Rest In Power Michael Marshall – The Latest Victim of Denver Police Violence

From Revolution News:

The Denver Sheriff Department has murdered again. Michael Marshall passed away as a result of injuries sustained at the hands of Denver sheriff deputies around 6:30pm on November 20, 2015, after over a week on life support.

What does a community do in the absence of official channels to seek justice? What does a community do in the face of killers who operate with impunity—backed by the State? Killers who, to add insult to injury, pass on the monetary and emotional costs of their brutality to the very city they brutalize.

This is the challenge facing some communities in Denver, and many communities across the United States. But it’s a challenge they’ve faced before.

In 2010, Denver sheriff deputies pummeled, tasered, and beat Marvin Booker to death in the Denver jail. Why? Booker was a 50-something, Black, slender, unhoused, and beloved street preacher, who dealt with mental health challenges, and he didn’t want to give up his shoes.

Marvin Booker wasn’t a threat. He wasn’t violent. And he didn’t need to be separated from his shoes, which were one of his only possessions.

But in the milieu of discipline and punishment, control of bodies, and the breaking of human spirits, Denver sheriff deputies used such force to separate Booker from his shoes that he subsequently died.

Nobody was reprimanded. Nobody was held to account. If you spend time in Denver’s jail today you may be held under guard by some of the same people who murdered Marvin Booker.

Ultimately, it was Denver taxpayers who forked over some recompense as they had to cover the $6 million payout made to Booker’s family.

So goes the cycle of brutality, impunity, and taxpayer burden. And now it begins anew, with a strikingly similar case of brutality to the one that stole Marvin Booker’s life. Michael Marshall, a 50-year-old, Black, unhoused, slender man, who also described himself as a street preacher and dealt with mental health challenges, lost his life at the hands of Denver sheriff deputies trying to restrain him.

Why they were trying to restrain him isn’t entirely clear, but reporting from the Colorado Independent indicates that video footage shows Marshall posed no physical threat to the officers who killed him.

After over a week on life support following his beating at the hands of three deputies, Marshall passed away.

His killers remain unidentified and will likely receive little more than a paid vacation as a result of their actions. But one thing is for sure—the community of Denver will respond.

Following Booker’s killing hundreds of Denverites took to the streets in multiple protests. Marshall’s killing will likely prompt a similar response.

Indeed, concerned citizens already rallied for a press conference and a chance to mourn with family outside the jail in which Marshall was killed.

My question: Isn’t an even stronger response warranted?

At what point does Denver rise up as we’ve seen Baltimore, Ferguson, and other cities in the face of routine police violence? And who will throw the first brick, stone, or Molotov cocktail?

Because something needs to change.

And in spite of recommendations from independent parties, and a newly appointed sheriff, the jail’s use of force policy remains the same. And now it has again led to the killing of a harmless Black man.

Michael Marshall’s killing happens at the intersections of oppression: Racism, classism, and ableism. A paranoid schizophrenic who may or may not have been able to recognize commands coming from sheriff deputies or police officers, Marshall was held on a bond of only $100 for an alleged minor offense.

If our inJustice System wasn’t racist, classist, and ableist, Michael Marshall would’ve never found himself trapped within the cold concrete halls of the Denver jail where he would be murdered.

If our inJustice System wasn’t structured around the control of bodies, using violence to instill docility, and compelling people to follow rules structured to protect elite interests through arbitrary discipline, Michael Marshall would still be alive.

If our inJustice System truly presumed the innocence of those forced through it, nobody would sit in jail over a $100 bond, and Michael Marshall would still be alive.

If our inJustice System was designed for the people who are most-often forced through it, then it would offer them services to improve their situations, not Tasers and violence, and Michael Marshall would still be alive.

It’s long past time for this to change. What will we do to make sure that happens?

Another world is possible, but it will only come if we fight for it. So, Denver, rise up. Fight for Marvin. Fight for Michael. Fight for all those who came before them, in the hope that fewer will come after.

Denver DA Releases Video of Paul Castaway’s Murder

From Denver Autonomous Action:

The video of Paul Castaway’s legally sanctioned murder has been released, here  (Warning Graphic) by the Denver DA, along with a statement.  Paul Castaway is a Lakota man who was killed in cold blood by the Denver Police. He was killed while holding a knife to his own neck, his last words were, “Whats wrong with you guys?”

Given Mitch Morrisey’s long standing track record of not doing shit, no one was surprised by the latest decision to not prosecute Michael Traudt for the murder of Paul Castaway.  Admissions like, (he)“started to move the knife from his throat towards me, and he didn’t stick it out, but he brought it down” make it obvious that Paul Castaway should not have been killed.

If anything is clear about the statement that the Denver DA has released, it’s how little DPD values the lives of the people they are sworn to protect.  Instead of someone equipped to deal with such a complex situation they sent in a murderous cop, one who goes by the instagram alias of Gungslinger.

The people of Denver are sick of these racist, fascist violent cops brutalizing and killing us, and we are just as sick of bootlicking city officials like Morrissey who actively cover for and enable this violent behavior by law enforcement.

Rest in Power Paul Castaway, taken too soon.

Our Palestine statement draws on history of Black internationalism, says organizer

From Electronic Intifada:

Black liberation movements in the US have increasingly been making connections with Palestine. (Mikasi/Flickr)

Kristian Davis Bailey is a Detroit-based writer and organizer who recently put together the “Black for Palestine” statement. More than 1,100 Black scholars, activists, students, artists and organizations have signed on, including Angela Davis, Cornel West, Talib Kweli, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and others.

The statement lays out a framework for Black solidarity with Palestinian liberation and calls for exploring the connections between Palestinian and Black liberation as well as the oppressive linkages between the United States and Israel. The statement calls for support of boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts against Israel and calls attention to Israel’s oppression of African-descended populations in Palestine.

Davis Bailey has written for Ebony, Mondoweiss, Truth-Out and elsewhere. I caught up with him to find out more about “Black for Palestine” and the opportunities and challenges it presents.

Jimmy Johnson: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me today. Please introduce yourself.

Kristian Davis Bailey: My name is Kristian Davis Bailey and I’m one of the co-organizers of the “Black For Palestine” statement. I’m currently a freelance writer based in Detroit.

JJ: Where were you before Detroit and what were you doing?

KDB: Before Detroit I was a student at Stanford where I was involved with Students for Justice in Palestine at the campus level, across California and nationally.

JJ: Can you tell me a bit about the “Black For Palestine” statement and the process of creating it?

KDB: The statement emerged out of two separate statements that I and my co-organizer Khury Petersen-Smith had organized last summer during the height of the assault on Gaza. We’d each found ourselves unable to publish our statements while the media would pick it up so we figured that this year we would combine our efforts to write a statement on the anniversary of the assault on Gaza which wound up being much bigger than what each of us had organized the summer before.

It is worth noting that some of the key signatories this year had also signed last year. The Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis had signed on to last year’s statement before Mike Brown was killed and connections were being made to Palestine. Hopefully we’ll publish those earlier statements soon.

JJ: You bring up a good connection with the Organization for Black Struggle because the release of this statement is not only the anniversary of the attack on Gaza but also something going on in the US. Can you make that connection? Both your intentions around the timing of the release, as well as the connections you see there.

KDB: It was really important for us to note that the statement emerged out of the past year of solidarity between the Black and Palestinian struggles, specifically: connections people were making on the ground in Ferguson to Palestine. I think none of the developments in the past year would have happened if people on the ground hadn’t themselves started to organically connect what they were witnessing in terms of military vehicles in their communities, being tear-gassed and shot at during protests, if they hadn’t connected those things to what they were seeing in Palestine and if Palestinian organizers hadn’t reached out in solidarity to the people in Ferguson.

What the statement represents is how firm of a connection there is for organizers in St. Louis with the Palestinian struggle. It’s not just a slogan we’ve used at protests but something that people facing the brunt of repression and doing the majority of the organizing on the ground have decided to be a part of themselves. I think that’s why St. Louis is the most represented city on the statement in terms of organizational signatories.

JJ: It sounds kind of like the development and the recruitment of the signatories is really based in joint work that’s being done together.

KDB: Right. Most of the people who signed the statement, whether they’re individuals or organizations, have been actively engaging with Palestine well before the last year. There were a lot of old school organizers who have been doing this solidarity work since the ’60s and ’70s that signed on, in addition to groups like the Dream Defenders which over the past few years have started to engage more with the Palestinian issue. So, I forget what your question is but my answer is “yes” [laughter].

JJ: A Kenyan author named Mukoma Wa Ngugi gave a presentation a few years back at Wayne State here in Detroit and he was talking specifically about relations between African migrants and Black Americans and he talked about the way that white supremacy forms a veil that literally colors the relationships between these two groups but also between all groups, although the details are different for any two groups.

And one of the things he mentioned was that the only way to get past this is to put in work together to supersede and subvert this veil that colors the relationships between, for example, Black folks and Palestinians, Black folks and Arab folks. That sounds a little bit like what’s going on.

KDB: Again I’ll focus on St. Louis because that’s a story I know a little bit about. The solidarity organizing between the Organization for Black Struggle and the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee has been going on for at least three or four years. The two groups both worked together to oppose Veolia being given a contract to privatize the city’s water, both recognizing what Veolia was doing in occupied Palestine and for the danger it presented to the people in St. Louis.

The Organization for Black Struggle was also crucial in a cultural boycott action. I don’t know how many years ago it was but it was Organization for Black Struggle organizers who said, “We will pull out of this event unless these artists are disinvited.” That was the work of very principled solidarity on the part of the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee.

At the same time you have a Palestinian member of the solidarity committee whose father is a shop owner in a predominantly Black part of St. Louis and what he had been working on was to take all of the hard liquor out of his store after he was realizing the impact it was having on the Black community in St. Louis. He also set up a couple of initiatives to contribute some of the profits from his shop to local organizing efforts in the community.

I wanted to offer that as a real solid example of what Palestinian solidarity in the US, or not even solidarity but direct action against anti-Blackness looks like, and that’s an example of some of the principled actions and alliances that preceded the Ferguson-Palestine connection and solidarity.

JJ: This isn’t the first statement of Black solidarity with Palestine. Can you contextualize this action a bit in the internationalism of the radical Black tradition?

KDB: Definitely. So Black support for Palestine comes out of the tradition of Black internationalism within the radical segment of our liberation struggle. Malcolm X was talking about the dangers of Zionism in the 1960s. The Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee released its statement at the same time the Black Panther Party was training with the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] in Algeria.

In 1970 you had a group of prominent Black activists or scholars take out a New York Times ad supporting Palestinian liberation from Zionism and some of those signatories also signed our statement today in 2015. So there is a rich tradition of Black solidarity with international struggles broadly, and specifically with Palestine. I definitely contextualize this statement within that broader history of Black internationalism.

JJ: What would you say is the purpose of releasing this statement beyond a symbolic declaration of solidarity?

KDB: There are a couple of things. There is the suggestion that both Black and Palestinian people, and people around the world that support us, can join very targeted campaigns against companies that profit from the oppression of both groups, such as G4S and Veolia. Beyond that one of my individual hopes as an organizer is that this represents the current chapter of the Black liberation movement getting involved in the international arena once again to the degree that we were in the ’60s and ’70s. Because I think a lot of that momentum and a lot of those alliances were very intentionally targeted or repressed in the ’80s up through today even.

JJ: Some of the work being done to reignite alliances that were built between radical groups in the 1960s and ’70s, we’ve seen some attempts of that where there is a flattening effect. For example non-Black people of color using a people of color paradigm and erasing the specificities of anti-Blackness. Can you talk a little bit about the opportunities presented by “Black For Palestine” to engage not only Palestinian liberation but the specificity of anti-Blackness in solidarity?

KDB: Definitely. I’m glad you raised that because one of the points of reference I organize from is the understanding that white supremacy affects different groups in different ways here in the United States. So the anti-Black racism and the anti-Blackness that we experience and live under is of a distinct nature from the anti-indigenous or genocidal policies that indigenous folks here have experienced, is distinct from the experiences of non-Black, non-indigenous immigrants to this country.

A lot of times what happens is the differences between these groups are flattened out where we say “people of color” and we talk about how people of color are oppressed under white supremacy without acknowledging the power dynamics that are at play between our communities — so without acknowledging that every non-Black ethnic group or immigrant group in the United States is complicit in anti-Blackness or anti-Black racism.

One of the things that I hope comes up in discussions is a very critical examination of the ways that Palestinians — or just non-Black people in the United States — participate in anti-Blackness. So that for me represents a difference between joint struggle and maybe solidarity, where under joint struggle we acknowledge the different relations in terms of power between our communities and how that impacts how we relate to each other and how we organize.

So I think there’s a lot of room coming out of this statement for folks to organize around Arab anti-Black racism or for Palestine supporters who aren’t Arab to organize against their own anti-Blackness or their position as settlers in a settler colonial society.

JJ: One thing that stands out among many parts of the “Black For Palestine” statement is the phrasing that “Israel’s widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries.” So can you expand upon this idea of the colonial, carceral state?

KDB: Sure. The first thing I want to talk about is how incredibly powerful of an experience and expression it was to have 10 currently incarcerated political prisoners respond to our call for signatures and sign the statement from behind bars. Their participation in our statement highlights the fact that they’re also a population whose liberation from the prison-industrial complex we need to be fighting for.

Also they represent the internationalism and revolutionary spirit that was intentionally targeted and killed from the 1980s onward. So their participation and inclusion in this statement is a link back to that era, specifically Mumia Abu-Jamal and Sundiata Acoli. Beyond that one of the things I’m thinking of about that line on mass incarceration is the need to abolish prisons.

There is different rhetoric around prisons in Palestine and here in the US but I do think they’re similar enough in the sense that we often don’t think of people arrested for drug crimes in the US as political prisoners but they are imprisoned under a very intentional political system that discriminates against them across every point of the so-called justice system.

The need to criminalize the existence or resistance of populations under settler colonialism leads to mass or hyper incarceration both in the United States and in Palestine and that prison abolition in that context is something we need to center.

JJ: What can Palestinian and Black people learn from each other?

KBD: From Palestinians we learn the importance of struggling for self-determination — a right that Black people in the US have never experienced, from our ancestor’s forcible kidnapping to this continent and the end of the Civil War through today. This is a right that Palestinians refuse to let go of through their sumoud, or steadfastness — and it is a right that Black people must claim as well.

The Black for Palestine statement highlighted the right of return as the most important aspect of justice for Palestinians because it cuts to the core of the “conflict” and is dismissed by Zionists and the US as “unrealistic.” For Palestinians to cling to and achieve the most “impossible” of their calls would be a boon to us, as we still fight for the “unrealistic” demands of reparations for our ancestors’ free and forced labor, or the abolition of prisons and the police.

The call for boycott, divestment and sanctions also models what it might look like for Black people in the US, across our varying political ideologies, to present basic criteria for us to exercise our own right to self-determination and to present basic actions people around the world can take to help us actualize our self-determination.

Our post-civil rights condition and the post-apartheid South African condition drive home the necessity for Palestinians to demand economic restructuring and safeguards both against decades of disinvestment and against neoliberal forces within the Palestinian political class. Full justice for Palestinians makes the case stronger for our own organizing in the US; full justice for Black Americans or South Africans makes the case stronger for Palestinians. I see each of these struggles as my own, because a victory for one group is a victory for us all. That is what motivates my work on this issue.

JJ: What kind of opportunities do you think “Black For Palestine” opens up for organizational solidarity with Black people in Palestine, be those articulated to the Israeli settler society or native Black Palestinians?

KDB: I think it opens up a lot of opportunities. One idea that has already come up as a result of the statement is bringing a delegation of African Palestinians here to the US so organizers can engage with them because too often they’re a population that gets erased from the narratives about Palestine within our own movement spaces here in the United States. And I know that there is already ongoing efforts between groups like the Dream Defenders and Black Youth Project 100 to connect Black and Brown people in the United States with the different African populations in historic Palestine, whether that is Ethiopian Israelis, Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers or African Palestinians.

This work is already happening so I think the statement is just another step for potential organizing between Africans in historic Palestine and Black people in the US.

September 9 Protest at Denver DA Mitch Morrissey’s house

From Denver Action Network:

Video of Deputy Sheriff Brady Lovinger beating Anthony Waller in court in 2012. Projected onto District Attorney Mitch Morrissey’s house 9/9/15

Around 7:30 PM on a beautiful wednesday night in one of the richest neighborhoods in Denver, the Denver Action Network held our third home demonstration at the residence of Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrisey. We are starting a new tradition of random, unannounced home visits to officials who cover for the violent, racist gangs that make up Denver’s “law enforcement” apparatus.

“On September 11, 2012 Anthony Waller, an African American man who was brought to court in shackles, was assaulted by Deputy Sheriff Brady Lovingier in the courtroom at the downtown Denver Detention Center in an unprovoked attack as Mr. Waller was being advised of his rights. According to his attorney Kenneth Padilla, Mr. Waller suffered severe bodily injuries to his head, including a closed head injury, left orbital blowout fracture and had his teeth knocked out. Mr. Waller also reportedly sustained injuries to his back, neck, legs, arms, ankles, and suffered a hernia.
The three year statute of limitations is running out to prosecute Deputy Lovingier for this brutal assault that was caught on video and released by the press to the public. Judge Doris Burd filed a complaint with the Sheriff Department against Deputy Lovingier. However, a formal response didn’t come until late September 2013 when the City suspended Lovingier for 30 days, which he is appealing, for the kind of assault that would get a civilian arrested, convicted and incarcerated by DA Morrissey.”

(Info taken from Colorado Progressive Coalition et al., source: https://www.facebook.com/events/519825488169175)

The surveillance video of Deputy Lovingier brutally beating Mr. Waller in his 2012 court appearance can be seen here: (trigger warning) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDrIirwfzt8&

Video of Deputy Sheriff Brady Lovinger beating Anthony Waller in court in 2012. Projected onto District Attorney Mitch Morrissey’s house 9/9/15

Our visit to Mitch Morrissey tonight was a reminder that the people of Denver are sick of these racist, fascist violent cops brutalizing and killing us, and we are just as sick of bootlicking city officials like Morrissey who actively cover for and enable this violent behavior by law enforcement. From now on, endorsing police violence will come with personal and social consequences. To Mitch Morrisey and all future District Attorneys of Denver: indict and prosecute violent cops, or we will make sure your whole neighborhood knows what a cowardly piece of shit you are. You may seek to bury and ignore the truth about police violence in Denver, but we will continue to bring the truth to your doorstep.

Chalk left in the street outside DA Mitch Morrisey’s house

Solidarity with all people resisting state violence in Denver and around the world! Fuck the police!

Love, The Denver Action Network, 9/9/15

Against the Charges. Against the Cops. Against the Nazis: Update from the struggle in Olympia, WA

From IT’S GOING DOWN:

Sunday, August 30th:

In anticipation of the coming week, the city is covered in anti-police graffiti and posters, most prevalent is the statement: No Cops, No Charges.

Wednesday, September 2nd:

At a 2pm press conference, Thurston County Prosecutor/Pig Fucker Jon Tunheim announces that the state will stand behind their little piglet Officer Ryan Donald, who in the early morning of May 21st shot two unarmed black men. The men, Andre and Bryson Chaplin allegedly tried to defend themselves with skateboards after fleeing from an attempted shoplifting. The pigs, their masters and their cheerleaders decry these young men as “criminal thugs” in a thinly veiled racism. To add insult to injury (multiple gunshot wounds to be specific) not only is the state NOT charging the cop, but prosecutors announced they in fact will be charging Andre and Bryson for assaulting the Officer. At the end of the news conference protesters chant “Fire Officer Donald!”

The reason for this outrageous yet predictable decision is clear to us. The state is more interested in protecting property than it is in our very lives and in the lives of black people in particular.

In this light, we believe it becomes easier to understand why a lone pig would have plenty of incentive to attempt to murder two young black men to protect a case of beer. That case of beer can be interpreted as a representation of the property relations upon which this entire society is built. The shooting is just an extension of the racist violence which is integral to its maintenance. And in the words of scumbag Tunheim, “A police officer really can not afford to lose that fight, to just put it bluntly.”

Whether these men are guilty or not is irrelevant to us because we don’t accept the law. The law upholds structural white supremacy and capitalist exploitation. Therefore the police, who are so willing to murder us in the interest of defending this social order and enforcing this law, must be fought. The racist system which values a case of beer more than two young lives needs to be destroyed, by any means necessary. Fuck the law.

Thursday, September 3rd:

Hundreds rally at a speak out to protest the state’s decision and demand justice for Andre and Bryson. During rush hour a small group barricades a main intersection with caution tape and chain link fencing, taken from a new condo development being built downtown. The group then marches chanting “Black Lives Matter/Blue Lives Murder” and proceeds to block off another major intersection downtown for several hours while, nearby, black participants speak to the larger rally, sharing experiences of racism and police violence at the speak out.

Later in the evening, an old Ford truck recognized as a vehicle used by Neo-Nazis (often flying a Confederate flag), is sighted as it slowly and menacingly drives past a group of anti-racists gathering downtown. The group reacts quickly to the truck’s presence, and a rowdy, mostly masked group takes to the streets, pursuing the vehicle with pipes and bats in hand, chasing the truck off. As the group is pursuing the vehicle into the industrial areas near downtown, an OPD SUV speeds up to drive between the group and the fascists. The chant, “OPD, ON THE ATTACK, WHILE THE NAZIS HAVE THEIR BACK” cuts both ways, clearly. The group then continues marching through downtown Olympia, blocking traffic with debris, lighting off fireworks and tagging a cop car and the police station with “ACAB” (all cops are bastards) as well as writing “No Cops No Charges ACAB” on a statue in front of City Hall.

It is believed that the Nazis identified in the Ford truck, later smash the windshield of a comrades car. Support funds are being gathered here.

Throughout the day, flyers are distributed promoting a Saturday march demanding “No charges against Andre and Bryson. No cops on our streets.”

Friday, September 4th:

Word circulates that Neo-Nazis are planning another rally in defense of the police the following evening. Either as a response to Saturday’s planned anti-police march or by coincidence, they proclaim their racist and paranoid intentions to “DEFEND THE NORTHWEST AGAINST THE LEFTIST SCUM AND THEIR JEWISH MANAGMENT”. Online they tellingly claim the states decision to not prosecute Donald as a “small victory” for white-supremacists. The call is posted on a fascist internet forum by known bonehead Jascha Manny. This is the same Nazi who led the rally on May 30th, when he and about ten of his racist friends were beaten down and chased out of town by a mob of armed anti-fascists.

This time Jascha promises he’s “EXPECTING A TURNOUT OF AT LEAST 100!!!” but after their prior humiliating defeat it is doubtful that anyone will heed the call. Still anti-fascists rally to once again defend Olympia from the threat of a Nazi convergence.

Saturday, September 5th:

By nightfall 50-60 anarchists and antifascists are assembled to drive the fascists out of our city once again. The group takes the street chanting “Nazis out of Oly/Fuck the police” and shoots off fire crackers. Rounds are made through downtown but if any Nazis showed up, they are careful to stay hidden. One man in a white truck tries to drive through the crowd and when asked if he likes the Nazis, responds “Yeah, I love Nazis!” and has his window broken.

They’re walking down 4th in #olympia and saying “nazis out of oly, f*** the police” pic.twitter.com/hwsCwitcCP

— Amelia Dickson (@Amelia_Oly) September 6, 2015

A man on a motorcycle with a confederate flag is stopped as people try to remove the flag from the bike. He pulls out a baton and a fight ensues. At the end of the scuffle the flag is burned in the street and the man is taken away in an ambulance. If the June 17th mass-shooting in Charleston, SC didn’t make it clear once and for all, the confederate flag is a symbol of hate and should not be tolerated. Although white entitlement may not want to give up this emblem of “The good ol’ days” (which most associate with the pain of segregation, slavery and white terrorism), anyone who flies the confederate flag should expect to be confronted as a racist. This particular “rebel” learns this the hard way. Two American flags hanging from light posts are also taken down and destroyed.

As some suspected, the fascists don’t show for their promised rematch. Their call to arms ended with a desperate attempt to guilt other white supremacists in the region to show. It whimpered “Because if you’re not there this time, you might as well hang up your boots now…” Well, time to hang up those boots. Your hateful ideology has no place on these streets.

As the night progresses it seems that the lines between the anti-fascist rally and the scheduled anti-police march are blurry if they exist at all. One seems to meld into the other. Perhaps it is common knowledge among participants that white supremacy must be fought on all fronts. The group is heard chanting “Cops and Klan/Hand in hand” and “We want revenge” before attacking City Hall and the Police Station with bats, rocks and paint bombs, leaving its plate-glass windows splattered with red paint and spider-webbed with broken glass.

The police use pepper spray and shoot pepper balls in an attempt to disperse the crowd. The march stays together for another few blocks, where people disperse safely. No arrests are made.

Olympia Police later report on social media “We try to stay pretty positive with our Instagram posts however we wanted to share with you what OPD is dealing with regarding the protests. Last night approximately 50 protesters marched the streets of downtown Olympia masked up and dressed in all black carrying weapons ranging from baseball bats to sticks to socks with rocks in them… At one point the protesters turned towards a patrol vehicle that was blocking traffic and started swinging bats while approaching it. Later, we received word that the protesters assaulted a man on a motorcycle and was (sic) beating him with a bat. While we responded to the victim the protesters continued on to City Hall and proceeded to use their weapons to break multiple windows and vandalize the building and patrol vehicles.”

Sunday, September 6th:

A hundred people march through Olympia in what is called a “March for Mothers” to show solidarity with the many families that have suffered at the hands of police violence and racism. They leave flowers behind the caution tape outside of the recently trashed city hall and place a sign reading “Justice must be served” in front of the boarded up entrance.

Tuesday, September 8th:

15-20 people occupy Thurston County Prosecutor Jon Tunheim’s office, disrupting the mornings proceedings of business as usual. Protesters tape signs up in the office declaring “Black lives matter” and “Drop the charges” and chant “Justice for Andre and Bryson”. The office employees and police are hands off in handling the disruption, perhaps in recognition of the volatility surrounding its recent decision and in an effort to avoiding escalation.

Conclusion:

There has been a powerful community reaction to this shooting and a broad diversity of tactics in how we have responded together. We see all of these gestures of support and solidarity as valuable in the fight against systemic racism and brutality. We seek to foster the mutual respect and collaboration necessary to become a real threat to those in power. We embrace all those who are active in this movement, not to advance their careers, and not to power monger for political legitimacy and control, but to do whatever is necessary to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.

A flyer distributed this week titled “Freedom Everywhere! Police Nowhere!” articulates our feelings well when it says “It must be made politically impossible for the city to prosecute Andre and Bryson.” This is a goal we can only achieve together. It continues “Our rage and rebellion is our weapon against this hellworld. Fuck the police, here and everywhere. The city council will never make this a safe place for any of us to live. There is no safety in a world with police.

As the state continues to prove it was never there for us, we seek to recover ways of supporting each other. The economy continues to keep us chained to varying levels of misery. The city does nothing to protect any of us from white supremacists, and in fact often hires them to its police force. Events of the last few months in Olympia have shown us that we can care for one another better than the state ever could. Who has supported the Chaplin family? Who ran Nazi bigots out of town? Who continues to keep our spirits up while every day new names of those killed by cops cross our Facebook and Twitter feeds? No candidate or institution will ever provide for us what we provide for each other.”

You can send financial support to Andre and Bryson here.

Fuck the Police forever.

-Some Olympia anarchists

Update on Eddien Patterson, Columbia Anti-KKK Arrestee

Posted on IT’S GOING DOWN:

From FreeEddien.wordpress.com:

We have just learned from Eddien’s Public Defender that he in fact can be bailed out despite violating his probation. His bail is $50K so we need $5K to bond him out. Eddien is currently doing okay in jail, but strongly wants to be bailed out and desires that all money be used for that first and later for his legal defense.

Eddien was initially charged with 2nd degree felony assault and battery by a mob as well as 3rd misdemeanor assault and battery. He also has the additional charge of Breach of Peace of a High and Aggravated Nature for allegedly breaking the windows of a KKK member’s pick up truck.

You can donate to Eddien’s defense/bail fund here here. Benefits of any kind are welcome–if you want to get in touch with us about any details shoot us an email at free.eddien@gmail.com.

Background:
Eddien was one of six arrested at an anti-KKK demonstration on July 18th in Columbia, SC. On that day around 2,000 people showed up to confront the Klan, whose rally was cut short out of concerns for “public safety.” In a historic show of opposition, a rowdy and diverse crowd of gangs, black nationalists, anarchists, and various anti-racists humiliated the Klan and their Nazi counterparts and literally chased them out of town. A short zine about the demonstration can be found here.

Kuala Lumpur: Police raid anarchist space Rumah Api (Malaysia)

From 325:

On 28th August (Friday), over a dozen police with automatic weapons and K-9 unit attacked Rumah Api (social center/house project in Kuala Lumpur) during a concert on that night. The police raided the house project and raid everybody during the concert and also trashed the living space of people who live there without any warrant or solid reason for the raid.

We all believe the raid were conducted due to the connection of Bersih 4 Rally which happen on the next days (29 and 30th) which is totally insane since the organizer of the concert, participants, and Rumah Api have little interest to join or even support the rally, due to our political stance on the issue of election and voting system.

The state use Rumah Api as the scapegoat of recent event of attack on banks and multinational corporations in KL for the past 2 years. So far, they found nothing to link us with that events. The police seize all the musical equipment at the concert hall, seize 2 computers of people who live there, one smart phone, artwork, and books belonging to people who live there. The police said they search the building for any weapons or explosives that can link us to terrorism.

All 160 people who got arrested were remanded for 3 days. Among the arrestees, there are comrades from United States, Germany, Spain, Philippines and Indonesia who attended the concert. According to the detainees, during the interrogation, the police ask about their participation with Rumah Api and what knowledge they had about Rumah Api and terrorism. They were given very little food or water and there are issues of mistreating the detainees, especially womyn detainees.

The police released all of the detainees on 31st August except two comrades, one from Manila and one from Bandung. The police mention that they still under detention due to the process of checking their status in Malaysia and because both comrades have records for entering this country without legal permit.

At the moment, they still held the computers and a smartphone until further notice to help their investigation. 2 comrades are now facing court charges of Section 143 of the Penal Code, Section (4)(1)(b) of the Sedition Act and Section 6 of the Selangor Entertainment and Places of Entertainment Enactment and are facing fines and prison sentence of 20 years.

We are asking for solidarity from all over the world to spread the news. This is a brutal tactic used by the state to clamp down on the movement. With current political and economic instability in this country, and also the uprising of the anti-government sentiments, they are trying to put down any action or any lifestyle that doesn’t go along with what they want.

On the Rumah Api side, the gig that night titled is Party Tonight, Revolution Tomorrow is nothing more than just a normal friday night gig with no intention to relate it with Bersih 4 rally. We at Rumah Api are critical with the popular struggle in Malaysia. Bersih 4 which is a demonstration for free and clean election is a so-called first world problem and it has a middle upper class agenda. Bersih 4 is being supported and joined by liberals and Islamists with their partisan politics that we are all against. We focus more on the grassroots level and are more interested to put our energy into strengthening our own and surrounding community. We see, by supporting Bersih 4 and it’s agenda, that we would be on the wrong side of our struggle. In Malaysia, by changing the government, it will not make the problems goes away. Issues of xenophobia, homophobia, racism and religion are still the serious problems the politicians failed to address.

Now, people still gathering outside of Ampang Police Station to pressure them to release two of our comrades.

Never Surrender!

–

Mainstream news links:

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/310541

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/police-arrest-163-youths-at-bersih-concert-countdown-in-ampang

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/ahead-of-bersih-4-dozens-nabbed-in-raid-against-independent-punk-venue-ruma

TransCanada Attempts to Enter Unist’ot’en Land

From Submedia TV:

The Unist’ot’en Camp stands in the way of several tar sands oil and fracked gas pipelines in western Canada. This week they are on high alert for a possible raid by Canadian federal police. A couple of days ago supporters recorded this incident, where TransCanada attempted to enter the territory and do field work.

Three dead, dozens wounded in police attack on Yüksekova

From JINHA:

COLEMÊRG – In the Kurdish town of Yüksekova, Turkish police and soldiers have attacked neighborhoods where residents formed self-defense units. Three are dead.

As the Turkish state escalated its attacks on Kurdish citizens, residents of the town of Yüksekova formed self-defense units in several neighborhoods. Yesterday night at 11:30 p.m., the provincial governor declared a curfew in the town. Five minutes later, police and soldiers launched an attack.

The attack began with a mortar bombardment on civilian areas. As military armored vehicles entered the neighborhoods, violent clashes began.

Clashes lasted from 11:35 p.m. until 7:00 this morning. Electricity and telephone lines went out in the neighborhood as the sounds of explosions rose from the streets. Residents of other neighborhoods chanted slogans of support until the morning came.

At least three people have died in the attack. More than ten have been wounded, some seriously. Residents have looked after the wounded in their homes. With the first light today, hundreds headed to the Orman neighborhood, the center of the clashes. Security forces opened fire on the crowd from armored vehicles. However, the crowd overcame police barricades to treat those wounded on the barricades. Mosques issued a call from their speakers for all Yüksekovans to come to the aid of the wounded. Police withdrew to main roads.

Gunshots continue to echo in the area, where clashes are ongoing. Many homes have been destroyed.

It is Time We Discussed Abolishing the Police

From CounterPunch:

“If I was an anarchist or even a regular protester,” explained the president of the Seattle Police Officers’ Guild Ron Smith, “I would probably not want to be infiltrated by the police… Just like the dope dealer on Third and Pike doesn’t want to get busted. That’s the price of doing business. It’s the whole package.” This startling bit of honesty from the Seattle police regarding their imperative to infiltrate and spy on social justice protests came as Ansel Herz, a reporter for the local newspaper The Stranger, questioned Smith regarding undercover cops at a Black Lives Matter protest last December.

For those involved in Left protest movements this is hardly news. I remember my early days in the antiwar movement at Texas Tech University. During the first rallies protesting the invasion of Iraq in 2003 local police with their crew-cuts, wraparound shades, and shirts tucked into Wrangler jeans would “blend effortlessly” into the crowd of college students. Campus police even intruded into a graduate student’s office—much to his surprise—in order to peruse our flyers and posters that were stored there. A year later an investigation by Salon revealed that police had infiltrated antiwar groups in Boulder, Fresno, Grand Rapids, and Albuquerque. A federal prosecutor even demanded Drake University turn over all of its records regarding an antiwar conference held there by the National Lawyers Guild.

Ahead of the Republican National Convention in 2008 Minnesota police in conjunction with the FBI raided the homes of antiwar activists “seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets” according to reports. One of the many police officers who infiltrated antiwar groups prior to the convention would later brag of how protesters “were herded like sheep at the hands of the riot cops.” Ultimately he determined that the “strategy, tactic, and deployments were well planned and extremely effective in controlling [protesters].”

Detective Wojciech Braszczok was one of many undercover cops infiltrating the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York, a fact that came to light after his unrelated arrest following the release of a video of him violently assaulting a motorist. Braszczok’s participation in the movement went beyond monitoring protests as he insinuated himself deep into the personal lives of Occupy members even attending birthday parties—all the while collecting “intelligence” for the NYPD. Other undercovers in the Occupy movement worked as agent provocateurs “being paid to go to these protests and put us in situations where we’d be arrested and not be able to leave” as Occupy member Marshall Garrett discovered after his 2011 arrest.

During the 2010 protests against budget cuts and tuition hikes on West Coast college campuses university police sent a spy into meetings of the University of Washington based UW Student Worker Coalition. At UC Davis the administration worked with faculty and police to form the Student Activism Team, a taskforce charged with infiltrating and surveilling Left groups on campus. Even more disturbing, a lawsuit filed last year by the Evergreen State College chapter of Students for a Democratic Society revealed further details of a surveillance ring dating back to 2009 and built around John Towery a member of the Army’s Force Protection Service who had infiltrated the Olympia, Washington student group. According to emails Towery was trying to “develop a leftist/anarchist mini-group for intel sharing and distro” with campus police and police departments in Everett, Spokane, Portland, Eugene, and Los Angeles as well as with various branches of the military.

Last week documents obtained by The Intercept revealed that undercover officers for the NYPD regularly attended Black Lives Matter events. Pictures of activists are kept on file by the department and their movements are tracked. In a statement on these revelations the Metropolitan Transit Authority which has been using its counter-terrorism task force to also spy on Black Lives Matter justified the spying by equating protesters with terrorists. And this is not just the view of local police departments, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force have both been monitoring Black Lives Matter protests across the country showing the dangerous and unfounded link in the minds of police between social justice movements and terrorism.

It is notable that the problem of police infiltration is unique to Left-leaning political groups. Right wing organizations like the Tea Party, the Oath Keepers, and the Ku Klux Klan are more likely to have police as enthusiastic members than moles. Even the FBI’s oft celebrated infiltration of the Klan during the Civil Rights Movement led to more cheerleading for Klan activity than arrests of its members. While police frequently paint Left organizations as violent in order to justify the violation of people’s right to organize politically these right wing terrorist groups are regularly leftunmolested by the supposed keepers of the peace.

There are many people who think the police exist to fight crime. The reality is that the police exist to maintain the status-quo with the rich on top and everyone else fighting for scraps. During the uprising in Ferguson last year comedian Chris Rock commented, “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.” The police represent the first line of defense between the rich and the rioters. Those involved in the Black Lives Matter movement—the latest challenge to the racist status-quo—learn quickly the true function of the police as they are shouted at and insulted by police in riot gear who hem in their marches, as they have their photos taken by police surveillance teams for further investigation, as they deal with the never ending stream of plain-clothes cops intimidating, monitoring, sowing seeds of distrust. Knowing the political role of the police perhaps it is time to stop hoping for reform and start imagining a world without the police.