Justice for Koran Irvine! Jail the Killer Cop!

The NYPD killed another unarmed black man, Koran Irvine, on October 20. That the killer cop was retired didn’t matter. The bottom line is: just being black and driving home from a hard day of work makes the racist pigs think they have a free license to snuff out your life with no consequence.

The former cop, Victor Romero, shot Irvine and then fled. He let Irvine bleed out because he knew he could get away with it. Indeed, Mamdani’s courts released him to go home, and the Manhattan District Attorney is not charging Romero with murder but with manslaughter, a lesser offense.

Irvine was just 46 years old, a 20-year veteran Con Ed worker, father of two, and member of the Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2. This shows clearly that the fight against black oppression is also a working-class fight.

We can’t let them get away with this! We must have no illusions in the “socialist” mayor, the prosecutors or the courts. It will take a sustained show of labor power to win any justice for Koran Irvine. Look at the case of the “Cooler Killer” cop Erik Duran who killed Eric Duprey in the Bronx. It took protests at every court date to force his case to trial and get him convicted for manslaughter, sentenced to jail time earlier this year. But after just a week Duran walked back out on bail while he appeals the conviction.

In a letter to the DA, Local 1-2 president Frank Morales demanded that killer cop Romero be put back in jail until trial and face murder charges. The union has called a rally for October 27, and vows that it “will be present and standing strong at every future court appearance involving Defendant.” Good! This should be backed up by the full mobilization of the union. Let’s make a powerful showing of city trade unionists, the left, and black and brown New Yorkers behind Local 1-2 and Koran’s family demanding: Justice for Koran Irvine! Jail the killer cop!