For immediate release
August 19, 2014
Contact in Ferguson: Travis Morales (713) 240-3192
Carl Dix, Arrested in Ferguson, Called “Outside Criminal Element,” Says Systematic Police Brutality & Murder is Criminal, Not Peoples’ Protest
“There are no ‘outsiders’ in the struggle for justice and liberation,” said Carl Dix on his release from St. Louis County Jail this morning.
“The criminal actions in Ferguson come from the police who brutalize and murder people, not from people who have stood up and refused to accept that subjugation, or from people like myself who came from other cities to support them.”
Dix, of New York City, is a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and is the co-founder, with Dr. Cornel West, of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.
“I came to Ferguson to stand with people who had poured into the streets after the murder of Michael Brown, and were demanding justice and refusing to silently suffer this abuse any longer. We want the cop who shot Michael indicted, Police Chief Jackson fired, and the authorities to stop hiding the information about Michael’s murder. Because people defiantly refused to be stopped by curfews, National Guard deployment, and states of emergency, the whole world now knows about the unjust murder of Michael Brown.”
Dix, who says that he was extracted for arrest from a sidewalk crowd he was speaking to, was among 78 people, including media, arrested Monday as police declared protest “unlawful assembly,” and used tear gas, sound cannons, stun grenades, and pointed assault weapons at protesters holding their hands in the air.
Dix is available for interviews in Ferguson.