For Immediate Release
October 5, 2025
Re: Federal Shooting in Brighton Park – A Clear Escalation of State Violence Against Civilian Protest
We, in solidarity with antifascists and antifascist-adjacent movements across the nation, issue this statement in response to the grievous shooting of a civilian activist by federal authorities in Brighton Park. These events stand as a chilling testament to the ever-accelerating dangers posed by an administration seeking to mask its social failures with martial spectacles and manufactured enemies.
First and foremost, we uphold our unwavering commitment to the active defense of community safety and the strategic confrontation of fascist violence in all its forms. We emphasize unequivocally that our missions do not rest on reactionary violence or paramilitary escalation. Our defense is collective, organized, and direct, but not defined by armed conflict or the taking of life. We reject the language of violence as a tool of political negotiation, but more forcefully we reject the state’s mounting reliance on lethal force in the policing of dissent.
We call attention to the deliberate ambiguity and misinformation now being circulated regarding the incident in Brighton Park. Federal authorities have, as is their custom, rushed to brand community monitors and rapid-response teams as “terrorists,” “doxers,” or “attackers”. These are echoes of any authoritarian playbook in every era. Yet, the core facts remain absent: no one in our ranks initiated gunfire or sought lethal conflict.
There are two key proofs of this. First and foremost, we have no ranks. By this, of course, we don’t mean “we have no designated military hierarchy,” but rather, “there is no us.” Antifa is not an organization, and there are no members.
But that bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand aside, we address again a key and core concept of anti-fascism: the use of coercion, force, and violence in pursuit of social goals is a fascist tactic, and we reject fascist tactics. QED: those who engage in such tactics are by definition not acting on antifascist principles; at best, they’re allowing themselves to be baited by fascists into emulating the behavior of fascists, allowing themselves to be dragged down to the level of the fascists.
We reject that mechanic entirely.
We operate in public, in solidarity, and in mutual defense. Let federal hands produce the unedited evidence – bodycam, dashcam, and bystander reporting – if truth is their goal and not merely the cultivation of fear.
We name and denounce here the proven tactics of accusation in a mirror—a time-worn fascist strategy of projecting its own will to violence onto those resisting its advance. The rising tide of state and surrogate violence is not the result of our organizing, but rather the fevered justification for further assaults on the dignity, autonomy, and survival of the people our adversaries despise: immigrants, workers, Black and Brown Chicagoans, and everyone building toward another future.
Let the record show: the assassination of civilian protest, the dehumanization of public dissent, and the mass mobilization of militarized police and National Guard are not signs of state strength, but of its crisis. Every bullet finds its mark not simply in brave individuals, but in the balance of our democracy and the lives that have yet to be torn away.
To all who would use these events as pretext for a new era of political purges and collective punishment: History is littered with regimes that mistook popular resolve for criminality. We stand, and will continue to stand, not in isolated acts of fury, but in acts of organized, creative, and relentless solidarity.
The road to justice is not paved by escalation, but by the stubborn refusal of millions to be cowed into silence and submission. The coup leaders have chosen to label those millions “antifa” and call them terrorists.
We reject their manipulation on that point as well, and we refuse to stoop to their level.
We urge all people of conscience, across all identities and affiliations, to reject the dangerous spectacle of federal violence, to resist the criminalization of protest, and to join in unbreakable defense of those our adversaries most fear: an organized, principled, and thoroughly undaunted people.
We will not disappear, we will not disarm our convictions, and we will not allow violence to be hidden behind propaganda nor erased by techniques of moral inversion. To the communities of Chicago, and to all facing the weapons of fascist escalation: Solidarity is our shield, and the future belongs to us.
– Antifa
About The Author
