Rally Against Police Beating at SFSU

SAN FRANCISCO, California – On Thursday evening, a number of organizers from the recently evicted squat, SF Commune, were beaten and arrested by city police at San Francisco State University. The organizers were visiting friends living in the dormitories at the university when they were later arrested and charged with a number of offenses including, trespassing, battery, lynching, and conspiracy. Following the arrests, the arrestees required medical treatment at a hospital. Although local news reported that an officer was injured during the incident, friends of the arrestees stated, “[from] the information we [sic] gathered after speaking to the police, the officer suffered from heart palpitations and didn’t receive any direct physical injuries from the individuals involved.” Reportedly, the police officers involved in arresting the organizers also participated in the eviction of the squat earlier that week.

A rally is being organized to respond to the police beating: it’s scheduled for Tuesday at 2pm in the Malcolm X Plaza on the SFSU campus. For more information about the event, visit indybay.

More:

• Copwatch – SF Commune is Catching Hell: Interview with Folks on the Ground
• Indybay – SF Commune Activists Attacked
• Videos: 1, 2.

SF Commune Activists Attacked

from indybay:

Students at SF State are holding a march and demonstration against SF State police brutality, today at 2pm at Malcolm X plaza in response to violent actions by campus police there, Thursday evening.

Seven San Francisco activists were brutally attacked by police and arrested Thursday evening after being invited into the SF State University dorms by students there. Several police officers were harassing a few of the individuals outside of the dorms when they chose to practice their constitutional rights by walking away. The officers followed them into the building and continued to harass them until an altercation occurred when an officer tried to grab and push one of the people involved. The police used unnecessary force in restraining the individuals and several of those involved were sent to the hospital after having sustained injuries. One individual was tazed and another was reportedly shoved into a paddy wagon where police continued to viciously beat him. There is video of the incident circulating on the internet, but much of the brutality wasn’t captured on tape.

The mainstream media is spreading misinformation about the incident. They are claiming that the individuals were “unauthorized” in the dorms, even though they were invited to [sic] there by students and SFSU housing guidelines clearly permit guests. The media also highlights the fact that an officer was injured. From the information we gathered after speaking to the police, the officer suffered from heart palpitations and didn’t receive any direct physical injuries from the individuals involved.

The activists were residents of the SF Commune, an abandoned building that protesters occupied and transformed into a social center and housing for the neighborhood since April of last year. The activists, who cleaned the dilapidated building, made it habitable for the first time in years and planted a blooming garden in the backyard, were welcomed by much of the community for their efforts. The building, on 200 Broad St in the Ocean View neighborhood, was raided by dozens of riot-clad SFPD Wednesday morning, about 36 hours before the incident at SF State; 28 residents were forcibly removed and briefly detained, while three were arrested.

Students and activists are holding the demonstration to call for an end to campus police brutality and harassment of students and visitors. Meet on SF State campus at Malcolm X plaza at 2pm today, Friday May 17.

Read more:

• Golden Gate XPress

UPDATE: Demonstrators gathered for a rally on Friday afternoon, transitioning into a march to an administrative building. The demonstrators spoke with the Vice-President and the Dean of Students.

March Against Berkeley Police

March 12 – 6:30pm – People’s Park

from Indybay:

On February 12th Berkeley Police murdered Kayla Moore. Kayla Moore lived
with “mental illness” and has been described by friends and family as a
Transgender person who “passed as a woman.”

Anti-Capitalist Rally & March Against Police Repression

from Indybay:

March 15 – Oscar Grant Plaza, Oakland

All over the world, left-wing and anarchist activists are facing ever-growing repression from the capitalist state and its agents: the police. In the bay, we face our own struggles as our self-organized spaces are evicted, and our comrades are dragged through the legal system and put behind bars. We must stand strong in the face of the enemy.

Solidarity means attack!

8:00 PM
OGP
Wear Black

CCSF Conlin Hall Sit-in

SAN FRANCISCO, California – On Thursday afternoon, some 30 students began a sit-in at the Conlin Hall building at the City College of San Francisco, Ocean Campus in response to the ongoing accreditation issues facing the college. Demonstrators have published a list of demands directed at Chancellor Thelma Scott-Skillman, including:

1. Call on the Board of Trustees to reverse all cuts to classes, services, staff, and faculty. Stop downsizing the mission of CCSF and promote equity.

2. Organize town hall forums at all campuses so that students can have their voices heard.

3. Make a public statement calling for Prop A funds to be used for education as voters intended. Call on City Hall to give CCSF a bridge loan until Prop A and Prop 30 funds become available.

4. Speak out against CCSF being put on “Show Cause” without prior sanction. Call on the Department of Education to take action to stop the ACCJC’s misuse of the accreditation process.

UPDATE: Demonstrators ended their sit-in the following day after agreeing to organize town hall forums. Read more.

First Person Account of FBI Raid in West Oakland

from Indybay:

3 days ago on Feb 13th 2013, my home, The Music Box, located on 3404 Market St in Oakland was raided by the FBI, OPD and various officers leading the investigation from Citrus Heights, CA.

The police officers at first vocalized that the intended purpose of the raid was to look for a murder suspect. Latter, they vocalized that they were there only to search for his personal belongings that could be connected with the case. The warrant stated that they were there to search for a myriad of different objects, mostly pertaining to electronic devices, digital media storing devices, clothing, and objects connected with illegal cannabis production. The warrant also stated that they could come back within 10 days of the raid to confiscate other electronic devises, specifically cell phones.

The person whose homicide case they were conducting the raid in conjunction to was in prison for other charges during the time of the raid and had been behind bars for at least a month.

The raid started at approx. 7 am, with one of the residents spotting armed police officers and federal agents approaching the house across the street, the officers then approached the front door, coming through the gate and busted in, flashing a search warrant at the resident who answered the door. They busted all of the residents o of the Music Box out of their bedrooms and forced us all to wait outside in the front of our house, forced to pee in front of them, all of us in our underwear and pajamas for approximately 2 hours while they searched through our home, taking and breaking things leaving with what we saw to be 3 or 4 bags of things. No known electronic devices were taken. They originally told us we were detained but then that too was verbally retractted. They let us all take a look at a copy of the warrant that they left for us. They attempted to interrogate some of the residents about the suspects character, his whereabouts and asking if he had ever attempted to get them to do illegal things with them. One of the residents was put into handcuffs after they went to get a pack of cigarettes.

We called out for help to passer by, pleading for them to record the event, tell people what was happening. Eventually, friends of our house were contacted for help and came by, and around that same time, they let us all go. Thankfully, no one was arrested and the Feds as well as the cops left as calmly as people like that can leave a home they just invaded.

There were approx. 10-15 officers, many armed with assault rifles and FBI agents in swat gear. Many of the officers also had small video cameras around their neck recording the whole ordeal.

The previous day, Feb 12th, a few officers showed up in the afternoon claiming to be responding to a 911 call that apparently came from our home that they were doing a routine check up on. They said, without any instigation, that they were not trying to raid the house. The residents who answered the door told them they could not enter and told them to leave. Latter in the evening on Feb 12th, several helicopters circled our home, flashing search lights into our back yard as well as the front door.

 

ACAC19: Pack the Courts!

from SupportACAC19:

Come pack the courtroom on February 8th to support the ACAC 19! Solidarity is our weapon against the state! Our love for our comrades is stronger than their cages and their courts!

When: Friday February 8th, 12:30PM

Where: 850 Bryant St. San Francisco, Department 16

What: Pack the Court

[UPDATE: the Pre-Trial was postponed for March 29th. Correction, the Pre-Trial will continue on March 29th.]

Chowchilla Freedom Rally

from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners:

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is converting Valley State Prison for Women into a men’s prison in response to a U.S. Supreme Court order to reduce overcrowding. Instead of releasing people, they are squeezing over 1,000 women and transgender people into the two remaining women’s prisons. This has aggravated overcrowding (bringing Central California Women’s Facility’s population dangerously close to 4000), created dangerous conditions and health care is getting much worse. What’s more, they have added yet another men’s prison to their inhumane system. Read more.

Rally in Support of the Prisoners on Saturday, 26 January at 3pm in front of the Valley State Prison for Women, Chowchilla, California. RSVP on Facebook.

Carpools are leaving from Oakland and Inglewood.

Related:

• Chowchilla Women’s Prison Squeezed – MercedSunStar
• Hard Knock Radio – KPFA
• Crowding More Into Chowchilla – Mumia Abu Jamal

Revolutionary Heartbreak: Why Every Single Rapist Has to Go

via NecessaryMeansFight:

Everything that rises must converge.

I’m sure by now you’ve read the criticism that my comrades have produced about the Progressive Labor Party’s gender politics and their response to the reminder that Seth Miller is a rapist. Through all of our organizing on this issue, our position has been that PLP must administer a systemic solution to the problem of a rapist in their midst, and we’ve advocated this on behalf of our comrade at every level of leadership to which PLP will grant a non-member access.

To this point I’ve been able to compartmentalize my feelings by seeing the accountability process as another realm of organizing, but I felt personally betrayed when I learned that PLP implemented a process independently of the process we had been discussing for months. It was a harsh reminder that within the constellation of sexual violence, the political can be very personal.

In the few days since our collective released the original statement calling out Miller and PLP, I’ve been told by one PLP member that the information I have needs to “be corrected,” but they were not willing to tell me what we have wrong. Moreover, I’ve been very disappointed in my comrades’ efforts to help. People seem afraid to cut out friendships at the expense of dealing with something as difficult as rape, but the pain of cutting those ties is nothing compared to the profound and dehumanizing pain of being raped.

This essay will read to many of you like personal narrative, but you must not dismiss it because it isn’t explicitly political analysis. What I describe here reflects real friendships and real communities— relationships that are completely destroyed now because the party decided it was better to let Miller remain than to expel him and support his victim. Maybe there’s a political lesson in here somewhere. I just hope I can show how we are all deeply destroyed by rape.

Finally, a disclaimer. A few people from the party have told me to stop gossiping about this to my friends. This is not gossip. Calling this gossip renders a very serious political problem into meaningless social fodder, and it turns fighting patriarchy into labor that is gendered and dismissed as idle and childish. To those members of the party: you will not silence me like that.

This is not a love letter.

I sat on a rickety chair at a recreation center somewhere in Los Angles, and every few minutes a toddler stepped on my foot while amused adults tried to corral the kids back to a play area in the next room. On either side of me people were packed elbow-to-elbow at long folding tables eating homemade food from paper plates. The crowd of 150 or so overflowed into the alley behind the recreation center, and folks took turns at the tables while comrades performed revolutionary songs, poems, and speeches.

Support the ACAC19

On Saturday, October 6th, some 150 demonstrators converged on the Financial District of San Francisco against Columbus Day. The demonstration was announced as an anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism convergence. A short rally discussing decolonization preceded a march through Market street. However, within 15 minutes of the beginning of the march, riot police responded to a smattering of property destruction targeting banks and corporate chains by rushing the crowd of marchers. The resulting scuffle ended in 19 arrests. In an effort to ostracize the arrestees, police released photos of arrestees to local newspapers to distribute. Since the arrests, the police have subpoenaed the twitter accounts of two arrestees. The Anti-Colonialism, Anti-Capitalism Nineteen or ACAC19 are requesting that supporters contact the district attorney and demand all charges be dropped.

from SupportTheACAC19:

Recently San Francisco Superior Court Judge Andrew Y.S. Cheng denied demurrers for all but one defendant of the ACAC 19 signaling that the case will most likely go to trial in the coming months. This week we are asking all supporters to fax and call San Francisco District Attorney, George Gascón, starting Monday, December 17th to demand that all charges be dropped against the ACAC 19.

Woodland Anti-Foreclosure Struggle

from ModestoAnarcho:

Eshelman Hall Shutdown

BERKELEY, California – On Tuesday afternoon, students at UC Berkeley chained their necks to the 2 doors of the 6th floor of Eshelman Hall. Police are unable to enter the floor without causing severe injury to demonstrators. Initially, some 40 students gathered outside to support the action. The demonstration is calling attention to the low enrollment of students of color and austerity measures impacting students of color being employed at the university. It appears this occupation is not strictly related to #occupycal demonstrators who pitched tents and faced police brutality a little over a year ago. The action coincides with the appointment of a new chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, to the campus.

UPDATE:

5:30pm – Police appear to be unable to enter the 6th floor.

5:40pm – The occupiers have released a list of 4 demands including: amnesty to demonstrators, the restoration of the Multicultural Student Development (MSD) to its former structure, increase the MSD budget, increase funding for recruitment and retention services.

5:50pm – It appears some administrators have entered the building to negotiate. The police has otherwise restricted access to the building.

6:05pm – Negotiations have reportedly fell through, however the occupation continues.

Demonstrators outside spell out of “SOS” with candles.

6:25pm – Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion Gibor Basri [and Dean Poullard] continues talks with some students. Watch livestream here.

6:40pm – Crowd outside has increased. Negotiations appear to continue. The student newspaper, the DailyCal, reports that students actually drilled their restraining locks to the doors. The demands can be found re-posted in full here.

7:00pm – Reportedly, NLG legal observers have been denied access to witness potential police action inside the building.

9:15pm – Negotiations have ended and the Eshelman occupiers have decided to exit the building. The student demonstrators have been promised a “transitional review team” and amnesty for their actions.

9:40pm – The occupation has ended.

Confronting the Many Faces of Repression

from OccupyOakland — Anti-Repression Committee:

Rethinking Repression

Over the past year, we have experienced many forms of overt police repression, from the camp eviction and night of tear gas on October 25th, to raids on the vigil, to snatch and grab squads on May Day.  We have come to expect the riot-clad police, with their batons and chemical weapons, although repression comes in other forms as well.  As a community, we have not been sufficiently attuned to these other faces of repression.  As the Anti-Repression Committee (ARC), we too have focused primarily on the overt police violence on the street and its counterpart in the jails and courts.  We have spent countless hours in communication with people in jail, working with NLG folks to secure lawyers when possible, doing and mobilizing court support, and providing commissary and other forms of support for our comrades who remain locked up.  We have also held workshops to talk about some of the other forms that repression can take–and ways that we as a community can keep one another safe–but we have not done enough as a committee to address these other faces of repression. We feel that as a community we need to shift our thinking about repression, to recognize the subtler more insidious forms that it takes and the ways that it targets our sources of strength and plays on existing conflicts and divisions in an attempt to weaken, distract, and consume us.  This does not mean that we should become mired in trying to identify state infiltrators and agents. We may never know who the infiltrators are, and ultimately, whether individuals are directly working for the state when they engage in disruptive and divisive behaviors is not the point.  We need to instead focus on behaviors. If behaviors support and consolidate state campaigns of repression–then they do the state’s work of repression.

Today in Seattle

Watch.

Read more about the Grand Jury Resistors here.

Pack the Courts for Anti-Columbus Day Arrestees

On Saturday, a march in San Francisco against Colonialism and Capitalism resulted in 20 arrests. Police had a significant presence early on, and forced a confrontation, in turn demonstrators threw a few paint filled balloons at officers and at an ATM machine. A police officer then rammed his bicycle into a crowd member, launching a wave of riot police at demonstrators. Police wielding batons, indiscriminately pushed & struck anyone in the area. All of the demonstrators who were arrested are facing 5 or 6 charges, including inciting a riot, conspiracy to commit a crime, obstructing a peace officer, failure to disperse, and what appears to be some variant of jay walking.

UPDATE:

Some charges have been dropped and others reduced; most arrestees face 3 misdemeanors each. Trial has been set for November 9th.

Related:

• The legal support fund for the Anti-Columbus arrestees.