Florida

3 Florida Ex-Cops Sentenced In Scheme To Frame Innocent Black People

October 19, 2018 David Lohr, Huffingtonpost.com Educate! Corruption, Florida, Police, Racism

The former Biscayne Park police officers had pleaded guilty in a department conspiracy to clear property crime cases by any means necessary. Three former Florida police officers were sent to prison this week after pleading guilty to their roles in a departmentwide conspiracy to frame people of color for crimes they did not commit. A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Guillermo Ravelo, a 37-year-old former officer with the Biscayne Park Police Department, to 27 months behind bars, the Miami Herald reported. On Wednesday, former officers Charlie Dayoub, 38, and Raul Fernandez, 62, were sentenced to one year apiece after pleading guilty to making false arrests. Dayoub and Fernandez had cooperated with federal authorities in making a case against former police chief Raimundo Atesiano.

Court Backs Activists Who Feed Homeless

August 26, 2018 David Fleshler, Sun Sentinel. Resist! First Amendment, Florida, Food Not Bombs, Homelessness

Florida - A group whose symbol is a clenched fist holding a carrot won a legal victory over the city of Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday, when a federal appeals court found that its weekly events to feed homeless people were protected under the Constitution. Food Not Bombs, which grew out of an anti-nuclear protest in New England, now has chapters around the United States, which promote the shift of funding away from the military to address hunger, poverty and other problems. The Fort Lauderdale chapter’s weekly feeding events at Stranahan Park generated opposition downtown, where a growing homeless population had led to tensions with businesses owners and visitors.

16 And Life. And Then Some.

April 28, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, Art Killing Apathy. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Florida, Supreme Court, Youth

Bobby Bostic won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 112. He’s more than 20 years into a 241-year sentence for crimes committed in 1995 when he was 16 years old. On Monday April 23rd, the Supreme Court announced that it would not review his case. In March of this year, an Amicus Brief was filed with the Supreme Court on behalf of Bostic hoping to overturn the extreme sentence. The Brief cited the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Graham vs. Florida which stated that the 8th Amendment to the Constitution prohibits a juvenile from serving a life sentence without parole if they did not commit a homicide.

Black Parkland Students Air Concerns About Campus Police

April 2, 2018 By Emily Wells, Truthdig.com Educate! Black Youth, Florida, Police, Students

As Truthdig columnist Sonali Kolhatkar points out in her column this week, black Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by firearms than those who are white, and they are disproportionately affected by police violence. Kolhatkar also lauded the students who organized the March for Our Lives for their inclusive approach, saying that they “did a far better job of centering the voices of people of color than the mainstream media did.” But the students at Wednesday’s press conference expressed concern that in the aftermath of the shooting, increasing police presence at their predominantly white school could lead to them being unfairly targeted. Seventeen-year-old Kai Koerber said that more law enforcement on campus could lead to him and other black students being treated like “potential criminals.”

Florida Teachers On Edge As New Law Threatens Their Unions

March 23, 2018 Jeffrey S. Solock, Tampabay.com Educate! Class Struggle, Florida, Labor, Teachers, Unions

Life without union representation is not a distant fear for Russell Baggett. Until two years ago, the Calhoun County school district in northern Florida had no collective bargaining unit to support teachers. "We had no contract," said Baggett, president of the two-year-old Association of Calhoun Educators. "They would say, yes, there is money for a raise or, no, there isn’t. Whatever they decided, went." The passage of new collective bargaining rules into law this month has Baggett and teachers across Florida on edge, with fears that they could be headed back to the "bad old days" without a voice. At issue is a new law requiring local unions to prove they represent a majority of the teachers in their districts. The measuring stick: Having at least half of all employees eligible to be in the union paying dues.

Florida Farmworkers Push For Fairness In The Fields

March 7, 2018 By Negin Owliaei, Inequality.org Organize! Class Struggle, Exploitation, Farm Workers, Florida, Labor

South Florida was known as a hotbed for modern-day slavery. Now, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers are using their innovative model to bring dignity to the tomato fields. Immokalee, Florida, is known for producing nearly all of the winter tomatoes in the United States. Up until recently, the town also had a reputation for being home to some of the worst labor exploitation in the country, with sexual violence, wage theft, and assault occurring regularly in the tomato fields. The working conditions were so bad that the town was considered “ground zero for modern slavery” in the United States. But one group has spent the last two decades transforming the conditions for Florida farmworkers. Through the use of boycotts, supply chain agreements, and an innovative monitoring program, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers has made massive inroads in creating a safe workplace for one of labor’s most exploited communities.

Florida Students March To Stoneman Douglas High To Show Solidarity Over School Shooting

February 21, 2018 Antonia Blumberg, Huffingtonpost.com Resist! Florida, Guns, Mass Shootings, Protests

Hundreds of students walked out of classes at a Florida high school on Tuesday morning and were marching nearly 11 miles to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a mass shooting left 17 students and staff members dead last week. Students from West Boca Raton High School left their classes to protest gun violence and to express solidarity with the school community in Parkland, Florida, that lived through last week’s massacre, according to local reports, The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s office initially monitored the students’ march to ensure their safety, a department spokesperson told HuffPost. Deputies with the Broward County Sheriff’s office then met them at the county line as they continued to walk toward Stoneman Douglas high, which remains close following the shooting.

School Walkouts, Sit-ins Planned After Florida Shooting

February 19, 2018 Staff, Apnews.com Resist! Florida, Protests, Youth, Youth Activism

The mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead has sparked calls for walkouts, sit-ins and other actions on school campuses across the United States aimed at pushing lawmakers to pass tougher gun laws. Organizers behind the Women’s March, an anti-Trump and female empowerment protest, called for a 17-minute walkout on March 14 to “protest Congress’ inaction to do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to the gun violence plaguing our schools and neighborhoods.” The Network for Public Education, an advocacy organization for public schools, meanwhile, announced a “national day of action” on April 20, the anniversary of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which two students opened fire on their classmates, killing 12 students and one teacher.

Florida High School Students Stage Walkout To Protest Gun Violence

February 17, 2018 Ryan Grenoble and Sebastian Murdock, Huffingtonpost.com Resist! Florida, Guns, Protests, Violence, Youth Activism

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. ― They’re furious about political stonewalling, and most of them aren’t yet old enough to vote. Two days after a gunman used an assault-style rifle to kill 17 people at a nearby school, the students of South Broward High School protested in solidarity. Just a couple of dozen miles down the road in Parkland, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was still sealed off as investigators pored over the horrors inside. About 50 teenagers gathered on the street Friday, rallying around the common causes of gun control and school safety ― two issues politicians continue to ignore even though polls show most Americans support them.

Florida Shooter’s JROTC Took NRA Money, Excelled At Marksmanship

February 16, 2018 David Swanson, Davidswanson.org Educate! Florida, NRA, Shooting

Whether the latest school shooter’s participation in a JROTC program that took NRA money and trained in marksmanship contributed to the shooting or not, it is symptomatic of a culture in which many schools are forgetting that The Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps Is Not a Substitute for Education. The worst kept secret in our gun-mad and war-mad culture is that U.S. Mass Shooters Are Disproportionately Veterans. Are veterans of the U.S. military disproportionately likely to be mass killers in the United States? Asking such a question is difficult, first because of concerns of profiling, discrimination, etc., and second, because it’s hard to answer. It’s important to answer because it’s important for us to know whether military training is contributing to this epidemic, a fact that (one must rush to say)...

Plea For Solidarity With Florida Prisoners On Strike

January 17, 2018 By Ryan Sullivan, Medium.com Resist! Florida, Prison Strike, Prisoner rights, Prisons

The inmates across the Florida penitentiary complex are striking to protest the inhumane conditions they are facing on a daily basis. Conditions including police/guard brutality, rape and abuse, grueling unpaid slave labor, and price gouging of personal care items and other necessities. The inmates are calling on all organizing groups, religious groups, and people who empathize with their plight to speak out and draw attention to their struggle against insufferable conditions. U.S. corporations, police, prison guard unions, and politicians are complicit in the largest system of mass oppression anywhere in the world today. Yet many of us — U.S. citizens — move through our days like millions of our family members, friends, and neighbors are not disappearing away to rapey dungeons where they perform slave labor under abysmal conditions. We tell ourselves fairy tales like, ‘they deserve it’ or ‘they’re getting help.’

Florida Prisoners Announce Work Stoppage To Cripple Prison System

January 5, 2018 Staff, Fighttoxicprisons.wordpress.com Resist! Florida, Labor, Prisoner rights, Prisons

The following message is from a group of prisoners who are spread throughout the Florida Department of Corrections (DOC). It was sent anonymously and compiled from a series of correspondences received on November 26 and 27 by both the Gainesville chapter of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) and the national Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons. We have been able to verify the authenticity of this message which was also posted on SPARC (Supporting Prisoners and Real Change), a social media page for Florida prisoners and their families. According to their statement, these prisoners plan to initiate a work stoppage or “laydown” beginning Monday, January 15th, coinciding with MLK Day, in nonviolent protest of conditions in FL prisons. They are calling it Operation PUSH.

The Big Picture: 3 Toxic Crises Boiling Over In Florida

October 14, 2017 Dipika Kadaba, www.therevelator.org Educate! Crisis, Florida, Hurricane, Natural Disasters

By Dipika Kadaba for The Revelator - A difficult hurricane season unearths issues ranging from cancer hotspots to deadly bacteria. Ah, Florida — home to famous natural landscapes and amazing wildlife, but also to more than 20 million people and billion-dollar industries. Decades of booming development in Florida — all of it built in the path of Atlantic hurricanes — have brought to a head some toxic problems the state still struggles to solve. Every major flooding event, like the one following this year’s Hurricane Irma, leaches toxic waste into people’s homes and drinking water. Florida is particularly vulnerable to storm surges and flooding from hurricanes like Irma. The EPA’s “Superfund” program oversees the cleanup of hazardous waste sites. Ahead of Hurricane Irma, the EPA worked to secure about 80 sites ranked at the highest priority for cleanup from Miami to North Carolina — but Florida alone contains more than 50 Superfund sites at this priority level, with approximately 500 hazardous waste sites in total. Superfund sites in Florida have been linked to increased cancer risk, and experts worry that these sites are vulnerable to flooding and spreading toxic pollution.

After The Hurricane, Solar Sped Recovery For Some

September 19, 2017 Lyndsey Gilpin, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Florida, Hurricane, New Economy, Solar Energy

By Lyndsey Gilpin for Inside Climate News - Just after midnight on Sept. 11, Eugenio Pereira awoke to the sound of tropical-storm-force winds slamming his Gainesville, Florida, home. Hurricane Irma had arrived. At 1:45 a.m., the power flickered out, and he was in total darkness. Unlike large swaths of Florida that were facing days if not weeks without electricity, Pereira knew he would have power when the sun rose. He had installed rooftop solar panels two weeks before the storm, along with an inverter that allows him to use power from the solar panels without being connected to the grid. The next morning, he plugged an extension cord into the inverter, flipped it on, and let his 7-kilowatt rooftop solar array do the rest. He was able to use his appliances and his Wi-Fi, so he could continue his work as a home-based IT consultant while the neighborhood waited for grid power to came back on. "We didn't have sun at all the day after the hurricane, but even with clouds, it was enough," he said. Hurricane Irma cut the power to about 6.7 million customers across Florida, as well as hundreds of thousands in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Only about two-thirds of those in Florida had power back by Thursday, and Florida Power & Light said the outages could last weeks in some areas.

While Prison Activists March For Humane Treatment, Florida Shuts Off Visits This Weekend

August 21, 2017 Julie K. Brown, www.miamiherald.com Resist! Florida, Prisoner rights, Prisons

By Julie K. Brown for Miami Herald - Visitation to all Florida state prisons has been canceled this weekend after evidence surfaced that inmates are planning possible uprisings to coincide with Saturday’s march for prisoners’ human rights in Washington, D.C. Julie Jones, Secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections, announced the move as a precaution, given the agency’s staff shortage and “credible intelligence’’ that groups of inmates at several institutions were planning disturbances. “There’s no reason to be alarmed. We are just being proactive,’’ said Michelle Glady, a spokeswoman for the department. The agency is taking preemptive steps to secure facilities so that staff and inmates will be secure, she said. Social media has been advertising a “Millions for Prisoners’ Human Rights” rally on Saturday in Washington, but it’s not clear who is spearheading the movement. Postings advertise the effort as a way to raise awareness about the problem of mass incarceration and human rights violations in prisons across the country.

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