On the 31st of January the protest „No benefits for Rapist“ took place at City Hall in Austin, Texas. It was aimed at the decision made by the city to continue paying Jason Duane Dusterhoft, a former APD (Austin Police Department) Commander, who had been fired after allegations of sexual assault and drug use.
The same date of the protest a city council meeting took place, where a resolution was approved to „evaluate the Austin Police Department‘s processing and investigation of reported sexual assaults“. This was prompted by an investigative report from last year, that showed that across the country the mayority of rape cases where not pursued by police departments, even when enough evidence was available. One of the police departments that showed up in the report was the APD.
Dusterhoft got fired, because his ex-girlfriend filed an official complaint for being slapped and choked by him at a strip club. But since Austin‘s police department does not pursue people that commit sexual violence and since Dusterhoft is a cop, the odds of anything happening to him are not great. The city deciding to keep paying him shows just that. He will not only not be punished, but he‘ll even be well off.
Dusterhoft is a representation of how the corruption inside the police force works. Knowing this the protestors were ready to make their voices heard and their anger felt.
The protest was originally organized by the liberal-anarchist organisation ATX Resistance Action. But they had only managed to assemble a handful protestors, who managed to get into the lobby outside of the council chambers to protest with signs. When they were told by the town‘s Mayor and the police-friendly NGO „Survivor Justice Project“ to not disturb and not speak up „out of respect“, ATX Resistance Action cancelled the protest and went away.
Seeing that ATX Resistance Action had completely blown the event, PWM-MFP did not hesitate to take matters into their own hands. They marched up to City Hall Plaza and started shouting „Without a People‘s Army, women have nothing“. They were dressed in uniforms and they dragged a protestor dressed in a police uniform and a pig mask with them. They circled the „pig“ and started teatrically beating him into a pulp, showing the proper way to treat scum like that. After the pig received its well-deserved beating a protestor pulled a knive and stabbed him in the belly. Fake blood started pouring out of him as he squealed, until he laid in his own blood.
This powerful cultural performance drew together a crowd, that received the act pretty well. The protestors and supproters used the opportunity to hand out their booklets. One of them aimed against mysoginysts in the local left, known to only seek sexual contact with activist women, thus driving women away.
The PWM-MFP then lead a new protest, filling the hole the other protest had left behind. They started marching around the block shouting „Abusive pigs deserve to die! Women hold up half the sky!“ and came back to the initial place, the protest had started at. They Successfully saved the protest, rallyied the masses and put forward a strong message against the mysogynist class-enemy.
ABUSIVE PIGS DESERVE TO DIE! WOMEN HOLD UP HALF THE SKY!
Sources:
https://incendiarynews.com/2019/02/01/austin-revolutionary-women-annihilate-abusive-cop-in-cultural-performance/
https://pwm-mfp.org/2019/02/01/a-change-in-the-sky/
https://pwm-mfp.org/2019/01/27/the-ultimate-class-enemy/