In the early hours of Saturday, June 13th someone ignited an explosive outside the home of Chicago socialist alderman and activist Byron Sigcho-Lopez. Fortunately, even though he was at home with his wife and his three children, no one got hurt. However, the blast from explosive shattered his window. Video footage shows two men in an SUV drive up to his home, one gets out to quickly light the explosive directly in front of his home, and then quickly runs back into the vehicle to drive away. The Chicago Police Department didn’t appear until 9 hours later and has since characterized the explosion as mere “fireworks”.
Byron Sigcho-Lopez is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has been on the Chicago city council since 2019 as a Democrat, and is an immigrant from Ecuador. He is now running a campaign for U.S. House of Representatives as an Independent, challenging the Democratic Party establishment. He has been a vocal critic of ICE as well as the genocide in Palestine. All these things have made Sigcho-Lopez a target of right-wing doxxing, which increased after an incident where he spoke at a rally in support of Gaza at which a Marine veteran burned an American flag.
Although we do not know exactly who carried out this attack or precisely why, the major reason is crystal clear: this was clearly an attempt to terrorize Byron and his family, and to terrorize and intimidate and silence anyone in the socialist movement.
Although we do not share the reformist politics of DSA, and we certainly don’t advocate for participation in the Democratic Party, we fully support their right to open and free expression of their politics. We condemn these anti-democratic attacks and violent attempts to crush the speech of working-class people and socialists. In the face of this attack we stand in full solidarity with Sigcho-Lopez and all other socialists working to challenge the systems and forces that dominate our lives.
This instance shows us once again that this system – its laws, police forces, courts and judges – will not keep any of us safe. Only the collective power of our own mass self-organization can do so.
