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Forest Defender Speaks From Bartow County Jail

Bartow County, GA — Over 7 weeks after they were arrested while distributing fliers in a small suburb of Atlanta, Charley Tennenbaum continues to be held in the Bartow County Jail for actions they say are protected by the First Amendment. On April 28, Charley and two other individuals were arrested in the city of White, Georgia and slapped with felony charges for distributing fliers containing information about Jonathan Salcedo, a Georgia State Patrol trooper who has been linked to the killing of Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Esteban Paez Terán. Tortuguita was killed by police during a raid on the Weelaunee Forest on January 18.

Week Of Action Demands Stop Cop City!

Within a day of the massive community turnout at the June 5 Atlanta City Council meeting — where, despite 16 1/2 hours of public comment opposing the over $67 million of taxpayer money to build the militarized police training center in the Weelaunee Forest, the Council approved the expenditure — a new strategy to stop “Cop City” was announced on the steps of City Hall. Representatives of multiple organizations, including Community Movement Builders, the NAACP Legal Fund, Movement for Black Lives, Working Families Party and Black Voters Matter, described the referendum process to allow the people of Atlanta to vote on the fate of Cop City.

Jail Support Won’t Stop Until Everyone Is Free

The abolitionist movement is thriving in Chicago, and gaining momentum each day. On a warm Sunday on May 7, 2023, more than 60 people attended a rally outside Cook County Jail in protest and solidarity with current and former incarcerated people subjected to the jail’s inhumane conditions, including a new ban on paper that restricts access to everything from legal documents to photographs of loved ones, and a staggering seven deaths inside the jail since January, are just two examples. The rally was organized in part by Chicago Community Jail Support (CCJS), an abolitionist, volunteer-run mutual aid group that came together during the summer 2020 George Floyd protests.

The Colonial Origins Of The UChicago Police

The story I want to tell has to do with the Philippines in the early twentieth century. But it will also have to do with policing across the United States and here on campus, and ultimately with the University of Chicago. In 1898, the United States declared sovereignty over the Philippine Islands, places which President McKinley and most Americans had no idea even existed. But as a result of the Spanish-American war in 1898 the US did come to learn about the Philippines. It sent its troops there to fight the Spanish, and upon defeating Spain, it seized the Philippines and its millions of inhabitants as its new colonial territory.

Justice Department Finds Pattern Of Discriminatory Policing In Minneapolis

The Minneapolis Police Department routinely engages in a pattern of racist and abusive behavior that deprives people of their constitutional rights, according to the findings of a Justice Department investigation prompted by the murder of George Floyd three years ago. The 89-page report, released Friday, caps an investigation launched in April 2021. It outlined four core findings: The department uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force; it unlawfully discriminates against Black and Native American people; it violates citizens' free speech rights; and officers discriminate against people with behavioral health disabilities when responding to calls, at times causing trauma or death.

‘Cop City’ Protesters Visit Nationwide Insurance

Scottsdale, Arizona — “I’m here in an official capacity, representing Nationwide,” said a protester in a blue wig and a skintight blue acrylic body suit. She wore placards strung across her shoulders with hand-painted replicas of the Nationwide logo on the front and back of her body. Her voice was muffled by the suit, which covered her entire face, hands, and probably feet. She peered out through eye holes it looked like she’d cut herself. “This insurance contract I’ve signed with Cop City is just not worth it from a business perspective,” she explained. “And also because I’m going against the wishes of the people and the Earth.” 

State Repression Targets The Stop Cop City Movement

Atlanta, Georgia is no mecca. The idea that it is a “good for Black people” city is a lie. Atlanta is little more than a glorified plantation where powerful white people give directions to the Black people they choose to be overseers. The power of the latter group is severely limited of course. They can always be counted on to act on behalf of the white power structure they serve. No one should be shocked that members of the Atlanta City Council listened to hours of impassioned testimony from their constituents opposing what they call a Public Safety Training Center yet still voted to approve an initial $31 million expenditure by a vote of 11 to 4.

Atlanta City Council Approves USD 31 Million For Controversial ‘Cop City’

Atlanta’s 15-member City Council approved USD 31 million in funding to help build “Cop City,” the “urban warfare” training facility proposed to be built in the forest in the southern city. The 11-4 vote took place after 15 hours of public comments were heard regarding the project, with the vast majority expressing overwhelming concern over the project and and rejecting it. Throughout the session, over 1,000 people gathered inside and outside Atlanta City Hall to protest the controversial project. The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), ostensibly a nonprofit but which provides support for the Atlanta Police Department and is spearheading the project of Cop City, believes that the facility is necessary.

Arizona Town Chose Profit Over Support For Grieving Family

Tomas Ayala was a good man who was loved deeply by his family and friends.  He had a bright future ahead of him and he followed the traditional ways of his Yaqui and Navajo family. Tragically, Tomas passed away on May 13th after being struck by a drunk driver. He was 20 years old. No family is ever prepared for this. Despite existing protocols for this type of tragedy occurring in the Town of Sahuarita, Arizona; the town failed to support the Ayala family when they needed it most. This failure caused their family to be robbed of a private and peaceful grieving; instead they were forced to be distracted by insensitive demands from the town.

Training Center Costs Call Years Of Promises Into Question

In the spring of 2021, the Atlanta Police Foundation announced an attractive deal for city taxpayers. If the city put up $30 million for a public safety training center, the nonprofit and its philanthropic partners would handle the rest of the project’s $90 million price tag. That promise was repeated month after month, year after year, by one mayor and then the next. Today, the Atlanta Police Foundation still asks for donations to the project on a fundraising page that says the city will only contribute $30 million to the cause. But that’s not true. And it hasn’t been true for years.

LDF’s Concerns About Recent Arrest Of Atlanta Solidarity Fund Members

On May 31, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced that law enforcement officials raided the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, arresting and charging three of its staff with charity fraud and money laundering. In response, Legal Defense Fund (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Janai S. Nelson issued the following statement: “We are deeply concerned about the apparent targeting of Atlanta Solidarity Fund members, Marlon Kautz, Savannah Patterson, and Adele Maclean, particularly in light of Magistrate Judge James Altman’s recent criticism of the evidence presented by the State against them, which he decried as unimpressive in today’s bail hearing.

American Police Are Basically Untouchable; How Did It Get This Bad?

The terror of police power is a recurring fact of American life, particularly in this country’s poorest communities and in communities of color. The power of officers comes not only from the strength of arms, but also from a legal system that is swift to protect its enforcers, yet slow to hold them to account. Where did this virtual immunity from prosecution come from? Has it always been this way? And if not, how has police power and impunity changed through the ages? Historian Joanna Schwartz joins The Chris Hedges report to discuss her new book, Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable. Joanna Schwartz is a professor of law at UCLA, where she teaches civil procedure and courses on police accountability and public interest lawyering.

If The Police Can Decide Who Qualifies As A Journalist, There Is No Free Press

On a cold Christmas night in 2021 in the picturesque mountain city of Asheville, North Carolina, The Asheville Blade journalist Veronica Coit sat in a police station waiting to be booked. A police officer motioned toward Coit and said, “She says she’s press.” The magistrate responded: “Is she real press?” “In that very moment, he could’ve decided that we were press, which we were. The magistrate has the legal right to say ‘no’ [to booking someone].” But the magistrate didn’t exercise that right. Both Coit and their colleague Matilda Bliss were processed for trespassing while covering the eviction of unhoused people at Aston Park in Asheville.

Arrest Of Bail Fund Organizers In Atlanta Sets A Dangerous Precedent

Officers from the Atlanta Police Department (APD) and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) raided an activist house in the southern US city of Atlanta on the morning of May 31. During the raid, the officers arrested three members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, a non-profit organization that provides “support for people who are arrested at protests, or prosecuted for movement involvement” by way of jail and legal support and accompaniment, bail funds, and helping provide access to representation. The three arrested organizers, Marlon Kautz, Adele Maclean and Savannah Patterson, were booked in the DeKalb County Jail where they were each charged with money laundering and charity fraud.

My Great-Uncle Was Shot At The Memorial Day Massacre

You might think that, having been raised a mile from where 10 workers were killed and 30 more were shot by police while picketing a steel plant, I would have heard of such a tragedy. More confounding, my great-uncle, Eddie Marasovic, was wounded by a police bullet in that violent affair that would become known as a massacre. Yet I knew nothing of it. It happened in May, 1937, before I was born, on the prairie outside the Republic Steel plant on Chicago’s East Side. This spit of land, along Lake Michigan’s southern tip, linked the steel plants of southern Chicago to a long string of industry that reached through Indiana, giving rise to what labor economists called the largest steel producing region in the world.
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