Comrades Collective Statement on the Michigan State Police murder of Samuel Dajon Sterling

Editor’s note: I am re-posting a statement by the Comrades Collective regarding the Michigan State Police murder of Samuel Dajon Sterling.

The Michigan State Police murdered Samuel Dajon Sterling by ramming him into a wall with an unmarked police cruiser. The Michigan State Police officer driving the car, then backed up, causing Samuel Dajon Sterling to slide under the car, then the cop ran over Samuel Dajon Sterling’s body again.

What will it take for us to be outraged at a system which brutalizes Black people? What will it take for all of us to see that this is how policing functions in this country? What the Michigan State Police did was not an aberration, and it was not because of a lack of training. Samuel Dajon Sterling was unarmed and not a threat to anyone, especially not to the cops who came after him.

Samuel Dajon Sterling was a father, son, and brother. His family has been traumatized at what the Michigan State Police did to him. Samuel Dajon Sterling’s family is enraged, because someone in their family has now become the victim of another police killing.  

In fact, police kill Black people in this country at an alarming rate. According to mappingpoliceviolence.org, there have already been 326 people killed by the police in 2024. At this pace it is likely that police will have killed over 1,000 this year, just like they have done every year since 2013, then Mapping Police Violence began tracking this information. On top of the outrageous number of people killed by cops, African Americans are 3 times more like to be killed by those who claim to protest and to serve.

Unfortunately, none of this should come as a surprise, since the laws most often protect the police and the government is always providing them with more and more funding. In late 2022, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed into law a massive funding bill that directed hundreds of millions of dollars to the Michigan State Police, funding that could have gone to our communities. In 2021, the Michigan State Police spent $57 million of the taxpayers money to build a state of the art facility in Walker, Michigan. Again, funding that should have done to communities, not for more policing. This is why we say funding for care, now cops.

Samuel Dajon Sterling has now become another name that we have to say. We have to say his name because we can never forget who he was, and we can never forget that the Michigan State Police killed him. However, as members of the Comrades Collective, we don’t want to keep having to say names, we want to see an end to people being killed by the police, especially African Americans. 

As police abolitionists, we want far more than what the system that killed Samuel Dajon Sterling can offer – because the system that killed him is not set up to provide justice for his family and loved ones. 

If you want to provide any financial support to Samuel Dajon Sterling’s family, you can contribute to a Go Fund Me site created in his name. 

The Comrades Collective will also be provide crowd safety at the rally to remember Samuel Dajon Sterling this Saturday, because we protect us!