominantly
Black town of Ferguson, Missouri.

On August 9, 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown
Jr. and a friend were walking down the street in
their own comaunity when they were confromted by
an officer for allegedly interfering with traffic.
Translation: They were confronted by the officer
for the crime of "walking while Black.” The end
result of this racial profiling was Brown succum-
bing to a hail of bullets and his friend liter-
ally running for his life.

According to an eyewitness account given by
19-year-old Piaget Crenshaw- which aired on CNN
on August 18- the officer tried to grab Brown
from inside his police cruiser; there was a brief
scuffle before Brown was able to free himself.
Visibly upset that Brown freed himself, the
officer exited his cruiser with his gun drawn
and began firing his weapon at Brown as Brown
ran down the street; as Brown turned around with
his hands in the air screaming, "Don't Shoot!

the officer maliciously and deliberately cont-
inved to fire his service weapon- pumping Brown's
body with mulitple bullets and exstinguishing
the life of this recent highschool graduate.
According to an independent autopsy report, Brown
was shot a total of six times: four times to his
right arm, once to his right eye, and once to
the top of his head- evidence that he vas shot as
he was bending over or in the process of falling
down, and not “rushing" the officer as the
officer would later claim.

The renowned cellphone video recorded by
Crenshaw shows the officer pacing nevously back
and forth as Brown's bullet-riddled body lay
uncovered in the middle of the street in his
own community.

The Ferguson Police Dept. refused to release
the name of the officer responsible for Brom's
murder while they concocted a story to justify
such a violent end to the life of a young man
who seemingly had a bright future ahead of him.

As.a result of the lack of transparency by
the Ferguson Police.Dept. regarding its inter-
nal investigation of the officer involved and
the ongoing trend of unarmed Black men and
women being mercilessly murdered by the police,
security guards, and self-appointed vigilantes,
the Black community of Ferguson- together with
other people of color and anti-racist
whites- rose up in outrage to protest the un-
justified shooting death of yet another unarmed
young Black male. When it was clear the initial
peaceful demostrations were on the verge of
transitioning into a full-blown rebellion, the
fascist Ferguson Police Dept. took to the

streets in full military ragalia- armed with
tear gas, smoke bombs, fully-automatic riffles

and machine guns, and armored personnel vehicles.
The streets of Ferguson resembled imperialist/
neo-colonialist occupation of a Third World
nation. Failing to grasp the scicntific amaly-
sis of counter-violence, this repressive show
of force only exacerbated the situtation.

The insurrection was on. More radical
elements from amongst the peaceful protesters
began engaging in. extreme. (non-violent) forms
of civil disobedience in response to the
military show of force and increased brutality
by Ferguson's police force. The police began
arresting and assaulting protesters they pro-
voked-into confrontataions; including peace-
ful bystanders, and reporters and journalists
who were merely exercising their Constitution-
al rights; discharging teargas, smoke bombs
and flash grenades, shooting rubber bullets
indiscriminately, pointing and aiming their
riffles and machine guns at protesters, and
marching behind armored personnel vehicles.
Police terror was on full display.

Having been thrust into the international
spotlight, some interesting facts about Fergus-
on were exposed tor the world to see: though
Ferguson has a 67% Black population, 50 of

Ferguson's 53 police officers are white; 5 out
of 6 councilmembers are white; and both the
police chief and fire chief are- you guessed
it!- white. The unjustified shooting death of
yet another unarmed Black male; the lack of
transparency and militant show of force by the
Ferguson Police Dept.; and the lack of Black
political representation and leadership in key
positions all led to a volatile mixture of
distrust, fustration, hopelessness, and rage.
Meanwhile, at the height of the insurrect-
don, true to capitalist-imperialist-fascist
form, Democratic Missouri Governor Jay Nixon
resorted to counter- rwlutioary /counter-insur-
gency tactics by taking security out of the
hands of the Ferguson Police Dept. and trans-
ferring it to the more repressive and militar-
ized Missouri State Highway Patrol and the
National Guard. Captain Ron Johnson- a Black
man- of the Highway Patrol was paraded before
the media and through the streets of Ferguson
in a desperate attempt to gain the trust of
the protesters. The use of "Black faces in
high places” strategy is often used to quell
or re-direct the revolutionary spirit of Blacks
on the verge of waging revolution, and trans-
form it into a more reformist and passive
spirit. This strategy is designed to achieve

one goal in Ferguson: manipulate the protest-
ers- especially the radical elements- into
believing the police-state is trustworthy and
credible while sinultaneously taking their
focus of f abolishing a corrupt system and re-
placing it with People Pover.

This strategy seemed to work until August
15th, when the Ferguson Police Dept. identified
Darren Wilson as the pig responsible for ex-
ecuting Brown in cold-blood;. en the same day,
the police department also released a video of
Brown ALLEGEDLY robbing a store moments before
he was shot down. The release of the video is
an old pyschological warfare tactic designed to
turn “the people”- and thus, public sentiment-
against Brown to quell an uprising and distort
the truth. The tactic failed. The release-of
the video refueled the flames of outrage as
the protesters violently expressed their oppo-
sition to the police departments indirect claim
that because Brown was a suspect in robbery,
he deserved to be shot down in the middle of
the street in broad daylight like a rabid
animal.

What immediately followed was more pande-
monium. Speaking about the violence before a
crowd of protesters on August 16th, Captain
Ron Johson stated: "What we (Black people) are
doing is not who we are.” With all due respect

to Capt. Johnson, but what New Afrikans and
other oppressed people do in response to grave
injustices- like the modern-day

genocidal lychings of our men, women, and
children by killer cops- is exactly who we are.

Ever since Black people have been in this
country, ve have been subjected to the most
extreme form of systematic oppression and ex-
ploitation, including genocidal lychings pur-
posefully committed by law enforcement agencies
to instill fear and terror in- and ultimately
destroy- the New Afrikan communities. And, in
most cases, it is because of "who we are” that
has moved and inspired us to march, boycott,
strike, protest, riot, and rebel when confron-
ted with genocidal practices perpetrated upon
our people.

These systematic genocidal practices are to
perform one fuction: destroy the New Afrikan
conmunities. How do you destroy the New Afrik-
an community? You retard its capacity te re-
produce and sustain itself. How do you retard
the capacity of the New Afrikan community to
reproduce and sustain itself? By plaguing it
with drugs, guns, liquor stores, poor health-
care, under-funded/failed school systems, mass
incarceration, joblessness, homelessness,
hopelessness, and trigger-happy cops who patcol

our communites eager to carry out state-
sanctioned genocidal killings of the most

vulnerable and unwanted "citizens" of this
nation.

In the aftermath of the atrocities committ-
ed during World War II, the condemnation of
genocide quickly achieved broad acceptance by
the global community. In 1945, the U.N.
General Assembly declared that genocide is a
crime under international law, whether the
perpetrators are "private individuals, public
officials or statesmen." (G.A.Res.96 (I), 1
U.N. GAOR, U.N.Doc.A/64/Add.1, at 188-89 (1946)).

On December 4, 1948, the U.N. Gensral
Assembly adopted a "Conventjon on the Prevent-
ion and Punishment of the Ciime of Genocide,"
declared and entered into force.an the 12th-of
January, 1951, stating:

"In the present Convention, genocide means
any of the following acts committed with in-
tent to destroy, in whole or in part, a nation-
al, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such:

A) killing members of the group;

B) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to
Members of the group;

©) Deliberately inflictin on the group
conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole
or in part;

D) Imposing measures intended to prevent
births within the group;

E) Forcibly transferring children of the
group to another group."

This convention was Tatified by the United
States on February 23, 1989, and codified into
law es 18 United States Code Annotated,
Section 1091, and is often referred to as the

“Genocide Tonvention Implementation Act of
1987."

A ursory study of America's history and its
treatrent of Iidigenous Natives (Rative Ameri-
cans); Afrikans, and New Af¥ikans {so-called
African Americans) since the year 1492, one
will readily come to the conclusion that the
forced mass migrations (maafa), sterilizations,
lychings, and slavery of the above people meéfs
everyone-of fhe criteria for the crimé of
genocide: Modern-day genocide has takén mary
forms; one spefically is the recént shootings
deaths of unarmed Black men afic wofier ‘by
racist killer cops, security guards, and self-
appointed vigilantes. This claim is bolstered
by a 2012 report published by the Malcolm X
Grassroots Movement titled, "Every 36 Hours:
Extrajudicial Killings of Black People,” which
stated that between January 1 and Jume 30 of
2012, “police, security guards, and self-
appointed vigilantes have murdered at least
120 Black men and women. These killings are mot
random acts of violence or the work of rogue

8-
cops. The use of deadly force against Black
people is standard practice in the U.S. woven
into the fabric of society.”

In 39 percent of these cases, police cited
“suspicious behavior or appearance or traffic
violations [driving while Black] as the reason
for their attempt to detain [or question] the
person whon they eventually killed."

Of the 120 Black people killed by.police
during the first .six months of 2012, 47 had no
weapon at all and 40 were alleged by police to
have weapons which later turned out to be toy
guns, cellphones; wallets, etc.

And most troubling, this report reveals a

grim statistic: in America , "

ne Black- person
[is] executed [by police] every 36 hours." [a
year end update to this report found a total
of 313 killings in 2012- averaging one Black
person killed every 28 hours by killer cops].
If this grim statistic holds true, there
will be another another genocidal killing of
an unarmed Black person before the dust settles
in Ferguson. [How true this statement is? On
October 8, 18-year-old Vonderrit Deondre Myers
was shot a total of 7 to 8 times by an off-
duty officer in St. Louis. Standing with a
group of friends, Myers and friends were
approached by the officer because they looked
"suspicious." During a foot pursuit, the officer

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alleged Myers shot at him 3 or & times.
The officer fired a total of 17 shots. Though
a gun vas alleged to have been found at the
scene, Myers' family and community supporters
believe Myers was unarmed. Store surveillance
video recorded moments before his murder shows
Myers apparently unarmed wearing only a black
t-shirt and jeans. As was the case with Brown,
Myers' criminal history was paraded in the
media to direct sympathy away from Myers and
Justify his death; and as in the case Brown,
Myers' killer remains free on paid leave. Or-
ganized civil disobedience, dubbed "A Weekend
Of Resistance,” erupted in St. Louis between
October 11-13].

On October 2, GNN reported that a St. Louis
woman allegedly tweeted she "knew someone
sitting on the Grand Jury" in the Brown case,
and this juror revealed to her "

here isn't
enough evidence" to arrest or convict officer
Darren Wilson. This leak reveals the kind of
corruption and cover-ups we are all to familiar
with. There will likely be no justice for
Brown's family in ragards to their son and for
the Black communities in general; as in nearly
every other case, only the appearance of justice
Will be sought by the Justice Dept. and the
Ferguson judicial system to keep Brown's

-10-
family and the Ferguson residents pacified-
at least until the protesters stop protesting
and Our our demand for justice and outrage has
subsided.

Until the New Afrikan Black communites
develop and national plan of action or strategy
to confront, resist, and neutralize police
harassment and brutality; and the extrajudicial
genocideal killings of our sons and daughters
by killer cops, security guards, and self-
appointed vigilantes, there will be another
Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis,
Renisha McBride, Eric Garner, or Michael Brown
coming soon to a city near you.

Specifically, the New Afrikan Black
communities need t

- Create national independent institutions of
learning that teaches Our people, the youth in
particular, 1) The need for and the importance
of embracing Our New Afrikan National Identity;
2) Our history of having decended from--not
just enslaved Afrikans- but Queens and Kings
in the most advanced and oldest civilizations in
Afrika; 3) Our current reality of belonging to
an oppressed/colonized nation within a nation
which has consistently been subjected to the
most extreme forms of structural and systematic

racism, oppression, terror, exploitation,

11—
brutality, and genocide; and 4) the knowledge
and survival skills necessary to navigate a
white supremacist patriachal system designed
to kill New Afrikans' (and other people of
color) minds, bodies, hopes, dreams, and
aspirations.

-Create mational independent patrol/security
units to truly protect, serve, and secure Our
New Afrikan communites from harassment, re-
pression, terror, and genocidal killings by
killer cops. History teaches Us America's police
forces do not "protect and serve" New Afrikan
Blacks.and other people of color; they only
protect and serve the interests of the ruling
capitalist elite while upholding white suprema-
acy.

In addition to the above, whenever an un-
armed New Afrikan Black petson has been in-
tentionally murdered (executed) by police,
security guards, or self-appointed vigilantes,
committed with the specific intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, New Afrikan people and
communities, New Afrikans should collectively
charge the Anerican government and its many
police agencies with the crime of genocide in
violation of both the "Convention on the Pre-
vention and Punishment of the Crime Genocide"
and the "Genocide Convention Implementation Act

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of 1987 (Codified at 18 USCS §1091). 18 USCS
§1091- under federal law- makes the crime of
genocide committed by any private individual,
public official or statesmen punishable by
death or life imprisonment.

ALL POWER to the protesters in Ferguson and
the greater St. Louis county area. ALL POWER
to the lumpen “street” organizations who came
together in peace and solidarity to protest and
resist police brutality and to protect the
community. That was "gangsta" but revolutionary.
Most importantly, ALL POWER to the people who
don't fear FREEDOM!

In love and solidarity,

Uhuru Baraka-Rowe
formerly known as
Brian L. Rowe

October 20. 2014
Anarchist Black Cross-

Virginia Prison Chapter

Unuru can always use your letters of love
and light. Please write to:

Uhuru Baraka-Rowe #1131545
Buckingham Correctional Center
- Box 430

Dillwyn, Virginia 23936

Uhuru's other zines are available at:

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/o Anthony Rayson

P.0. Box 721

Homewood, Illinois 60430

(anthonyrayson@hotmail.com)
Also, you can view Uhuru's other articles,
Ppoenms, essays and other writing's at:
1) bostonanarchistblackcross.wordpress. con/pan/
2) http:// sfbayview.con/2013/08/virginia-priseher-
inspired-by-the-california-prisoner-hunger-strikers-
‘and-the-bay-view/

3) http:// sfbayview.con/2014/09/hands-up-dont-shoot -
d’u?gpo:idql-kghrg-offldnd-b:wn/

4) sfbayview.con/tag/brian-lee-rowe
5) freerepublit.com

6)facebook.com/incarceratedworkers/posts/
270516926473790

7) bostonanarchistblackeross. files.wordpress.
com/2014/08/pan-7-2-print-version-finall.pdf.

8) bostonanarchistblackcross.files.wordpress.
com/2013/08/pan-6-2-print-version-£inal . pdf

Uhuru's current address is listed at:
http:// wi.cellpals.con/roweuhurubaraka0213. htn

Uhuru BaraKa- Rowe *131545
B.x.c.c.

P.O. Box 430
Ditlwyn V.A. 2393¢

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