We’ve prepared a new poster series connecting the police violence during Trump’s inauguration with the everyday violence and oppression that police carry out in Washington, DC and around the world. Please print these out and post them in your community.

The same police terrorize protesters, harass sex workers, and murder black and brown people. Just as police rounded up Jewish and Romani people in the Holocaust, sent dissidents to gulags in the Soviet Union, and imposed apartheid in South Africa, today in the United States police kill a thousand people a year and deport and imprison millions more. The fight against the #J20 prosecution is just one small part of the struggle against police oppression that targets countless communities. Let’s take it on together.

Jeffery Price was chased to his death by the DC Metropolitan Police on May 4, 2018. Days later, MPD raided the home of Price’s girlfriend’s mother and killed their dog, then conducted a warrantless search of Price’s mother’s property.

Terrence Sterling was murdered by DC police on September 11, 2016. Witnesses report that as Sterling was driving his motorcycle home from a bachelor party, officers pulled their police car into his path, forcing him to crash, then shot him in the head without provocation.

D’Quan Young was murdered by an off-duty DC police officer on May 9, 2018. According to one witness, the officer was “spraying bullets all around. Bullet holes in people’s tires, bumpers and stuff. Like, he was just firing shots… he shot the neighborhood up.” Another report indicates that the officer “reloaded his weapon and continued shooting after D’Quan Young was on the ground.”

On January 20, 2017, during protests against the inauguration of Donald Trump, DC police sealed off an entire city block and arrested everyone on it. Over 200 people were indiscriminately charged with 8 felonies each. After a terrifying year, the prosecutors were forced to drop the vast majority of the charges, as one group of defendants after another was declared innocent in court and a judge ruled that the prosecution had concealed exonerating evidence. To this day, not one arrestee has been convicted on any charge.

Sharmus Outlaw passed away on July 7, 2016 after a life of activism for the health, safety, and freedom of sex workers in Washington, DC and around the world. DC police routinely target sex workers in ways that increase the already considerable risks they face—for example, harassing them for carrying condoms.

Cheryl Angel, a grandmother and unci Sicangu Lakota water protector who fought resource extraction at Standing Rock, was among the hundreds of people who were brutally attacked and pepper-sprayed by DC police on January 20, 2017 during Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Black and White Versions

Illustrations by @dpetrohilos.

Further Reading

Our classic poster: The Police