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.

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.

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.”

From Berkeley Copwatch:

“The BPD’s press release of February 13th says that they responded to “a
disturbance call” at Moore’s apartment. Media reports have said this call
was related to mental health. If she was going through a mental health
crisis, was anyone present trained to respond to that kind of situation,
to evaluate, and deescalate? According to an article from February 26th in
the Oakland Tribune: “Berkeley: Man who died after struggle with police
was severely mentally ill,” rather than take her to a hospital for
psychiatric evaluation, when they found out she had an outstanding warrant
in San Francisco, they told her they were going to arrest her.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle dated February 13th “Man dies in
struggle with Berkeley police,” mentions “a disturbance between
roommates,” as causing the police to arrive. The Daily Californian
February 14th article “Man dies after being taken into police custody,”
says that other residents heard a “commotion on the fifth floor of the
building before the officers arrived on the scene.” None of the witnesses
we spoke to heard any sort of commotion or disturbance until after the
police arrived. Why the consistent difference? In fact, the police were at
Moore’s apartment twice that night. This isn’t mentioned at all by the
police or media reports. The police first showed up around 11:00pm, and
left without incident. The incident resulting in Moore’s death was the
second police visit, occurring around 11:50pm. According to witnesses,
when they returned a second time, there was a sizable police presence. Why
did they come back an hour later with so many officers? What were they
preparing to do?”

Nearly one month later and the Berkeley Police still have not released
information as to the cause of Kayla’s death, leaving most questions
unanswered. However we do know that there was no commotion or overt
disturbance prior to BPD’s arrival. We know when Berkeley Police arrived
at Kayla’s home, for the second time in one night, they had police back-up but they did not have a mental health mobile crisis team with them. We know Kayla was
alive and not on the verge of death prior to the arrival of the Berkeley Police. We know police regularly murder people of color, gender-variant people, and people with “mental illness.” We also know only one Police Officer in California has been convicted in the death of a civilian and his charges were brought only after massive riots swept Oakland.

Unfortunately Kayla’s death is not an anomaly. This past weekend Bay Area
Police have murdered four people and watched one woman bleed to death
after she was attacked by her abusive ex-husband.

San Francisco Police murdered Aaron Sawyer (23) after he allegedly stole a
car on Saturday morning. San Jose Police murdered a man yet to be identified after they deemed him to be “suspicious.” Union City Police shot an unidentified man to death after they pulled him over for an unstated reason. Hayward Police murdered an unidentified man after his car crashed into one of their police cruisers.

In the case of Kayla Moore, whether by neglect or intent the result is
the same.Kayla Moore is dead. The Berkeley Police killed Kayla Moore.

This is a call for an uncompromisingly militant march against the racist
and transphobic Berkeley Police who murdered Kayla Moore. The march will
begin at People’s Park on Tuesday March 12th at 6:30pm. It is also a call
for queer people, trans people, women, and people of color to form a bloc
against police murders and harassment at the March Against Capitalism and
Police Repression taking place at Oscar Grant Plaza in Oakland on Friday,
March 15th at 8pm

Anonymous Queers in Action

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

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.

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.

This is not the first time our home was raided. In December, right before Christmas, we experienced a raid that was executed to search for someone who was being charged with fraudulent immigration marriage. The scene then was similar to the one on February 13th, in which cops and that time ICE officers busted into our home, all 20 some odd residents forced out of their various sleeping places, with certain individuals interrogated. That time, the officers did not provide a copy of the search warrant, but let some of the residents take a 2 minute peek at in which the person looking at it gathered that they had been surveilling our home for quite sometime.

The fact that the FBI and the local Police forces as well as police forced from suburbs of Sacramento believe that coming into someone’s home, terrorizing all of the residents, ransacking as well as breaking and stealing their personal belongings for vague purposes is a way to make peace with and please an already fed up public is absolutely absurd. Clearly, this is another example of the FBI’s and the local police forces ploy to exert brut force towards the friends and loved ones of poor people of color being charged for crimes that are, at their source, by and large economic.

This, in combination with the ICE raid is enough to make us all scream. Clearly, both accounts are completely and utterly racist. The illegal and abhorrent manner in which both raids were conducted also cannot be stood for, as it is clearly a gross injustice to our personal liberties.

One could also connect the recent raid on our home to the growing plot to gentrify North Oakland by our cities business elite. With the Bart Shopping Center under construction at MacArthur Bart, with the gentrification of the “Kino” neighborhood, with the well to do, Silicon Valley young urban professional savy of Emeryville, telegraph ave, and Berkeley being on all sides, it seems that the gentrification of North Oakland is inevitably on the rise. It is important to remember that police repression of any kind is inevitably financially motivated, with the repression of poor people, specifically poor people of color generally being a plot to force them out of their homes and destroy their communities to make way for a young urban professional backwash population, in this instance, the backwash of the Silicon Valley. The recent attacks on social centers, squats, the gang injunctions plaguing north Oakland and OPD’s general mission to destroy the lives of and terrorize communities of color in north Oakland as well as pretty much everywhere in the world, are not isolated points of repression carried out simply to satisfy the patriarchal, colonialist desires of the police force in and of themself. They are part of an articulate, financial plan to gentrify Oakland.

The residents of the music box are standing together strong . We care about and love each other very much. We thank everyone who has been supportive in this time of crisis, and hope to stay connected to a community of people who find these sorts of ordeals repulsive. We would like to extend a call for aid and solidarity in a few key ways:

-anyone who is willing to give a work shop about security culture and a know your rights training to the members of our home would be warmly accepted and gifted with a delicious meal!

-places for folks to stay who do not feel comfortable at our home right now

-legal advise

- We would like to talk to other people who have had similar things happen to them and gather info on what sort of things we should do.

-anything else you feel you want to contribute!

Sincerely yours and Fuck the Police,

-The Music Box

please contact born.in.flames19 [at] gmail.com to get in contact with residents of the Music Box, but please exhibit SECURITY CULTURE when contacting us!

Related News:

• On the Eve of Our Repression: Communiqué on The Squatting Struggle in Oakland – Indybay

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.]

On Friday February 8th, 2013 members of the Anti-Capitalist Anti-Colonial (ACAC) 19 will be appearing in San Francisco Superior Court at 850 Bryant Street for a pretrial motions hearing. We call on you, supporters, friends, and comrades to pack the courtroom. Support comes in many forms: banners and signs on the court steps, people in the courtroom and spreading the word about the trial. Let us show the District Attorney that our comrades are not alone in their relentless struggle against colonialism, capitalism and the state.

The ACAC 19 is a group of anti-colonial, anti-capitalists who were beaten, arrested and then subjected to a media smear campaign by the San Francisco Police Department on October 6, 2012. The arrests occurred during a series of demonstrations on Columbus Day weekend against colonization and empire, as well as the racist celebrations of genocide and conquest. The actions were organized in solidarity with indigenous struggles in the Bay Area and beyond.

After being released from jail, two defendants found threatening leaflets in their neighborhood with their home addresses and photos printed on them. At least one member of the ACAC 19 has also experienced continued police harassment at his workplace. In early December, two defendants received word that their Twitter accounts had been subpoenaed – evidence that the SFPD is using the case to map and surveill radical political networks in the Bay area.  In the wake of a year of rebellious and militant political activity across the country, we see this as one of many attempts to harass, intimidate, and control radical movements.

On January 5th the San Francisco District Attorney withdrew the Twitter subpoenas due to a successful call-in campaign and mounting public pressure from organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. While we recognize this as a limited victory, the withdrawal of the Twitter subpoenas shows the strength of community support and solidarity.  It is imperative that we show the District Attorney and the SFPD that repression will not stop us!

The ACAC 19 are currently facing multiple misdemeanor charges ranging from unlawful assembly to battery on a uniformed officer. We stand in solidarity with all those working to resist state repression and those who have been directly targeted by it. Come support your comrades on Feb 8th!

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

from OccupyUCI:

The FBI is seeking information from UCI activists, again

Today a UCI activist comrade was approached by the FBI.

Two FBI agents showed up at the parent’s house wanting to know information on another activist on campus.

This is how the conversation went:

FBI: Do you know X?
Comrade: I do not want to talk to you, I want to talk to my lawyer.
FBI: OK

Under NO circumstances talk to the FBI or any cops!  ANYTHING you say can implicate your friends and yourself.  Do not attempt to say something smart thinking that you are being clever in responding.  Even saying “I don’t know” can result in perjury charges.  Additionally, do NOT invite them into your home.  This is leaves open the opportunity for the FBI to search and gather clues lying around your home.  If they come to your doorway step outside, close the door behind you and say “I do not want to talk to you, I want to talk to my lawyer.”  Tell them a lawyer will get in touch with them.  If they do not leave ask “Am I being detained.” if they say No, WALK AWAY.

This is all intimidating, they want you to be intimidated! Do not let them coerce you into talking, you have the right to remain silent and not implicate your friends and yourself in anything.  They do not look as scary as they seem, they in fact look a little douchey, twenty-something, right out of the academy.  If you weren’t looking any closer, you could mistake them for Jevoha’s witnesses, or Mormons.

Regardless, treat the FBI like vampires, do not invite them in, do not talk to them, do not let their charms fool you!

Here is an excerpt  Not Yr Cister Press, in response to Leah and Grand Jury subpoenas in Portland:

“Whether or not Leah provided information substantial to indictments, her cooperation facilitated the grand jury investigation. Frequently stated in grand jury resistance trainings is that answering even “harmless” seeming questions can have highly damaging outcomes. What appears insignificant could be an essential link in the prosecutor’s case. Further, stating “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember” could potentially open you up to perjury charges. Finally, the State had, until October 17, encountered a mostly solid wall of resistance. Their strategy had failed to break solidarity among anarchists. In coercing testimony from Leah, the State damaged the credibility of those who publicly resist.

This point—that even limited cooperation is harmful—cannot be emphasized enough. Saying anything to a grand jury is a problem. Say nothing.”

Solidarity with all Grand Jury Resistors, Solidarity with all activists facing political persecution.  Solidarity with all prisoners.

Here are also some good readings:

Occupy Legal (Mainly serving the Bay Area) 

NLG: You have the right to remain silent (PDF)

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.

At the end of the night everyone huddled back en masse to sing “The Internationale.” Everywhere I looked fists were aloft. It was like home.

This was the annual Progressive Labor Party May Day dinner. I was invited by a man I knew from organizing on my campus. I’ll call him Jay. We started out as distant colleagues working for different unions, but over time we developed a close friendship that, at least for me, transcended our divergent politics. The emergence of that friendship is how last spring I found myself meeting more and more members of PLP, and how I found myself thinking seriously that this was the kind of fulfilling, communal life I wanted to be part of. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. It felt as though this whole world had unfurled before me and I was just supposed to step into it and belong. Maybe I exaggerate, but even in retrospect my reflection feels true to my experience, and it’s important to establish that real bonds have been broken throughout all of this.

If any of them knew who I counted among my comrades, they didn’t show it. No one ever asked me to identify my politics or defend my positions. No one even explicitly asked me if I was thinking about joining the party. No one until Miller. He sat next to me in front of the stage during the May Day general assembly at Pershing Square. The moment Jay got up to speak to another friend, Miller started in on me aggressively asking questions about my politics.

“So tell me again why you haven’t joined the party yet,” he opened. I explained that I don’t identify as a statist and I disagree with the premise of democratic centralism. “We’ll have to work on that,” he countered. Nearby another PLP member sat watching the stage. He had been really kind to me a few weeks before when I attended a party at his house with Jay. When I tried to make eye contact for an intervention though, he would not look my way.

Maybe Miller sensed my distaste for his questions, because he started pointing out reasons why I would make a good comrade. I laugh at the right jokes. I seemed to fit in with his friends. I was evidently down for antagonizing the cops. I evaded eye contact because I felt uncomfortable from the attention and because the comments seemed to simultaneously mock and flatter me—a strategy known as “negging” to another misogynistic group, self-styled “pick-up-artists.”

This anecdote might seem incidental, but I see it as a symptom of larger problems regarding the ways PLP recruits and retains members and especially women. There’s a really telling line in Criticism and Self-Criticism: “But anyone who divides his political comrades from his friends, who keeps one set of ideas for one and another for the other and never the twain shall even overlap, is just as useless as the person with no friends outside the Party.”

This directive to make your friends your comrades at all costs devalues genuine relationships that people build outside the party. But more importantly, it renders those relationships mere recruitment grounds. Ultimately, it’s a predatory position. According to the party, a member is useless if he cannot bring his outside friends in. So he must bring them in by any means necessary.