{"id":21924,"date":"2022-08-01T14:40:39","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T14:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=21924"},"modified":"2022-08-01T14:45:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T14:45:46","slug":"police-murder-bronx-teenager-for-carrying-water-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2022\/08\/01\/police-murder-bronx-teenager-for-carrying-water-gun\/","title":{"rendered":"Police murder Bronx teenager for carrying water gun"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article written by Emma Lee, was first posted by Left Voice (USA)<\/a>. It describes yet another US police murder of an unarmed ethnic minority citizen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

POLICE MURDER BRONX TEENAGER FOR CARRYING WATER GUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An off-duty corrections officer, Don Middleton, shot and killed 18-year-old Raymond Chaluisant, who was playing with a water gun while riding as a passenger in a friend\u2019s car in his Bronx neighborhood.<\/p>\n

An off-duty corrections officer, Don Middleton, shot and killed 18-year-old Raymond Chaluisant, who was playing with a water gun while riding as a passenger in a friend\u2019s car in his Bronx neighborhood. Chaluisant was found with a gunshot wound to the face in the early hours of the morning on Thursday, July 21, in his friend\u2019s car about a half mile from where the shooting occurred. Chaluisant was playing in a water fight on the hot summer night amid an extended heat wave hitting the Northeast. \u201cThey were just having fun,\u201d his older sister Jiraida Esquilin\u00a0said<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a new Nerf gun that shoots water. The whole neighborhood was having a water gun fight. It was 90 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police have claimed that Chaluisant was taking part in a TikTok trend called the \u201cOrbeez challenge,\u201d in which participants load water guns with small beads and shoot them at unsuspecting people. As if to justify Middleton\u2019s homicide, later on Thursday (after Chaluisant\u2019s body was found) the NYPD announced on Twitter that \u201cBead Blasters\u201d are illegal. Owning a water gun, it appears, is a bigger crime than murdering a teenager.<\/p>\n

According to the police killings database\u00a0Mapping Police Violence<\/a>, as of March 31 of this year, police had already killed 286 people in 2022, 219 of whom were people of color. The\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0police shootings database<\/a>, which is updated more frequently, counted 1,049 people who have been shot and killed by police in the past year. You can search the names of victims, but you will not find Raymond Chaluisant on these lists; both data sets only count on-duty police officers. The real figures are likely much higher. As the murder of Chaluisant has shown, cops continue to be racist murderers of Black people, whether or not they are in uniform.<\/p>\n

Middleton, the corrections officer who murdered Chaluisant, was later arrested at work after clocking in. He has been charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a weapon. Yet if this case is anything like the thousands of murders at the hands of the police before it, Middleton will likely evade serious consequences. As the arm of the state, the police possess a monopoly on violence, and their immunity and cop unions protect them from consequences. However,\u00a0the victory of convicting Derek Chauvin<\/a>, who murdered George Floyd in 2020, was possible because of the massive Black Lives Matter uprising. Without a mass movement, even the minimal demand of locking up killer cops won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Barely a month ago, people took to the streets to demand justice for 25-year-old Jayland Walker, who was shot 46 times by police in Akron, Ohio, for fleeing a traffic stop. We need to take the streets for Raymond Chaluisant too, and the thousands of victims of police brutality under this murderous system that criminalizes Black people. Our fight must be tied to ending capitalism and imperialism, which relies on the police to protect its private property and borders; it must also be independent of the Democrats, who pay lip service to victims of police violence while containing the movement to the polls and funding the cops and military. Our power is in our workplaces and on the streets. Let\u2019s fight to never have to say another name.<\/p>\n

26.7.22<\/strong><\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

also see:<\/p>\n

The Highland Park shooting and American fascism now \u2013 Stephen F. Eisenman, Counterpunch<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The NRA exists to keep profits booming and guns in the hands of the state and right wing \u2013 Ezra Bain, Left Voice<\/em> (USA)<\/a><\/p>\n

Race and class \u2018justice\u2019 in the USA in Biden\u2019s USA \u2013 Left Voice<\/em> (USA)<\/a><\/p>\n

The Rittenhouse verdict is green light for right wing vigilantes \u00a0– James Dennis Hoff,\u00a0Left Voice<\/em> (USA)<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article written by Emma Lee, was first posted by Left Voice (USA). It describes yet another US police murder of an unarmed ethnic minority citizen. POLICE MURDER BRONX TEENAGER FOR CARRYING WATER GUN An off-duty corrections officer, Don Middleton, shot and killed 18-year-old Raymond Chaluisant, who was playing with a water gun while…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1858,1845,1868,8976],"tags":[9119],"class_list":["post-21924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oppression-liberation","category-us-imperialism","category-against-imperialism","category-migrant-struggles","tag-author-emma-lee"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":7088,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21924"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21931,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21924\/revisions\/21931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}