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Law Enforcement Has Quietly Backed Anti-Protest Bills In At Least 8 States

May 28, 2020 Simon David-Cohen and Sarah Lazare, In These Times. , , ,
Law enforcement in at least eight states—Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington and Wyoming—lobbied on behalf of anti-protest bills in 2017 and 2018. The bills ran the gamut from punishing face coverings at protests to increasing penalties for “economic disruption” and highway blockage to criminalizing civil protests that interfere with “critical infrastructure” like oil pipelines. Emboldened by the Trump administration, at least 31 states have considered 62 pieces of anti-protest legislation since November 2016, with at least seven enacted and 31 still pending. The full scope of police support for these bills is not yet known. As in the case of Kroll, police support often takes place in private meetings, far from the public eye.

Minneapolis Explodes Against The Police

May 27, 2020 It's Going Down. , , ,
The Minneapolis Uprising will surely be seen as a turning point in 2020, not only in terms of marking the first large scale grassroots rebellion against the State in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US, but also because it showed the drive of the people to take action in the face of various forces attempting to push them off the streets. But from activist protest managers, to police with high grade firepower, to even the State’s quick rush to fire the officers involved in the killing, all efforts failed in putting a wet blanket over the popular rage of the thousands who turned up Tuesday night and made chants of, “No Justice, No Peace,” not just an empty threat, but a promise of total ungovernability.

Were Chicago’s Police Torture Reparations From 5 Years Ago Implemented?

May 24, 2020 Flint Taylor, Truthout. , , ,
The Chicago reparations movement offers a shining example to movements across the country, and in the past few years, activists in other cities have pursued their own calls for reparations. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the family of Eugene Ellison, a man fatally shot by the police, together with the largest police violence settlement in Little Rock history, obtained an official apology from the city manager at a ceremony where a memorial bench was dedicated to Ellison. In New Orleans, the City settled 17 police violence cases that were representative of the official lawlessness that reigned before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced the $13.3 million settlement at a press conference after a prayer meeting with the victims and families.

May 30 Day Of Action: Stop Racist Murder And Violence

May 21, 2020 the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. , , ,
We will be protesting to stop the racist murder and violence that this administration has willfully unleashed. Not only is the government standing by as COVID-19 ravages African American, Latinx, and Indigenous communities—inciting mass Black death with their calls to reopen the economy, but the police and racist vigilantes continue to brazenly hunt and kill Black folks while they sleep in their beds and on open roads in broad daylight. We are calling for this united action to protest genocidal policies of the government that have allowed city and county jails, federal and state prisons, juvenile detention jails, and Immigrant detention centers.

Collective Demands Accountability In Ahmaud Arbery Case

May 15, 2020 Anoa Changa, Our Prism. , , ,
Under the banner of JUST Georgia, a collective of Georgia advocates, attorneys, faith leaders, community members, and organizations have joined together to demand the first two district attorneys to handle the Ahmaud Arbery case be held accountable for their actions. They are joined in this effort by national organizations like the Working Families Party and Color of Change PAC. Building on organizing by local leaders, including Dr. John Davis Perry II, the president of the Brunswick Chapter of the Georgia NAACP, JUST Georgia is making several demands for prosecutorial accountability as well as independent investigations of potential law enforcement misconduct. Speaking with Prism, Perry framed Arbery's murder as another example of the injustice happening across the country.

Racism And The National Soul

May 14, 2020 By Robert C. Koehler, Common Wonder. , , ,
“Black folks need more than a trial and a verdict. Our problems are deeper, rooted not in the details of a particular case, but in distrust of the system charged with protecting us and punishing those who do us harm. This cynicism is well earned, arising out of repeated disappointments. To begin to heal this distrust we need this country to take responsibility for its devaluation of blackness and its complicity in violence against black bodies.” Obviously, some enormous approach to change is necessary. Can this country grow up — finally? We won’t “end” racism. We won’t end fear, hatred, projection, stupidity or mental illness, but can we not at least begin disinfecting our legal and political structure of racism’s horrific consequences? What would it take to deinstitutionalize racism?

The MOVE House Bombing 35 Years Later

May 13, 2020 John Leslie, Socialist Resurgence. , , ,
May 13, 2020, is the 35th anniversary of the day Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on a home in a working-class neighborhood. The resulting conflagration and police gunfire killed 11 people, including five children, and destroyed 61 houses. It was a military assault designed to wipe out the MOVE organization. MOVE, a back-to-nature group founded in 1972 by John Africa, had been the subject of police harassment for years and the target of a violent attack that landed nine MOVE supporters in prison. Today, as calls for an official apology from the city grow louder, it is necessary to review what happened.

81 Percent Of NYPD Social Distancing Summons Were To Black Or Latinx People

May 12, 2020 James Gordon, Daily Mail. , , , ,
New York City - Black and Hispanic people appear to be feeling the brunt of the NYPD’s force when it comes to the enforcement of social distancing measures in New York City. Data released by the police show that out of 374 social distancing-related summonses that have been issued since restrictions came into effect six weeks ago, some 81 percent, or 304 of them, were issued to Hispanic or African-American people. Such statistics marry with figures released by police in Brooklyn, which noted that that 35 of 40 people arrested in that borough between March 17 and May 4 for social distancing violations were black. A total of 193 summonses issued were to black residents and 111 were to Hispanic people, according to the NYPD. All told, 81% of people issued summonses were black or Latino.

Protests Over Delay In Arresting Two Men Who Murdered Ahmaud Arbery

May 9, 2020 Dustin Chambers, Reuters. , , ,
Brunswick, Georgia - Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of a Georgia courthouse on Friday to decry the killing of an unarmed black man [Ahmaud Arbery] in February and the delay in charging two white men in a shooting captured on video that was released earlier this week. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) arrested a former police officer, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, on Thursday and charged with them with aggravated assault and murder in the Feb. 23 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, 25, in the coastal Georgia town of Brunswick. The video’s wide broadcast in recent days ignited outrage among activists, politicians and celebrities who [accurately] saw the incident as the latest case of white perpetrators killing a black man and going unpunished.

Indianapolis: People Protest Three Killings By Police In 24 Hours

May 8, 2020 Rick Callahan, AP News. , ,
Protesters crowded the streets of Indianapolis on Thursday to voice concerns about police treatment after officers shot and killed two men and fatally struck a pregnant pedestrian in three separate incidents just hours apart. Officials said both men exchanged gunfire with officers, adding that the second shooting early Thursday morning could have been an ambush on police. Police did not have body camera or dash camera footage of either shooting. Both of the men were black, as were most of the protesters. The pregnant woman, who was white, was walking along an expressway ramp when an officer driving to work struck her with his vehicle. Events surrounding the first shooting were livestreamed on Facebook, including comments by a responding detective who is heard saying: “I think it’s going to be a closed casket, homie,” an apparent reference to a closed-casket funeral.

Freddie Gray, Five Years Later

April 25, 2020 Justine Barron, The Appeal. , , ,
On April 12, 2015, Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. was arrested in the Gilmor Homes housing development in West Baltimore by three officers on bike patrol. Less than an hour later, a medic was called to the Western District police station, where Gray, 25, was unconscious and not breathing. On April 19, Gray died from complications due to a cervical spine injury. Baltimore resident Kevin Moore captured some of Gray’s arrest on video that was widely shared. The video showed Gray screaming as he was restrained on his belly by a heavyset bike officer, Garrett Miller, and then loaded into a police transport van, his legs dragging. “I hear the screams every night,” Moore later said. “‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, I need help, I need medical attention.’ This is the shit that play in my mind over and over again.”

French Women March For Equal Rights In Solidarity With Women Around The World

March 7, 2020 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance , , ,
The ongoing protests in France took a new turn today as French women marched for equal rights and respect in the #MarcheFeministe. Thousands of women peacefully marched in solidarity with women of the world on International Women's Day. As has become the norm in Macron's France, nonviolent protest was met by violent police who used tear gas as well as charged the crowd, assaulted and arrested women.

Police Torture In Chicago

March 1, 2020 Eve Ottenberg, Counterpunch. , , ,
The Chicago police department has a problem. They say it’s fixed, but local African American residents can’t be blamed for being skeptical. The problem is torture. And of course the Chicago PD is not one bad apple in the nation’s police departments, because when it comes to police brutality, the whole barrel is rotten. Chicago is just an extreme case. “Between 1972 and 1991, approximately 125 African American suspects were tortured by police officers in Chicago,” Princeton anthropology professor Laurence Ralph writes in his new book “The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence.” More than 400 cases currently await investigation by the Illinois torture inquiry and relief commission, “which also gets three to five new torture claims each week.” From 2004 to 2016, Chicago police paid $662 million in police misconduct settlements.

Ending Militarization Of Our Communities

January 19, 2020 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In recent weeks Popular Resistance has focused on the escalation of US militarism around the world, especially in the Middle East with the assassination of General Soleimani, US troops staying in Syria to take their oil and the US refusing to leave Iraq despite being asked to leave. The US is in the midst of a potential escalation toward full-scale war in the Middle East once again. However, militarism abroad is mirrored by militarism at home, especially in poor, black and brown communities. There is a long history of attacks on these communities. Now, the Department of Justice's new Operation Relentless Pursuit threatens seven cities with more militarized police who view people in these communities as the enemy. This escalation of the war at home must be stopped and people are offering positive alternatives to militarization.

Police Assault Solidarity Camp With Unsheltered People

January 19, 2020 By J.M. Straughn, Worker's World ,
In Salt Lake City, the Take Shelter Coalition set up an encampment here of about 80 people on Jan. 2 to enforce demands to end the brutal treatment of unsheltered members of the working class. The camp was located around the Salt Lake City-County Building in Washington Square. The Salt Lake City Police Department in full riot gear assaulted protesters Jan. 5 with shotgun “flexible baton rounds” and hand batons, arresting 17 and issuing citations to 13. This is the second brutal attack by cops suffered by protesters in the city in recent months. The largest shelter in the city for unhoused people, The Road Home, was closed Nov.  21 as temperatures dropped and months of subfreezing temperatures and storms lay ahead.
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