Pittsburgh does the honors: first time use of sonnic cannon against U.S. civilians

Daily Finance is just gushing about the “rosy economic picture” for San Diego-based American Technology Corporation. Seems everyone is very cheery about the “successful” use of ATC’s sonic cannon against G-20 protesters in Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh officials said yesterday they believe this to be the first use of a LRAD “sonic cannon” against civilians in U.S. history. . . . Given yesterday’s civilian debut, with no reported casualties, commercial and civilian uses for LRAD also seem possible. [CEO] Putnam said the company hopes law enforcement agencies everywhere come to realize what an effective crowd control weapon the LRAD can be.

Well that certainly is good news: a new weapon that can be used to clear streets of pesky protesters and also shore up the economy. A perfect combination. If, as predicted, 2009 and 2010 are the years of double digit unemployment, no doubt they will also be quite prosperous years for the folks at ATC and other entrepreneurs who have developed more effective “non-lethal” ways of keeping the population under control.

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Police brutality, Whose streets?

Report from Pittsburgh: September 25

Day 6 – Sept 25 – G20 protests
Posted by Bail Out the People Not the Banks on Saturday, September 26, 2009
Day 6—Sept. 25

The permitted People’s March on G-20 attracted an estimated 10,000 people, largely young people. The organizers, the People’s Voices coalition, held two rallies during the march.

Following the closing down of the Tent City on the Hill in the morning, the Bail Out the People Movement organized a speak-out and then a contingent at Freedom Corner, which fed into the People’s March.

BOPM’s Larry Holmes spoke at the first rally where he defended the youth who were brutally attacked by the police on Sept. 24 in downtown Pittsburgh. BOPM’s Cheryl LaBash spoke at the second rally on the crisis in Honduras. The March organizers asked the BOPM contingent and its banner, “Message to G-20 – WE NEED JOBS NOW” with photos of Dr. Martin Luther King, to lead the second leg of the march.

Eyewitness report from Dante Strobino:

On Friday night, I was near U. of Pitt around 10:00 when we saw a huge crowd of about over 1000 students, most of which were not political at all and certainly not involved in G-20 protests, gathered in Schenedy Park where there was a concert going on with acoustic and rock bands as part of G-20 protest events. The police began to occupy the park and forcefully removed everyone from the park. As students began to gather around to check it out, the riot police got more hyped up. There were no chants, no signs, no banners, no folks dressed in black and no provocation and the police threw several tear gas and smoke bombs at the crowd again and pushed them further back down commercial streets where there bars and restaurants. They also began chasing people into the huge dormitory towers and attacking students as they left. Students were hanging out the windows, taking pictures in awe.

Forbes St. was blocked off by hundreds of riot cops while surrounding contingents of cops moved in on the other areas of the campus to corral people in. Police brutality had been witnessed — folks being thrown to the ground and shot with rubber bullets, media being pepper-sprayed and gassed. There have been 48 confirmed arrests (an estimated 175 arrests total) with more reports still coming in. Protesters and students alike are being held in the dorm towers unable to leave in fear of being arrested; other students cannot cross 5th Ave. to get to their residences without being thrown to the ground.

I got a chance to talk to several students who had never seen anything like this in their lives. It was really interesting hearing people say “F_ck the Police”, people who you would never expect to hear this from! Even some more conservative students that I talked to, were really angry too and just confused.

What is most striking about being here is seeing the incredible police repression both Thursday and Friday night in Oakland, a neighborhood which houses U. of Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University, two universities with mostly white, mostly middle class students. As Larry Holmes commented during our Tent City, at any given normal day the police usually target and harass the Black community, but these two days not only are they (Black people) under normal occupation, but the police are targeting young white folks.

Sept. 25 quotes from students on police violence:

“People have been saying mostly that the violence and any disruption by the protest were small fraction, most protesters were peaceful. It was the police who started the violence and ended up finishing the violence. … It felt like a war zone. The police became more and violent, taking over more and more of the street. I couldn’t get to my house even until 3am on Thursday. I saw there multiple people that needed to have pepper spray washed out of their eyes. The police wouldn’t let students cross the street or enter their dorm rooms. I saw violent use of police dogs that were used to intimidate.”
- Sean O’Sullivan, senior at University of Pittsburgh

“The night before in the same location there was a mass arrest of people walking by who were thrown to the ground, maced and arrested. We were gathering there because kids in a march earlier were there. We didn’t want to march tonight; we wanted to chill and have a nice night. As we did that, more cops surrounded area…We hopped the fence to get out over the hill… as we were doing that, that police officer was beating down a fence with his nightstick to get over it; a reporter got maced in face and we brought him to steps of chapel and we were distracted. They swarmed around us and arrested the guy who was injured; he could barely breathe, trying to get him away from crowd. As kids tried to run away they picked us off one by one. [The police told a woman] to shut the fuck up and get off the goddamn phone. As she was trying to say goodbye, he grabbed her by head and slammed her head into the ground. They were being way forceful and too aggressive. They put on handcuffs way too tight. They had us sit down for awhile and wouldn’t tell us what was going on. They put us in two lines for males and females. From that point they took our photos, held out papers in front of our face with another cop. They searched us, put us in vans and wouldn’t tell us what was going on. They wouldn’t read us our rights; they only had snarky comments to say to us. We were in transportation vans for about three hours; then we got to the State Correctional Facility where we were in the van for another five hours still with plastic handcuffs on. They turned up the air conditioning to 55 degrees to make us feel as uncomfortable as possible. There were girls on periods that they would not let go to bathroom; there were girls in tears because of how bad they had to pee. You can get urinary tract infection or Toxic Shock Syndrome. We were there until 6:30 in the morning. Then they searched us, had us take off all our jewelry but our hands were swollen from cuffs and they were being real aggressive taking off rings. As soon as we stepped off the bus, a guy was holding my arm and a cop said “Say G-20″ and snapped my picture. They didn’t tell us where we were going or how long that we would be there. They didn’t answer any questions we had.”

–Jillian Dowis, sophomore at Ohio University

VIDEOS OF POLICE REPRESSION:

college students trapped in stairwell and gassed, attacked

police assault couple in street

Police pose while taking picture of arrested student

front line of resistance on Thursday afternoon, youth hurl dumpster at cops

Filed under: Economic crisis, Fighting oppression, Police brutality, Whose streets?

Alternate realities

It’s a theme worthy of a science fiction novel.  Two cities from two different worlds co-exist in the same physical space.  Residents of both cities are aware of and see the other, but long custom and tradition require that they do not acknowledge – do not even look directly at – each other.  Interactions between the two occur only through the mediation of law enforcement authorities, as from time to time these cities intersect and residents interact in ways that cause injury and mayhem.

A good writer could have a field day with this premise.  I am satisfied to present it to you as a crude analogy for the two worlds occupied by rich and poor – and typically by white and non-white – in the U.S.

Case in point: today, the federal court threw out a lawsuit by a Hartford family against the Hartford Police Department arising from the execution of a search warrant aimed at an alleged drug dealer.  The family – Rosa Pina, Moses Torres and their three children – live on the second floor of a three story apartment on Belden Street in the North End of Hartford.  In May 2005, city police broke down the door of their apartment with a battering ram, handcuffed the two parents, and held the whole family at gun point while they ransacked the apartment looking for evidence of narcotics.  The parents allege that one of their children awoke with a police detective pointing a gun in her face, and that the police screamed obscenities at family members, threatening to shoot anyone who moved, while ripping open their personal belongings.  Seems the detectives had carefully investigated and determined that people were entering the building and going up the stairs to buy drugs from someone named Moses.

There were no drugs.  No evidence of drugs.  No evidence of drug-dealing.  The police reportedly now admit that the person they were looking for was a different Moses who lived on the third floor of the building.  It was all a mistake.

Front page news?  Multi-million dollar settlement?  Public apology?  Maybe if it were in the city that I see when I look out the window: a city of laws enforced by public servants for the common good, where I can usually safely assume that my interactions with the police will include being addressed as “Sir” and being addressed in polite, official tones.  Where  someone who pointed a gun at a child would be in jail.  Where a private home is a sanctuary.

But not in the other city.  Not in the one where Rosa Pina, Moses Torres and their kids live.  In that city, the police are not public servants but an army of occupation.  Every resident is a presumed criminal and every child is a potential criminal.  There is no such thing as sanctuary.  From my city I can see theirs, if I make it a point to look.  But the rules are that I’m not supposed to look.  They can see my city, but the laws of race and class – seemingly as permanent and unchangeable as the laws of physics – ensure that they cannot enter it.

So in their city, what happened to this family is not front page news but a small article in a local legal newspaper.  It’s not a huge jury verdict or a big settlement but a case dismissed because it was “reasonable” for the police to think that the Moses they were looking for lived in the second floor apartment – although he bore no physical resemblance to the Moses who lived on the third floor.  Sort of the way that it would be reasonable for police to break into your home, if your name happens to be John, and the neighbor’s name also happens to be John, and they are looking for him and not you.  Whoops.

It is particularly frightening to me that the custom and tradition that keeps the occupants of my city from acknowledging those in that other city is so strong.  So strong, in fact, that even those who try to shake it off are still bound and blindered by it.  So in one city, many of my friends and colleagues are appalled that U.S. troops use stormtrooper tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan, but seem to be oblivious to this same reality in that other city.  It is comforting to hear voices of outrage at shameful abuses of human rights . . . and almost heartbreaking to realize that the outrage is directed at images on a television screen transmitted from across the globe and not at tragedies unfolding in that other world that exists only an arm’s length and an infinite distance from where we live.

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Justice, justice, Police brutality

Police Terrorism and the Global Economic Crisis: Implications for Workers and the Oppressed

Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, covering the annual May Day demonstrations in southwest Detroit on May 1, 2008. (Photo: Alan Pollock).

As the capitalist downturn deepens state repression escalates against people in the U.S. and internationally

by Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Over the last several months, a series of dramatic cases involving police killings of civilians have brought to light the essential role of law-enforcement within capitalist societies. Numerous cities throughout the United States have seen a dramatic increase in the murder of African Americans by cops as well as the escalation of raids and deportations against immigrants both legal and undocumented.

Although the problem of police terrorism and repression has existed for well over a century in the U.S., even going back to the period of slavery and the post-civil war era, since the beginning of this decade, there have been disturbing trends indicating that the level of repression is reaching critical proportions. This rise in reported incidents of police brutality and killings of civilians is taking place at the same time as the economic underpinnings of low-wage capitalism continues to deteriorate.

[More at Pan-African News Wire]

Filed under: Economic crisis, Fighting oppression, Immigrant rights, Police brutality

IAC and FIST Statement: Justice for Oscar Grant

Joint statement from the International Action Center &
F.I.S.T. (Fight Imperialism-Stand Together)

International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org

FIST (Fight Imperialism-Stand Together)
http://www.fistyouth.wordpress.com

Justice for Oscar Grant!
Jail Johannes Mehserle and All Killer Cops!
Amnesty Now for those arrested during the Oakland
rebellion!
Rebellion of the Oppressed is not a Crime, Police
Brutality is the Crime!

The International Action Center and Fight
Imperialism-Stand Together (FIST) strongly condemn the
fatal shooting of 22 year-old African-American father,
Oscar Grant, by BART cop Johannes Mehserle, Jan. 1 at the
Fruitvale station in Oakland, Calif. Grant was forced off
the train at 2 a.m. with others and forced to lie face
down on the ground. While he was laying face down,
Mehserle pulled his gun from its holster and shot Grant in
the back.

The incident was caught on cell phone cameras and has
since been broadcast far and wide, exposing not only BART
police but the ineptitude of the authorities in Oakland in
dealing with the fatal killing of another unarmed person
of color by the police.

It was not until days had passed that BART officials or
anyone from the city made any public statements regarding
the killing, though many witnesses came forward.

Officials refused to officially give Mehserle’s name and
claimed that an official statement was being withheld
until he could be interviewed. Then, Mehserle resigned and
the public was told to wait further.

The people of Oakland appeared to not be in a waiting mood
and instead calling for mass rallies and, at the first
one, openly rebelling, even to the point of almost
overturning a police cop squad car.

This was in response to cops in full riot gear charging
toward what had initially been a peaceful demonstration.

The response of the crowd, especially the young people is
reminiscent of what transpired in Greece a few months back
after the killing of 15 year-old Alexandros Andreas
Grigoropoulos by a cop in Exarchia, Greece. The killing
set off a rebellion that lasted for days and occurred at a
time of a general strike that gained momentum because of
the rebellion, which led to more job walkouts throughout
the country in many industries.

The mood of the oppressed and workers, especially African
Americans in Oakland, one of the poorest cities in
California, is one of being fed up. One woman in the crowd
of protesters summed it up, “We live a life of fear, and
we want them to be afraid tonight.”

From Gaza, where the Palestinian people are quartered in
the world’s largest prison and being slaughtered by
U.S.-backed Israeli bomb and tanks to Exarchia, to
Oakland, people have a right to express their indignation,
demand justice and their due as human beings.

The cop who killed Oscar Grant should not be allowed to
walk free and should be jailed, prosecuted and his fate
decided by the people of Oakland. The evidence is
irrefutable; it was a cold blooded killing.

The 150 protesters arrested and detained from righteously
rebelling at the protest after Oscar Grant was buried
should be released and given amnesty as soon as possible.

Demand that the District Attorney arrest and charge
Mehserle the murder of Oscar Grant:

Contact: Alameda County District Attorney, Tom Orloff at:
(510) 272-6222
(510) 271-5157 fax

End Oppression from Gaza to Exarchia to Oakland!
_______________________________________________

Anyone can subscribe.
Send an email request to
Action.News-subscribe@organizerweb.com

Filed under: Fighting oppression, Justice, justice, Police brutality

Protesters Target “Dirty Cops” in New Haven

Stories of police brutality, ICE raids, torture of prisoners, racist frameups of revolutionary activists like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Pelletier, and vicious U.S. wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . but still the corporate media and the politicians have the gall to ask: “Where are young people learning to be violent?”

This from the New Haven Independent:

by VJ Vitkowsky | October 3, 2008 8:34 AM 

VJ Vitkowsky Photo

The first time Abel Sanchez went into a courthouse, he reluctantly plead guilty to “disturbing the peace” and paid a fine. Thursday he made his second visit to an American hall of justice, outside the federal courthouse on Church Street. But this time, Sanchez wasn’t pleading or paying, he was protesting.

Sanchez was arrested in January by a police officer who is now at the center of a new federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of New Haven, filed Monday.

Filed under: Police brutality