Police, prison and abolition

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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Mon Jun 06, 2022 2:26 pm

Police in the US are not legally required to protect people. Uvalde proves this.

19 children and two teachers were shot dead in Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, while police idled outside for over an hour despite pleas from desperate parents

June 05, 2022 by Natalia Marques

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Memorials for the victims of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School (via: VOA)

On May 24, as many as 19 police officers idled outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, as a mass shooter gunned down 19 children and two teachers, for well over an hour. Not only did police not intervene to stop the shooting, but according to witnesses, police also handcuffed, pepper-sprayed, or otherwise brutalized the parents of the children, who, after witnessing police inaction, tried desperately to get inside the school themselves. Videos taken by parents have been circulating on social media, and millions across the US and the world have heard parents’ pleas for action. “Y’all keep fighting with us, go fight that motherf-er!” one can be heard saying in one such video after an officer shoves an onlooker.



Police lies

The day after the shooting, on May 25, Texas officials were already spinning a narrative to the media about the bravery of police officers who engaged the gunman. Only a few days later, information would emerge that would prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this narrative was false.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on May 25, “[Police] showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire for the singular purpose of trying to save lives.” This turned out to be false. Police officers were instructed by Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo to hold off on entering the two adjoining classrooms that the shooter was barricaded in. Students trapped inside the school with the shooter placed several calls to emergency services, pleading for police to help, as cops stood idle a few feet away.

Also on May 25, Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said that the shooter was confronted immediately by a school police officer when entering the school, in which “rounds were exchanged.” This also turned out to be false. The shooter entered the school unobstructed by police. In fact, a Uvalde school district police officer arrived at the scene before the gunman entered the school, did not notice the 18-year-old carrying an assault weapon, and drove past him.

Police had also claimed initially that a teacher had left the back door to the school propped open, through which the shooter entered. Reportedly, security video footage proves this to be false.

Ineptitude and inaction leads to death

As the police’s official version of events began to unravel, shocking facts emerged from media and witnesses alike.

There is reason to believe that the police had barricaded the shooter in one classroom full of children, after which they stood outside, refusing to engage. “Bottom line, law enforcement was there, they did engage immediately, they did contain him in a classroom,” said McCraw on May 25. Every single victim was shot in that very same classroom.

In the days following the shooting, witnesses began sharing shocking accounts. Angeli Rose Gomez was one of numerous parents urging police to enter the school as the shooting was taking place. “The police were doing nothing,” Gomez told the Wall Street Journal. “They were just standing outside the fence. They weren’t going in there or running anywhere.”


Gomez claims that US Marshals soon put her in handcuffs for “intervening in an active investigation.” She also claims to have seen police brutalize parents, tackling them to the ground or using tasers and pepper spray. The videos circulating on social media depict some of this violence, inflicted upon a majority-Latino community by what appears to be largely white police officers.

Gomez eventually convinced police to remove her handcuffs. As soon as she was set free, Gomez moved away from the crowd, then sprinted inside the school, grabbed her two children, and left.

Some parents were not as lucky. Local parent Javier Cazares, concerned with police inaction, proposed the idea of rushing in with several bystanders. “More could have been done.” Cazares told Associated Press. “[Police] were unprepared,” he added. His daughter, Jacklyn Cazares, was one of the victims, fatally shot while police waited outside.

Based on a CNN interview with a Texas Department of Public Safety officer, some are speculating that police officers got their own kids out of the school, while they made no moves to rescue other children. In the interview, the officer is asked “We’ve heard that some law enforcement officers actually went into school to get their kids out, can you talk about that?” The officer responds: “There was some police officers, families trying to get their children out of the school, because it was an active shooter situation.”

Blood loss is the number one cause of death during a mass shooting event. It is unclear how many children lay dying, bleeding out, or were shot while police loitered outside the school for over an hour.

There is also evidence that the police’s ineptitude actively caused injury. As a child witness recounted to San Antonio local news station KENS 5, “When the cops came, the cop said: ‘Yell if you need help!’ And one of the persons in my class said ‘help.’ The [shooter] overheard and he came in and shot her.”

Eventually, it was federal Border Patrol agents who entered the school and fatally shot the gunman. But not before being told to wait by Uvalde police. Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) agents arrived far sooner than previously known, only around half an hour after the shooting first began. They were told to wait, and did so for about an hour before finally entering the adjoining classrooms in which the gunman had been barricaded.

In the end, it was two teachers, Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia, who sacrificed their lives shielding their students from a mass shooter. The same cannot be said of Uvalde police, who had been trained on active shooter situations two months previously. As a police training manual reads: “A first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.”

No legal obligation to “protect and serve”

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The Uvalde Police Department has a part-time SWAT team. It is unclear if this team was mobilized for the Robb Elementary School shooting.

The motto of the Uvalde Police Department, as displayed on their badges, is “to protect and serve”. This is a common slogan amongst police departments across the US.

In practice, it is clear that the Uvalde PD did not protect the teachers and students of Robb Elementary. Parents reportedly had to take matters into their own hands, and if caught trying to protect their own children, were swiftly punished. This may seem like a glaring contradiction.

However, according to US law, there is no contradiction. Although police advertise themselves as servants of the public, the US Supreme Court has ruled that they have no legal obligation to protect citizens. This ruling came in 2005, through the The Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales case. Grieving mother Jessica Gonzales had sued police in Castle Rock, Colorado for failing to arrest her husband after he violated a court order to stay 100 yards away from her house. Her husband had taken their three children as they played outside of the house, and proceeded to murder all three.

The Supreme Court ruled against Jessica, stating that, although a protective order did mandate arrest, “a well-established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.” In other words, police had enough “discretion” to choose whether or not to enforce the law to protect someone.

In 2013, Joseph Lozito sued the city of New York, after he tackled Maksim Gelman, who had just gone on a stabbing spree. Lozito wrestled with Gelman, was stabbed in the head during the struggle, and eventually disarmed Gelman. It was only after Gelman was disarmed that New York City Police (NYPD), who had not helped Lozito up until that point, moved to apprehend Gelman. Based on the The Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales precedent, the Manhattan Supreme Court ruled against Lozito, because “no direct promises of protection were made” to him. The mission statement of the NYPD reads in part: “In partnership with the community, we pledge to: Protect the lives and property of our fellow citizens and impartially enforce the law.”

Despite inaction, police spin shootings in their favor

If police are not legally required to protect people, it should come as no surprise that in mass violence events like the Uvalde shooting, their responses are inadequate at best. Police inaction during shootings often exacerbates mass death. After the 2016 mass shooting in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, police took three hours to respond while victims bled out on the floor. 49 people lost their lives. During the 2018 mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a report found that the slow police response contributed to the loss of life. Police were also slow to respond during the 1999 mass shooting at the Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

Despite being consistently poor first responders to mass shootings, politicians, police and media are able to use public fear to spin narratives to the police’s advantage after violent events. After the shooting, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz advocated for even more police in schools. “We know from past experience that the most effective tool for keeping kids safe is armed law enforcement on the campus,” he said, despite the fact that Uvalde armed law enforcement did not move to keep kids safe for over an hour.


The same is true for other shootings. On April 12 in New York City, mass shooter Frank James shot 33 bullets into a subway car full of commuters, injuring 29. Immediately, NYPD ineptitude at responding to and preventing this shooting became clear. A police officer responding to the scene could not get his radio to work, and told train passengers to call 911 instead. Despite New York City being one of the most heavily surveilled cities, the NYPD surveillance cameras at all three subway stations where the shooting took place were not working.

It took police over a day to find the shooter. In the end, it was not even the police who discovered James’ whereabouts, he ended up turning himself in.

By the time of the shooting, the new New York City mayor, Eric Adams, had already flooded the city’s subway with 1,000 new police in the name of public safety. And despite police doing nothing to prevent the shooting and very little in the aftermath, Adams used the shooting as an excuse to call for doubling the amount of police in the subways. This is despite the fact that NYPD perpetuates violence in the subways, from harassing vendors or brutally arresting those who cannot pay the ever-increasing fare.

Police budgets and the defund movement

Mass violent events like the April 12 shooting help politicians justify massive increases in police spending. Mayor Adams is now proposing the largest NYPD budget to date: $11.2 billion. The city already spends $11 billion on the police, which is higher than the budget of the vast majority of the world’s militaries. Even with this massive budget, the NYPD did not stop the April 12 shooting, and they did little to keep New Yorkers safe afterwards.

The Uvalde Police Department consumes 40% of the city’s budget, and also received a grant of half a million dollars from the federal government. The school district in Uvalde where the shooting took place has its own police force of six officers. Despite being a small town, Uvalde has its own part-time SWAT team. It is unclear if this team was mobilized for the shooting.

Uvalde is not an outlier in terms of police spending. A Bloomberg analysis of 15 other similarly-sized cities reveals that police account for 32% of city budgets on average.

In 2020, millions took to the streets in the biggest protest movement in United States history, rebelling against police brutality and igniting conversations about whether or not massive police spending is justified. Many who had witnessed police violence, or ineptitude at dealing with actual crime, were attracted to the slogan “defund the police”. Since then, most city governments have not defunded the police at all, to the disappointment of many activists.

The Uvalde Police Department’s actions and inactions, and its broader implications for the true purpose of policing in the US, are reigniting this debate.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/06/05/ ... oves-this/
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:37 pm

US prison workers produce $11bn worth of goods and services a year for pittance
New report by American Civil Liberties Union says incarcerated laborers are either poorly compensated or not at all

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A general view shows the Rikers Island facility. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images
Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles @dani_anguiano
Wed 15 Jun 2022 13.00 EDT

Incarcerated workers in the US produce at least $11bn in goods and services annually but receive just pennies an hour in wages for their prison jobs, according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Nearly two-thirds of all prisoners in the US, which imprisons more of its population than any other country in the world, have jobs in state and federal prisons. That figure amounts to roughly 800,000 people, researchers estimated in the report, which is based on extensive public records requests, questionnaires and interviews with incarcerated workers.

ACLU researchers say the findings outlined in Wednesday’s report raise concerns about the systemic exploitation of prisoners, who are compelled to work sometimes difficult and dangerous jobs without basic labor protections and little or no training while making close to nothing.

Most incarcerated workers are tasked with general prison maintenance that is crucial to keep the facilities running, according to the ACLU researchers, who worked with the University of Chicago Law School’s Global Human Rights Clinic.

“State governments and the prison system are extracting tremendous value from a captive and exploited workforce all while claiming they can’t afford to pay them a liveable wage,” said Jennifer Turner, the principal author of the report.

More than 80% of incarcerated laborers do general prison maintenance, including cleaning, cooking, repair work, laundry and other essential services. For paid non-industry jobs, workers make an average of 13 cents to 52 cents an hour, according to the report. Seven states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas – pay nothing for the vast majority of prison work.

Incarcerated workers who are paid often see most of their pay withheld for “taxes, room and board expenses, and court costs”, the report states.

“We are saving [the prisons] millions of dollars and getting paid pennies in return … All the jobs we are doing in prison are not really benefiting us; it is more benefitting the prison system. I work a job making $450 for a whole year,” said Latashia Millender, an inmate at a prison in Illinois, according to the report.

Public officials have acknowledged that the work of these unpaid and poorly compensated incarcerated laborers is crucial: “There’s no way we can take care of our facilities, our roads, our ditches, if we didn’t have inmate labor,” Warren Yeager, a former Gulf county, Florida, commissioner said to the Florida Times-Union.

Other officials have said they oppose new sentencing and parole laws that would reduce the pool of incarcerated workers, according to the report. Steven Prator, a Louisiana sheriff, said: “We need to keep some out there, that’s the ones that you can work, that pick up trash, the work release program, but guess what? Those are the ones that they are releasing … the good ones, that we use every day to wash cars, change oil in our cars, to cook in the kitchen, to do all that where we save money … well, they are gonna let them out.”

More than 75% of workers told ACLU researchers if they can’t work or decline to do so, they are subject to punishment ranging from solitary confinement to the loss of family visits to denials of sentence reductions.

Most incarcerated workers are not provided with skills and training for their work that would help them secure jobs when they are released, Turner said; 70% said they did not receive any formal job training, and 70% said they couldn’t afford essentials such as soap and phone calls with their wages.

“The United States has a long, problematic history of using incarcerated workers as a source of cheap labor and to subsidize the costs of our bloated prison system,” said Turner, a principal human rights researcher with the ACLU’s Human Rights Program.

“Incarcerated workers are stripped of even the most minimal protections against labor exploitation and abuse. They are paid pennies for their work in often unsafe working conditions even as they produce billions of dollars for states and the federal government.”

Some workers make slightly higher wages working for “state prison industries”, which are typically state-owned programs run by the corrections department to produce goods or provide services for other government agencies. That work includes manufacturing furniture, cleaning supplies and uniforms for other government workers, washing laundry for public hospitals or universities and working for call centers of the department of motor vehicles.

In 2021, more than 51,000 people held industry jobs, accounting for 6.5% of prison labor, the researchers found. Those workers are paid 30 cents to $1.30 an hour on average. In Oregon, for example, the DMV pays incarcerated workers $4 to $6 a day, while a worker outside of prison doing the same DMV job makes an average of $80 a day.

Incarcerated workers in prison industries programs generated goods and services worth $2.09bn nationally in 2021, the authors found, citing estimates from the National Correctional Industries Association, a prison industry group. The researchers estimated that the maintenance work of prisoners is worth $9bn a year, but cautioned that there was no centralized data on the value of this work and that the figure was probably an undercount and a rough estimate from earlier studies.

The authors of the report are calling for extensive changes around the use of prison labor, including ensuring that such work is voluntary and provides workers with the same wages and protections granted to other workers as well as work programs that give incarcerated workers marketable skills and training.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -exploited

It's called slavery.

Funny, I didn't see this news in my local paper...

('Red' added.)
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:40 pm

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Captive labor: Exploitation of incarcerated workers
Originally published: ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) on June 15, 2022 by ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) (more by ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)) | (Posted Jun 21, 2022)

Our nation incarcerates more than 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons, and two out of three of these incarcerated people are also workers. In most instances, the jobs these nearly 800,000 incarcerated workers have look similar to those of millions of people working on the outside. But there are two crucial differences: Incarcerated workers are under the complete control of their employers, and they have been stripped of even the most minimal protections against labor exploitation and abuse.

A new ACLU report, Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, explores the use of prison labor nationwide. Here’s what we found:

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| Forced to work and stripped of standard workplace protections | MR Online

From the moment they enter the prison gates, incarcerated people lose the right to refuse to work. This is because the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against slavery and involuntary servitude, explicitly excludes from its reach those held in confinement due to a criminal conviction. The roots of modern prison labor can be found in the ratification of this exception clause at the end of the Civil War, which disproportionately encouraged the criminalization and effective re-enslavement of Black people during the Jim Crow era, with impacts that persist to this day.

Today, more than 76 percent of incarcerated workers surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics say that they are required to work or face additional punishment such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation. They have no right to choose what type of work they do and are subject to arbitrary, discriminatory, and punitive decisions by the prison administrators who select their work assignments.

U.S. law also explicitly excludes incarcerated workers from the most universally recognized workplace protections. Incarcerated workers are not covered by minimum wage laws or overtime protection, are not afforded the right to unionize, and are denied workplace safety guarantees.

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Incarcerated workers typically earn little to no pay at all, with many making just pennies an hour. They earn, on average, between 13 cents and 52 cents per hour nationwide. Wages remain stagnant for years, even decades. In seven states, incarcerated workers are not paid at all for the vast majority of work assignments.

Yet even these abysmal wages are not theirs to keep. The government takes up to 80 percent of these wages for “room and board,” court costs, restitution, and other fees like building and sustaining prisons. These wage deductions generally leave incarcerated workers with less than half of their gross pay. Workers are left with even less disposable income because prison systems charge incarcerated people exorbitant costs for basic necessities, like phone calls to loved ones, hygiene products, and medical care. Almost 70 percent of surveyed incarcerated workers said they were not able to afford basic necessities with their prison wages.

Because incarcerated workers’ wages are so low, families already struggling from the loss of income when a family member is incarcerated must step in to financially support an incarcerated loved one. Families with an incarcerated loved one spend $2.9 billion a year on commissary accounts and phone calls, and more than half of these families are forced to go into debt to afford these costs.

At the same time, incarcerated workers produce real value for prison systems and state governments, the system’s primary beneficiaries. Nationally, incarcerated workers produce more than $2 billion per year in goods and more than $9 billion per year in services for the maintenance of the prisons.

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More than 80 percent of prison laborers do prison maintenance work, which offsets the costs of our bloated prison system. Many prison workers are assigned to general janitorial duties like sweeping or mopping, while others are assigned to grounds maintenance, food preparation, laundry, and other work to maintain the very prisons that confine them.

Another 8 percent of incarcerated workers, assigned to public works projects, maintain cemeteries, school grounds, and parks; do road work; construct buildings; clean government offices; clean up landfills and hazardous spills; undertake forestry work; and more. At least 30 states explicitly include incarcerated workers as a labor resource in their emergency operations plans for disasters and emergencies. Incarcerated firefighters also fight wildfires in at least 14 states.

State-owned businesses employ 6.5 percent of incarcerated workers and produce over $2 billion in goods and services sold to other state entities annually. Less than 1 percent of workers are assigned to work for private companies, which generally offer higher pay but are still subject to exorbitant wage deductions.

Prisons spend less than 1 percent of their budgets to pay wages to incarcerated workers, yet spend more than two-thirds of their budgets to pay prison staff. The revenues from commodities and services generated by imprisoned laborers prevent policy makers and the public from reckoning with the true fiscal costs of mass incarceration. Some government officials have even voiced opposition to efforts to reduce prison and jail populations precisely because it would reduce the incarcerated workforce.

Prison policy should not be driven by a desire for cheap labor. While prison labor is not a driving force behind mass incarceration in the United States, when incarcerated people are used for cheap labor, there is a risk that our criminal justice policy will be hijacked by the desire to grow or maintain this captive labor force.

Dangerous work conditions and preventable injuries

A majority of incarcerated workers surveyed say that they received no formal job training, and many also say they worry about their safety while working. Incarcerated workers with minimal experience or training are often assigned hazardous work in unsafe conditions and without standard protective gear, leading to preventable injuries and deaths. Prisons don’t keep good records on the number of incarcerated workers injured on the job, but California reported more than 600 injuries in its state prison industry program over a four-year period. Because of poor data collection, this number likely underestimates the true impact of prison work on the health and safety of incarcerated workers.

Workplace safety and labor laws explicitly exempt prison laborers from the protections that virtually all other workers enjoy. Incarcerated people sometimes work in inherently dangerous conditions that would be closely regulated by health and safety regulations and inspectors if they were not incarcerated. Some are exposed to dangerous toxins on the job. In numerous cases we documented nationwide, injuries could have been prevented with proper training, machine guarding mechanisms, or personal protective equipment that would be standard in workplaces outside prisons.

The pandemic only made prison labor more coercive and dangerous
Given the vast power disparity between incarcerated people and their employers, incarcerated workers are an exceptionally vulnerable labor force. These workers were especially vulnerable to exploitation during the COVID-19 pandemic. As most of the country stayed at home, incarcerated people faced brutal working conditions. Many reported being forced to continue working and were threatened with solitary confinement and having their parole dates pushed back if they refused to work. Workers in at least 40 states were forced to produce masks, hand sanitizer, and other personal protective equipment during early pandemic lockdowns as COVID-19 tore through prisons–even as they often lacked access to these protective tools themselves. Others were forced to launder bed sheets and gowns from hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, transport bodies, build coffins, and dig graves.

Nearly a third of incarcerated people have contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and more than 3,000 have died due to overcrowding, lack of access to virus mitigating tools like masks and vaccines, and inadequate access to health care. Yet even as COVID-19 turned prison sentences into death sentences due to COVID-19, 16 states denied incarcerated essential workers early access to vaccines.

Dead-end jobs

Most prison workers surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics–70 percent–said the most important reason for working is to develop skills that they can use to build careers after release, but prison labor programs fail to provide incarcerated workers with transferable skills. In reality, the vast majority of work programs in prisons involve menial or repetitive tasks, and prison industries jobs and vocational training programs are declining nationwide, while maintenance jobs increasingly represent a larger share of work assignments.

Formerly incarcerated people are released with little money and face barriers to employment, including discrimination and state occupational licensing restrictions that bar people with conviction records from work in the very fields they trained in while incarcerated.

The path forward requires major reforms
| The path forward requires major reforms | MR Online

The majority of incarcerated people wish to be productive while in prison. They want, and often need, to earn money to send home to loved ones and pay for basic necessities while incarcerated. They want to acquire skills useful for employment after their release. Studies show that people who had some savings when they left prison and got jobs after their release were less likely to recidivate than those who did not.

Prison work that provides meaningful experience and skills, rather than pure punitive exploitation, is in all our best interest. Yet despite the potential for prison labor to facilitate rehabilitation, the existing system very often offers nothing beyond coercion and exploitation.

That needs to change.

We must push both state and federal lawmakers and prison authorities to eliminate laws and policies that punish incarcerated workers who are unable or unwilling to work. This will ensure that prison work is voluntary, and that people who refuse are not held in solitary or denied other benefits because they don’t want to–or can’t–work on behalf of the state.

We also need to guarantee incarcerated workers the same labor and wage protections as everyone else. This includes minimum wage, health and safety standards, the ability to unionize, protection from discrimination, and speedy access to redress when their rights are violated.

We must raise incarcerated workers’ wages and limit wage deductions. By paying incarcerated workers the state minimum wage, they will be able to pay for necessary expenses like child support, phone calls home, and commissary costs, while supporting their families and saving for eventual reentry into the society.

Prison workers deserve dignity. They should be properly trained for the work they perform, and we should be investing in programs that provide incarcerated workers with marketable skills that will help them find employment after release and eliminate barriers to employment and release.

Finally, we must push lawmakers to amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish the 13th Amendment exclusion that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. The 20 states with similar exclusion clauses in their constitutions should also repeal them. It’s past time to end slavery in all its forms–including in prisons.

You can read the full report below, as well as explore the stories of incarcerated workers here. https://www.aclu.org/news/prisoners-rig ... -servitude

https://mronline.org/2022/06/21/captive-labor/
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Tue Jul 05, 2022 2:50 pm

Protesters in Ohio Are Met With Riot Police Following Killing of Jayland Walker

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Troopers in riot gear watch as demonstrators gather outside Akron City Hall to protest the killing of Jayland Walker, shot by police, in Akron, Ohio, on July 3, 2022.
MATTHEW HATCHER / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY Julia Conley, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED
July 4, 2022

Hundreds of people in Akron, Ohio gathered outside the police department’s headquarters and marched through the city late Sunday, demanding justice for Jayland Walker after police footage was released showing that the 25-year-old Black man had been fatally shot from behind at least 60 times by officers as he tried to flee from a traffic stop on June 27.

Demonstrators chanted Walker’s name and “No justice, no peace!” outside the police department and the Harold K. Stubbs Justice Center, where they were confronted by officers in riot gear as the protest continued into the evening.

According to local news outlet WKYC, police officers deployed a dozen canisters of tear gas on the protesters after some knocked down barriers that were outside the police headquarters.

The response shook Rev. R. Stacey Jenkins, a pastor at the House of Prayer for All People, who joined the protests and told the Akron Beacon Journal that the bodycam footage showed no evidence of the police trying to peacefully deescalate the confrontation with Walker.

“Nothing can bring him back, but we can honor his life by seeing some quality change in how we police,” Jenkins told the newspaper.

The police department appeared to double down on defending the officers’ actions by responding to the community’s outcry with force, Jenkins suggested.

“I would respect them better if they would say, ‘We made a mistake,'” he said. “If they would say, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t have used so much force.'”

Olayemi Olurin, a public defender for Legal Aid in New York, called the “militarized” police response to the protests “insane, terrifying, and outrageous.”

Walker’s killing sparked protests and demands for the release of bodycam footage last week, as the community learned that he’d been killed after officers chased Walker during an “investigation of an unspecified traffic violation,” as the Washington Post reported.

Police claim Walker had fired a gun from his car, but his family disputes the claim and Walker was reportedly unarmed when he left his vehicle and was chased on foot by the officers.

“The police can do whatever they want,” a woman attending the protest told WKYC. “They can take our children’s lives and think it’s okay.”

Eight officers were involved in the chase which ended with the police firing about 90 rounds and shooting Walker roughly 60 times, according to an autopsy report.

“He was outgunned, outmanned,” Judi Hill, president of the Akron NAACP, told the Beacon Journal. “There’s just no reason for any of this.”

Activist Fela Sutton noted that recruiters for the Akron police department had recently attended a Juneteenth event with Black community members, giving hope to residents about amicable relations between law enforcement and the Akron community.

“You can’t build community relations doing things like [Walker’s killing],” Sutton told the Beacon Journal. “There is no reason to shoot somebody 60 times.”

https://truthout.org/articles/protester ... nd-walker/

Yes, there is a reason, it's called 'intimidation'.

*****************

Comparing Cops’ Arrest Of Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo To Jayland Walker’s Police Execution

The Highland Park parade shooting came one week after Akron cops shot and killed a Black driver suspected of nothing close to a deadly mass shooting.

Written By Bruce C.T. Wright
Posted 3 hours ago

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Demonstrators gather outside Akron City Hall to protest the killing of Jayland Walker, shot by police, in Akron, Ohio, on July 3, 2022. | Source: MATTHEW HATCHER / Getty

Police in Illinois not only managed to safely apprehend a “person of interest” — don’t call him a “suspect” — identified following a deadly mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade but they also apparently didn’t even fire off a single shot during the arrest on Monday.


The treatment of Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, who led police on what the New York Times called “a brief chase” before his arrest, pales in comparison — pun intended — to what happened to Jayland Walker, a Black driver in Ohio whose body was riddled with at least 60 bullet wounds after cops let off a barrage of shots during and after an apparent brief chase just one week earlier.

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Police said Walker, 25, committed unspecified traffic violations which led to officers attempting to pull him over on June 27 in Akron. Initial reports were that police shot at Walker more than 90 times. The Akron Beacon Journal described shots hitting Walker in the face, arms, legs and abdomen. The outlet also shared a note from the medical examiner’s report that Walker was handcuffed after being shot. Officers initially claimed that a gun was fired at them from Walker’s vehicle but there was no gun found after he was shot. The police narrative has since been in heavy dispute.


Now, compare that to the manhunt for and arrest of Crimo — who remains the lone person of interest in the shooting in Highland Park, a suburb of Chicago — and how not one single officer ever even felt compelled to pull their triggers after a *checks notes* brief chase of someone believed to be armed and dangerous.
Bishop Talbert Swan
@TalbertSwan
His name is Jayland Walker. ⁣

8 Akron Ohio cops fired 90 bullets at him, hitting him 60 times throughout hie entire body.

The cops pulled him over for a TRAFFIC VIOLATION.

He was 25.

He was a
@doordash
driver.

HE WAS UNARMED.

HE WAS MURDERED.

#JaylandWalker
5:43 PM · Jun 30, 2022·Twitter for iPad
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Bishop Talbert Swan
@TalbertSwan
·
Jul 3
Replying to
@TalbertSwan
Akron Police EXECUTED #JaylandWalker.

He was UNARMED.

They shot at him NINETY TIMES.

60 bullets MUTILATED his body.

He was BLACK.

He was 25.

He had NO RECORD.

He had never been arrested,.

He was MURDERED.
The fact that Crimo’s violence-less arrest came on the 4th of July seems appropriate since protecting violent white people as seemingly as American as apple pie.

It was all but a repeat of how accused murderer Payton Gendron was able to be safely arrested after allegedly carrying out the targeted massacre of 10 Black people in May at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.

After Crimo’s name became public, photos identifying him surfaced on social media showed he attended at least one rally supporting former President Donald Trump, who has been widely blamed for inciting violence in the U.S., including and especially at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Notably, Gendron left behind a manifesto that cited the racist so-called “white replacement” conspiracy theory that has been vehemently pushed in one way or another by the likes of Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Texas Lt. Dan Patrick, to name but a few.

The motivation for the shooting in Highland Park was not immediately clear. At least one of the fatal victims was identified as a “Mexican national.”

Pretextual traffic stops like the one described by police in its attempt to pull over Walker virtually match those involving other Black drivers that led to their deaths. That includes Patrick Lyoya, a 26-year-old Congolese refugee who was shot in the back of his head following a slow foot chase during a traffic stop for vehicle registration issues in Michigan on April 4. In that case, Grand Rapids Police Officer Christopher Schurr was ultimately charged with second-degree murder.


Months earlier, former Minnesota police officer Kim Potter was sentenced to two years in prison for purportedly confusing her Taser with her gun when she killed Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black driver who was pulled over for a traffic violation related to expired registration tags — a nonviolent alleged offense that amounted to a death sentence.

Sensing a pattern here?

The shooting in Highland Park came less than two weeks after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling effectively made it easier to carry concealed guns in public in a majority opinion penned by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Highland Park shooting is one of more than 300 mass shootings this year, including at least six on Monday in which a total of at least seven people were killed and 54 others were injured, according to statistics from the Gun Violence Archive website.

This is America.

https://newsone.com/4367066/robert-bobb ... treatment/

*****************

A Michigan police chief has apologized after it emerged that the department used images of Black men during target practice
By Paradise Afshar and Alaa Elassar, CNN
Published 7:17 PM EDT, Sun July 3, 2022

Image
Farmington Hills Police Jeff King apologized for the incident during a city council meeting on June 27.
WXYZ
CNN

A Michigan police chief has issued a public apology after reports that targets with images of Black men were seen at his department’s target practice area.

Concerns about the images were initially raised in April, after a Boy Scout troop toured the building used for target practice by the Farmington Hills Police Department, according to CNN affiliate WXYZ.

A photo taken by an unidentified individual on the tour shows at least three hanging targets of Black men holding weapons and a group of children gathered around one of the posters.

The targets have since been removed, Farmington Hills Mayor Vicki Barnett confirmed to CNN.

“I’ll take this one on the chin, I apologize to each and every person in this room, this community, my department, my city council, my city manager,” Police Chief Jeff King said during a June 27 city council meeting. “I can’t overlook this, but I promise you this, this will make us stronger, this will make us better, this will make us more transparent and this community overall will come out better for this.”

The images of the targets used were consistent with the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and were intended to “represent a mix of both threat and non-threat targets,” King said.

“The difference between a threat assessment target and a silhouette target is threat assessment targets allow you to identify if a threat is there. A silhouette target is only for target acquisition,” he added. “Our targets consist of a mix of genders and races and are shown holding a variety of items.”

The chief said 85% of the targets used during training are Caucasians and 15% are Black.

King also apologized to the scout troop “for not providing a full explanation of those targets.”

‘We are not your target,’ lawyer says
A family who joined the Boy Scouts field trip to the police department said they noticed the photos of Black men being used for target practice during a tour of the gun range, attorney Dionne Webster-Cox said in a June 22 Facebook post.

Webster-Cox, who said the family did not want to be identified but asked her to “speak on their behalf,” held a news conference for the community to discuss the issue.

“For these children, we need to say no, this is not acceptable,” Webster-Cox said during the conference. “You shouldn’t have saw it, it shouldn’t have been there in the first place… It’s not complicated at all. It’s very simple. We are not your target.”

Webster-Cox also cited the fatal shootings of Patrick Lyoya in Grand Rapids and George Floyd in a post on Facebook.

“This community does not need an overly aggressive police officer who wants to flex his authority,” she wrote. “No matter how many defenses the police offer to justify this incident, to have school children or adults exposed to this practice is ignorance.”

About 18.5% of the Farmington Hills population is Black, according to the US Census Bureau.

Review is underway
A legal review is underway and the purpose of the targets will be explained to any future visitors, King said at the city council meeting.

“We do everything with a focus on our community,” he said, adding that the target training is meant to help with implicit bias.

“It’s a critical point not only to what we engage and what we assess as a threat, but more importantly, what we don’t interpret as a threat, and we condition any kind of implicit bias, if it’s there, to not have officers focus on a specific demographic. It’s backed by the science, it’s backed by the literature, it’s backed by everything in our training as a whole,” he said.

Mayor Barnett said all of the images used in these situational awareness training exercises have been taken down during the city’s review.

“We have been told there are reasons those images are used to address implicit bias in training, but we believe it’s important to understand the full context in which they are used,” Mayor Barnett said. “We will also be comparing our training practices with regional municipalities and providing a full report on our findings to the community.”

CNN’s Hannah Sarisohn and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.

The targets have since been removed, Farmington Hills Mayor Vicki Barnett confirmed to CNN.

“I’ll take this one on the chin, I apologize to each and every person in this room, this community, my department, my city council, my city manager,” Police Chief Jeff King said during a June 27 city council meeting. “I can’t overlook this, but I promise you this, this will make us stronger, this will make us better, this will make us more transparent and this community overall will come out better for this.”

The images of the targets used were consistent with the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and were intended to “represent a mix of both threat and non-threat targets,” King said.

“The difference between a threat assessment target and a silhouette target is threat assessment targets allow you to identify if a threat is there. A silhouette target is only for target acquisition,” he added. “Our targets consist of a mix of genders and races and are shown holding a variety of items.”

The chief said 85% of the targets used during training are Caucasians and 15% are Black.

King also apologized to the scout troop “for not providing a full explanation of those targets.”

‘We are not your target,’ lawyer says
A family who joined the Boy Scouts field trip to the police department said they noticed the photos of Black men being used for target practice during a tour of the gun range, attorney Dionne Webster-Cox said in a June 22 Facebook post.

Webster-Cox, who said the family did not want to be identified but asked her to “speak on their behalf,” held a news conference for the community to discuss the issue.

“For these children, we need to say no, this is not acceptable,” Webster-Cox said during the conference. “You shouldn’t have saw it, it shouldn’t have been there in the first place… It’s not complicated at all. It’s very simple. We are not your target.”

Webster-Cox also cited the fatal shootings of Patrick Lyoya in Grand Rapids and George Floyd in a post on Facebook.

“This community does not need an overly aggressive police officer who wants to flex his authority,” she wrote. “No matter how many defenses the police offer to justify this incident, to have school children or adults exposed to this practice is ignorance.”

About 18.5% of the Farmington Hills population is Black, according to the US Census Bureau.

Review is underway
A legal review is underway and the purpose of the targets will be explained to any future visitors, King said at the city council meeting.

“We do everything with a focus on our community,” he said, adding that the target training is meant to help with implicit bias.

“It’s a critical point not only to what we engage and what we assess as a threat, but more importantly, what we don’t interpret as a threat, and we condition any kind of implicit bias, if it’s there, to not have officers focus on a specific demographic. It’s backed by the science, it’s backed by the literature, it’s backed by everything in our training as a whole,” he said.

Mayor Barnett said all of the images used in these situational awareness training exercises have been taken down during the city’s review.

“We have been told there are reasons those images are used to address implicit bias in training, but we believe it’s important to understand the full context in which they are used,” Mayor Barnett said. “We will also be comparing our training practices with regional municipalities and providing a full report on our findings to the community.”

CNN’s Hannah Sarisohn and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/03/us/farmi ... index.html

What a bunch of mealy-mouthed swine. Which includes the reporters, who did not ask any pointed questions.

Their only guilt was being exposed.
.
I'm about sick of white people being shocked by what's been going on all along. Sure, it's how we've been conditioned, but given the information available today ignorance is less of an excuse than ever. "Good Germans"...
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 16, 2022 2:43 pm

FBI Still Targets Black People for Entrapment
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 13 Jul 2022

Image
(Illustration by Rob Vargas)

The COINTELPRO era never ended, as Black people bear the brunt of FBI surveillance. The war on terror gave a new rationale for using paid informants to entrap Black people. Romeo Langhorne is the latest victim of a government created crime.

Romeo Langhorne is the latest victim of an FBI phony terror entrapment scheme. On July 7, 2022 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for uploading a bomb making video. Langhorne didn’t make a bomb. He uploaded a video while under the direction of an FBI informant. The video had in fact been produced by the government.

More than 20 years after September 11, 2001 Americans are still being told that they are at risk of terrorist attacks. The color coded risk assessments, NSA surveillance of all electronic and internet activity continues. The threat of terror attacks is the justification for encroaching on civil liberties and phony terror schemes concocted by informants still get headlines and give legitimacy to the continued violations of our rights.

Langhorne is a 32-year old Black man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He fits the description of nearly every person whom the FBI has speciously claimed to be a terrorist in the past 20 years. They are Black Americans, Muslims from this country or immigrants who are often vulnerable economically or emotionally. The list of people who were said to have planned acts of terror are victims of intimidation and entrapment from informers who are the ones who lead them to commit the act for which they are convicted.

In this case Langhorne pleaded guilty to “probably at some point” pledging allegiance to ISIS. The plea is meaningless when no one is ever acquitted. Pleading guilty in this case gets a 20-year sentence, taking the chance of pleading innocent when the prosecutorial deck is stacked against the defendant means risking many more years in prison when the inevitable guilty verdict is reached.

John Leombruno, Langhorne’s attorney described the scenario which occurs in most terrorism prosecutions, "Acting in an undercover capacity, they initiated conversations with Mr. Langhorne and incited the production of a video that would inform individuals on how to make an explosive…To make certain that a prosecution of the defendant would occur, the government produced the actual video in question (and), circled back to Mr. Langhorne when the interactions and conversations between them grew cold."

Langhorne shares the same fate with music Tarik Shah, the Liberty City Seven, and the Newburgh Four. All were targeted by FBI informants. In the case of the Liberty City Seven no crime was committed and the Newburgh Four supposed bombing plot was led by the informant, who created the crime himself.

Little has changed since this Black Agenda Report commentary in 2010, which stated that the true purpose of these entrapments is, “... to terrify the American public, so that they will surrender their civil liberties – possibly the greatest extortion scheme in U.S. history.” Of course Black targets are the most useful, as they always “fit the profile” when some wrong doing is being concocted.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, congress passed the Patriot Act, far reaching legislation that has impacted civil liberties ever since. At the time it was said to be temporary, yet it has been renewed like clockwork, without opposition or even minimal questioning from members of congress or the corporate media.

Langhorne was under surveillance from 2014 until his arrest in 2019. We see the usual hyperbolic claims of terroristic intent along with vague assertions of pledges to ISIS or another organization. In all these years there have been no Jihadist terror events in the U.S. Plots are produced by paid snitches and the wheels of injustice grind on and on.

Giving “material support” is a catch all phrase which can mean anything that prosecutors want. Any statement can be called a pledge of support to ISIS. The end result is that of the 979 terror charges filed since September 11 only 7 individuals have not gone to jail. A guilty plea in cases such as these proves absolutely nothing.

So 32-year old Romeo Langhorne gets 20 years in federal prison followed by 15 years of supervision. He will be a senior citizen by the time he is truly free from law enforcement. No one had anything to fear from him or the hundreds of others who have been prosecuted. Apparently there aren’t any real terrorists working in the U.S. If they do exist the feds can’t find them. They can only find hapless dupes to persecute and prosecute so that the people don’t question what their government does in their names.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/fbi-s ... entrapment

*********************

Arizona communities would 'collapse' without cheap prison labor, Corrections director says
Jimmy Jenkins
Arizona Republic
Image
“There are services that this department provides to city, county, local jurisdictions, that simply can't be quantified at a rate that most jurisdictions could ever afford. If you were to remove these folks from that equation, things would collapse in many of your counties, for your constituents,” Arizona Department of Corrections Director David Shinn said.
Arizona Department of Corrections Director David Shinn said Arizona communities would “collapse” without cheap prison labor, during testimony before the Joint Legislative Budget Committee Thursday.

Shinn made the statement while answering questions about a Request For Proposal for a contract to run the Florence West prison.

Sen. David Gowan asked Shinn about the nature of the work the prisoners do at the Florence West prison. In Arizona, all people in state prisons are forced to work 40 hours a week with exceptions for prisoners with health care conditions and other conflicting programming schedules. Some prisoners earn just 10 cents an hour for their work.

“These are low-level worker inmates that work in the communities around the county itself, I would imagine?" Gowan asked.

“Yes. The department does more than just incarcerate folks,” Shinn replied. “There are services that this department provides to city, county, local jurisdictions, that simply can't be quantified at a rate that most jurisdictions could ever afford. If you were to remove these folks from that equation, things would collapse in many of your counties, for your constituents.”


Defending the choice to keep state and private prisons open despite dwindling populations, Shinn told the legislators “while it doesn't necessarily serve the department in the best interest to have these places open, we have to do it to support Arizona.”

“Without the ability to have these folks at far flung places like Apache, like Globe, like Fort Grant, even like Florence West, communities wouldn't have access to these resources or services, and literally would have to spend more to be able to provide that to their constituents,” Shinn said.


'Plainly grossly inadequate': Arizona prison health care system ruled unconstitutional

Current private prison contract pays for beds, even if they are empty
The state currently contracts with The GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies, to run Florence West, a minimum security prison that can hold up to 750 people.

Budget committee staffer Geoff Paulsen said the state had purchased the facility through incremental payments over the life of the current contract, with the intention of the state taking ownership in October 2022.

The facility was built in 1997.

After taking ownership, the state would either need to provide staffing for the prison, or contract staffing out to another private contractor.

Shinn told the committee at this point, the state is in no position to run Florence West, citing 1,891 vacancies among corrections officers throughout the Department of Corrections.

“If the state were to take this over today, we would literally have to shut down functions and close programs,” Shinn said. “We cannot support that level of activity without our partners.”

As with most other private prison contracts in Arizona, the RFP to run Florence West guarantees the vendor a 90% occupancy rate, meaning the state pays a per diem rate for 675 prisoners, regardless of how many people are actually incarcerated there.

As of July 13, there were only 457 prisoners at Florence West.

Rep. Kelli Butler asked Shinn why the state would agree to such a contract condition, in which the state would likely be paying for more than 200 empty beds.

“I cannot speak firsthand on the logic of why previous contracts were written that way,” Shinn said. “However, I can assure you that we are looking at that very thing in this RFP process."

Rep. John Kavanagh said to get companies interested in bidding for the contract, it was necessary to provide a profit motive.

“You have to guarantee that they're going to have people there, and they're going to have a profit that they make, they're going to have income,” Kavanagh said. “No one's going to enter into a contract when you can't guarantee the income that they expect. That's kind of based on basic business.”


Behind the black curtain: Republic reporter describes 'surreal' Frank Atwood execution

After more questioning from Butler, Shinn confirmed there were currently more than 5,000 empty beds in the Arizona prison system state-wide.

“So we do have the option of switching these inmates out of this facility and into other facilities and save a lot of money for the taxpayer,” Butler said. “So I'm less concerned about whether or not this private prison company makes the profits that they want to make and more concerned about the taxpayer of Arizona.”

When Butler asked “Why aren’t we closing more prisons?” her line of questioning was

halted by committee leadership for being outside the scope of discussion.

Butler noted many of the people incarcerated at the Florence West prison are serving time for DUI’s, and asked about their access to substance abuse programming.

“During the interim, I did some study about what the private prisons were providing in terms of substance abuse treatment,” Butler said. She said she found that 13.9% of the people in private prisons received treatment. "That means the vast majority do not.”

Butler asked if there was any language in the RFP mandating substance abuse treatment, but Shinn said he could not comment on specifics during the bidding process.

The most recent private prison contract in Arizona was awarded to private prison operator CoreCivic, in a deal that is expected to generate millions in profits for the company. The five-year contract took effect on Dec. 29, 2021. The state will pay CoreCivic $85.12 per prisoner, per day for the contract, with the state guaranteeing a minimum 90% occupancy rate. The prisoners were relocated to CoreCivic’s La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy from the state prison in Florence, which the state is closing.


An Arizona Republic investigation found that Arizona lawmakers invested more in private prisons after record-high campaign contributions from the industry in recent years.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee gave a favorable review to the Department of Corrections RFP process for the Florence West prison on Thursday.

Responses to the RFP are due by July 30. The contract to run Florence West is for five years.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/lo ... 062910002/

I am reminded that the ancients of Greece, Rome and South Carolina all said that civilization would collapse but for slavery. Guess that depends how you define 'civilization'. I think there's a case for calling Capitalism a civilization, in which case the abolishing of wage(and other) slavery would prove their point...

Something about the shamelessness of these declarations lays bare the core inhumanity of the USA.
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:39 pm

Police Departments Spend Vast Sums of Money Creating “Copaganda”
BY
ALEC KARAKATSANIS

US police departments spend tens of millions of dollars every year to manipulate the news, flooding the discourse with “copaganda.” These aggressive tactics give the public a distorted view of what public safety means, what threatens it, and how to solve it.

Image
Police officers kneel during a rally in response to the killing of George Floyd, Coral Gables, Florida, May 30, 2020. (Eva Marie UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)

In n May of this year, I testified at a hearing in San Francisco where city leaders questioned the police department’s funding and use of public relations professionals. That funding was heavier than you might expect.

According to police department documents provided to the County Board of Supervisors, budget items included a nine-person full-time team managed by a director of strategic communications who alone costs the city $289,423; an undisclosed number of cops paid part-time to do PR work on social media; a Community Engagement Unit tracking public opinion; officers who intervene with the families of victims of police violence and who are dispatched to the scenes of police violence to control initial media reaction; and a full-time videographer making PR videos about cops.

San Francisco is not unique. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department has forty-two employees doing PR work in what it calls, in Orwellian fashion, its “Information Bureau.” The Los Angeles Police Department has another twenty-five employees devoted to formal PR work.

Why do police invest so much in manipulating our perceptions of what they do? I call this phenomenon “copaganda”: creating a gap between what police actually do and what people think they do.

Copaganda does three main things. First, it narrows our understanding of safety. Police get us to focus on crimes committed by the poorest, most vulnerable people in our society and not on bigger threats to our safety caused by people with wealth and power.

For example, wage theft by employers dwarfs all other property crime combined — from burglaries, to retail theft, to robberies — costing some $50 billion every year. Tax evasion steals about $1 trillion each year. There are hundreds of thousands of Clean Water Act violations each year, causing cancer, kidney failure, rotting teeth, and damage to the nervous system. Over 100,000 people in the United States die every year from air pollution, five times the number of all homicides.


But through the stories cops feed reporters, the public is encouraged to measure a city’s safety by whether it saw an annual increase or decrease of three homicides or fourteen robberies — rather than by how many people died from lack of access to health care, how many children suffered lead poisoning, how many families were rendered homeless by illegal eviction or foreclosure, or how many thousands of illegal assaults police committed.

The second function of copaganda is to manufacture crises or “crime surges.” For example, if you watch the news, you’ve probably been bombarded with stories about the rise of retail theft. Yet the actual data shows there has been no significant increase. Instead, corporate retailers, police, and PR firms fabricated talking points and fed them to the media. The same is true of what the FBI categorizes as “violent crime.” All told, major “index crimes” tracked by the FBI are at nearly forty-year lows.

The third and most pernicious function of copaganda is to manipulate our understanding of what solutions actually work to make us safer. A primary goal of copaganda is to convince the public to spend even more money on police and prisons. If safety is defined by street crime, and street crime is dangerously high, then funding the carceral state leaps out to many people as a natural solution.

The budgets of modern police departments are staggeringly high and ever increasing, with no parallel in history, producing incarceration rates unseen around the world. Police and their right-wing unions (which have their own PR budgets) want bigger budgets, more military-grade gear, more surveillance technology, and more overtime cash. Multibillion-dollar businesses have privatized nearly every element of these bureaucracies for profit, from the tasers and AI software sold to cops to the snacks sold at huge markups to supplement inadequate jail food. To obtain this level of spending, they need us to think that police and prisons make us safer.

The evidence shows otherwise. If police and prisons made us safe, we would have the safest society in world history — but the opposite is true. There is no link between more cops and decreased crime, even of the type that the police report. Instead, addressing the root causes of interpersonal harm like safe housing, health care, treatment, nutrition, pollution, and early-childhood education is the most effective way to enhance public safety. And addressing root causes of violence also prevents the other harms that flow from inequality, including millions of avoidable deaths.

The insistence that increased policing is the key to public safety is like climate science denial. Just like the oil companies, the police are running an expensive operation of mass communication to convince people of things that aren’t true. Thus, we are left with a great irony: even if what you most care about are the types of crimes reported by police, those crimes would be better reduced by making our society more equal than by spending on police and prisons.

Powerful actors in policing and media both manufacture crime waves and respond to them in ways that increase inequality and consolidate social control, even as they do little to actually stop crime. Copaganda not only diverts people from existential threats like imminent ecological collapse and rising fascism, but also boosts surveillance and repression that is used against social movements trying to solve those problems by creating more sustainable and equal social arrangements.

Hearings like the one I testified at in San Francisco are needed across the country. Local councilmembers should scrutinize the secretive world of police PR budgets, because the public deserves to know how police are spreading misinformation. It is possible to achieve real safety in our communities, but only if we end the copaganda standing in its way.

https://jacobin.com/2022/07/copaganda-p ... unications

**********

Biden seeking $37B for fighting crime, hiring more police
By CHRIS MEGERIAN
2 hours ago

Image
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during an event to celebrate the passage of the "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act," a law meant to reduce gun violence, on the South Lawn of the White House, July 11, 2022, in Washington. Biden is going to Pennsylvania on July 21, to talk about his plans for federal spending on crime fighting and prevention. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is proposing to spend roughly $37 billion for fighting and preventing crime, including $13 billion to help communities hire and train 100,000 police officers over five years.

Biden will outline his anti-crime program on Thursday during a visit to Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The Democratic president will request the money from Congress as part of his latest budget proposal, according to senior administration officials who previewed the plan on the condition of anonymity ahead of the formal announcement.

Republicans are trying to gain leverage in November’s midterm elections by portraying Democrats as unwilling to confront crime problems.

As part of Biden’s plans, $3 billion would be geared toward clearing court backlogs and resolving cases involving murders and guns. The president also wants to use $15 billion to create a grant program that would fund ideas for preventing violent crime or creating a public health response to nonviolence incidents, aimed at reducing the burden on law enforcement.

The remaining $5 billion would support programs intended to stop violence before it occurs.

After speaking in Wilkes-Barre, Biden is scheduled to attend a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in Philadelphia. Then he’s expected to spend a long weekend in Wilmington, Delaware, where he has a home.

https://apnews.com/article/biden-police ... 932a47dc4b

100,00 cops, that's a goddamn army. Geez, what ever happened to 'defund the police'? So I gotta ask all those folks on the wrong end of a cop's pistol and all you so-called progressives, "which side are you on?" That of the people or the capitalist duopoly?
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 23, 2022 3:13 pm

US police terrorize people throughout the country, activists say nothing new
Incidents throughout July indicate a lack of responsibility and accountability on behalf of US police, which has led to deadly consequences

July 22, 2022 by Natalia Marques

Image
Mass movements in the US have questioned the militarization and overfunding of police departments.

Throughout July, police in the United States have unleashed countless acts of violence on the people in the country. In this month alone, US police have killed at least 52 people. The release of security footage to US media has further exposed the negligence of the police response to the Uvalde mass shooting. Videos on social media have shown the brutality of police in Akron, Ohio towards those protesting the police murder of Jayland Walker, especially as some of those protesters were family members of other victims of state violence.

Yet, many activists have pointed out that US police often structure their statements to conceal wrongdoing. When law enforcement acknowledges a police murder, for example, they label it as an “officer-involved shooting”. Many times, the media regurgitates the same political line, effectively using the passive voice to obscure who was killed, and who was doing the killing. “Anchorage police investigating officer-involved shooting at Centennial Park” reads a headline after police open fire in a homeless encampment. “Identities of the three police officers involved in shooting released” reads another after two troopers and one officer shot and killed a man armed with only a knife.

Even finding out the identities of victims of police terror from law enforcement can be difficult. 15 out of the at least 52 people killed by police in July are labeled as “unidentified”.

Therefore, it remains important to keep track of the myriad incidents of state violence that plague the people of the United States. Especially as police try their hardest to keep their crimes out of the headlines.

Cops shoot Robert Adams in the back as he flees
On July 16, at around 8 pm, police responded to reports of an armed man in a parking lot in San Bernardino, California. Police pulled into the parking lot in an unmarked car, and upon seeing Robert Marquise Adams with a gun in his hand, got out of the car and rushed towards him, with their weapons pointed directly at him.

Robert did not respond by using his gun against officers. It will always be unclear if he even knew these men running towards him were police, or civilians intent on murdering him. A surveillance video shows Robert running for his life, before officers shot him several times in the back, killing him.

Responding to the murder, San Bernardino police state that, “Officers briefly chased Adams, but seeing that he had no outlet, they believed he intended to use the vehicles as cover to shoot at them…Fearing that bystanders’ or the officers’ lives were in danger, one of the officers fired his gun, striking Adams.”

The video makes it clear that only a few seconds lapse between officers getting out of their car and Robert’s murder, giving Robert time for little complex judgement apart from fleeing from his life. It is also important to note that US police have access to a myriad amount of nonlethal weapons that can be used to stop someone in their tracks, such as tasers. Activists are asking why the first response of San Bernardino police towards someone running in the opposite direction is several bullets to vital organs.

Cristian Alcaraz, a local organizer in the greater Los Angeles Area, told Peoples Dispatch, “I think the murder of Robert Adams is like the many shootings by police in LA County and the surrounding counties: outright executions of Black people.”

“The police pulled up on him in an unmarked car, guns drawn, and rushed him. Robert ran from the dangerous situation the cops created like any person would. There wasn’t any danger there until the cops showed up, and Robert was punished for daring to run away from unidentified men with arms running towards him,” Alcaraz added.

In their response, San Bernardino police made little direct acknowledgement of Robert Adams as a person. “It is unfortunate that our efforts to keep the community safe through proactive police work occasionally results in encounters with armed felons,” they said.

Albuquerque police murder a child by fire
On July 6, the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) killed 15-year-old Brett Rosenau in a SWAT-team “standoff” that led to a family home engulfed in flames.

APD claims to have been pursuing 27-year-old Qiaunt Kelley for several crimes, including a parole violation, when he barricaded himself inside the home of Sundra Coleman, alongside Brett, who was innocent of any crime. APD’s statement following the incident reveals that they knew that Brett was inside the home when they threw tear gas canisters into the house, causing the fire that eventually killed the child. An autopsy revealed that Brett died from smoke inhalation.

“Kelley fled from detectives and barricaded himself inside the home. A second individual, later identified as Rosenau, followed Kelley into the home,” reads the police statement.

The statement continues, “At one point, a man believed to be Kelley, opened the back door of the home and lay on his back as officers monitored his actions. He ignored officers’ commands to stand up. He eventually sat in place. Officers used a noise flash diversionary device to get Kelley to follow commands. But he retreated back into the home, shutting the door.”

Officers did not move to arrest Kelley, even as he lay on the ground.

Police also claim that the tear gas and other chemical irritants they used to lure Kelley out of the house were “designed for indoor use to minimize the likelihood of igniting a fire, and no fires have been reported over the many years they have been used in Albuquerque.” And yet, tear gas canisters have caused fires on numerous occasions. According to activists, it is worrisome that APD seems to be unaware of the risks of their own weaponry.


The Albuquerque branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation stated, “On July 7, 15-year-old Brett Rosenau was murdered by Albuquerque Police Department officers using a fraudulent arrest warrant to launch an all-out racist assault on a family home.”

“APD officers needlessly threw tear gas and flash-bang devices into the home every 30 minutes for five and a half hours causing a catastrophic house fire, then waited 40 minutes before calling for assistance from Albuquerque Fire Rescue,” the statement continued. “Due to the inferno that resulted from APD’s aggression, Brett died of smoke inhalation and the family home was destroyed.”

Brett was visiting Sundra Coleman’s son when the SWAT-team raid began. Coleman has now lost her family home, passed down from her mother, along with one of her dogs, which perished in the fire.

“If any of our actions inadvertently contributed to [Brett Rosenau’s] death, we will take steps to ensure this never happens again,” said APD Chief Harold Medina.

Negligence of Uvalde cops is fully revealed

On May 24, a gunman opened fire in an elementary school classroom in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers. Soon after the shooting, Peoples Dispatch covered the ineptitude of the police in Uvalde, who waited over an hour to apprehend the shooter while children were shot and bled out inside two adjoining classrooms. But a July 17 report shared with the Texas Tribune, as well as surveillance footage shared by the Austin Statesman earlier this month reveals a deeper extent to their fatal negligence.

It was originally thought that 19 police officers responded to the shooting, yet the new report reveals that the number was 376. Despite this high number of personnel, surveillance footage shows how police idled for one hour and fourteen minutes after arriving at the scene, before finally breaching the classroom and killing the shooter.

At one point, several police who had congregated in the hallway outside of the classroom ran from gunfire, despite being protected with tactical gear and carrying massive weapons themselves. Stills from the footage have circulated social media, especially those where police idle in the hallway, checking their phones or using hand sanitizer while children cower or bleed out inside the classroom.

Most gunshot victims die from blood loss, so in these cases, time is of the essence. A training manual used by Uvalde police reads, “A first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field.”


Immediately after the shooting, Texas Governor Abbott claimed that, “[Police] showed amazing courage by running toward gunfire”. Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw claimed that cops “immediately breached [the classroom], because we know as officers, every second’s a life.” Both these statements have been revealed as lies.

Family members of police brutality victims arrested in Akron

Peoples Dispatch previously covered the protests that rose up in Akron, Ohio in response to the gruesome police murder of Jayland Walker—and the subsequent state repression of those protests.

The people of Akron rose up early this month in outrage over the shooting of Jayland, who was shot over 60 times by police. On July 4, a patriotic holiday for the US, roughly fifty people were arrested at a protest after the mayor declared a 9 pm curfew. Police deployed chemical weapons such as tear gas against protesters.

When people came out in protest again on Thursday night, July 7, police once again arrested and brutalized protests. On this night, those arrested included Jacob Blake Sr., father of Jacob Blake who was paralyzed after Kenosha, Wisconsin police shot him. Also arrested was Bianca Austin, aunt of EMT Breonna Taylor who was shot and killed in her sleep after Louisville, Kentucky police entered her home on a “no-knock” warrant.


Jacob Blake Sr., who has several health conditions, was hospitalized following his arrest. He was charged with rioting, resisting arrest, failing to disperse and disorderly conduct. Blake Sr.’s brother, Justin Blake, told The Journal Times, “They were there to unite the community and family and to get justice, before they were attacked…He wasn’t resisting arrest, he was leaning on the fence for a respite. He’s handicapped.”

Denver police carry out a mass shooting

On July 17, police in Denver opened fire on a crowded street with little to no provocation, injuring 6 people. Officers claim to have been responding to an alleged fight perpetrated by 21-year-old Jordan Waddy, who allegedly pulled out a gun and pointed it towards officers. In response, police opened fire. Although police later claimed that Waddy “posed a significant threat”, there is no evidence that he fired his weapon at all during the incident.

This shooting is a part of three shootings carried out by Denver police within only one week, the other two resulting in the death of those shot by police.



Police in the United States receive a vast arsenal of leftover military equipment from the US government, which itself has the largest military in the world. And yet, incident after incident indicates that police have a lack of responsibility necessary to wield deadly weapons, often resulting in disastrous consequences. When it might in fact be necessary to use deadly force, as in the case of Uvalde, police show unusual hesitancy.

Mass movements of the people of the US have questioned the militarization and overfunding of police departments. As more and more incidents of police brutality and negligence are reported, such questioning of the role of police can only grow.



Police have thus far killed at least 52 people in July alone. These are their names.

Robert Marquise Adams, 23, San Bernardino, California
Unidentified, Chandler, Arizona
John Todd Bigham, 53, Amarillo, Texas
James Robert Frazier, 50, Georgetown, South Carolina
Unidentified, Denver, Colorado
Stephen Blossom, 35, Newport, Maine
Unidentified, Vinton, Texas
Trent William Millsap, 27, Westminster, California
Maurice Hughes, 45, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Unidentified, Modesto, California
Matthew Hyde, Hollywood, Florida
Unidentified, Ontario, California
Unidentified, Denver Colorado
Unidentified, Hancock County, Illinois
Unidentified, Salinas, California
Romayne Manuel, 31, Grand Prairie, Texas
Unidentified, Harris County, Texas
Malachi Lavar Carroll, 20, Henrico County, Virginia
Unidentified, Salem, Oregon
Andrew Tekle Sundberg, 20, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Mark Evers, 65, Clearcreek Township, Ohio
Thomas Cromwell, 27, Mason, Ohio
Madeline Miller, 64, Flossmoor, Illinois
Dillon Walker, 31, Cave City, Kentucky
Malik Williams, New York, New York
Raoul Hardy, 60, New York, New York
Unidentified, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Jaime Rodriguez, 42, Long Beach, California
Roderick Brooks, 47, Houston, Texas
Shane Netterville, 28, Fargo, North Dakota
Rafael Estevan Ramirez, 26, Marietta, Georgia
Felipe Guerrero, 36, Los Angeles, California
Jasper Aaron Lynch, 26, Mclean, Virginia
Ehmani Mack Davis, 19, Detroit, Michigan
Jerry Lee Esparza, Beeville, Texas
Matthew Scott Jones, 36, Bradley, West Virginia
Chanin Emil Mayfield, 32, Toccoa, Georgia
Reginald Humphrey, 31, Los Angeles, California
Juan Carlos Bojorquez, 15, Glendale, Arizona
Trevon Darion Hull, 21, Port Neches, Texas
Unidentified, Martin County, Kentucky
Unidentified, Wilmington, California
Miguel Gallarzo, 46, Las Vegas, Nevada
James Parks, 44, Warner Robins, Georgia
Glenn Nisich, 57, Sioux Falls, South Dakota
Bryan Humble, 63, Chaparral, New Mexico
Unidentified, Denver, Colorado
Michael Moore, 75, Sacramento, California
Unidentified, 30, Huntington Park, California
Jesus Rodolfo Torres, 30, Los Angeles, California
Jada Johnson, 22, Fayetteville, North Carolina
Brett Rosenau,15, Albuquerque, New Mexico

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/07/22/ ... thing-new/
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Sat Jul 30, 2022 4:51 pm

Guilty until proven innocent
July 29, 2022 Stephen Millies

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In a U.S. concentration camp, prisoners walk under the blazing sun in Tent City, Maricopa County, 1997. For almost 25 years, Tent City stood within a larger jail compound in an industrial area 10 minutes south of downtown Phoenix. At its peak, it comprised 82 Korean-war-era military tents and housed 1,700 inmates, almost all Latinx, most with minor violations. Inmates were forced to work on chain gangs. Tent City was finally shut down in October 2017.

The so-called U.S. criminal justice system is just plain criminal. Two of its biggest atrocities are cash bail and solitary confinement.

Black Lives Matter activist Sandra Bland was held in a Waller County, Texas, jail because she couldn’t afford $5,000 bail.

Three days after Bland was arrested for a minor traffic violation, the 28-year old Black woman was found hanged in her jail cell on July 13, 2015. Many people don’t believe she committed suicide.

Albert Woodfox spent nearly 45 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison. Woodfox, who with two other members of the Black Panther Party were known as the “Angola 3,” was released in 2016.

The Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ― part of the Bill of Rights ― clearly states that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Bail is excessive for anyone who can’t pay it. Solitary confinement is torture.

Unable to afford bail, Kalief Browder spent three years in New York City’s jail complex on Rikers Island before his charges were dropped. For two of those years, the Black youth was in solitary confinement without trial or conviction.

Kalief Browder was jailed when he was just 16 years old. Two years after his release he hanged himself on June 6, 2015.

Sparked by this tragedy, a grassroots movement forced the New York State Legislature to pass laws that largely did away with cash bail. Police and their supporters launched a vicious campaign to repeal this needed legislation.

Cheering them on are Fox News and the New York Post, both owned by the billionaire hate-monger Rupert Murdoch. New York City Mayor Eric Adams also wants more people facing trial held on bail and more prisoners held in solitary confinement.

No justice for the poor

It’s a big lie that everyone in the United States is considered innocent until proven guilty. Not being able to afford bail means you can’t contact witnesses that could prove your innocence. Any effective legal defense is largely denied.

Being kept in hellholes makes many innocent people confess to lesser charges just to get out of jail. These forced confessions also prevent poor people from voting.

In 2020, 5.2 million people were kept off the voting rolls because of a previous conviction. Just cashing a check with insufficient funds can be enough to block someone from voting. Their real crime was being poor.

On an average day, 533,000 people are being held in local, state and federal dungeons without being convicted. Ten million people are driven through these lock-ups every year. Most people in jail are legally innocent.

More than 80,000 people are in solitary confinement. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has repeatedly condemned the use of solitary confinement in the U.S.

Any jail or prison is dangerous. Nearly 3,000 imprisoned people have died of COVID-19. That’s criminal.

Who needs to be locked-up are billionaire CEOs who are jacking-up prices. In just the first three months of 2022, the five biggest oil companies pumped out $35 billion in profits.

The more than two million people in prisons are members of the working class. The labor movement needs to demand “Jobs Not Jails!”

On July, 14, 1789, poor people in Paris tore down a hated prison called the Bastille and started the French Revolution. There are thousands of bastilles across the United States. We need a socialist revolution to tear them down.

Kidnappers demand ransom. Bail is ransom for the poor while prisons are concentration camps for the poor.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... -innocent/

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FBI Raids St. Louis Black Liberation Group Alleging Russian Ties
Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party says he visited Russia for a conference but had no further involvement
By Monica Obradovic on Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 3:56 pm

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Screengrab via Fox2 Facebook
Omali Yeshitela founded the African People's Socialist Party in 1972.

Federal investigators raided the offices and homes of leaders involved with local Black liberation group under suspicion of Russian collusion early Friday morning.

Officials of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and African People’s Socialist Party say the FBI performed a "violent" raid with flash grenades and drones around 5 a.m. Friday morning.

At a news conference Friday, Chairman Omali Yeshitela said he and his wife were handcuffed during the raid as investigators searched their home. He said the FBI threw flash grenades into his home and performed the raid without knocking or showing him a search warrant.


Yeshitela said the FBI believes the Uhuru Movement and African People’s Socialist Party may somehow be involved with Russia’s tampering in U.S. elections.

“What they have claimed is that they are indicting someone, a Russian nationalist who is in Russia,” Yeshitela said. “They have claimed that they were investigating the African People’s Socialist Party that I lead in the Uhuru Movement because of some association that we might have with the Russian government.”

The raid appears connected to one in St. Petersburg, Florida, that occurred around the same time Friday morning. The Tampa Bay Times reports that federal law enforcement and St. Petersburg police performed searches at multiple locations, including the Uhuru House in Florida, under search warrants seemingly related to an indictment against a Russian national.

According to a federal indictment obtained by the Times, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov is alleged to have worked with unnamed officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service to use members of U.S. political groups as foreign agents of Russia.

PDF — ionov-indictment.pdf

Ionov recruited members of various political groups to attend government-sponsored conferences in Russia to encourage participating groups to advocate for “separating from their home countries,” the indictment states.

The indictment does not explicitly name Yeshitela or the African People’s Socialist Party but describes two co-conspirators as residents of St. Petersburg, Florida and St. Louis.

The indictment against Ionov identifies him as the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, a Moscow-based organization that advocated for “sovereignty of nation-states including the sovereignty of Russia.”

Yeshitela said he visited Russia in 2014 as part of a conference organized by a Russian organization that dealt with an anti-globalization movement in Russia, but his involvement with the country did not extend beyond that.

“This movement had conferences in Russia, organizing peoples from around the world who were opposed to globalization and who were struggling for self-determination,” Yeshitela said.

Yeshitela founded the African People's Socialist Party in 1972. According to its website, party members aim to free African and oppressed populations from "U.S. capitalist-colonialist domination."

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is an organized group of white people who stand in solidarity of Black liberation under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party. FBI raided the group's Uhuru Solidarity Center in south St. Louis.

Yeshitela explained his party is not composed of pacifists; they believe in “just wars” that are “fought by people who are trying to liberate themselves.”

“We don’t just support Russia in this war against Ukraine, we support Palestine, even as the U.S. government and U.S. citizens are leaving this country every day, going to Palestine that is murdering Palestinian Arabs on a daily basis."

Yeshitela added: “Don’t tell us that we can’t have friends that you don’t like.”

When asked if he had ever accepted money from the Russian government, Yeshitela replied, “No,” but laughed and said he "apologizes for not receiving money from Russia.”

Rhya Fogerty tells the RFT that the FBI took the phones and laptops of some involved with the movement. Fogerty works with Black Power Blueprint, an initiative connected to the African People's Socialist Party with a mission to transform north St. Louis.

"The whole thing is about the right of African people to be free; to be in control of their labor, land, communities, resources," Fogerty says. "The government makes these things out to be so convoluted."

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/news/fb ... s-38194284

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An entire North Carolina police department resigned after a Black woman town manager was hired
By Dianne Gallagher and Jacquelyne Germain, CNN
Updated 2:00 PM EDT, Fri July 29, 2022

The mass exodus of an entire police department after the hiring of a Black town manager in North Carolina has opened a conversation about public safety and race relations in a small town of just over 1,500 residents.

Last week, the entire police department in Kenly, North Carolina, resigned, citing a “hostile” work environment less than two months after Justine Jones, a Black woman, began her role as the town’s newly selected city manager.

Joy Wright, a local business owner, said the community is concerned about what the collective police retreat means for the future of the town. Wright also said she was mostly frustrated because the town hadn’t been keeping residents in the loop with any developments.

“It’s just weird, and for us to not have any information as to what to expect,” Wright said. “Are we going to have police? Are we going to have a town manager?”

Following an emergency, closed-door meeting last week, the Kenly town council released a statement this week saying, “The prudent course of action is to find out what happened and not make any rash decisions.”

Alan “Chip” Hewett, Kenly’s town attorney, told CNN that he will oversee an investigation conducted by an outside firm starting next week when all the resignations take effect. Technically, the police chief and officers are still on the job through the beginning of next week. The police chief’s resignation is effective Tuesday.

CNN obtained eight resignation letters in total, consisting of longtime police chief Josh Gibson, four full-time officers, one part-time officer and two town clerks. The letters are similar in language, with most referencing a stressful work environment, though they don’t provide any details about the allegedly “hostile” workplace, nor do they explicitly blame Jones.

However, Gibson has placed blame on Jones for the resignation – both in a Facebook post that has since been made private and in an exclusive interview with Fox News.

Gibson told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Jones had written him up multiple times in her short time on the job.

“She came in, first of all, to start giving us tasks and all these projects all the time. And unfortunately, we are – we only have five officers and I was working double shifts at the time to try to keep up officer safety and be there with the officers in case something happened,” said Gibson, who claimed the manager wrote him up for being late if he wasn’t sitting at his desk, among other things “She wrote me up for going to businesses and talking with businesses. She wrote me up for talking with council members I’ve known for 20 years.”

CNN has not seen any of the disciplinary records referenced by Gibson and therefore cannot verify the write-ups. The town said it was unable to turn over any documents right now that were requested by CNN this week.

(more, but what more do ya need to know?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/us/north ... index.html
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Sat Aug 06, 2022 4:35 pm

FBI Attack on the Uhuru Movement is a Warning
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist 03 Aug 2022

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"Omali Yeshitela, center, stands in front of his home on Friday, July 29, 2022, with his supporters. Jesse Bogan, Post-Dispatch"

The FBI targeted the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) because it is a Black organization that has dared to confront and oppose U.S. imperialism. APSP is the first but they will not be the last.

On July 29, 2022, the FBI raided the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida and the Uhuru Solidarity Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The raids were connected with the indictment of a Russian national who is accused of attempting to “cause turmoil in the United States” by engaging with “Unindicted Co-Conspirators” to act as agents of the Russian Federation.

The African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) is the organization targeted by the FBI for a very simple reason. It is a Black organization which has dared to confront and oppose U.S. imperialism. The alleged connection with the Russian government kills two birds with one stone. The Russiagate hoax is continually resuscitated as it gives new life to claims of election and other interference and Black people’s organizations are as always the first to be targeted by the State.

Every individual and organization calling itself socialist, anti-imperialist, Black nationalist, or anti-war should be in support of the APSP at this moment. The APSP has done what they have every right to do, travel anywhere in the world they choose, even to countries said to be “adversaries” of the United States. They communicate with the people they want to be in contact with and they espouse their beliefs freely. As an anti-imperialist organization the APSP vehemently critiques both U.S. foreign policy and its domestic regime, particularly as it engages in continued oppression against Black people. All of these actions put it firmly in the crosshairs of law enforcement and ensure that it will be made an example of as the state cracks down on all those who oppose its actions.

These witch hunts are not new. They go back to the Palmer Raids of the Woodrow Wilson administration, and the anti-communist attacks which persecuted Paul Robeson and Claudia Jones among others. They morphed into the CounterIntelligence Program, COINTELPRO, which destroyed the liberation movement by killing and imprisoning leadership, and creating intra-group dissension.

But now the danger is somewhat different. In 1971 a group of anti-war activists broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. Would the Washington Post, which was alone in printing the papers they had stolen, and who ended up revealing the existence of COINTELPRO, now analyze the facts in the case of APSP? Now the Washington Post is in the hands of one of the richest people in the world, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, who also has contracts with the CIA. The old media wasn't always reliably interested in journalistic investigation, but could occasionally make good on the dictum of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Those days are no more.

The liberal class which would sometimes oppose the state’s targeting of radical groups has instead now made common cause. The same people who wouldn’t defend Julian Assange will certainly not defend the APSP either. The liberal press which would publish the Pentagon Papers or reveal the Watergate scandal are now state operatives and take orders directly from the Biden administration. They still peddle Russiagate as though it were real, and never acknowledge that the Mueller investigation took two years and cost millions of dollars without resulting in a single U.S. indictment of the “Russian collusion” which was accepted as being true.
The APSP is in all likelihood just the first victim. As Glen Ford pointed out in Black Agenda Report in 2018, the purpose of Russiagate was to prepare for austerity and endless war. At that time Russian nationals were also indicted and charged with meddling in U.S. affairs. The charges were bogus then, meant to continue war propaganda and indoctrination. They are even more bogus now, with unnamed people, if they exist at all, being called Russian intelligence FSB agents in this latest indictment.

Now the U.S. is in a greater moment of crisis, having failed in its effort to use Ukraine as a weapon against Russia. The effort to destroy Russia’s economy has instead created damage around the world and accelerated the multipolarity which the U.S. fears so much. Ukraine is losing to Russia but the U.S. minions in the corporate media and members of congress in both major parties will not speak what is proven true by all sources outside of governmental influence. At such a moment we can expect attacks on anti-imperialist groups, with Black people being first in line to be discredited.

Congressional Black Caucus member Gregory Meeks can be thanked for continuing the notion that Black people should not be trusted to think for themselves. H.R. 7311, Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, is not just directed at nations on the African continent. Should it be signed into law by the president it requires reporting on, “...African governments and their policies, as well as the public opinions and voting preferences of African populations and diaspora groups, including those in the United States…” CBC treachery is yet another factor which makes this era of state persecution even more perilous.

One need not be familiar with every aspect of the APSP program in order to defend them at this juncture. They are the first but they will not be the last. Every individual or organization which has publicly condemned U.S. policy, visited a nation which the U.S. doesn’t like, or communicated with individuals or groups in those places, is at risk of being awakened by flash bang grenades and having electronic devices confiscated like APSP members last week. The word solidarity must now take on a very serious meaning.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/fbi-a ... nt-warning

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‘Tools of Russia’: FBI raid on Black Political Party seen as part of ‘Black Scare/Red Scare’ in United States

Originally published: Toward Freedom on July 31, 2022 by Julie Varughese (more by Toward Freedom) | (Posted Aug 02, 2022)

Black political organizations and other anti-imperialist groups condemned the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) raiding early Friday morning the properties of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and its solidarity organization in Saint Louis, Missouri, and in Saint Petersburg, Florida.

Based on the description, APSP appears to be one of several unidentified groups and people implicated in a 25-page indictment of a Russian national, Aleksandr Ionov. The Moscow-based founder of the nonprofit Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR) has been accused of attempting to influence U.S.-based groups to turn against the United States and work in favor of Russia.

“Anyone who opposes U.S. imperialism or who has made common cause internationally is endangered,” Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley wrote on Facebook.

Not surprising that a Black organization is the first on their hit list.

The raid began at 5 a.m. July 29 at the Saint Louis home of APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela and his wife and APSP Deputy Chair, Ona Zené Yeshitela.

Yeshitela said in a Facebook livestream later that day that the APSP was targeted for its support of Russia during the military operation the country has been undertaking in Ukraine since February 24.

Among several allegations, the FBI accused Ionov’s group of paying U.S. activists to attend two conferences in Russia. It also said Ionov helped a group conduct a tour in the United States to drum up support for a petition charging the U.S. government with committing genocide against African descendants. Yeshitela admitted meeting with Ionov twice in Russia.

“Suddenly, we’re supposed to become tools, like Black people don’t have minds of our own to find out what our reality is and who’s responsible for it,” Yeshitela said in the livestream.

It’s white people doing self-criticism and uniting to give money. That’s where the money is coming from, Uncle Sam.

‘Crisis’ of U.S. Imperialism

Yeshitela said while the United States was targeting Black activists, it has failed diplomatically.

“They’re doing this, in part, because not a single African country—not even neocolonial sycophants—want to unite with the United States and the United Nations in terms of how they are targeting Russia in this Ukraine-Russia question,” he said, referring to the economic sanctions slapped on Russia after it entered Ukraine in February. When Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky recently held a virtual meeting with African countries, 93 percent of heads of state did not attend, despite Western pressure.

“This exposes the crisis the United States, that U.S. imperialism, is in,” said APSP Director of Agitation and Propaganda Akilé Anai in a livestreamed press conference in Saint Petersburg. Anai said FBI agents lured her outside her home early Friday morning, saying her car had been broken into. Upon opening her car, they forced her to hand over her devices, she said.

Yeshitela, 80, said he and Ona were awoken Friday morning to the sound of a voice blaring through a megaphone outside their home, asking them to come outside with their hands up. Flashbang grenades were set off throughout the working-class Saint Louis neighborhood, Yeshitela added. He also said a drone almost hit Ona’s face after she opened the home’s front door. Law enforcement agents lately have deployed drones into buildings to conduct a visual search before agents enter.

Yeshitela said FBI agents handcuffed the couple and forced them to sit on the street curb while agents scoured their home. “They indicated they had a search warrant related to the indictment,” he said. The FBI freed the couple after several hours, but not without confiscating from their home all of their devices, such as computers and phones, according to Yeshitela’s livestreamed account.

The FBI was unavailable as of press time.

Black Scare, Red Scare

Black activists have long denounced the U.S. government’s anti-communist rhetoric going back to the early 20th century, saying such calls to take down communists really have translated into attempts to dismantle Black liberation movements and other liberation movements in the United States.

“In reality, what anti-communism/anti-Marxism does is to transform anything counter-hegemonic or non-conforming into subversion, foreignness, or disloyalty by punishing it as communist, communist inspired, or communist infiltrated and therefore illegal, illicit or criminal,” said Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly in a recent talk.

Burden-Stelly, an associate professor of African-American Studies at Wayne State University, has written a soon-to-be-released book, Black Scare, Red Scare (2023). It attempts to document how the U.S. government’s anti-communist policies repress Black and other oppressed people for organizing for their liberation. This, she has said, helps to protect what she calls “racial capitalism,” in which the most degrading labor is forced upon increasingly exploited racialized groups.

U.S. Government’s ‘Hysterical Response’

Black political groups denounced large segments of the U.S. political left for believing Black activists are stooges of Russia, or the former Soviet Union.

“We agree that APSP doesn’t have to apologize for fighting for justice for all oppressed and particularly African People like our ancestors Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and the Black Panther Party who were spied on, jailed and assassinated for standing up for the freedom and justice for African People worldwide,” said the central committee of Pan-Africanist organization All-African People’s Revolutionary Party in a statement issued Saturday.

Activists like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., who were called communists, were assassinated. Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey, who advocated for the unification of Africa under Pan-Africanism and the end of European colonialism in Africa, was briefly imprisoned in Atlanta for what some consider the politically motivated charge of mail fraud. Trinidad and Tobago-born U.S.-based communist Claudia Jones—after whom Toward Freedom‘s summer editorial internship was named—was deported to the United Kingdom for her activism.

“We believe this repression to be a hysterical response to the United States’ loss of legitimacy in the context of the deepening crisis of capitalism and U.S. global hegemony,” said the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP)’s Coordinating Committee in a statement released Saturday.

The unleashing of policing and counterintelligence forces domestically and increased militarism and warmongering abroad in the name of national security are the only avenues left to the U.S. ruling class that is engulfed in an irreversible economic crisis. They represent the hallmarks of a naked fascism that the U.S. ruling class appears to be increasingly committed to in order to maintain the rule of capital.

Then BAP added a warning in its statement.

While it is APSP today, it will ultimately be the rest of us tomorrow. Resistance is our only option.

https://mronline.org/2022/08/02/tools-o ... ed-states/

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Movement forces the release of Chicago police torture survivors
August 2, 2022 FightBack! News

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Chicago — A series of victories were won in the past month by the movement to free survivors of torture and wrongful conviction at the hands of the Chicago Police Department. Clayborn Smith, Marcellous Pittman, Juan Hernandez, Rosendo Hernandez, Arthur Almendarez, John Galvan, Eruby Abrego, Jeremiah Cain, David Gecht and David Colon have all had historic judgments in their cases.

In the case of Clayborn Smith, a decision by the Illinois Appellate Court authored by Justice Cynthia Cobbs reversed the decision of Circuit Court Judge Alfredo Maldonado, finding that Detectives Kenneth Boudreau, John Halloran and James O’Brien had tortured Clayborn Smith into his confession. They granted him a new trial.

In turn, Judge Maldonado found, in the case of Marcellous Pittman, that his tortured confession at the hands of Halloran and O’Brien was inadmissible. Marcellous Pittman also had the charges against him dropped by the state’s attorney’s office. Within the written decisions by each of these judges, it was laid out plainly that these detectives with a history of torture are not credible and should not be called as witnesses.

Justice Cynthia Cobbs in the Clayborn Smith case stated in her decision “the defendant has produced sufficient evidence of a pattern of physical abuse by the detectives in question” referring to Detectives Boudreau, Halloran, and O’Brien. And Judge Roberto Maldonado stated in his decision in the Marcellous Pittman case that his ruling called into question the credibility of Halloran and O’Brien’s denials.

These decisions come after years of campaigning by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR)’s Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture, Mothers Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity (MAMAS), and the Chicago Torture Justice Center to free survivors of police torture and wrongful convictions and hold torturing officers accountable.

In October 2021, CAARPR began to pressure the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (CCSAO) to take action on 409 cases of torture and wrongful conviction, detailed in a comprehensive report that can be found on the Chicago Alliance website.

CAARPR presented the CCSAO with nine demands. These included that their office move to vacate convictions for all those framed, tortured and wrongfully convicted, especially in cases involving detectives with a pattern and practice of torture; that cases involving Jon Burge’s Midnight Crew, of which Boudreau, Halloran, and O’brien were a part, be reviewed and the related convictions vacated; and that the CCSAO publicly state that they will cease calling detectives with established records of torture as witnesses. These recent rulings directly reflect the campaign’s demands.

Another demand of this campaign was for the CCSAO to “Provide information on the status of their promised comprehensive review of Guevara’s cases. Rapidly complete the review and vacate all convictions in which Detectives Reynaldo Guevara, Joseph Miedzianowski, or Ronald Watts were involved.”

Reynaldo Guevara is a former homicide detective who secured dozens of convictions by framing mostly Puerto Rican and Black young people. According to the report, “Over 50 individuals have accused him of coercing confessions through physical or psychological torture or through manipulating witnesses to obtain convictions. Many of them were juveniles at the time of their arrest.”

Cook County Judge Obbish said Guevara “has now eliminated the possibility of being considered a credible witness in any proceeding” due to the evidence against him and his refusal to testify. This is a judgment that is now being applied to other torturer cops such as Boudreau, Halloran and O’ Brien.

The leading force behind the effort to free survivors of Detective Guevara has been the organization Innocent Demand Justice(IDJ), which is led by Guevara survivors themselves as well as family members like Esther Hernandez, who has been fighting for the freedom of her two sons, Juan “Poochie” Hernandez and Rosendo Hernandez since their wrongful imprisonment in 1997.

Alongside MAMAS, CAARPR and CTJC, IDJ mobilized rallies for court dates, hosted phone zaps, pressured elected officials, met with the state’s attorney’s office, researched Guevara thoroughly, and spoke out in the media. These organizations demanded justice for all of Guevara’s victims, meaning immediate release, charges against Guevara, and reparations for those tortured.

On Friday July 15, the Hernandez brothers were released with all charges dropped against them. This came as part of a wave of exonerations of Guevara survivors, including Eruby Abrego, Jeremiah Cain, David Colon and David Gecht. The release of these survivors, and the decision by the state’s attorney’s office to not re-try them for these baseless charges, are a result of the movement to free torture survivors and the wrongfully convicted.

Esther Hernandez, responding to her son’s release, saying, “I can’t even explain how I feel right now, I’m so joyful.” She added, “As I come to these other cases, I see them come home, I’m like ‘Oh my God, our day is coming.’ I get happy every time I see somebody come out, an innocent man coming out of prison.”

In addition to survivors of Boudreau, Halloran, O’Brien and Guevara being released, two survivors of Detectives Victor Switski and John Hanrahan were released the following day. John Galvan and Arthur Almendarez were wrongfully convicted in 1986 after Hanrahan and Switski tortured them into signing confession statements to a crime they didn’t commit. The detectives told them that they would be able to go home after signing these confessions. They made many attempts to file motions for their witness confessions to be suppressed and quash the arrest. They were sentenced for life without parole with Galvan being sent to Stateville and Almendarez to Hill prisons. New evidence emerged of police coercion, and after 35 years, their case was finally vacated by a Cook County judge.

Detectives Hanrahan and Switski were also mentioned in CAARPR’s CFIST Report on the Pattern and Practice of Torture within the Chicago Police Department. The CFIST report not only clearly demonstrates a long pattern of abuse by crooked officers, but how innocent lives will continue to be lost and harmed, the victims and their families.

“This long pattern of abuse will not stop unless community control of the police is established and all wrongfully convicted prisoners are given immediate release,” said Kobi Guillory, at a rally outside the Cook County Jail in response to this wave of decisions. These victories in the Campaign to Free Incarcerated Survivors of Police Torture and Wrongful Conviction are a sign that the powers that be are responding to the demands of the survivors, families and activists who continue the fight for justice.

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... survivors/

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Reports Show That US Police Have Killed Over 700 People by 2022

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Data collected in the U.S. indicated that so far this year police violence has claimed more than 700. Aug. 4, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@MrAhmednurAli

Published 4 August 2022

Over the past seven months, police in the United States have killed more than 700 people, according to reports.

U.S. police officers have carried out more than 700 killings so far this year, figures that have broken a tragic record for deaths recorded in previous years, the Mapping Police Violence database indicates.

In this context, the Independent newspaper quoted the founder of the research database as saying on Wednesday that another 440 people are estimated to lose their lives at the hands of the country's police before the end of the year.

According to the newspaper, only one in three police killings is caused by an alleged violent crime, while two-thirds are committed for alleged non-violent crimes. In addition, a considerable number of the victims have been shot by U.S. officers while trying to flee from the police.

The data collected since 2013 show that African-descent people have a three times higher risk of being killed by police than white people.


The figures have come to light while fatal police shootings and other forms of violence against ethnic minorities in the U.S. have sparked massive demonstrations and harsh criticism from various civil rights organizations worldwide.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rep ... -0020.html
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Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 11, 2022 2:48 pm

ESSAY: Women in Prison: How We Are, Assata Shakur, 1978
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 10 Aug 2022

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Assata Shakur exposes the conditions faced by incarcerated Black women in a powerful 1978 essay.

On August 4, 2022, Albert Woodfox of the “Angola Three” passed away at the age of 75. A veteran member of the Black Panther Party, Woodfox survived 43 years in solitary confinement, only to die just six years after his release. Woodfox’s story serves as a reminder of the disgusting and unhinged nature of white supremacist settler-colonial states. More specifically, it also points to the history of how the US government, through the FBI’s notorious Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), persecuted Black liberation movements. Many Black radicals, along with their Native American and Puerto Rican sistren and brethren, remain locked up and continue to be tortured. Assata Shakur was the rare one who managed to get away.

Assata Olugbala Shakur (born JoAnne Deborah Byron, married as JoAnne Chesimard), was a veteran of both the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). In the late 1960s, she was forced underground after a series of confrontations with the pigs. Shakur was captured in 1973, after a firefight with the pigs on the New Jersey Turnpike left one of her BLA comrades, Zayd Malik Shakur, dead, and another, Sundiata Acoli, imprisoned for life. Shakur was incarcerated from 1973 until 1979. In 1979, members of BLA and the May 19 Communist Organization broke her out of prison. She was given political asylum in Cuba, where she remains today.

While incarcerated, Shakur moved through a number of detention facilities: from the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, to Riker’s Island Correctional Institution for Women (where she was kept in solitary confinement for almost two years), to the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women, to the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. She was tortured and beaten in prison. She was also placed in solitary confinement in the basement of Middlesex County Jail, a men’s jail.

It was while incarcerated at Riker’s Island that Shakur wrote, “Women in Prison: how we are,” first published in the journal The Black Scholar in 1978. In the essay, Shakur describes a prison population made up mostly of Black and Puerto Rican women who bear the brunt of society’s violence and disdain. She boldly proclaims: “There are no criminals here at Riker’s Island Correctional Institution for Women, (New York), only victims.” But, while showing the conditions incarcerated women confront, Shakur also highlights the women’s vulnerabilities and their attempts to survive prison’s everyday humiliations. Some women use the prison as a space to escape the daily violence they experience on the outside; most suffer from self-doubt and self-hatred. Shakur counters this grim reality by invoking an earlier life where her elders, older women, created community through sisterhood. But in the end, Shakur reminds us that “Women can never be free in a country that is not free.”

In honor of Assata Shakur and to commemorate Black August, we reprint below, “Women in Prison.”

Women in Prison: How We Are

Assata Shakur/JoAnne Chesimard

We sit in the bull pen. We are all black. All restless. And we are all freezing. When we ask, the matron tells us that the heating system cannot be adjusted. All of us, with the exception of a woman, tall and gaunt, who looks naked and ravished, have refused the bologna sandwiches. The rest of us sit drinking bitter, syrupy tea. The tall, fortyish woman, with sloping shoulders, moves her head back and forth to the beat of a private tune while she takes small, tentative bites out a bologna sandwich. Someone asks her what she’s in for. Matter of factly, she says, “They say I killed some nigga. But how could I have when I’m buried down in South Carolina?” Everybody’s face gets busy exchanging looks. A short, stout young woman wearing men’s pants and men’s shoes says, “Buried in South Carolina? “Yeah,” says the tall woman. “South Carolina, that’s where I’m buried. You don’t know that? You don’t know shit, do you? This ain’t me. This ain’t me.” She kept repeating, “This ain’t me” until she had eaten all the bologna sandwiches. Then she brushed off the crumbs and withdrew, head moving again back into that world where only she could hear her private tune.

Lucille comes to my tier to ask me how much time a “C” felony conviction carries. I know, but i cannot say the words. I tell her i will look it up and bring the sentence charts for her to see. I know that she has just been convicted of manslaughter in the second degree. I also know that she can be sentenced up to fifteen years. I knew from what she had told me before that the District Attorney was willing to plea bargain: Five years probation in exchange for a guilty plea to a lesser charge.

Her lawyer felt that she had a case: specifically, medical records which would prove that she had suffered repeated physical injuries as the result of beatings by the deceased and, as a result of those beatings, on the night of her arrest her arm was mutilated (she must still wear a brace on it) and one of her ears was partially severed in addition to other substantial injuries. Her lawyer felt that her testimony, when she took the stand in her own defense, would establish the fact that not only had she been repeatedly beaten by the deceased, but that on the night in question he told her he would kill her, viciously beat her and mauled her with a knife. But there is no self defense in the state of New York.

The District Attorney made a big deal of the fact that she drank. And the jury, affected by t.v racism, “law and order,” petrified by crime and unimpressed with Lucille as a “responsible citizen,” convicted her. And i was the one who had to tell her that she was facing fifteen years in prison while we both silently wondered what would have happened to the four teenage children that she had raised almost single-handedly.

Spikey has short time, and it is evident, the day before she is to be released, that she does not want to go home. She comes to the Bing (Administrative Segregation) because she has received an infraction for fighting. Sitting in front of her cage and talking to her i realize that the fight was a desperate, last ditch effort in hope that the prison would take away her “good days.” She is in her late thirties. Her hands are swollen. Enormous. There are huge, open sores on her legs. She has about ten teeth left And her entire body is scarred and ashen. She has been on drugs about twenty years. Her veins have collapsed. She has fibrosis epilepsy and edema. She has not seen her three children in about eight years. She is ashamed to contact home because she robbed and abused her mother so many times.

When we talk it is around the Christmas holidays and she tells me about her bad luck. She tells me that she has spent the last four Christmases in jail and tells me how happy she is to be going home. But i know that she has no where to go, and that the only “friends” she has in the world are here in jail. She tells me that the only regret she has about leaving is that she won’t be singing in the choir at Christmas. As i talk to her i wonder if she will be back. I tell her good bye and wish her luck. Six days later, through the prison grapevine, i hear that she is back. Just in time for the Christmas show.

We are at sick call. We are waiting on wooden benches in a beige and orange room to see the doctor. Two young women who look only mildly battered by life sit wearing pastel dresses and pointy-toed state shoes. (Wearing “state” is often a sign that the wearer probably cannot afford to buy sneakers in commissary.) The two are talking about how well they were doing on the street. Eavesdropping, i find out that they both have fine “old men” that love the mess out of them. I find out that their men dress fly and wear some baad clothes and so do they. One has 40 pairs of shoes while the other has 100 skirts. One has 2 suede and 5 leather coats. The other has 7 suedes and 3 leathers. One has 3 mink coats, a silver fox and a leopard. The other has 2 minks, a fox jacket, a floor length fox and a chinchilla. One has 4 diamond rings and the other has 5. One lives in a duplex with a sunken tub and a sunken living room with a water fall. The other describes a mansion with a revolving living room. I’m relieved when my name is called. I had been sitting there feeling very, very sad.

There are no criminals here at Riker’s Island Correctional Institution for Women, (New York), only victims. Most of the women (over 95%) are black and Puerto Rican. Many were abused children. Most have been abused by men and all have been abused by “the system.”

There are no big time gangsters here, no premeditated mass murderers, no godmothers. There are no big time dope dealers, no kidnappers, no Watergate women. There are virtually no women here charged with white collar crimes like embezzling or fraud. Most of the women have drug related cases. Many are charged as accessories to crimes committed by men. The major crimes that women here are charged with are prostitution, pick-pocketing, shop lifting, robbery and drugs. Women who have prostitution cases or who are doing “fine” time make up a substantial part of the short term population. The women see stealing or hustling as necessary for the survival of themselves or their children because jobs are scarce and welfare is impossible to live on. One thing is clear: amerikan capitalism is in no way threatened by the women in prison on Riker’s Island.

One gets the impression, when first coming to Riker’s Island that the architects conceived of it as a prison modelled after a juvenile center. In the areas where visitors usually pass there is plenty of glass and plenty of plants and flowers. The cell blocks consist of two long corridors with cells on each side connected by a watch room where the guards are stationed, called a bubble. Each corridor has a day room with a t.v., tables, multi-colored chairs, a stove that doesn’t work and a refrigerator. There’s a utility room with a sink and a washer and dryer that do not work.

Instead of bars the cells have doors which are painted bright, optimistic colors with slim glass observation panels. The doors are controlled electronically by the guards in the bubble. The cells are called rooms by everybody. They are furnished with a cot, a closet, a desk, a chair, a plastic upholstered headboard that opens for storage, a small book case, a mirror, a sink and a toilet. The prison distributes brightly colored bedspreads and throw rugs for a homey effect. There is a school area, a gym, a carpeted auditorium, two inmate cafeterias and outside recreation areas that are used during the summer months only.

The guards have successfully convinced most of the women that Riker’s Island is a country club. They say that it is a playhouse compared to some other prisons (especially male): a statement whose partial veracity is not predicated upon the humanity of correction officials at Riker’s Island, but, rather, by contrast to the unbelievably barbaric conditions of other prisons. Many women are convinced that they are, somehow, “getting over.” Some go so far as to reason that because they are not doing hard time, they are not really in prison.

This image is further reinforced by the pseudo-motherly attitude of many of the guards; a deception which all too often successfully reverts women children. The guards call the women inmates by their first names. The women address the guards either as Officer, Miss ____ or by nicknames, (Teddy Bear, Spanky, Aunt Louise, Squeeze, Sarge, Black Beauty, Nutty Mahogany, etc.). Frequently, when a woman returns to Riker’s she will make the rounds, gleefully embracing her favorite guard: the prodigal daughter returns.

If two women are having a debate about any given topic the argument will often be resolved by “asking the officer.” The guards are forever telling the women to “grow up,” to “act like ladies,” to “behave” and to be “good girls.” If an inmate is breaking some minor rule like coming to say “hi” to her friend on another floor or locking in a few minutes late, a guard will say, jokingly, “don’t let me have to come down there and beat your butt.” It is not unusual to hear a guard tell a woman, “what you need is a good spanking.” The tone is often motherly, “didn’t I tell you, young lady, to…..”; or, “you know better than that”; or, “that’s a good girl.” And the women respond accordingly. Some guards and inmates “play” together. One officer’s favorite “game” is taking off her belt and chasing her “girls” down the hall with it, smacking them on the butt.

But beneath the motherly veneer, the reality of guard life is every present. Most of the guards are black, usually from working class, upward bound, civil service oriented backgrounds. They identify with the middle class, have middle class values and are extremely materialistic. They are not the most intelligent women in the world and many are extremely limited. Most are aware that there is no justice in the amerikan judicial system and that blacks and Puerto Ricans are discriminated against in every facet of amerikan life. But, at the same time, they are convinced that the system is somehow “lenient.” To them, the women in prison are “losers” who don’t have enough sense to stay out of jail. Most believe in the boot strap theory - anybody can “make it” if they try hard enough. They congratulate themselves on their great accomplishments. In contrast to themselves they see the inmate as ignorant, uncultured, self-destructive, weak-minded and stupid. They ignore the fact that their dubious accomplishments are not based on superior intelligence or effort, but only on chance and a civil service list.

Many guards hate and feel trapped by their jobs. The guard is exposed to a certain amount of abuse from co-workers, from the brass as well as from inmates, ass kissing, robotizing and mandatory overtime. (It is common practice for guards to work a double shift at least once a week.) But no matter how much they hate the military structure, the infighting, the ugliness of their tasks, they are very aware of how close they are to the welfare lines. If they were not working as guards most would be underpaid or unemployed. Many would miss the feeling of superiority and power as much as they would miss the money, especially the cruel, sadistic ones.

The guards are usually defensive about their jobs and indicate by their behavior that they are not at all free from guilt. They repeatedly, compulsively say, as if to convince themselves, “This is a job just like any other job.” The more they say it the more preposterous it seems.

The major topic of conversation here is drugs. Eighty percent of inmates have used drugs when they were in the street. Getting high is usually the first thing a woman says she’s going to do when she gets out. In prison, as on the streets, an escapist culture prevails. At least 50 percent of the prison population take some form of psychotropic drug. Elaborate schemes to obtain contraband drugs are always in the works.

Days are spent in pleasant distractions: soap operas, prison love affairs, card playing and game playing. A tiny minority are seriously involved in academic pursuits or the learning of skills. An even smaller minority attempt to study available law books. There are no jail house lawyers and most of the women lack knowledge of even the most rudimentary legal procedures. When asked what happened in court, or, what their lawyers said, they either don’t know or don’t remember. Feeling totally helpless and totally railroaded a woman will curse out her lawyer or the judge with little knowledge of what is being done or of what should be done. Most plead guilty, whether they are guilty or not. The few who do go to trial usually have lawyers appointed by the state and usually are convicted.

Here, the word lesbian seldom, if ever, is mentioned. Most, if not all, of the homosexual relationships here involve role playing. The majority of relationships are either asexual or semi-sexual. The absence of sexual consummation is only partially explained by prison prohibition against any kind of sexual behavior. Basically the women are not looking for sex. They are looking for love, for concern and companionship. For relief from the overwhelming sense of isolation and solitude that pervades each of us.

Women who are “aggressive” or who play the masculine roles are referred to as butches, bulldaggers or stud broads. They are always in demand because they are always in the minority. Women who are “passive,” or who play feminine roles are referred to as fems. The butch-fem relationships are often oppressive, resembling the most oppressive, exploitative aspect of a sexist society. It is typical to hear butches threatening fems with physical violence and it is not uncommon for butches to actually beat their “women.” Some butches consider themselves pimps and go with the women who have the most commissary, the most contraband or the best outside connections. They feel they are a class above ordinary women which entitles them to “respect.” They dictate to fems what they are to do and many insist the fems wash, iron, sew and clean their cells for them. A butch will refer to another butch as “man.” A butch who is well liked is known as “one of the fellas” by her peers.

Once in prison changes in roles are common. Many women who are strictly heterosexual in the street become butch in prison. “Fems” often create butches by convincing an inmate that she would make a “cute butch.” About 80 percent of the prison population engage in some form of homosexual relationship. Almost all follow negative, stereotypic male/ female role models.

There’s no connection between the women’s movement and lesbianism. Most of the women at Riker’s Island have no idea what feminism is, let alone lesbianism. Feminism, the women’s liberation movement and the gay liberation movement are worlds away from women at Riker’s.

The black liberation struggle is equally removed from the lives of women at Riker’s. While they verbalize acute recognition that amerika is a racist country where the poor are treated like dirt they, nevertheless, feel responsible for the filth of their lives. The air at Riker’s is permeated with self-hatred. Many women bear marks on their arms, legs and wrists from suicide attempts or self-mutilation. They speak about themselves in self-deprecating terms. They consider themselves failures.

While most women contend that whitey is responsible for their oppression they do not examine the cause or source of that oppression. There is no sense of class struggle. They have no sense of communism, no definition of it, but they consider it a bad thing. They do not want to destroy Rockefella. They want to be like him. Nicky Barnes, a major dope seller, is discussed with reverence. When he was convicted practically everyone was sad. Many gave speeches about how kind, smart and generous he was; no one spoke about the sale of drugs to our children.

Politicians are considered liars and crooks. The police are hated. Yet, during cop and robber movies, some cheer loudly for the cops. One woman pasted photographs of Farrah Fawcett Majors all over her cell because she “is a baad police bitch.” Kojak and Barretta get their share of admiration.

A striking difference between women and men prisoners at Riker’s Island is the absence of revolutionary rhetoric among the women. We have no study groups. We have no revolutionary literature around. There are no groups of militants attempting to “get their heads together.” The women at Riker’s seem vaguely aware of what a revolution is but generally regard it as an impossible dream. Not at all practical.

While men in prison struggle to maintain their manhood there is no comparable struggle by women to preserve their womanhood. One frequently hears women say, “Put a bunch of bitches together and you’ve got nothin but trouble”; and, “Women don’t stick together, that’s why we don’t have nothin.” Men prisoners constantly refer to each other as brother. Women prisoners rarely refer to each other as sister. Instead, “bitch” and “whore” are the common terms of reference. Women, however, are much kinder to each other than men, and any form of violence other than a fist fight is virtually unknown. Rape, murder and stabbings at the women’s prison are non-existent.

For many, prison is not that much different from the street. It is, for some, a place to rest and recuperate. For the prostitute prison is a vacation from turning tricks in the rain and snow. A vacation from brutal pimps. Prison for the addict is a place to get clean, get medical work done and gain weight. Often, when the habit becomes too expensive, the addict gets herself busted, (usually subconsciously) so she can get back in shape, leave with a clean system ready to start all over again. One woman claims that for a month or two every year she either goes to jail or to the crazy house to get away from her husband.

For many the cells are not much different from the tenements, the shooting galleries and the welfare hotels they live in on the street. Sick call is no different from the clinic or the hospital emergency room. The fights are the same except they are less dangerous. The police are the same. The poverty is the same. The alienation is the same. The racism is the same. The sexism is the same. The drugs are the same and the system is the same. Riker’s and is just another institution. In childhood school was their prison, or youth houses or reform schools or children shelters or foster homes or mental hospitals or drug programs and they see all institutions as indifferent to their needs, yet necessary to their survival.

The women at Riker’s Island come there from places like Harlem, Brownsville, Bedford-Stuyvesant, South Bronx and South Jamaica. They come from places where dreams have been abandoned like the buildings. Where there is no more sense of community. Where neighborhoods are transient. Where isolated people run from one fire trap to another. The cities have removed us from our strengths, from our roots, from our traditions. They have taken away our gardens and our sweet potato pies and given us McDonald’s. They have become our prisons, locking us into the futility and decay of pissy hallways that lead nowhere. They have alienated us from each other and made us fear each other. They have given us dope and television as a culture.

There are no politicians to trust. No roads to follow. No popular progressive culture to relate to. There are no new deals, no more promises of golden streets and no place else to migrate. My sisters in the streets, like my sisters at Riker’s Island, see no way out. “Where can I go?”, said a woman on the day she was going home. “If there’s nothing to believe in,” she said, “I can’t do nothin except try to find cloud nine.”

What of our Past? What of our History? What of our Future?

I can imagine the pain and the strength of my great great grandmothers who were slaves and my great great grandmothers who were Cherokee Indians trapped on reservations. I remembered my great grandmother who walked every where rather than sit in the back of the bus. I think about North Carolina and my home town and i remember the women of my grandmother’s generation: strong, fierce women who could stop you with a look out the corners of their eyes. Women who walked with majesty; who could wring a chicken’s neck and scale a fish. Who could pick cotton, plant a garden and sew without a pattern. Women who boiled clothes white in big black cauldrons and who hummed work songs and lullabys. Women who visited the elderly, made soup for the sick and shortnin bread for the babies.

Women who delivered babies, searched for healing roots and brewed medicines. Women who darned sox and chopped wood and layed bricks. Women who could swim rivers and shoot the head off a snake. Women who took passionate responsibility for their children and for their neighbors’ children too.

The women in my grandmother’s generation made giving an art form. “Here, gal, take this pot of collards to Sister Sue”; “Take this bag of pecans to school for the teacher”; “Stay here while I go tend Mister Johnson’s leg.” Every child in the neighborhood ate in their kitchens. They called each other sister because of feeling rather than as the result of a movement. They supported each other through the lean times, sharing the little they had.

The women of my grandmother’s generation in my home town trained their daughters for womanhood. They taught them to give respect and to demand respect. They taught their daughters how to churn butter; how to use elbow grease. They taught their daughters to respect the strength of their bodies, to lift boulders and how to kill a hog; what to do for colic, how to break a fever and how to make a poultice, patchwork quilts, plait hair and how to hum and sing. They taught their daughters to take care, to take charge and to take responsibility. They would not tolerate a “lazy heifer” or a “gal with her head in the clouds.” Their daughters had to learn how to get their lessons, how to survive, how to be strong. The women of my grandmother’s generation were the glue that held family and the community together. They were the backbone of the church. And of the school. They regarded outside institutions with dislike and distrust. They were determined that their children should survive and they were committed to a better future.

I think about my sisters in the movement. I remember the days when, draped in African garb, we rejected our foremothers and ourselves as castrators. We did penance for robbing the brother of his manhood, as if we were the oppressor. I remember the days of the Panther Party when we were “moderately liberated.” When we were allowed to wear pants and expected to pick up the gun. The days when we gave doe-eyed looks to our leaders. The days when we worked like dogs and struggled desperately for the respect which they struggled desperately not to give us. I remember the black history classes that did mention women and the posters of our “leaders” where women were conspicuously absent. We visited our sisters who bore the complete responsibility of the children while the Brotha was doing his thing. Or had moved on to bigger and better things.

Most of us rejected the white women’s movement. Miss ann was still Miss ann to us whether she burned her bras or not. We could not muster sympathy for the fact that she was trapped in her mansion and oppressed by her husband. We were, and still are, in a much more terrible jail. We knew that our experiences as black women were completely different from those of our sisters in the white women’s movement. And we had no desire to sit in some consciousness raising group with white women and bare our souls.

Women can never be free in a country that is not free. We can never be liberated in a country where the institutions that control our lives are oppressive. We can never be free while our men are oppressed. Or while the amerikan government and amerikan capitalism remain intact.

But it is imperative to our struggle that we build a strong black women’s movement. It is imperative that we, as black women, talk about the experiences that shaped us; that we assess our strengths and weaknesses and define our own history. It is imperative that we discuss positive ways to teach and socialize our children.

The poison and pollution of capitalist cities is choking us. We need the strong medicine of our foremothers to make us well again. We need their medicines to give us strength to fight and the drive to win. Under the guidance of Harriet Tubman and Fannie Lou Hamer and all of our foremothers, let us rebuild a sense of community. Let us rebuild the culture of giving and carry on the tradition of fierce determination to move on closer to freedom.

Assata Shakur/Joanne Chesimard, “Women in Prison: How We Are,” The Black Scholar 9 no. 7 (April 1978), pages 8-15

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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