Official Protest Thread...

futureshock

Renegade of this atomic age
Registered
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, cabinet meet with Black Lives Matter leaders

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Mayor Reed at the media debriefing after meeting with members of Black Lives Matter

This morning’s meeting between representatives of the Black Lives Matter movement and Mayor Kasim Reed were a picture of competing demands with some protestors saying they were shut out of the two hour meeting at city hall.

Members of #ATLisReady, the group that led last week’s protest marches and demonstrations in the wake of the killing of two black men by police officers in Louisiana and Minnesota, said they were shut out of the meeting. They protested outside city hall and in the lobby – many wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Unlovable Little Brat,” the term used by former mayor Andrew Young to describe some protestors. Four representatives who did get into the meeting left early, storming out shouting “power to the people” and “we have nothing to lose but our chains.” R&B musician Usher, who was in attendance at the meeting, attempted to calm protestors, but was shouted down.

On social media, #ATLisReady aired their dissatisfaction with the meeting being held behind closed doors. The group also linked to a list of 25 demands they wanted an immediate response to, which the mayor declined to give. They also called on Monday night outside city hall at 8 p.m.

Following the meeting, Mayor Reed told the media that the #ATLisReady representatives wanted “yes or no responses to their list of demands, which I declined to give.” Reed said he would review the list of demands, which include an overhaul in training of the Atlanta Police Department, the end of “Operation Whiplash” (an Atlanta police operation to crack down on guns in neighborhoods the protestors say leads to racial profiling), to end a training exchange with Israeli police; abolishing no-knock warrants; and the diversion of APD funding to equitable housing solutions. You can read the full list of demands at this link.

“This meeting wasn’t about getting a deal, but having a conversation,” Reed said. “What I heard most often today was that folks want a different relationship with their police department.

Reed said he didn’t “want to make another city’s problem Atlanta’s problem” and said many of the concerns from members of Black Lives Matter organization members were already being implemented by the city.

Sir Maejor, who represents Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta, said during the media briefing that the mayor listened to demands. “You are going to find people protesting without a cause and just because they are on TV. There are different agendas, organizations trying to get their name on the map and fighting over press coverage. Today’s meeting was about understanding what the issues are. There’s a diplomatic way of going about things and then there’s shouting, making demands and using bully tactics. The mayor heard our concerns. We want our police officers to be more engaged with the community and de-escalate vs escalate.”
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member


https://www.revealnews.org/article/...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

In DC, wiggling while handcuffed counts as assaulting an officer

Wiggling while handcuffed. Bracing one hand on the steering wheel during an arrest. Yelling at an officer.

All these actions have led to people being prosecuted for “assaulting a police officer” in Washington, D.C., where the offense is defined as including not just physical assault, but also “resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating or interfering” with law enforcement.

A five-month investigation by WAMU 88.5 News and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, co-produced by Reveal, documented and analyzed nearly 2,000 cases with charges of assaulting a police officer. The results raise concerns about the use or overuse of the charge. Some defense attorneys see troubling indicators in these numbers, alleging that the law is being used as a tactic to cover up police abuse and civil rights violations.

As protests and rioting have exploded across the country in response to police conduct, even Cathy Lanier, the chief of police in the nation’s capital, is urging lawmakers to revise the statute because its broad application “naturally causes tensions between police and residents.”

A team of researchers and reporters analyzed thousands of court records from 2012 through 2014, including charging documents, case summaries and police affidavits.

The investigation found:

  • Ninety percent of those charged with assaulting a police officer were black, though black residents make up only half of the city’s population.
  • Nearly two-thirds of those arrested for assaulting an officer weren’t charged with any other crime, raising questions about whether police had legal justification to stop the person.
  • About 1 in 4 people charged with a misdemeanor for assaulting a police officer required medical attention after their arrest, a higher rate than the 1 in 5 officers reporting injury from the interactions.
  • The District uses the charge of assaulting a police officer almost three times more than cities of comparable size, according to a 2013 FBI report and Metropolitan Police Department numbers.
  • Prosecutors declined to press charges in more than 40 percent of the arrests for assaulting an officer.
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‘Criminalizes too much’
“The APO (assaulting a police officer) statute results in more injustice than almost any other statute that I can think about,” said John Copacino, a professor and director of the Criminal Justice Clinic at Georgetown Law School. “Police officers have a legitimate need to be protected from being assaulted, but this statute goes too far and criminalizes too much.”

Copacino said many cases arise from a typical human response to being unjustifiably stopped by an officer, yet District residents do not have the right to resist an unlawful arrest. “When (police) are clearly arresting someone for no reason, if the person resists by pulling away, by not putting his hands behind his back when the police officer grabs him to try to handcuff him, that becomes a crime in itself,” he said.

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Terrell Hargraves, shown with his son, Terrell Jr., spent nine months in jail awaiting trial for a charge of assaulting a police officer. A judge ultimately found him not guilty.Credit: Christina M.T. Animashaun/Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University

Terrell Hargraves lived through such a scenario when he had trouble moving into the handcuff position because of nerve damage in his shoulder.

On Sept. 30, 2011, two patrol officers said they saw something suspicious in the way the 35-year-old riding in the car ahead of them looked around before his friend dropped him off “in a high crime area” on Minnesota Avenue. “Officers recognized this behavior as consistent with that of flight from police to evade apprehension or interrogation,” they wrote in the police affidavit.

Hargraves wanted to stop at the convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes before a party at his grandmother’s house a block away, he said in an interview. He had taken a few steps away from the car when he heard an approaching officer order him to the ground. Bewildered, he asked why, at which point the officer pulled out handcuffs.

Struggling to cuff Hargraves’ injured arm, the officer deployed a metal baton and began striking his legs repeatedly. A second officer arrived, and together they used “the minimum amount of force necessary” to detain their suspect, they wrote in the affidavit. He was charged with assaulting a police officer for pulling away from the officer’s grip.

Hargraves spent nine months in jail awaiting trial because when he was arrested, he was 30 days shy of completing three years on parole for a past conviction of fleeing a police officer. He lost his job. He missed the birth of his son. A judge ultimately found him not guilty at trial.

Still, most defendants arrested for assaulting an officer face a monumental challenge in defeating the charge, even when the judge believes the person behaved reasonably.

Emanual Wilson was tackled and arrested for assaulting an officer the moment he stepped out of a car during a traffic stop. The police were arresting his pregnant girlfriend for driving with a suspended license. Wilson couldn’t see what the police were doing but could hear his girlfriend yelling that she was pregnant and not to touch her.

Listen to this story
Wilson testified that he was acting on instinct to protect his unborn child and girlfriend. Judge Harold Cushenberry agreed. At the trial, he said, “You had a normal human reaction.”

But that reaction technically was interference, so Cushenberry had to convict Wilson of assaulting the police. The judge concluded Wilson’s trial by saying: “Good luck to you. I’m sorry this happened.”

A conviction for assaulting a police officer carries different connotations than interfering with one and can affect future employment prospects, security clearances, home loans or anything that requires a criminal background check.

“The real horror about the assault on a police officer statute is that we have thousands of people in our community who are now facing lifelong consequences for what really is harmless conduct,” said Patrice Sulton, a criminal defense attorney who frequently assists the District branch of the NAACP.

But enforcement is not distributed equally. A 2013 report by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee found that black people represented 8 in 10 of all those arrested in the District. The WAMU-IRW investigation found an even larger disparity in cases of assaulting a police officer: 90 percent of those charged from 2012 through 2014 were black.

“This should be an early warning system for the agency,” said Geoffrey P. Alpert, professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina and an expert on police violence. “It tells you something is wrong and they need to figure what is going on. … The statistics, the patterns, the practices just don’t look right.”

Lanier, the police chief, acknowledges problems with the law and how such arrests can damage community relations.

“The language is so broad, overly broad. That allows for too many things to fit into that category,” she said in a recent interview. “So some of what’s included in that is no physical assault at all. And for people who are being charged with assault on a police officer, there is the tension. … If you didn’t physically assault someone, to be charged with assault on a police officer wouldn’t feel fair.”

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Community tensions haven’t sparked an epidemic of attacks on law enforcement in Washington, but the rate for cases of assaulting a police officer is roughly three times higher in the District than in cities of comparable size, according to an FBI report and the Metropolitan Police Department’s own statistics.

The ACLU of the Nation’s Capital examined assaulting a police officer statutes in the country’s 50 largest police jurisdictions, determining that the District’s statute “is among the broadest in country because it encompasses a range of behaviors that go beyond assault,” said program director Seema Sadanandan.

The District law wasn’t always unique. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the statute more closely resembled the modern standard elsewhere – narrowly defined to punish acts of violence against police officers. But amid the onset of white flight to the suburbs and black migration from the Deep South, Congress broadened the scope in 1953 to include resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating or interfering. Civil rights marches and anti-war protests were roiling the District in the early 1970s when the law was further amended to remove the right to resist an unlawful arrest. The number of arrests started to climb after the D.C. Council enacted a misdemeanor option in 2007. From 2012 through 2014, at least 80 percent – and likely many more – of the assaulting a police officer cases were found in misdemeanor court, according to our investigation.

The definition of “police officer” also has been broadened over the years to include an array of law enforcement and other public servants, from Secret Service to U.S. National Park Service Police, emergency medical technicians and private security guards.

Many cases with no other charges
During the three-year period of cases examined, nearly two-thirds of those arrested for assaulting a police officer weren’t charged with any other crimes. That statistic marked a red flag to more than a half-dozen criminal defense attorneys interviewed for this project.

“That tells you a lot: that there is no other crime being committed,” said Copacino of Georgetown. “The police, they’re probably stopping or detaining people where there is no justification for doing so, and any resistance to that becomes grounds to an arrest.”

He added that the charge can be deployed to sidestep the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures: “It turns a bad stop into a legitimate arrest that (the police) can then use to justify whatever they find in the course of that stop, be it guns, drugs, knives, whatever.”

However, Sgt. Delroy Burton, head of the local police union, disagrees with the conclusions of defense attorneys.

“To look at some cold numbers and conclude, ‘Well, this is troubling,’ in my view, tells me they are making some type of political statement,” he said.

Lanier said cases with only an assault charge don’t necessarily indicate a problem: “Interactions with enforcement in a lot of different community environments – interactions with people with mental health issues – that can lead to a confrontation, and there’d be no other charge. That just goes to show that there are certain interactions with police that we want to limit. If it doesn’t need a police officer, we don’t want a police officer doing it.”

Burton said the number of people getting arrested for assaulting an officer reflects the reality of police work in Washington: “It’s a very, very tough place to work. You are working (around) people who … hate the police and will fight the police every chance they get. And every chance they get to injure a police officer, they will take it.”

Forty percent of those arrested for assaulting a police officer from 2012 to 2014 had those charges “no papered,” meaning that they were arrested and booked by the police, but prosecutors did not formally file charges.

In a statement to WAMU, the U.S. attorney’s office said it does not pursue charges that can’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt: “When charges are declined, this does not necessarily mean that the conduct did not take place, and that police were not justified in making an arrest, but rather that we have determined that we cannot meet the burden of proof.”

Excessive force
The police union chief also pushed back against the finding that more suspects arrested for misdemeanor charges of assaulting an officer require medical treatment than do the officers they reportedly assaulted. Burton points out that affidavits may mention a trip to the hospital if, for example, a diabetic is arrested without his or her insulin.

Sulton, however, said she has seen too many cases in which a defendant was more seriously injured than the officer: “I think it’s actually being used to cover up excessive use of force. … When police are brutalizing people in the community, the justification that they give for those injuries is that the person either resisted arrest or reached for a weapon or assaulted that police officer.”

Copacino agrees: “It’s not infrequent that our clients get beaten up by the police in the course of a stop, and we come out of it with a charge of APO (assaulting a police officer). … Who do we believe on this stuff and where does it come from? I’ve seen too many cases to believe that it’s not initiated by the police.”

Warren Cooper ended up in the hospital after calling for police assistance while trying to retrieve his possessions from an ex-girlfriend. Cooper, a Navy veteran with nearly 20 years of service and experience as a military police officer, is currently pursuing a college degree in business. But on July 15, 2013, two police officers viewed him as a threat.

After officers responding to his 911 call informed him that his ex-girlfriend denied having his belongings, Cooper asked that they go to her apartment together.

“Next thing I know, one of the officers takes me … and he slams me up against the wall,” Cooper said. “And I am like, ‘Whoa, whoa,’ so I throw my hands up immediately to let him know that I am not resisting.” According to the police affidavit, Cooper “squared his shoulders and took a fighting stance with both fists up to his face (as a boxer would).”

One shot him with pepper spray. “My face felt like I was in burning coals,” Cooper said in an interview. “My eyes were feeling like they wanted to cook themselves in their eyelids.”

The two officers dragged the blinded Cooper outside and threw him to the ground. “He was on top of me, beating me, punching me, and she was … beating me with (a baton) all over my body. … I kept asking, ‘What did I do?’ They never said nothing. It was just pure aggression.”

Cooper was in the hospital when he learned that the officers had charged him with assaulting them. “It was crazy. I read the paperwork. And everything in the paperwork was a lie. Total bald-faced lie,” he said.

A security camera at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment building recorded the encounter, though he has never seen the footage because prosecutors dismissed the case before trial.

Cooper was hospitalized for a week, hooked up to intravenous antibiotics because a cut from the baton led to an aggressive infection that caused his entire leg to swell. Recovering from his injuries caused him to miss so much school that he lost his standing and nearly quit.

He describes the experience of his arrest as one of “extreme pain” and “mental anguish,” yet asserts that, in general, he still has “the utmost respect for the police.”

But as to the specific officers who beat and arrested him: “Those police officers need to lose their jobs. I don’t think training will do anything for them.”

Community policing
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William Kenley, a Maryland corrections officer, claims in a lawsuit that he was falsely arrested for assaulting a police officer after he started recording officers using force on his friend. Credit: Christina Davidson/WAMU

Additional training would improve individual misbehavior, but matters of community relations run much bigger than one officer.

As a former police officer and current adviser on best practices, Ron Hampton favors a community policing approach and uses his own 23 years of experience as a Metropolitan Police Department officer to illustrate its benefits. When he was an officer in the District, Hampton policed his own neighborhood. He says that gave him a vested interest in both the security and well-being of others in his neighborhood, which helped him develop a mutual bond of trust with an expansive network of local contacts.

“I knew people in the community, and they knew me,” he said. “I didn’t operate from a fear base. I operated from the standpoint of being a member of the community but just happened to be a police officer.”

These days, police officers tend to live in the suburbs, in part because living well in the city can be prohibitively expensive. But the Metropolitan Police Department could face significant challenges recruiting personnel from neighborhoods that would benefit most from community policing because high arrest rates diminish the pool of potential candidates with clean records.

The police could have had an ideal recruit in William Kenley – until he was arrested for assaulting a police officer.

Kenley grew up in northeast D.C. aspiring to become a police officer. He pursued a criminology degree at the University of the District of Columbia and is employed as a correctional officer.

A fellow correctional officer was coming by to visit on June 20, 2013, when police stopped him in front of Kenley’s house. Kenley started filming with his phone when the officers got rough with his friend. The last few frames of the short video show an officer charging toward him.

Kenley said the officer hit the phone out of his hand and knocked him to the ground. Ten minutes later, the officer approached again and put him in handcuffs, arresting him for allegedly ordering his dog to attack the officers.

But the officers had initially failed to turn over to prosecutors a witness statement that contradicted the police version of events. The case against Kenley was dismissed before trial.

Beating the charges doesn’t mean he escaped the experience unscathed. Because of the arrest, Kenley was suspended from his corrections job for three months without pay. And he no longer dreams of joining the force. Even if he still had that ambition, he believes the arrest would make him an unattractive candidate.

“I went to school to become a police officer. I worked hard to get here. I am an African American male. It’s hard growing up in the inner city and staying out of trouble. My mama raised me right,” he said. “It feels like I lost what I worked my entire life for.”
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Anonymous has a medium acct. Who knew?



Snitch Alert: Brandon Darby Will Be at RNC Filming Protesters with Former FTP Protester Cassandra Fairbanks
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@brandondarby’s Tweet
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Brandon Darby, FBI Informant. Cassandra Fairbanks, “Seasoned Activist” turned right-wing Trump supporter who adores Brandon Darby.
“If you know about someone planning violence at the RNC or DNC but are afraid to tell FBI, contact me. I’ll help. Bdarby@breitbart.com” ~ Brandon Darby June 27, 2016
Surveillance and infiltration by law enforcement, agents, and private contractors are par for the course during events like The RNC, so here’s a warning of two individuals who radicals, leftists, protesters, etc should stay far away from.

THE RNC 2016
On June 23 2016, The Intercept reported that “law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been knocking on the doors of activists and community organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, asking about their plans for the Republican National Convention in July.” Those visited include Black Lives Matter activists, Food Not Bombs organizers planning to distribute food at the RNC, a 66-year-old retiree organizing a march to end poverty, and parents of a student involved in a 2015 protest of the acquittal of a Cleveland police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter.

With intimidation comes surveillance and entrapment. One strategy used by snitches is to joke about the use of violence or bait activists into discussing violence only to later aid law enforcement in entrapping them. In a courtroom, jokes, observations, or off-handed comments can appear as evidence that nonviolent activists were plotting acts of terrorism. Many anarchist prisoners were framed for “terrorist” acts when out-of-context statements were presented by the prosecution. As history shows, the FBI and law enforcement agencies go to great lengths to manufacture “terrorism” charges. In 2012, four Cleveland anarchists (Douglas L. Wright, 26; Brandon L. Baxter, 20; and Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23) were arrested by the FBI after a paid FBI informant/provocateur spent months guiding this “plot” and produced the explosives. See Cleveland4Solidarity for more details on the case and info about how to support our entrapped comrades.

The links at the bottom provide information to help keep you safe, know your rights, and practice security culture.

Of immediate concern...

Avoid Brandon Darby and Cassandra Fairbanks
Protesters attending the RNC and any other political events must avoid notorious FBI Informant Brandon Darby and his close associate Cassandra Fairbanks. Given Ms. Fairbanks’ long history of access to the activist community, her close association with Darby makes her a threat. Snitches like Darby love to prey on “friends” and/or exploit their networks.

Below are a handful of public statements made by Darby and Fairbanks in June of 2016.

“If you know about someone planning violence at the RNC or DNC but are afraid to tell FBI, contact me. I’ll help. Bdarby@breitbart.com” ~ Brandon Darby“Informant Brandon Darby will be at the RNC. Be safe.” — @cleresistrnc
“With many videographers. It will help identify your friends who commit crimes so they can be prosecuted.” ~ Brandon Darby [in response to @cleresistrnc on Twitter]“Unlike you, I’ll be at the GOP protests without a mask- filming you and yours.” ~ Brandon Darby
“You misspelled ‘honored to have worked with the FBI” ~ Brandon Darby in response to @chalkupydaytona calling him a snitch on Twitter.
“Anarchists. Stop jacking with me. Our dance didn’t work out so well for you last time. I’m stronger now and your movement isn’t. Leave me be.” ~ Brandon Darby
Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules on Twitter) has publicly expressed her adoration of Darby and plans to spend a great deal of time at the RNC with him.

“Brandon Darby is a journalist/good person” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks (6/12/16)
“I’m sure I’ll be hanging out with him at the RNC, so no need to alert anyone prior, you guys can just come say hi in person, it will be easy to do.” ~Cassandra Fairbanks
“I’ll be at a way cooler adult table (with Brandon and his friends). ~ Cassandra Fairbanks
“He’s really a great person. People like to erase all the good he’s done because of the Molotov thing…but I’m really happy I know him.” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks.
@JahbaHimself how insane y’all are acting has me adoring @brandondarby even more than I already did, which I didn’t think was even possible” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks
“@Ergoat I don’t owe you anything. @brandondarby is my friend.” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks
“The apartment I got for Cleveland is within the confines of the RNC no protest zone it looks like lol” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks.
“If I was anti trump I would totally hang a banner from the window or something to protest the noprotest rule, but I’m not.” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks.
Background on Darby
Brandon Darby is a notorious FBI informant who, in 2008, directly facilitated the incarceration of two men through a diligent entrapment scheme at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. In September of 2008, the FBI arrested two men from Texas, Bradley Crowder and David McKay.

“According to the FBI’s documents, Darby, posing as an activist, had been covertly gathering information for the FBI since at least February 2007, twelve months before he ever met Crowder or McKay or knew of any plans for the RNC. “As an older seasoned activist, Darby had a lot of sway over Crowder and McKay, making them susceptible to his often militant rhetoric,” said Gabby Hicks, who was in St. Paul with Darby during the Convention. “He was always the one to suggest violence, when the rest of us clearly disagreed with those strategies.” FBI documents make it clear that Darby did not restrict his informing to people he alleges were planning illegal activities. He also gathered information on numerous people who were engaged in lawful activism; including some who had no plans to attend the Republican Convention. “The wider net cast by Darby in his information gathering shows that he was part of an FBI campaign to suppress political dissent and activism,” said Will Potter, an award-winning independent journalist. “By gathering information on law abiding activists and then defending his actions as stopping violence, Darby contributes to the public perception that political dissent is criminal, which has a chilling effect on free speech” (Austin Informant Working Group).
In addition to his work with the FBI at and before the 2008 RNC, Darby infiltrated Common Ground, a New Orleans grassroots response to Hurricane Katrina. While Common Ground was focusing on setting up a free medical clinic, cleaning and gutting homes, distributing clothes and personal hygiene products, organizing free legal services, planting gardens, and all sorts of other stuff to rebuild New Orleans, Darby was busy with often abusive and unrestrained sexual engagement with volunteers. It has been documented repeatedly that Darby’s leadership role and actions led to systematic problems of sexual harassment and abuse at Common Ground. Darby’s presence at Common Ground is an example of his infiltration and sabotage of a nonviolent grassroots group to serve the state. His sexual harassment directly contradicts Ms. Fairbanks history of protesting rape culture.

Cassandra Fairbanks
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Two of the hundreds of radical photographs Ms. Fairbanks has posted on her social media sites over the past few years.
Obviously, Cassandra Fairbanks’s close association with Darby makes her a threat to any leftist/anarchist/activist community. Ms. Fairbanks is somewhat uniquely positioned to assist Brandon Darby in his attempts to identify protesters at the RNC, as well as to attempt to match online accounts to users’ real identities, should she continue to collaborate with him, which she claims she has every intention of doing.

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Ms. Fairbanks using her personal Twitter account as a member of #KnightSec (Deric Lostutter’s utter fail Op) and attending various Million Mask Marches and Anonymous protests.
Fairbanks has a long history of access to a national activist community, at one point contributed to the Twitter account @YourAnonCentral (she no longer does) and participated in many Anonymous Ops with shady anons like KYAnonymous and Commander X. In 2015, Fairbanks traveled to protest FBI informant Sabu speaking at a conference. She wore a “Fuck Sabu” shirt to show outrage at the snitch who entrapped Jeremy Hammond.

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Ms. Fairbanks participation in #BaltimoreUprising as a supporter of protesters whose information she could pass on to Darby/Breitbart/LE.
For years, Fairbanks has traveled the United States going to “Fuck The Police” protests, #BlackLivesMatter protests, Occupy Wall Street protests, Anonymous Million Mask March protests, Steubenville rape protests, and has extensively filmed and photographed protesters she then kept in contact with.

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Ms. Fairbanks participating and documenting #Ferguson highway shutdown and #AIPAC protests.
The backlog of anarchist/activist/anonymous contacts Ms. Fairbanks can now pass on to her good friend Darby, Breitbart, and law enforcement is staggering.

Read more @ the sourcelink. Click on the medium image at the very top...
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
They have cages set up for potential arrestee's in Cleveland. I guess it's better than a hot van, as long as it doesn't rain.



 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Even tho #ResistRNC isn't technically BLM I'm including tweets about them also. The #WallOffTrump is in support of immigration.









Interesting read:





LOL looks like a black dude is making that money off the crazies.
I won't lie the thought crossed my mind, too:



This made me laugh. Must be a white BGOL member:

 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
Just yesterday dozens of brave activists staged occupations of police unions in DC, NY, Chicago, Oakland, and Detroit. Despite efforts to quiet our demands for justice we went to the power behind the violence, the very unions that protect the police that kill us every day. Yesterday was amazing, and today, there's much more to come.

In more than 80 cities across 5 countries people will take action driven by our dream of a world where Black children live in safety. We are calling for immediate action to end the unrestricted cash flow into failed policing strategies. Billions of dollars are spent on policing, while our education, health and housing suffer. Its time we the demand our federal government stop rewarding our death with unchecked grants.




As we prepare for today, we've taken a moment to reflect on the events of the last two weeks-- what's being said about our movement vs what we know to be true. Please read this as you're heading out today. We need to remember why we take action, what the stakes are, and the serious harm to our communities if things stay the same.

Visit the FreedomNow website
to find an action near you. Text FREE to 90975 for updates and join the conversation all day using the hashtag #FreedomNow. We especially want to see the images of resilience, joy, and determination today so as you take photos post them using hashtag #FreedomNow as well.
 

ballscout1

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
Black Lives Matter Calls For Global Change At United Nations Assembly
“There is an urgent need to engage the international community about the most pressing human rights crises of our day.”

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JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS
Opal Tometi is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement and the executive director for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration.



The fight to make sure black lives matter is a global one.

This message was reinforced by Opal Tometi, one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, during a recent address she delivered at the United Nations General Assembly.

Tometi, who delivered her speech in London on July 12 to the highest international body for human rights, began her remarks with a moment of silence for Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, two black men who were recently killed by officers and whose deaths have catalyzed protests across America.

Tometi described how the circumstances that surround their killings signal a growing human rights crisis that deals with discrimination and injustice on behalf of state agents. She went on to identify three core challenges that countries around the world must address when it comes to advancing human rights: global capitalism, white supremacy and the suppression of democracy.

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BAJI
Opal Tometi reflects on her address at the UN Assembly.

Tometi also serves as the executive director for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is the nation’s only black-led organization championing racial justice and immigrant rights. She has been a leading voice on how human rights are often impeded by racism and injustice.

“The timeliness of the UN High Level Dialogue on inequality and discrimination could not be overstated,” she said in a statement obtained by HuffPost. “There is an urgent need to engage the international community about the most pressing human rights crises of our day. In the footsteps of many courageous civil and human rights defenders that came before, I look to this meeting to be a forum for meaningful dialogue and action.”

During her address, Tometi tackled the growing impact of capitalism and how it has severely impacted black communities around the world. She denounced the agenda of some free trade agreements, which she said have caused cities like Detroit, Michigan, which has a majority black population, to suffer. She also spoke out against expensive development deals in countries like Haiti that have neglected and displaced residents who continue to live in poverty.

“The valuation of profit over people impedes human rights across much of the world,” Tometi said. “Free Trade Agreements and Structural Adjustment Programs have strangled indigenous industries, privatized basic services, displaced over 65 million people and decimated the environment across Asia, Africa and the Americas.”

“For the U.S., a nation that boasts of being the land of the free, it does not live up to its ideal.”Opal Tometi
Tometi also addressed white supremacy and demanded that it be dismantled. She said the belief system of labeling whiteness as superior to other races has perpetuated structural inequality and created “racialized systems that are reinforced over decades through institutional practices and violence. ”

She said that frequent police killings of black lives and the disproportionate criminalization of black Americans show how anti-blackness can have a real affect.

“For the U.S., a nation that boasts of being the land of the free, it does not live up to its ideal,” she said. “Government investment into programs for health, education and housing is waning in favor of expanding efforts to survey, capture and control.”

Tometi also discussed the ways democracy has been suppressed, especially in countries that are built to embrace it. She spoke against voter disenfranchisement, election rigging and the ways in which governments attempt to silence or criminalize others forms of civic participation, like protesting.

“I must emphatically state that the stifling of protest hampers the potential for democracy,” Tometi said. “As communities face a myriad of challenges and hostility from the state, driven by neoliberal interests, they are advocating for their rights and asserting their human dignity.”

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DON ARNOLD VIA GETTY IMAGES
Black Lives Matter protesters march towards Martin Place on July 16, 2016 in Sydney, Australia.


Tometi and other black activists have vehemently defended the right to protest and view it is a core component of the movement. Black Lives Matter, which officially launched in 2012, has since galvanized thousands across the U.S. and grown into a network with over 50 chapters across the globe. Tometi, along co-founders with Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors, have worked alongside members to keep the momentum of the movement going.

Tometi shared three lessons they have learned about activism along the way:

1. Tell the truth. “If there is an issue, name it and create the context to be heard,” she said. “Only when the oppressed are heard can we have an honest solutions based dialogue.”

2. Be inclusive and make central the concerns of the most marginalized. “We advocate with and are led by women, black immigrants, queer folks, people who are incarcerated, transgender, disabled, and people who practice different religions,” she said. “We see this diversity and complexity as strength.”

3. Mobilizing is not enough, you must demand what you need. “Reform of the current system will not suffice,” she said. “We must transform it.”

Before closing her address, Tometi reminded the room of the real purpose of Black Lives Matter and made one last declaration: “I challenge us all to have the courage of our convictions to fight for a fair, justice and inclusive society.”
 

Tom Slick

The Black HHH
BGOL Investor
I was out there in Oakland today.
I would upload a few pics but I don't have a clue how to do the shit.

Anyways, fuck the police.
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
damn, for a split second I thought this was gonna be a thread full of fine hoes at protests.... :smh:

Sowwy. If you see a tweet or vid of a "fine hoe" at a protest tho, feel free to post it. :)

Edit: Now that I think about it. I'm sure @slam or @playahaitian can come up with a protest theme. I swear those two should be in advertising anyway. They've come up with fiddymillion different ways to showcase Pu$$y. :lol:
 
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Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
IPRA is Chicago's community oversight committee, but there are complaints they don't actually penalize officers in any meaningful way.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-ipra-shootings-rulings-met-20160721-story.html

Two Chicago police shootings into vehicles ruled unjustified by oversight agency

Chicago's police oversight agency on Thursday ruled two shootings unjustified amid the ongoing controversy over how officers use force against residents and how those incidents are investigated.

In both cases, the Independent Police Review Authority ruled police fired into vehicles though the officers were in no serious danger.

With the decisions, IPRA has ruled more shootings by officers unjustified over the past 1 1/2 months than it had in the previous nine years — a reflection of the systemic upheaval that led Mayor Rahm Emanuel to appoint a new chief for the agency and call for IPRA to be abolished.

In one case, a Chicago police officer shot Ryan Rogers to death in East Hazel Crest in 2013 while the officer was on a special assignment investigating robberies of Radio Shack stores in the city and suburbs, records show. The officer told IPRA investigators that he fired four times because Rogers drove an SUV at him, but IPRA's ruling said the evidence showed that at least one shot was fired after the officer was no longer in peril.

In the other case, two officers shot and wounded a man who drove off in his SUV as the police tried to stop him after an alleged drug transaction on the South Side in 2015. IPRA ruled that both officers were out of the vehicle's path when they fired.

IPRA did not name the officers, but they are named in other city records connected to the shootings. Officer Daniel Smith shot Rogers; the officers who shot the other man, Antwon Golatte, are Harry Matheos and Jaime Gaeta, according to various city records.

Neither the officers nor Golatte could be reached for comment.

The agency made no recommendation as to any potential punishment for the officers in the shootings it ruled unjustified.

The agency also ruled five shootings justified.

The rulings represent a shift for an agency in transition. As of early last month, only two of more than 400 police shootings had been ruled to violate the city's use-of-force policies since IPRA's inception in 2007. Since early June, the agency has ruled three shootings unjustified.

Those rulings have come since Emanuel in December forced out the agency's chief, Scott Ando, and replaced him with former federal prosecutor Sharon Fairley. The mayor made that move as he sought to contain public outrage following the release of video showing a white officer, Jason Van Dyke, shooting a black 17-year-old, Laquan McDonald, 16 times. McDonald died in the shooting. Van Dyke has been charged with murder.

A recent Tribune investigation detailed IPRA's many shortcomings, including superficial investigations, a lack of independence from the Police Department and a tendency to call for light discipline in the tiny fraction of misconduct cases it has upheld. Fairley has acknowledged her agency's failings and enacted some reforms even as the future of the police oversight system remains uncertain. Emanuel has yet to provide details of what will replace IPRA.

Rogers' case is illustrative of issues that have sparked criticism of IPRA. Former IPRA supervisor Lorenzo Davis found the shooting unjustified, but Ando declined to follow his recommendation and the case remained open, according to an email from Ando to City Hall officials that the Tribune obtained through an open records request. Davis has sued the city, alleging he was wrongly fired last year for refusing to change his findings in shooting cases he considered unjustified.

"It wasn't closed, no doubt because Scott Ando did not want to close it with a sustained finding," Davis said in a recent interview.

Ando declined to comment Thursday night.

Smith told IPRA investigators, records show, that he was doing surveillance in the south suburbs, trying to catch robbery suspects, when he approached an SUV driven by Rogers, who drove at him. IPRA ruled the officer might have been justified when he started firing, but the last shot was fired after the SUV was pulling away from him. The lethal bullet entered Rogers' back, according to IPRA's ruling.

Earlier this year, the city settled a lawsuit filed by Roger's family for $1 million.

Similarly, IPRA faulted the officers in the other case for firing at a vehicle as it moved past them. The driver, Golatte, was charged with aggravated assault with a motor vehicle. That case is still pending, court records show.

IPRA also cleared an officer of wrongdoing in a fatal shooting from August 2012 connected to an off-duty motorcycle accident. In that case, the officer tried to avoid a 4-year-old girl who ran across a Maywood street but skidded into her. The girl's cousin and father attacked the officer when he tried to help the girl, and the officer shot the father after he punched and threw the officer to the ground, the IPRA ruling states.

IPRA ruled that there was an "abundance of evidence" that the officer was being beaten when he fired his gun, and he reasonably thought his life was in danger. But IPRA's ruling suggested the officer might have avoided killing the man if he had first warned he was going to shoot.

That suggestion goes along with IPRA's recent recommendations for changes in the Police Department's use-of-force rules. IPRA has recommended that the department encourage officers to warn people before shooting, when possible.
 

respiration

/ˌrespəˈrāSH(ə)n/
BGOL Patreon Investor
Anonymous has a medium acct. Who knew?



Snitch Alert: Brandon Darby Will Be at RNC Filming Protesters with Former FTP Protester Cassandra Fairbanks
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@brandondarby’s Tweet
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Brandon Darby, FBI Informant. Cassandra Fairbanks, “Seasoned Activist” turned right-wing Trump supporter who adores Brandon Darby.
“If you know about someone planning violence at the RNC or DNC but are afraid to tell FBI, contact me. I’ll help. Bdarby@breitbart.com” ~ Brandon Darby June 27, 2016
Surveillance and infiltration by law enforcement, agents, and private contractors are par for the course during events like The RNC, so here’s a warning of two individuals who radicals, leftists, protesters, etc should stay far away from.

THE RNC 2016
On June 23 2016, The Intercept reported that “law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have been knocking on the doors of activists and community organizers in Cleveland, Ohio, asking about their plans for the Republican National Convention in July.” Those visited include Black Lives Matter activists, Food Not Bombs organizers planning to distribute food at the RNC, a 66-year-old retiree organizing a march to end poverty, and parents of a student involved in a 2015 protest of the acquittal of a Cleveland police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter.

With intimidation comes surveillance and entrapment. One strategy used by snitches is to joke about the use of violence or bait activists into discussing violence only to later aid law enforcement in entrapping them. In a courtroom, jokes, observations, or off-handed comments can appear as evidence that nonviolent activists were plotting acts of terrorism. Many anarchist prisoners were framed for “terrorist” acts when out-of-context statements were presented by the prosecution. As history shows, the FBI and law enforcement agencies go to great lengths to manufacture “terrorism” charges. In 2012, four Cleveland anarchists (Douglas L. Wright, 26; Brandon L. Baxter, 20; and Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23) were arrested by the FBI after a paid FBI informant/provocateur spent months guiding this “plot” and produced the explosives. See Cleveland4Solidarity for more details on the case and info about how to support our entrapped comrades.

The links at the bottom provide information to help keep you safe, know your rights, and practice security culture.

Of immediate concern...

Avoid Brandon Darby and Cassandra Fairbanks
Protesters attending the RNC and any other political events must avoid notorious FBI Informant Brandon Darby and his close associate Cassandra Fairbanks. Given Ms. Fairbanks’ long history of access to the activist community, her close association with Darby makes her a threat. Snitches like Darby love to prey on “friends” and/or exploit their networks.

Below are a handful of public statements made by Darby and Fairbanks in June of 2016.

“If you know about someone planning violence at the RNC or DNC but are afraid to tell FBI, contact me. I’ll help. Bdarby@breitbart.com” ~ Brandon Darby“Informant Brandon Darby will be at the RNC. Be safe.” — @cleresistrnc
“With many videographers. It will help identify your friends who commit crimes so they can be prosecuted.” ~ Brandon Darby [in response to @cleresistrnc on Twitter]“Unlike you, I’ll be at the GOP protests without a mask- filming you and yours.” ~ Brandon Darby
“You misspelled ‘honored to have worked with the FBI” ~ Brandon Darby in response to @chalkupydaytona calling him a snitch on Twitter.
“Anarchists. Stop jacking with me. Our dance didn’t work out so well for you last time. I’m stronger now and your movement isn’t. Leave me be.” ~ Brandon Darby
Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules on Twitter) has publicly expressed her adoration of Darby and plans to spend a great deal of time at the RNC with him.

“Brandon Darby is a journalist/good person” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks (6/12/16)
“I’m sure I’ll be hanging out with him at the RNC, so no need to alert anyone prior, you guys can just come say hi in person, it will be easy to do.” ~Cassandra Fairbanks
“I’ll be at a way cooler adult table (with Brandon and his friends). ~ Cassandra Fairbanks
“He’s really a great person. People like to erase all the good he’s done because of the Molotov thing…but I’m really happy I know him.” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks.
@JahbaHimself how insane y’all are acting has me adoring @brandondarby even more than I already did, which I didn’t think was even possible” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks
“@Ergoat I don’t owe you anything. @brandondarby is my friend.” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks
“The apartment I got for Cleveland is within the confines of the RNC no protest zone it looks like lol” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks.
“If I was anti trump I would totally hang a banner from the window or something to protest the noprotest rule, but I’m not.” ~ Cassandra Fairbanks.
Background on Darby
Brandon Darby is a notorious FBI informant who, in 2008, directly facilitated the incarceration of two men through a diligent entrapment scheme at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. In September of 2008, the FBI arrested two men from Texas, Bradley Crowder and David McKay.

“According to the FBI’s documents, Darby, posing as an activist, had been covertly gathering information for the FBI since at least February 2007, twelve months before he ever met Crowder or McKay or knew of any plans for the RNC. “As an older seasoned activist, Darby had a lot of sway over Crowder and McKay, making them susceptible to his often militant rhetoric,” said Gabby Hicks, who was in St. Paul with Darby during the Convention. “He was always the one to suggest violence, when the rest of us clearly disagreed with those strategies.” FBI documents make it clear that Darby did not restrict his informing to people he alleges were planning illegal activities. He also gathered information on numerous people who were engaged in lawful activism; including some who had no plans to attend the Republican Convention. “The wider net cast by Darby in his information gathering shows that he was part of an FBI campaign to suppress political dissent and activism,” said Will Potter, an award-winning independent journalist. “By gathering information on law abiding activists and then defending his actions as stopping violence, Darby contributes to the public perception that political dissent is criminal, which has a chilling effect on free speech” (Austin Informant Working Group).
In addition to his work with the FBI at and before the 2008 RNC, Darby infiltrated Common Ground, a New Orleans grassroots response to Hurricane Katrina. While Common Ground was focusing on setting up a free medical clinic, cleaning and gutting homes, distributing clothes and personal hygiene products, organizing free legal services, planting gardens, and all sorts of other stuff to rebuild New Orleans, Darby was busy with often abusive and unrestrained sexual engagement with volunteers. It has been documented repeatedly that Darby’s leadership role and actions led to systematic problems of sexual harassment and abuse at Common Ground. Darby’s presence at Common Ground is an example of his infiltration and sabotage of a nonviolent grassroots group to serve the state. His sexual harassment directly contradicts Ms. Fairbanks history of protesting rape culture.

Cassandra Fairbanks
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Two of the hundreds of radical photographs Ms. Fairbanks has posted on her social media sites over the past few years.
Obviously, Cassandra Fairbanks’s close association with Darby makes her a threat to any leftist/anarchist/activist community. Ms. Fairbanks is somewhat uniquely positioned to assist Brandon Darby in his attempts to identify protesters at the RNC, as well as to attempt to match online accounts to users’ real identities, should she continue to collaborate with him, which she claims she has every intention of doing.

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Ms. Fairbanks using her personal Twitter account as a member of #KnightSec (Deric Lostutter’s utter fail Op) and attending various Million Mask Marches and Anonymous protests.
Fairbanks has a long history of access to a national activist community, at one point contributed to the Twitter account @YourAnonCentral (she no longer does) and participated in many Anonymous Ops with shady anons like KYAnonymous and Commander X. In 2015, Fairbanks traveled to protest FBI informant Sabu speaking at a conference. She wore a “Fuck Sabu” shirt to show outrage at the snitch who entrapped Jeremy Hammond.

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Ms. Fairbanks participation in #BaltimoreUprising as a supporter of protesters whose information she could pass on to Darby/Breitbart/LE.
For years, Fairbanks has traveled the United States going to “Fuck The Police” protests, #BlackLivesMatter protests, Occupy Wall Street protests, Anonymous Million Mask March protests, Steubenville rape protests, and has extensively filmed and photographed protesters she then kept in contact with.

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Ms. Fairbanks participating and documenting #Ferguson highway shutdown and #AIPAC protests.
The backlog of anarchist/activist/anonymous contacts Ms. Fairbanks can now pass on to her good friend Darby, Breitbart, and law enforcement is staggering.

Read more @ the sourcelink. Click on the medium image at the very top...

Excellent CSI. These types are in every city. And they do more than just take pictures, get names and snitch.
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
The last few weeks have been emotionally wrenching. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were killed by the police and America saw it. While many people throughout the world are outraged, the Black community is in acute pain. As so many of us watched the videos of these killings, we came face-to-face with our own mortality and that of family members and friends, while we grieved for the victims and their families. We are also frustrated and angry that time and time again these killings happen without consequences law enforcement. The acquittals of several of the officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray leaves us questioning whether justice will ever be served.

Over the past two weeks, we have received numerous calls and emails asking, “What can we do?” We wanted to respond because no longer can people sit on the sidelines. We must act! Things will not change overnight. This is not about a few bad apples. We need systemic change that will require a long-term effort. We need to use all tactics from protest to power. Organizing and voting must be on our agenda. If we get involved and stay involved, I am confident we will win.

Here’s are a few things you can do to make a difference and show up in the movement for racial justice:

Take Care of Yourself:

During incredibly painful times, it is easy to lose sight of one’s needs and instead focus solely on the change we need to make. We cannot be effective if we do not take care of ourselves and each other. What we are witnessing is also traumatic. Allow yourself to feel the full range of emotions that the tragedies of the last couple of weeks unleash. In doing so, remember you have resources. Click here to watch a TEDx talk on healing and creating safety grounded in our communities written by Nia Wilson of Spirithouse in Durham, NC.

Watch: In taking the necessary time to heal and mourn, please watch this powerful teaching video offering by Adrienne Maree Brown, on nutrition, exercise, the power of healing circles, and the power of water to hold, heal and connect us. Adrienne is a writer, facilitator, healer and doula living in Detroit:



The Change We Need:

Transformation of police departments, their role and relationship to our communities requires a change in culture, accountability, training, policies and practices. It also requires strong leadership and transparency. Without organizing our communities and building power nothing will change. Click here to learn about a few issues you can work to change.

Be a Co-conspirator:

If you are non-Black, you too play a pivotal role as co-conspirators in the struggle to change policing and ensure racial justice. What can you do as a co-conspirator to support the dignity and safety of Black lives? Engage in deep transformative conversations with your friends, your families, your neighbors, and elevate the voices of communities in pain. These are often the most difficult conversations to have. But we must change hearts and minds as we work to transform systems and institutions. Here are templates and examples of letters of support from various communities.

Also, look into Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ).

Get Informed:

Click here to view an extensive list of reports, articles, and links related to anti-blackness, policing and organizing for change.



We have been here before. The constant state of sadness and anger can be paralyzing, but it can also propel us into action. The movement for racial justice in this country is ours to build.
 

Mo-Better

The R&B Master
OG Investor
Camille your working your way beyond warrior status and no you are not alone. This thread is incredible while also being disturbing.

Much of what you've documented pretty much confirms a theory myself and a few others had suspected. This increase of unjust police violence against black people seems to coincide with Obama's election. Our payment for having the audacity to place a black man in such a lofty position.

But make no mistake there's been a steady increase in police murders of unarmed black people over the last several years. Black men are killed 21 times more often than whites. I'm not going to bore you and the board with pages of statistics because the evening news speaks for itself. Nor are we imagining what were seeing.

https://www.propublica.org/article/deadly-force-in-black-and-white

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/09/the-counted-police-killings-us-vs-other-countries
 

Camille

Kitchen Wench #TeamQuaid
Staff member
http://www.salon.com/2016/07/23/cle...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

“CLEoverRNC”: BLM protesters condemn city government for prioritizing the convention over residents


In interviews with Salon, BLM activists rip government for spending millions on cops while cutting social services



A Black Lives Matter protester outside of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Thursday, July 21 (Credit: Salon/Ben Norton)



Thousands of people from all over the country convened in downtown Cleveland this past week to protest the 2016 Republican National Convention. A huge variety of activists appeared, from anti-racist protesters to migrant justice organizers, from anti-war dissidents to revolutionary socialists.

During these varied demonstrations, a group of Cleveland residents organized a campaign to call out the government for prioritizing the RNC over its own citizens.

They unified their actions under the hashtag #CLEoverRNC. On Thursday night, the activists — many of whom are part of the Black Lives Matter movement — gathered downtown in Public Square, holding up signs that illustrate the ways in which they feel abandoned by their government.

“You lock us in a constant, cyclical state of poverty, and then you murder us,” said Samira Malone, a student activist at Cleveland State University.

Malone blasted the RNC, noting, “None of their issues help us.”

“Our neighborhoods look like war zones due to economic redlining,” she said. “They took money out of our public schools and put it in charter schools, but they’re failing.”

While millions of people throughout the U.S. live in poverty and struggle to get by, Malone noted that the government spends an enormous share of tax dollars on the military — more than the countries with the seven largest military budgets combined, to be precise — and some of this fuels the militarization of local police forces.

We live in a militaristic government, period,” Malone stressed. The government spent at least $50 million on police for the RNC, she added “and they’re bored — $50 million for them to twiddle their thumbs.”

Tyra Sadler, an activist who just graduated from John Carroll University, told Salon the demonstration was not organized by one particular group, although many of the activists are part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Instead, members of the community got together and asked what they could do to speak up.

“The RNC is an inconvenience to the city,” Sadler said. “The millions they spent could have been invested in schools, roads and a lot of other things.”

Sadler noted that one of the themes of the 2016 RNC was “Make America safe again,” yet, she stressed, “Certain ethnic groups and indigenous groups have never been safe.”


Several of the protesters cited some of the same structural problems in Cleveland, including failing underfunded schools, abandonment of homes, broken infrastructure, gaping potholes and extreme and growing inequality.

Alice Ragland, a PhD student at Ohio State University, told Salon, “A lot of the city is in really bad condition, but a lot of the tax dollars have gone to the RNC.”



 
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