Jersey Activists Will Join National Day Of Protests Against Police Brutality On Oct. 22

By Lawrence Hamm Photos: Facebook\Wikimedia Commons The People’s Organization For Progress (POP) will have a National Day Of Protest Against Police Brutality March & Rally Wednesday, October 22, 2025, 5:00pm at the Fraternal Order Of Police (FOP) Lodge #12, 51 Rector Street in Newark, NJ. “The purpose of the demonstration we are having is to highlight the issue of police brutality and draw attention to police brutality cases in New Jersey and throughout the country,” Lawrence Hamm, Chairman, People’s Organization For Progress stated. “We are also protesting to demand civilian oversight of the police. We want community control of the police. We demand police review boards with subpoena power and other necessary reforms to deal with this problem,” Hamm said. “This demonstration is also going to highlight the policy of the Trump administration regarding policing in the United States,” he said. “A year ago we were protesting against police brutality. A year later since the election of President Trump we are now protesting against a police state,” he said. “The Trump administration has not simply turned its back on police reform, it is systematically removing guard rails that were put in place to check police brutality, discriminatory policing, and the violation of our constitutional rights,” he said “Furthermore, the administration has said that it wants to take the handcuffs off of the police. Many see this as an announcement by Trump that he wants the police to engage in more aggressive and even illegal tactics,” he said. The Trump administration has told the Justice Department to halt investigations into a number of local police departments and not to put in place any new consent decrees. It has shut down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Data Base tracking bad officers. And Trump issued an executive order rescinding the requirement that federal officers wear body cameras. Hamm said the police brutality problem has been exacerbated by increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in cities across the U.S. The ICE budget has been increased from about 10 billion to 75 billion. This has tripled its enforcement budget and quadrupled its detention budget. The ICE budget is larger than the military budgets of a majority of nations in the world. “Many feel that these masked ICE agents behave like a Gestapo and are terrorizing our communities. They are arresting people and entering homes without without warrants, and brutalizing and killing people without justification,” he said “They are tearing babies out of their mothers arms, putting handcuffs and zip ties on children, disappearing people without trial and sending them to parts unknown. They are behaving like modern day slave catchers,” he said. Hamm said the police repression has been further compounded by the militarization of policing in our cities. Trump has federalized and deployed National Guard troops to several cities and has vowed to send them others. “It appears that Trump doesn’t want to stop there. There are indications that he also wants to involve the U.S. military in this effort. At an unprecedented meeting of more than 800 generals he told them that they now had to focus on the enemy within,” he said “We are starting our protest at the police lodge because it went into court and blocked efforts to establish police review boards in New Jersey,” Hamm said. Speakers at the protest will include activists and family members of police brutality victims. The lodge is located between Rector Street and Fulton Street near McCarter Highway. The demonstration will begin at the FOP lodge and then protestors will march to the Federal Building at 970 Broad Street in Newark. For further directions and more information call the People’s Organization For Progress (POP) at (973)801-0001.