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"Voices in the Clouds" is an intimate exploration of one man’s quest to understand his heritage. At the heart of the film lies the celebration of family and cultural preservation. "Tony Coolidge is a kind, inquisitive man, born to a Taiwanese mother and an American father he has yet to meet. Living in America, his [...]

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

I am dictating these words via telephone, which
is why I must be brief and I will not be able to
say everything I would have liked. Yesterday
afternoon I was removed from "the hole" with the
same speed in which I was thrown in. I had been
taken there supposedly because I was under
investigation. These investigations can take up
to three months, sometimes more, but I was there
13 days. As a known Cuban journalist would say;
you can draw your own conclusions...

I want to express to all of you my deep
gratitude. You know that they were particularly
difficult days due to the excessive heat and the
lack of air, but you all were my oxygen. I can't
find a better way to summarize the enormous
importance of your solidarity efforts.

Many thanks to all the compañeras and compañeros
from Cuba and around the world who joined their
voices to condemn my situation. Thanks to the
institutions, organizations and individuals of
goodwill that in one way or another worked to
bring an end to this injustice.

To our President Raúl, that so honors us with his
support. To the Cuban National Assembly and its
President Ricardo Alarcón, a tireless fighter for
the cause of the Five. To my four brothers, who
sent me messages of encouragement, and who have
also suffered and lived under constant risk of
suffering similar abuses. And of course, to our
dear Commander in Chief: Thank you for so much
honor! (I don't know if I should say it, but just
the privilege of hearing my name in Fidel's voice
makes me feel like thanking those who put me in
"the hole"...)

Thank you Comandante, for the joy of hearing you
and seeing you as great as ever!

Thanks to everyone for having demonstrated again
the power of solidarity which, without a doubt,
will one day make us free.

The struggle continues!

A big embrace,
Gerardo Hernández Nordelo

US Penitentiary, Victorville, CA

August 3rd, 2010

Solidarity is the Tenderness of the Peoples

After 13 days in the notorious solitary
confinement unit of the high security Victorville
Penitentiary, Gerardo Hernandez has been moved
back to the general population.

It was the immediate response by Cuba
and the voices of solidarity from all over the
world to the inhumane conditions that Gerardo was
being subjected to that was key to his release.

This is a small but significant victory and
demonstrates once again the power of united
actions against the face of injustice.

With that same spirit and that same strength let
us multiply our actions until Gerardo, René,
Ramón, Antonio and Fernando return to their
beloved homeland and their love ones.

International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
Stay tuned to our website with latest development
on the case: www.thecuban5.org

info@thecuban5.org

National Committee To Free The Cuban Five

Gerardo Hernández, Cuban Five hero, has just been
released this morning from isolation after an
intense campaign by his attorneys and thousands
of supporters around the world, including nearly
a thousand emails to the Bureau of Prisons
generated by the National Committee's appeal.

Leonard Weinglass, one of Gerardo's attorneys,
visited Gerardo this weekend along with fellow
attorney Peter Schey. He described this morning
to Gloria La Riva of the National Committee to
Free the Cuban Five the abysmal and cruel
conditions that Gerardo was placed in. "Gerardo
is in great spirits but he's really suffering. In
100+ degree weather, the air was so stifling that
Gerardo was laying on the floor sucking in air
from the bottom of the door. He couldn't take his
blood pressure medicine as his doctor advised him
because the weather was too hot. He couldn't use
the shower because it was scalding hot water. He
was given dirty bedsheets, and he had to resort
to washing them in the toilet."

Weinglass noted that "we sent a five-page letter
to the prison containing all the errors that they
made in putting him in isolation. The letter
outlined their own regulations that they violated."

Gerardo is released!

Moments later this morning, in a new phone call,
Weinglass announced "they've just released him
to the general population!"

It's thanks to the great efforts of the attorneys
and the national and international solidarity
movement with the Cuban Five that this punitive
and unwarranted prison action against Gerardo has
been ended. Thanks to everyone who responded so
quickly to this emergency situation.

Clearly, the struggle must intensify to free
Gerardo and all the Cuban Five from prison. One
thing you can do right now is to send a letter to
Gerardo, letting him know you and all of us are
with him in the continuing struggle. Also, if you
are not already receiving emails from the
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, please
click the link below to add your name to this
low-volume list, so that we'll be able to notify
you if another emergency arises.
Send a letter of support to Gerardo
Add your name to our mailing list


Contact us: info@freethefive.org
Or call: 415-312-6042
Web:
http://www.freethefive.org
Free the Cuban Five Now!
Allow the families' visits!
Grant entry visas to
Adriana Pérez and Olga Salanueva

Anarchist News July 30, 2010

This is a call out for a prisoner solidarity demonstration in Chicago at the US Prison Bureau on August 10th, 'International Prisoner Justice Day.'

Join as 3pm at the US Prison Bureau at 71 W Van Buren St. Chicago, IL 60605 to express out pure hatred for the prison apparatus. (We will meet at the corner of Clark and Van Buren at 2:30pm and walk over at 3pm). We recognize the strictly symbolic value of such an action. We wish first and foremost to communicate solidarity with those locked inside. Secondly we would like to demonstrate solidarity with those advancing struggle in Ontario and everywhere. We do not wish to make any demands. We seek nothing less than the total destruction of every prison and the worlds that need them.

For the destruction of all prisons and the freedom of all prisoners!

August 3, 2010 mounting bedlam distro

Here is the latest issue of ACAB News #4, the Guelph ABC periodical.

ACAB 4 August 2010

Contents:

LOCAL NEWS
- RBC Bank Arson in Ottawa
- Ottawa Movement Defense
- Support Political Prisoners of the G20
- Free Kelly
- Police Infiltration Report
- Free our Friends: Community Update on G20
- Detained: Holly’s Story
- Fierce & Fabulous 3 update
- Struggle Against Prison Action Reports
- Anti-Prison Demo Shut Down
- Prisoner Justice Day August 10th
- Autonomous Self-Organization and Anarchist Intervention (intro and exerpts)

INTERNATIONAL NEWS:
- Solidarity with Oscar Grant Protest Arrestees (california)
- Nikos Maziotis on Hunger Strike (greece)
- Letter from Giannis Dimitrakis (greece)
- Letter from Tamara (spain)
- Barefoot Bandit Caught (bahamas)

Justseeds members Kevin Caplicki & Molly Fair, with friend Jesse Goldstein, will be creating a multi-disciplinary installation incorporating the recently completed Resourced portfolio. They will fill the gallery with large scale wall-paintings, 3-D sculpture, and video projection. Molly Fair... K C www.justseeds.org

Published on Daily Yonder (http://www.dailyyonder.com) July 29, 2010 A controversial study finds that Indian casinos are good for low-wage workers but unlikely to produce more high-wage earners. bingo cards Mohawk Bingo Palace [8] Casino gambling has increased employment and raised...

New York to correct miscount of incarcerated people New law caps decade-long effort to improve fairness and accuracy of data used for state and local redistricting August 3, 2010 - Today, the New York State Senate passed legislation ensuring that...

I am making a bunch of drawings and sculptures of "plausible inventions." Here is one of them.... Colin Matthes

Our dear comrade Marilyn Buck made her transition today at 1 pm est peacefully and surrounded by friends at home in Brooklyn. Details of memorials and where to send cards and donations will follow soon.

http://www.freedomarchives.org/wildpoppies/mp3/WEBwild%20poppiesMB.mp3

Marilyn Buck - reads Wild Poppies

Khimki city court left in custody the both suspects of the attack on the city
administration, Maxim Solopov and Alexey Gaskarov. They were remanded for two
months.

Source: http://www.gazeta.ru/news/lenta/2010/08/03/n_1529159.shtml

(through https://avtonom.org/en/node/12897)

Previous articles on topic, including autotranslations on articles on
falsifications of the remand court: https://avtonom.org/en/khimki

Yet there is no information on to which remand prison they are sent and if
they will be allowed mail or not.

Facebook support group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123233894390151

Well, this idiot is out of our hair for a few years. Hardy Lloyd, formerly of the World Church of the Creator Creativity Movement, is being sent up the river on weapons charges. The mental midget is from a Pittsburgh suburb that went even more insane after he was cleared for killing his girlfriend a few years back. Feeling he was untouchable, he just began to boast about it and attempted to build a organization around that. Problem was other Nazis thought he was untouchable too - and didn't touch him, go near him, have anything to do with him! They saw him for the screwball he was, and so did the law. Now he will spend a little more time in the pokey, although sadly with time served it is only a few years. Eh, we could use the break. We have better things to do with our time than worry about people with no influence or sanity to speak of. Seems to be a running thing with the Pittsburgh area Nazis, considering whats-his-name in nearby Sarver, PA doesn't seem to get people to kiss his idiotic ass either!

The Day of Action Against Racism and Fascism apparenlty produced a little international fare. The National Conference on Soviet Jewry is reporting on the opposition in Estonia to honor in the name of honoring their World War II soldiers what were actually part of an SS group based there. The July 31 event is an annual one, and it has been a concern for folks who are getting tired of these kinds of commerations in the Baltic states as of late. They came out to let folks know, and they will continue to do so. Now this country kicked an relatively insignificant blot like Craig Cobb out, so you can imagine how they feel about their locals!

The bigots lost. Despite the efforts ranging from bottom feeder nimrods like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to people who should know better like the Anti-Defamation League, the Islamic Center at the old Burlington Coat Factory location on Park Place and Broadway, near the site of the World Trade Center has lept past the final hurdle. By a unanimous vote, The New York City Landmarks Commission decided not to give the site landmark status - a move made by the opponents of the center to keep it from being built - and allowed the plans for it to go forward. If the bigots that fought these efforts wanted to consider this to be a symbolic victory for those they wanted to consider (by default due to their religion, mind you) the perpetrators of 9-11, it is. But then again, it is a victory for a good and just people overall. We are all going to benefit from this center, despite what the conservatives say - and will say in their propaganda in the days, weeks, months and years to come before it all stops. But they better understand something quick: They don't own 9-11. They are not the only ones who felt the pain and anguish of that day. Most importantly 9-11 is not their Reichstag. If they want to act like it is, they had best remember the fate of the people who made the Reichstag their rallying cry, because it is going to befall them if they don't start backing off on their hatred and polarization. And if we never said it before, we need to say it now: Anti-Defamation League, go back to the days when you fought for the good of all people or go to hell. Your lunacy is going to be the death of us.

FRIDAY- Screening to benefit Books thru Bars program (sending books
to prisoners)!

SATURDAY- Run/walk/jog/picnic for the WARCHEST PROGRAM (30$/month to
PP/POWs inside) and for SEKOU ODINGA's legal defense!

Details below!
-------------------------------

Dog Day Afternoon

Friday August 6, 2010 ּ 8p

@ Freebird Books

123 Columbia St., Brooklyn

$5 suggested donation + beer and food

Books through bars is a volunteer collective that sends free books to
folks in prison.

All proceeds go towards sending incarcerated people something good to
read.
–————————————————————————————————————————————————


New York City: Running Down the Walls 2010

On Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 3pm, the NYC Anarchist Black Cross will
host a 5k run/walk/jog in solidarity with the Political Prisoners and
Prisoners of War held in North America. We'll be running on the same day
as other ABCs and other organizations around the country as well as some
of the prisoners who will be running in the rec yards. We will be
passing the hat to raise much-needed funds for the ABCF's Warchest program. This
will be followed by a spirited picnic afterparty at 5pm.

When:
Run/walk/jog- Saturday, August 7th, 2010, 3pm.
Picnic afterparty- Saturday, August 7th, 2010, 5pm.

Where:
Runners, walkers, and joggers will meet at 3pm on the steps of the
Brooklyn Public Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza at Eastern Parkway in
Brooklyn (take the 2/3 train to Grand Army Plaza).

Picnic afterparty feasters and frolickers- the Long Meadow

Proceeds will be split between the ABCF Warchest and the Sekou Odinga
Defense Committee

ABCF Warchest:
The ABCF Warchest program is now almost 16 years old; funds for the
Warchest are divided and distributed through monthly stipends to
political prisoners who receive little or no financial aid. Prisoners use this
money to cover the basic necessities of everyday living. Funds have been
used by prisoners to pay for stamps, shoes, clothes, as well as assisting their
families with what little they can.

Sekou Odinga:
Sekou Odinga is a New Afrikan Prisoner of War with roots in the
Organization of Afro-American Unity, the Harlem and Bronx Black Panther
Party, the Provisional Republic of New Afrika, as well as the Black
Liberation Army. In July 2009 after forty years of captivity as a POW,
Sekou finally finished his sentence in the US federal prison system only
to be transferred to Shwangunk Correctional to begin a 25-year NY-state
sentence at the age of 66. He is currently in need of legal funds to
make a case for his release from NY state which has, along with the United
States government, conspired to make an example of him by keeping him
perpetually incarcerated in violation of international law. Sekou was
the first prisoner to receive Warchest funds. The Sekou Odinga Defense
Committee/ PO Box 1272/ New York, New York 10013
Tel: 212-234-4336/ SekouOdingaDefenseCommittee [at] gmail [dot] com

Official Runs:
The ABCF is a Federation of ABC chapters that span the country and is
holding two official Running Down the Walls runs, in New York City
and Los Angeles, on August 7th. In sync with each other and other solidarity
runs, we will collectively pound the pavement with our feet and bike
tires as we exhibit our strength and stamina as examples of our tireless
effort to free our imprisoned comrades.

Solidarity Runs:
Every year, prisoners and supporters of political prisoners organize
solidarity runs with Running Down the Walls. Last year, we had runs in
Albuquerque (NM), Arcata (CA), Ashland, (OR), Bellefonte (PA), Boston
(MA), Denver, (CO), Elmore (AL), Inez (KY), Los Angeles (CA), Marion
(IL), New York NY), USP. Navosta (TX), Pelican Bay (CA), Phoenix (AZ), Tucson
(AZ), and Toronto, Ontario. We raised just over $1,000 with funds being
distributed between the ABCF Warchest, Romaine Chip Fitzgerald
Homecoming Fund, and Ojore Lutalo’s Homecoming Fund. This year we hope to expand
the amount of runs in prisons and other cities, as well as, increase the
amount of funds raised for community projects. This year we hope to have
even more runs in cities, towns, and prisons all across North America.

Support the Struggle:
We must remember that many of those arrested in the past or present are
not far from us. Many of them were and are community and labor
activists, queer, and environmental activists; people who decided to speak out
against various forms of oppression and paid the price of their freedom
for their actions. We must remember that anyone of these people could
have at one time stood beside us in a demonstration, at a speak-out, or
even at an organizing meeting. At any given moment it could be us who finds
ourselves in this situation, so it is imperative that we ensure a strong
enough community of support exists for these people as well as
ourselves.
The strength of our movement is determined by how much we support our
fallen comrades. As anarchist and former POW Ojore Lutalo says, "Any
movement that does not support its political internees, is a sham
movement." So please help us, help them, help you!

Why August 7th?
We chose the date of August 7th as the day to run down the walls to
commemorate the life of revolutionary Jonathan Jackson who on August 7th
was killed in an attempt to free the Soledad Brothers. On August 7,
1970, Jackson brought guns into the Marin County Court house during the
trial of James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee. Jonathan Jackson
demanded the release of the Soledad Brothers as he and the three
prisoners took the Judge and four others hostage. As Jackson and the others
entered his van in an attempt to leave, the authorities open fired on the van,
killing Joanathan Jackson, James Mclain, William Christmas and Judge
Harold Haley. Ruchell Magee was injured but survived the onslaught and
remains in prison to this day.

We encourage people to participate in helping us raise funds for the
Warchest, which can be done in the following ways:

Be a runner:
We are asking people or groups who are running to collect as many
sponsor for the run as possible. Remember the money received is going to
help imprisoned comrades who need your help. The person who collects the
most amount of funds will be given a prize for their involvement and
dedication to helping our fallen comrades.

Sponsor a runner:
This can be done through a flat donation to the runner of your
choice. We ask from those who wish not to run to actively support those who are
running in hopes of collecting as much for our comrades as possible.
Contact us for a list of runners.

Sponsor Running Down the Walls:
Any amount helps. Contact the NYC Anarchist Black Cross if you wish to
simply donate money to the cause.

Donate to:

-The Warchest:
Send funds directly to NYC ABCF (PO Box 110034, BK NY 11211) or to the
Philadelphia ABCF (PO Box 42129, Philadelphia, PA 19101) Make checks or
money orders out only to Tim Fasnacht.

-Jaan Laaman, UFF Political Prisoner Statement of Solidarity
October 19th 2002 My Brothers,

"Thank you for running at this special event that means so much to
many of us all over the world, both free and imprisoned. In a relative way,
we are all political prisoners because it is the politics of this system of
things that is exploiting, crushing, imprisoning, and destroying the
masses all over the world and the earth itself. Then there are those who
know this and take actions against those who seek to deny us our
rightful place on earth as common human brethren. Those are the ones we run
for and seek to help... whom sacrificed their family, freedom and lives, so that
our lives may be better! The fact that you ran with us is a sign that
when the red-hour comes, you will not be caught asleep. You are conscious and
you too are willing to represent. The potential in you is great.
Thank you for running for the cause!"


"As we ran we were thinking and talking about all the runners in Los
Angeles and how we'd love to be out there running with them. We also
spoke about the other political prisoners who were running with us in at least
some other prisons."

*If you're not in NYC, email us to find out if there's a run in your
area! - nycabc[at]riseup.net

by Stephen Lendman July 13, 2010 sjlendman.blogspot.com

Across America, daily incidents occur, one of many the cold-blooded January 1, 2009 murder of Oscar Grant - unarmed, offering no resistance, thrust face-down on the ground, shot in the back, and killed, videotaped on at least four cameras for irrefutable proof. USA Today said five bystanders taped it.

His killer: Oakland, CA transit officer, Johannes Mehserle, tried for the killing, the jury told to consider four possible verdicts - innocent, second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter, jurors deciding the latter.

The Legal Dictionary defines it as "The act of unlawfully killing another human being unintentionally," the absence of intent distinguishing it from voluntary manslaughter. Many states don't define it or do it vaguely. Wallin & Klarich Violent Crime Attorneys say in California it carries a two - four year sentence. However, since a gun was used, Judge Robert Perry can add three to 10 additional years.

Because minority victims seldom get justice, especially against police, Mehserle may serve minimal time, then be paroled quietly when the current furor subsides.

After the verdict, it erupted on Oakland streets, hundreds turning out to protest, Bay Area indymedia.org saying:

"The actions of the Police in Oakland tonight (including dozens of arrests) show their disrespect for justice in General. Their heavy handed violence towards protestors just reinforces their total disconnect with the people of Oakland." It's as true everywhere across America, police acting like Gestapo, usually unaccountably.

Grant's family will appeal the verdict and is suing the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) for $25 million, his mother Wanda Johnson saying "My son was murdered (and) the law has not held the officer accountable." It rarely does for Black, Latino, or other minorities, no matter the injustice, civil rights lawyer John Burris, representing Grant's family in the civil suit, saying:

"The system is rarely fair when a police officer shoots an African-American male." Police brutality against them and other minorites is systemic, including beatings, torture, and cold-blooded murder, usually with impunity, justice nearly always denied.

While far from certain, the Obama administration may charge Mehserle with civil rights or hate crime violations, DOJ spokesman Alejandro Miyar saying:

"The Justice Department has been closely monitoring the state's investigation and prosecution. The Civil Rights Division, the US Attorney's Office, and the FBI have an open investigation into the fatal shooting and, at the conclusion of the state prosecution, will conduct an independent review of the facts and circumstances to determine whether the evidence warrants federal prosecution."

Systemic Police Brutality

An earlier Jones Report.com text and video account headlined, "Epidemic of Police Brutality Sweeps America," showing footage of police repeatedly tasering a student with 50,000 volts of electricity for questioning the 2004 election results at a campus meeting.

Other videotaped incidents showed:

-- a man victimized by police violence;

-- a former sheriff's deputy acquitted of voluntary manslaughter for shooting an unarmed man;

-- police repeatedly beating an old man on the head, "for the crime of intoxication;"

-- officers violently using assault rifles, tear gas, dogs, and at least one helicopter in an alleged narcotics sweep;

-- a woman tasered to death by police; and

-- a man in shock, bleeding and burned over much of his body, ordered to lie on the pavement, then tasered and shot to death while he sat dazed, the Report highlighting systemic police violence "repeated almost every day in (America), the police (getting) away with murder," beatings, and other lawless acts - poor Blacks, Latinos, and Muslims for their faith and ethnicity their usual victims.

Amnesty International (AI) on American Police Brutality

On its web site, AI says "Police brutality and use of excessive force has been one of the central themes of (AI's) campaign on human rights violations in the USA," launched in October 1998. In its "United States of America: Rights for All Index," it documented systematic patterns of abuse across America, including "police beatings, unjustified shootings and the use of dangerous restraint techniques to subdue suspects."

Yet little is done to monitor or constrain it, evidence showing that "racial and ethnic minorities were disproportionately" harmed by harassment, verbal and physical abuse, false arrests, and in the case of West African immigrant, Amadou Diallo, shot at 41 times by four New York policemen, struck 19 times and killed while he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building, unarmed and nonviolent, victimized by police brutality.

Nationwide, driving while black has been criminalized, racial profiling used for traffic stops and searches for suspected drugs or other reasons, the practice especially common in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas.

AI cited numerous incidents, including beatings and "questionable" shootings, usually found to be unjustified, yet cops most often absolved. Although most US police departments stipulate that officers should only use deadly force when their lives, or others, are endangered, dozens of cases show they do it indiscriminately, at most being "mildly disciplined" even if guilty of serious misconduct.

"Police shooting(s) resulting in death or injury are routinely reviewed (internally or) by local prosecutors....to see whether criminal laws (were) violated. However, few officers are criminally charged and little public information is given out if a case does not go to trial." As a result, systemic abuse stays hidden, police brutality allowed to persist with impunity.

Despite Congress passing the 1994 Police Accountability Act, incorporated into the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act to require the Attorney General to compile national data on excessive police force, Congress has consistently failed to fund it. Further, the legislation doesn't require local police agencies to keep records or submit data to the Justice Department. Nor does it criminalize police violence and excessive force as human rights violations.

ACLU Report on Racial and Ethnic Profiling

In August 2009, the report titled, "The Persistence of Racial Profiling in the United States" quoted Rep. John Conyers (D. MI) saying "Since (9/11), our nation has engaged in a policy of institutionalized racial and ethnic profiling," although, as an African-American, he knows the problem goes back generations, most recently in the "war on terrorism" against Blacks, Latinos, and Muslims for their faith, ethnicity, activism, prominence, and at times charity, a topic this writer addresses often - arrests, some violently, bogus charges, prosecutions, and imprisonments often compounding the injustice.

Post-9/11 under Bush and Obama, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies have engaged in virulent racial/ethnic profiling, what the ACLU calls "a widespread and pervasive problem throughout the United States, impacting the lives of millions of people in African American, Asian, Latino, South Asian, and Arab communities."

Evidence shows that racial minorities are systematically victimized, without cause, in public, when driving, at work, at home, in places of worship, and traveling, often violently.

A "major impediment to (prohibiting it) remains the continued unwillingness or inability of the US government to pass federal legislation (banning the practice) with binding effect on federal, state or local law enforcement."

Nor do authorities comply with the provisions of the 1994 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) that obligates all levels of government.

In addition, the Justice Department's 2003 Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies designed to ban federal officers from engaging in racial profiling is, in fact, flawed and does little to end it, because it doesn't cover "profiling based on religion, religious appearance, or national origin."

Nor does it apply to state and local law enforcement where police brutality is systemic. In addition, it specifies no enforcement mechanisms or punishments for violators, and contains a "blanket exception for national security and border integrity cases," besides being advisory and not legally binding.

As a result, it actually promotes profiling and abuse, including false arrests, beatings and killings. It's not surprising how minorities have been systematically mistreated by federal, state and local authorities, or that congressional legislation introduced to stop it never passed.

On December 13, 2007, the House and Senate introduced their versions of the End Racial Profiling Act (HR 4611 and S. 2481). Both bills were referred to committee and never enacted - making it extremely hard to nearly impossible for victims to successfully challenge abuses against them.

As a candidate, Obama promised a "Blueprint for Change" to ban racial profiling and related mistreatment, criminalizing them, but so far, no measures have been introduced or passed, showing another promise made, another broken, a systematic pattern under his leadership, across the board against the constituencies that elected him. Hopefully they'll remember next election and choose another way, a third way, both parties equally corrupted in deference to big money and systemic police brutality that serves it.

National Police Misconduct Statistics

The Injustice Everywhere.com (IE) web site compiles them, publishing them in regular reports, some for individual cities, including daily accounts. One on July 10 covers King County, WA deputy Paul Schene, captured on videotape assaulting a 15-year old girl in jail. He was tried twice, hung juries resulting each time.

On July 9, the County Prosecutor's Office dropped the charges, and won't pursue a third trial. As a result, the sheriff's department may rehire Schene, though he still faces possible disciplinary action. It's currently in arbitration, IE saying decisions nearly always favor officers, in which case he'll likely be reinstated to abuse other detainees, off camera to avoid being charged.

In early 2010, IE published an April - mid-December 2009 (8.5 months) Police Misconduct Report, from figures compiled in its National Police Misconduct Statistics Reporting Project (NPMSRP), begun earlier in March 2009, analyzing data:

"by utilizing news media reports of police misconduct to generate statistical information (to) approximate how prevalent (it) may be in the United States."

Police departments don't usually provide them, nor do courts, except for successful prosecutions, omitting confidential settlements and cases resulting in disciplinary action only, not trials. Media reports, though imperfect, are more complete because laws limit or filter information released. As a result, IE's data "should be considered as a low-end estimate of the current rate of police misconduct," as well as in individual cities covered.

Statistics compiled follow the same DOJ/FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) methodology, recording only the most serious allegation (not conviction) when multiple ones are associated with a particular incident. The findings were as follows:

-- 3,445 police misconduct reports;

-- 4,012 officers charged;

-- 261 law enforcement officials (police chiefs or sheriffs) cited;

-- 4,778 alleged victims;

-- 258 fatalities reported;

-- an average of 15.05 daily incidents or one every 96 minutes;

-- nearly $200 million in related civil litigation expense, excluding legal fees and court costs;

-- 980.64 per 100,000 officers charged;

-- one of every 266 officers accused of a violent crime;

-- one of every 1,875 charged with homocide;

-- one of every 947 accused of sexual assault;

-- 33% of police officers charged were convicted, not necessarily justly for the offense committed;

-- 64% of officers convicted were imprisoned, not necessarily as long as justified;

-- those sentenced served an average 14 months, far less than citizens for the same crime;

-- misconduct by category included 18.1% for non-firearm related excessive force; 11.9% for sexual misconduct; and 8.9% for fraud or theft;

-- analyzing reports by last reported status showed 45.9% affected officers adversely, including 14% internally disciplined and 31.9% criminally charged; of the latter, 32.5% were convicted "for a 10.4% total criminal conviction rate for alleged misconduct incidents; and

-- 27% resulted in civil lawsuits, 34.3% favoring victims.

In addition, data were compiled for states, cities and counties, excluding unavailable federal statistics as well as local omissions, especially in some states. Various offenses included:

-- accountability: evidence of coverups, lax discipline, and other failures to adhere to official policies or processes;

-- animal cruelty, harming them by unnecessary shooting, inappropriate KP unit training, or other mistreatment;

-- assault: "unwarranted violence" off-duty, excluding murder;

-- auto incidents involving recklessness, negligence, and other violations of official policies;

-- brutality, involving excessive physical force on-duty, excluding firearms or tasers;

-- civil rights, including unconstitutional civil liberties violations such as lawless peaceful protest disruptions;

-- sexual misconduct, including rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, wrongfully eliciting sex, harassment, coercion, prostitution, sex on duty, incest, and molestation;

-- theft or fraud, including robbery, shoplifting, extortion or bribery;

-- shooting: gun-related incidents both on and off-duty, including self-harm;

-- taser: excessive force, including usage not according to guidelines, resulting in excessive injury or death; also, improper taser use may be recorded as "brutality;"

-- color of law, including incidents involving misuse of authority such as bribery, soliciting favors, extortion by threat of arrest, or using badges to avoid arrest;

-- perjury, including false testimony, dishonesty during investigations, and falsifying charging papers or warrants; and

-- raids, including misconduct during warranted or warrantless operations or searches, wrong address raids, mistaken ones, use of no-knock ones when warrants require notification, or mistreatment during executions.

Misconduct status stages go from allegations to investigations, lawsuits, charges, trials, judgments, disciplinary measures, terminations, convictions, and sentences.

IE compiles data regularly, prepares daily and quarterly reports, and henceforth an annual one each January the following year. It explains that its statistics:

"should only be used (as) a very basic and general view of the extent of police misconduct. It is by no means an accurate gauge that truly represents the exact extent (of its extensiveness) since it relies on the information voluntarily gathered and/or released to the media, not (first-hand) by independent monitors who investigate complaints.....because no such agency exists for any law enforcement agency...."

Detailed quarterly and annual reports are produced, not monthly ones considered a less accurate "depiction of the overall extent of police misconduct...." Daily reports cover a sampling of individual incidents. Overall, IE provides a valuable reading of systemic police misconduct, though capturing only a snapshot of the full problem - widespread, abusive, violent, often with impunity, and when officers are held accountable, imposed discipline is usually mild, prison sentences rare and short-term, victims cheated by a criminally unjust system, favoring power over people, no matter the offense.

Final Comments

In December 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published a report titled, "In the Shadows of the War on Terror: Persistent Police Brutality and Abuse of People of Color in the United States," saying:

"Since this Committee's 2001 review of the US, during which it expressed concern regarding incidents of police brutality and deaths in custody at the hands of US law enforcement officers, there have been dramatic increases in law enforcement powers in the name of waging the "war on terror (resulting in) the use of excessive force against people of color....(It's not only continued post-9/11), but has worsened in both practice and severity" - a NAACP representative saying it's "the worst I've seen in 50 years."

On April 4, 2007, Ryan Gallagher, writing for Medill Reports, produced by Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, headlined, "Study: Police abuse goes unpunished," saying:

From 2002 - 2004, over "10,000 complaints of police abuse were filed with Chicago police....but only 19 resulted in meaningful disciplinary action, a new study asserts." According to Gerald Frazier, president of Citizens Alert, it reflects "not only the appearance of influence and cover-up," but clear evidence that city residents are being abused, not protected, despite the department's official motto being "We Serve and Protect."

Most disturbing is that the Chicago pattern reflects what's happening across America, people of color like Oscar Grant systematically abused, in his case murdered in cold blood, what no criminal or civil actions can undo.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/. posted by Steve Lendman @ 3:02 AM

Activists Say Deeper Change Is Needed

by Jordan Flaherty / July 16th, 2010 dissidentvoice.org

This week, federal officials charged six current and former New Orleans police officers in connection with the killing of civilians in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The six are not only accused of murder but also of conspiring to hide their crime through secret meetings, planting evidence, inventing witnesses, false arrests, and perjury. Four of the officers may face the death penalty.

While the details of their charges are shocking, much of the media has missed the real story: corruption and violence are endemic to the NOPD, and wider systemic change is needed not just in police personnel, but in the city’s overall criminal justice system.

Days of Violence

In the days after the flooding of New Orleans, police officers were told they were defending a city under siege and were given tacit permission to use deadly force at their own discretion. At the time, no one in power seemed to be interested in looking into the details of who was killed and why.

For more than three years, these post-Katrina murders were ignored by the city’s District Attorney, the Republican U.S. Attorney, and even the local media. But in late 2008 ProPublica and The Nation published the results of an 18-month investigation by journalist, A.C. Thompson. Under new leadership, and responding to requests from New Orleans advocates, the Department of Justice began its own inquiries soon after Thompson’s report.

FBI agents reconstructed crime scenes, interviewed witnesses and seized officers’ computers. Disturbing revelations have continued to unfold since then, as the mounting evidence against them has forced a growing number of cops to confess.

Among the most shocking cases:

On September 2, four days after Katrina made landfall, Henry Glover was shot by one officer, then apparently taken hostage by other officers who either killed him directly or burned him alive. His charred remains were found weeks later.

Also on September 2, Danny Brumfield Sr., a 45 year old man stranded with his family at the New Orleans Convention Center, was deliberately hit by a patrol car, then shot in the back by police in front of scores of witnesses as he tried to wave down the officers to ask for help.

On September 4, 2005, on New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge, a group of police officers drove up to several unarmed civilians who were fleeing their flooded homes and opened fire. Two people were killed, including a mentally challenged man named Ronald Madison, and four were seriously injured. Madison was shot in the back by officer Robert Faulcon, and officer Kenneth Bowen then rushed up and kicked and stomped on him, apparently until he was dead.

Faulcon and Bowen were among those charged this week in a 27-count indictment that lays out the disturbing chain of events on the bridge.

The post-Katrina killings have also led investigators into further inquiries. The feds have already announced that they are looking into at least eight cases, including incidents that occurred in the summer before Katrina and in the years after. And as high-ranking officers confess to manufacturing evidence, their confessions bring doubt to scores of other cases they have worked on.

Endemic Violence

A coalition of criminal justice activists called Community United for Change (CUC) has asked for federal investigations of dozens of other police murders committed over the past three decades, which advocates say have never been properly examined. Activists named a wide range of cases, from the death of 25-year-old Jenard Thomas, who was shot by police in front of his father on March 24, 2005; to Sherry Singleton, shot by police in 1980 while she was naked in a bathtub, in front of her four year old child.

Several parents and other family members of victims of police violence have joined in protests and community forums sponsored by CUC. The parents of Adolph Grimes III, who was shot 14 times by cops on New Year’s day in 2009, are among those who have spoken out. “We want those officers incarcerated, so they can live with it like we live with it,” said Grimes’ father.

“This represents a real opportunity to raise some fundamental questions about the nature of police and what they do,” said Malcolm Suber, project director with the New Orleans chapter of the American Friends Service Committee and one of the organizers who formed Community United for Change.

Civil rights attorney, Tracie Washington, has been among those leading the call for federal intervention in the department. “It is time for the U.S. government, through the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights, to step in and step up,” she said. “We need a solution that addresses the systemic nature of the problem.”

Justice Department officials have indicated that they agree on the need for federal assistance. “Criminal prosecutions alone, I have learned, are not enough to change the culture of a police department,” said Assistant Attorney General, Thomas Perez.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu has also said he agrees on the need for federal supervision. In a letter to Attorney General Holder, Landrieu wrote, “It is clear that nothing short of a complete transformation is necessary and essential to ensure safety for the citizens of New Orleans.”

However, many activists fear that Mayor Landrieu is speaking out in support of reform so he can maintain a level of control over the changes dictated by the feds. They are critical of Landrieu’s choices so far, such as his selection of an insider – NOPD veteran Ronal Serpas – for the job of police chief, and have expressed concern that he will not break with the department’s troubled history. “This is lukewarm reform,” says Rosana Cruz, the associate director of V.O.T.E., an organization that seeks to build power and civic engagement for formerly incarcerated people. “This is reaching the lowest possible bar that we could possibly set.”

Beyond Bad Apples

While some form of federal supervision of the department seems likely, Malcolm Suber doesn’t think federal oversight is enough.

“I don’t think that we can call on a government that murders people all over the world every day to come and supervise a local police department,” he says. For Suber, federal control will not offer the wider, more systemic changes needed in other aspects of the system. While Suber wants more federal investigations of police murders, he wants these investigations to go hand in hand with community oversight and control of the department.

While activists may disagree on the role they see for the federal government, one thing Washington, Suber and Cruz agree on is that the problem runs deeper than police department corruption. They say any solution needs to reach beyond the department to other facets of the system like the city’s elected coroner, the District Attorney’s office, the U.S. Attorney and the city’s Independent Police Monitor, who many see as limited by not having the ability to perform its own investigations.

“We have a coroner who always finds police were justified,” said Suber, referring to Frank Minyard, an 80-year-old jazz trumpeter who is trained as a gynecologist. Minyard has been city coroner since 1974, and has been the frequent subject of complaints from activists, who contend that he has mislabeled police killings. “We’ve had independent coroners, forensic doctors come after him,” said Suber, “And we found that basically all of his finding were bogus. Just made up.”

Henry Glover, last seen in the custody of police then found burned to death in a car, was not flagged by the coroner’s office as a potential homicide. In another case now under federal investigation, witnesses say police beat Raymond Robair to death. The coroner ruled that he “fell down or was pushed.” This “fall” broke four ribs and caused massive internal injury, including a ruptured spleen.

“If you ask any attorneys who have handled cases of police killings,” continued Suber, “When they have hired independent doctors to go after our coroner, nine times out of ten he’s wrong.”

Activists also complain that the city’s District Attorney, Leon Cannizzaro, has been slow to pursue cases of police violence. “The district attorney just does not file charges,” Suber said. “When it’s involving police, he finds no crimes committed.” Republican US Attorney, Jim Letten, has also failed, Suber added. “A number of community groups have gone and met with him, asked him to investigate and he didn’t do anything.”

Organizers have put forward a range of proposals for the reforms they would like to see, including institutional support for community-led programs like CopWatch, the incorporation of a system for language interpretation, and a more powerful Independent Police Monitor. But they all agree that not just the department, but the entire system needs fundamental change, and that change needs to come from outside of city government. “How you gonna get the wolf to watch over the chicken coop?” asks Adolph Grimes, Jr. “It’s the system itself that is corrupted.”

An earlier version of this article originally appeared on colorlines.com

Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience and his reporting on post-Katrina New Orleans has been published and broadcast in outlets including Die Zeit (in Germany), Clarin (in Argentina), Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy Now!. He can be reached at: neworleans@leftturn.org. Read other articles by Jordan, or visit Jordan's website.

by Bill Quigley July 26, 2010 commondreams.org

The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.

Saying the US criminal system is racist may be politically controversial in some circles. But the facts are overwhelming. No real debate about that. Below I set out numerous examples of these facts.

The question is – are these facts the mistakes of an otherwise good system, or are they evidence that the racist criminal justice system is working exactly as intended? Is the US criminal justice system operated to marginalize and control millions of African Americans?

Information on race is available for each step of the criminal justice system – from the use of drugs, police stops, arrests, getting out on bail, legal representation, jury selection, trial, sentencing, prison, parole and freedom. Look what these facts show.

One. The US has seen a surge in arrests and putting people in jail over the last four decades. Most of the reason is the war on drugs. Yet whites and blacks engage in drug offenses, possession and sales, at roughly comparable rates – according to a report on race and drug enforcement published by Human Rights Watch in May 2008. While African Americans comprise 13% of the US population and 14% of monthly drug users they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offenses – according to 2009 Congressional testimony by Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project.

Two. The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked. When blacks and Latinos are stopped 85% were frisked according to information provided by the NYPD. The same is true most other places as well. In a California study, the ACLU found blacks are three times more likely to be stopped than whites.

Three. Since 1970, drug arrests have skyrocketed rising from 320,000 to close to 1.6 million according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice.

African Americans are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for whites – according to a May 2009 report on disparity in drug arrests by Human Rights Watch.

Four. Once arrested, blacks are more likely to remain in prison awaiting trial than whites. For example, the New York state division of criminal justice did a 1995 review of disparities in processing felony arrests and found that in some parts of New York blacks are 33% more likely to be detained awaiting felony trials than whites facing felony trials.

Five. Once arrested, 80% of the people in the criminal justice system get a public defender for their lawyer. Race plays a big role here as well. Stop in any urban courtroom and look a the color of the people who are waiting for public defenders. Despite often heroic efforts by public defenders the system gives them much more work and much less money than the prosecution. The American Bar Association, not a radical bunch, reviewed the US public defender system in 2004 and concluded “All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring…The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US.”

Six. African Americans are frequently illegally excluded from criminal jury service according to a June 2010 study released by the Equal Justice Initiative. For example in Houston County, Alabama, 8 out of 10 African Americans qualified for jury service have been struck by prosecutors from serving on death penalty cases.

Seven. Trials are rare. Only 3 to 5 percent of criminal cases go to trial – the rest are plea bargained. Most African Americans defendants never get a trial. Most plea bargains consist of promise of a longer sentence if a person exercises their constitutional right to trial. As a result, people caught up in the system, as the American Bar Association points out, plead guilty even when innocent. Why? As one young man told me recently, “Who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years for a crime they didn’t do?”

Eight. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported in March 2010 that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10% longer than white offenders for the same crimes. Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project reports African Americans are 21% more likely to receive mandatory minimum sentences than white defendants and 20% more like to be sentenced to prison than white drug defendants.

Nine. The longer the sentence, the more likely it is that non-white people will be the ones getting it. A July 2009 report by the Sentencing Project found that two-thirds of the people in the US with life sentences are non-white. In New York, it is 83%.

Ten. As a result, African Americans, who are 13% of the population and 14% of drug users, are not only 37% of the people arrested for drugs but 56% of the people in state prisons for drug offenses. Marc Mauer May 2009 Congressional Testimony for The Sentencing Project.

Eleven. The US Bureau of Justice Statistics concludes that the chance of a black male born in 2001 of going to jail is 32% or 1 in three. Latino males have a 17% chance and white males have a 6% chance. Thus black boys are five times and Latino boys nearly three times as likely as white boys to go to jail.

Twelve. So, while African American juvenile youth is but 16% of the population, they are 28% of juvenile arrests, 37% of the youth in juvenile jails and 58% of the youth sent to adult prisons. 2009 Criminal Justice Primer, The Sentencing Project.

Thirteen. Remember that the US leads the world in putting our own people into jail and prison. The New York Times reported in 2008 that the US has five percent of the world’s population but a quarter of the world’s prisoners, over 2.3 million people behind bars, dwarfing other nations. The US rate of incarceration is five to eight times higher than other highly developed countries and black males are the largest percentage of inmates according to ABC News.

Fourteen. Even when released from prison, race continues to dominate. A study by Professor Devah Pager of the University of Wisconsin found that 17% of white job applicants with criminal records received call backs from employers while only 5% of black job applicants with criminal records received call backs. Race is so prominent in that study that whites with criminal records actually received better treatment than blacks without criminal records!

So, what conclusions do these facts lead to? The criminal justice system, from start to finish, is seriously racist.

Professor Michelle Alexander concludes that it is no coincidence that the criminal justice system ramped up its processing of African Americans just as the Jim Crow laws enforced since the age of slavery ended. Her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness sees these facts as evidence of the new way the US has decided to control African Americans – a racialized system of social control. The stigma of criminality functions in much the same way as Jim Crow – creating legal boundaries between them and us, allowing legal discrimination against them, removing the right to vote from millions, and essentially warehousing a disposable population of unwanted people. She calls it a new caste system.

Poor whites and people of other ethnicity are also subjected to this system of social control. Because if poor whites or others get out of line, they will be given the worst possible treatment, they will be treated just like poor blacks.

Other critics like Professor Dylan Rodriguez see the criminal justice system as a key part of what he calls the domestic war on the marginalized. Because of globalization, he argues in his book Forced Passages, there is an excess of people in the US and elsewhere. “These people”, whether they are in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib or US jails and prisons, are not productive, are not needed, are not wanted and are not really entitled to the same human rights as the productive ones. They must be controlled and dominated for the safety of the productive. They must be intimidated into accepting their inferiority or they must be removed from the society of the productive.

This domestic war relies on the same technology that the US uses internationally. More and more we see the militarization of this country’s police. Likewise, the goals of the US justice system are the same as the US war on terror - domination and control by capture, immobilization, punishment and liquidation.

What to do?

Martin Luther King Jr., said we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.

A radical approach to the US criminal justice system means we must go to the root of the problem. Not reform. Not better beds in better prisons. We are not called to only trim the leaves or prune the branches, but rip up this unjust system by its roots.

We are all entitled to safety. That is a human right everyone has a right to expect. But do we really think that continuing with a deeply racist system leading the world in incarcerating our children is making us safer?

It is time for every person interested in justice and safety to join in and dismantle this racist system. Should the US decriminalize drugs like marijuana? Should prisons be abolished? Should we expand the use of restorative justice? Can we create fair educational, medical and employment systems? All these questions and many more have to be seriously explored. Join a group like INCITE, Critical Resistance, the Center for Community Alternatives, Thousand Kites, or the California Prison Moratorium and work on it. As Professor Alexander says “Nothing short of a major social movement can dismantle this new caste system.”

Bill is Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He is a Katrina survivor and has been active in human rights in Haiti for years with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Quigley77@gmail.com