Police violence

Why We Dream About A World Without Police

July 23, 2016 William C. Anderson, www.kzoo.edu Create! police brutality, Police violence

By William C. Anderson for Praxis Center - The last few years have been rough. President Obama’s last term in the White House has given many of us some of the most polarizing times we have ever experienced. It goes without saying that many have felt hopeless after being promised a change. Political disillusionment has clouded the air in a country struggling to find its true identity. In the midst of all this, unrelenting police violence has been in the spotlight driven by organized resistance to police brutality and renewed media interest.

Following Horrific Violence, Something More Is Required Of Us

July 11, 2016 Michelle Alexander, www.billmoyers.com Strategize! Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Police violence

By Michelle Alexander for Moyers and Company - I have struggled to find words to express what I thought and felt as I watched the videos of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile being killed by the police. Thursday night, I wanted to say something that hasn’t been said a hundred times before. It finally dawned on me that there is nothing to say that hasn’t been said before. As I was preparing to write about the oldness of all of this, and share some wisdom passed down from struggles of earlier eras, I heard on the news that 11 officers had been shot in Dallas, several killed from sniper fire.

Newsletter: US Racism Is Killing Us

July 10, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Black Lives Matter (BLM), killed by police, Police, Police Brutrality, Police violence, Racism

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. This was a traumatic week. Two more unjustified killings of black men were caught on video and shared widely. Mass protests erupted throughout the country. And then, at the end of a Dallas protest against police violence, a lone gunman shot 12 people, killing five police officers. A graphic video shows Baton Rouge police shooting Alton Sterling outside of a convenience store where he was selling CDs. Two police have him on the ground, then shots ring out and Sterling is dead. Forty-eight hours later in Minnesota, Philando Castile is shot dead at a traffic stop while he is reaching for his wallet. In the aftermath of Castile's fatal shooting, a video made by his girlfriend from the passenger seat is posted on Facebook and goes viral. Police violence is a growing public heath threat that is wounding, traumatizing and killing people.

Protests Over Police Violence Spread Around U.S.

July 9, 2016 Staff, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Police violence, Protests

By Staff of Reuters - SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Thousands of people took to the streets in U.S. cities on Friday to denounce the fatal police shootings of two black men this week, marching the day after a gunman killed five police officers watching over a similar demonstration in Dallas. Protesters clogged roadways in New York City, Atlanta and Philadelphia on Friday evening, and events also were planned for San Francisco and Phoenix. Local media reports did not indicate any immediate instances of major clashes or injuries.

Why Police Violence Will Not End

July 9, 2016 Feisal G. Mohamed, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), police brutality, Police violence

By Feisal G. Mohamed for The Huffington Post - Let’s begin with the obvious. There can be no justification for the murder of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling or any other innocent person, and anyone denying that African-Americans suffer disproportionately from police violence is either deluded or disingenuous. Amongst the deluded and disingenuous are those who carry such reactionary banners as “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter.” A steady stream of death is not a series of missteps or errors in judgment; it is a willed choice, an approach to policing in action.

Fighting To Live Free Of Police Violence While Black

June 8, 2016 Alicia Garza, www.truth-out.org Educate! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black People, police brutality, Police violence

By Alicia Garza for Truthout - 2010 marked the beginning of a historic period of Black resistance to police terrorism and state-sanctioned violence. Beginning with the murder of Oscar Grant in January 2010 by then-BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, and continuing with the high-profile cases of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Tamir Rice and too many others, police violence, particularly in poor and Black communities, has taken center stage nationwide.

Newsletter: Ending The Political Charade

April 23, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance Newsletter Baltimore, climate crisis, COP21, Democracy, Democracy Spring, Divestment, Environmental racism, Fracking, Freddie Gray, Freedom of the Press, Gas, Incinerators, killed by police, Noam Chomsky, Nonviolence, Nuclear Energy, Nuit Debout, Police violence, Racism, Solar Energy, TPP, wealth inequality, Wind

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese. This week, on Earth Day, representatives from 130 countries gathered at the United Nations in New York City to sign the climate treaty agreed upon in Paris last December. As they smiled for the camera and promised to do their best to hold the temperature down, climate activists posted an open letter stating that it is too late, the climate emergency is already here. Leading up to the signing of the Paris Treaty this week were actions to stop the advance of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Many events to mark the one year anniversary are taking place this week and the next in Baltimore to remember the uprising. Erica Chenoweth, the author of "How Civil Resistance Works", writes that elections both locally and globally are being shaped by nonviolent resistance. In the US, no matter who is elected president in the November election, it will be critical for those who have been activated to continue to organize and visibly protest.

Baltimore: One Year After The Uprising

April 23, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org Create! Baltimore, killed by police, Land trusts, Participatory budgeting, Police violence, Public Banking, Worker Cooperative

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. Last April after the killing of Freddie Gray Baltimore experienced an uprising. It was not what was shown on television, which highlighted a few hours of burning cars and buildings, but a week long event that brought the city together. People of all ages and races called for transformation of the city so it corrected the injustices of decades of neglect and racism in the poor black communities of East and West Baltimore. As you can hear from our first two guests the problems of police violence continue to plague Baltimore but residents or also organizing to make the call for change a reality. A year later there is a lot of community organizing going on, as you can hear from Derrick Chase and Abdul Salaam below, which will take time to show results. The city is also going through a major local election where a new mayor and city council will be elected.

Baltimore Police Condemned On Freddie Gray Anniversary

April 17, 2016 John Zangas and Anne Meador, www.dcmediagroup.us Resist! Baltimore, Freddie Gray, killed by police, Police violence

By John Zangas and Anne Meador for DC Media Group. Families of unarmed Blacks who were slain by police rallied in West Baltimore one year after Freddie Gray died of injuries sustained in police custody. Six families joined protesters to tell stories about family members who had also been killed by police. They marched to the site where Gray had been apprehended and dragged into the police van, paused for a moment of silence and then proceeded four blocks past the local police precinct. “This is 21st-century lynching at its best,” said Reverend C.D. Witherspoon. “And it goes by the name police brutality.” People gathered in front of the CVS at the corner of West North and Pennsylvania Avenue. The store became infamous when rioters smashed the windows, looted and set fire to it a year ago. Today, large signs saying “Now Open” are displayed on the building.

Newsletter – Building Toward Political Revolution

April 9, 2016 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Newsletter Banking and Finance, Corporate crime, Democracy movement, Education, Farmworkers, Fight for 15, France, Living Wage, Minimum Wage, Neo-Liberalism, Nuit Debout, Opt-Out, Police violence, Prisoner rights, Privatization, Student Activism, Tax Evasion, Tax havens, Whistleblowers, Worker Rights

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. Of course, we also know the Panama Papers leak is about just one tax evasion firm, and not a major one. This is a small tip of a massive tax evasion iceberg. Estimates are that $7.6 trillion in individual assets are in tax havens, about one-tenth of the global GPD. The use of tax havens has grown 25 percent from 2009 to 2015. Gabriel Zucman, author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens and assistant professor at UC Berkeley estimates that US citizens have at least $1.2 trillion stashed offshore, costing $200 billion a year worldwide in lost tax revenue and US transnational corporations are underpaying their taxes worldwide by $130 billion. The Panama Papers will escalate demands for transformation of the economy as well as of government; continue to increase pressure on capitalism and result in the growth of the people powered movement for economic justice.

Newsletter: Global Solidarity Is Rising

February 7, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, Newsletter Banking and Finance, Blockades, Climate Change, Extraction, Exxon, FERC, Flint, Fracking, Groundwater, Indigenous Peoples, Lead, Leonard Peltier, Pipelines, Police violence, Uranium

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. A key ingredient of previous successful campaigns to stop 'free trade' agreements is cross-border solidarity. Uniting struggles globally, as well as locally, is critical for other issues as well. Via Campesina, a movement started by peasants in 1993, has grown to become a global movement that recognizes the intersectionality between food security, land rights, the climate crisis and transnational corporate power. They work together to both resist harmful policies and to create necessary alternatives by organizing seed exchanges and impacting public policy. Similarly, global solidarity is increasing around the climate crisis.

Ethiopia Brutally Cracking Down On Months Of Protests

January 24, 2016 Nick Robins-Early, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Ethiopia, Ethnic conflict, killed by police, Land conflict, Police abuse, Police violence

By Nick Robins-Early for Huffington Post. While the protests met their initial goal of stopping the urban expansion, demonstrators have been invigorated by the crackdown and have continued to rally against the government. "The complaints of the protesters have now expanded to include the killing of peaceful protesters and decades of marginalization," Human Rights Watch Horn of Africa researcher Felix Horne told The WorldPost over email. What began as a protest over land rights is now representative of a number of grievances with the government and ruling EPRDF. Ethiopia has seen a period of rapid economic growth in the past 10 years, but its urban and industrial expansion has also resulted in land disputes, corruption and authoritarian crackdowns on opposition groups. As demonstrators increasingly demand solutions for Ethiopia's many social and political problems, rights groups worry that the unrest and violence will continue.

Protests, Boycott Greet Rahm Emanuel At MLK Breakfast

January 17, 2016 Bill Ruthhart and Juan Perez Jr., www.chicagotribune.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Chicago, MLK, Police violence, Rahm Emanuel

By Bill Ruthhart and Juan Perez Jr. for the Chicago Tribune. For 30 years, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Interfaith Breakfast hosted by Chicago's mayor has had a political undercurrent, as politicians from across the city paid tribute to the legendary civil rights leader while paying attention to the important constituency of African-American voters. But on Friday, the event became a political spectacle. Those who chose to attend Emanuel's event were greeted by about 20 angry protesters shouting "Shame on you!" as Chicago police worked to keep the group of demonstrators from blocking the entrance to the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. The breakfast itself was interrupted three times by protesters. Ministers produced a list, claiming that more than 100 pastors had chosen to boycott the breakfast. "The mayor had to go to his old tactics of bringing busloads of people in from the nursing homes, retirement centers to bring some black faces in to fill the room."

Baltimore: Video Disputes Police Account Of Shooting

January 17, 2016 Justin Fenton, www.baltimoresun.com Resist! Baltimore, Police shooting, Police violence, Rasicm

By Justin Fenton for the Baltimore Sun. The lawyer for a man shot by Baltimore police three years ago is claiming a new video shows that officers lied about the circumstances that led up to the shooting. When police officers shot Shaun Mouzon in January 2013, an officer wrote in charging documents that they did so because Mouzon had driven his car at them. But attorney A. Dwight Pettit said surveillance camera video he obtained from the city under a public records request tells a different story. "The car was stopped in traffic," Pettit said. "The allegation that their lives were in danger by the movement of the car is absolutely ridiculous and is an absolute misstatement of the facts." Mouzon filed a lawsuit in April 2014 against the Police Department and several officers involved in the incident. He filed an amended suit this week in part based on his attorneys' observations on the video. His attorneys broadened the scope of the lawsuit to allege a "pattern and practice" of brutality by the Police Department.

Coming Soon: The Next Tamir Rice

January 13, 2016 Michael Nigro, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Cleveland, Police abuse, Police violence, Tamir Rice

Michael Nigro for The Huffington Post - A Cleveland police cruiser lurches forward into a coterie of protesters and stops dangerously close to hitting a number of us who, along with about 150 others, had taken the streets for a second day in a row since the local grand jury decided not to indict the officers who shot and killed 12-year old Tamir Rice. And then, quite unbelievably, the officer behind the wheel does it again; he continues his odd and unnecessary game of chicken with the protesters. A siren blast. An engine rev. And then the cop bucks his car closer. And then he does it again.

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