Tuesday, December 08, 2015

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2015

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Tell the school board to teach, not police our kids!

RALLY organized by San Leandro Students and Families for Education 

(SL SAFE: http://www.sanleandrosafe.org/)

5:30 pm on Tuesday 12/8 at San Leandro City Hall. Speak out at school board meeting to follow. 

RSVP and spread the word by sharing

                         https://www.facebook.com/events/416789215197709/416805461862751/

Tell the school board to teach, not police our kids! Last Tuesday, the San Leandro School District curriculum committee met and put forward to the board a proposed new curriculum funded and created by national law enforcement agencies that will put police officers on San Leandro elementary school campuses to teach a “gang prevention” curriculum during 5th grade class hours, thus taking away time from actual academic teaching. If approved, police officers will be treated as faculty members (not guests), have complete run of campus, be allowed to stop and interrogate children about any matters and attend parent and faculty meetings.

If adopted, the curriculum will set a new precedent of removing curriculum control from our community: it is a strictly controlled federal curriculum that the district cannot amend to adapt it to our children; and in fact, the curriculum is not supported by our community - not one parent spoke out in favor of the curriculum at last week's meeting!

This curriculum constitutes a taking from our children's education and our community's right to control our children's education. And we don't need it! Our elementary schools have strong multi-year anti-bullying and conflict resolution training; we offer safety training in middle and elementary school; what we have is much more comprehensive than what is being offered. In contrast, many of our children need real help in core curriculum courses. And we need full reinstatement of programs cut due to budget cuts.

In this moment when there is so much conflict with police, we need real solutions for police accountability and responsiveness to community needs, not a PR campaign targeting our kids.

This curriculum is not how San Leandro should make a name for itself. According to the police presentation at the curriculum meeting, the Alameda County Sheriff wants to roll this curriculum out to all elementary schools in the county! Berkeley police are being trained, even though we confirmed this week that the Berkeley school board has not heard of the program. This new curriculum is being pushed not by parents, but by police despite parents, to open East Bay Schools to surveillance and policing.

Please come on out and tell the school board what our community values. Stop San Leandro from being an early adopter that could influence school boards through the East Bay. Teach not Police!

--Cynthia Chandler

--
Cynthia Chandler
email: cynthianmnchandler@gmail.com
cell: 510.325.4127

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


"Liberté Is Not Just A Word": Klein, Corbyn Call for Mass Protest at COP21

"By taking to the streets, we will be clearly and unequivocally rejecting the Hollande government's draconian and opportunistic bans on marches, protests, and demonstrations."

On December the 12th, at 12 o'clock—that's 12-12-12—many activists will be peacefully demonstrating

In Paris on Monday, a panel of activists, including author Naomi Klein and UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, spoke to a packed crowd on the role of the global labor sector in the climate justice movement and called for mass civil disobedience to break French President François Hollande's ban on demonstrations during the COP21 summit.

Klein spoke candidly about the global climate agreement being hammered out by world leaders this month, stating, "The deal that will be unveiled in less than a week will not be enough to keep us safe. In fact, it will be extraordinarily dangerous."

Wealthy nations have set up inadequate climate targets that could allow average global temperatures to rise by 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, Klein said—far higher than the agreed-on threshold of 2°C, which scientists say would cause catastrophic extreme weather events. The deal is going to "steamroll over crucial scientific red lines... it is going to steamroll over equity red lines... it is going to steamroll over legal red lines."

"Which is why on December the 12th, at 12 o'clock—that's 12-12-12—many activists will be peacefully demonstrating against the violation of these red lines," Klein said, prompting a round of applause from the audience of roughly 800 trade unionists and other workers and activists.

The march will protest the French government's crackdown on activism following the November 13 attacks that killed 130 people—and sparked a cross-border manhunt that many said flouted Europeans' civil liberties. Klein has been an outspoken critic of the ban.

"We will be mourning the lives already lost to climate disruption, in solidarity with the lives lost to the tragic attacks here in Paris and enlarging that circle of mourning," Klein said. "By taking to the streets, we will be clearly and unequivocally rejecting the Hollande government's draconian and opportunistic bans on marches, protests, and demonstrations."
"Unleash the optimism, unleash the imagination, unleash the hope. That is the way forward."
—Jeremy Corbyn


"We will be rejecting the shameful preemptive arrests of climate activists... the restrictions on free speech and movement," she continued. "Liberté is not just a word, and it doesn't just apply to Christmas markets and football matches."

Corbyn added, "We've taken the responsibility on ourselves to do something here and now. To stop the destruction of the world's environment, to bring people together to prevent that happening, and above all, to bring people together not through fear, but through hope, through imagination, through optimism. Unleash the optimism, unleash the imagination, unleash the hope. That is the way forward."

The panel also discussed the importance of a "just transition" to a clean future, particularly by converting to a system of community-owned renewable resource infrastructures—a process also known as energy democratization.

"When communities have control over the production and distribution of clean energy, that's environmental justice," said Judy Gonzalez, president of the New York State Nurses Union, who also spoke on the panel.

Corbyn also hit back at criticisms that a focus on sustainable energy, in tandem with a fossil fuel phase-out, is financially nonviable. "A more sustainable energy policy... one that would help the issues we face on a global level, would actually be an economic generator, rather than a problem," he said.

Clara Paillard, president of the Public & Commercial Services Union culture sector, added, "If we want a just transition, we will need jobs—many, many jobs. Climate is a trade union issue."

"In 2008 the UK found 800 billion pounds to save the bank. And in the UK, tax avoidance and evasion represent over 100 billion pounds every year," Paillard continued. "Let's be clear, if the planet was a bank they would have already saved it."
 
By Nadia PrupisPublished on Tuesday, December 08, 2015
by Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/08/liberte-not-just-word-klein-corbyn-call-mass-protest-cop21 
 
 
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

When Drone Whistleblowers are Under Attack,

What Do We Do?

STAND UP, FIGHT BACK!



 We honor Stephan, Michael, Brandon and Cian!

These four former ex-drone pilots have courageously spoken out publicly against the U.S. drone assassination program.  They have not been charged with any crime, yet the U.S. government is retaliating against these truth-tellers by freezing all of their bank and credit card accounts.  WE MUST BACK THEM UP!
Listen to them here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28

PLEASE HELP THEM:

1.  Sign up on this support network:
         www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/

2.  Sign this petition  NOW:
               https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-congress-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-protect-the-drone-assassination-program-whistleblowers?recruiter=436431670&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

3.  Call and email officials TODAY, listed below and on FB site.

4.  Ask your organization if they would join our network.


**************************************************************
Statement of Support for Drone Whistleblowers
(Code Pink Women for Peace: East Bay, Golden Gate, and S.F. Chapters 11.28.15)

Code Pink Women for Peace support the very courageous actions of four former US drone operators, Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and Stephan Lewis, who have come under increasing attack for disclosing information about “widespread corruption and institutionalized indifference to civilian casualties that characterize the drone program.” As truth tellers, they stated in a public letter to President Obama that the killing of innocent civilians has been one of the most “devastating driving forces for terrorism and destabilization around the world.”* These public disclosures come only after repeated attempts to work privately within official channels failed.

Despite the fact that none of the four has been charged with criminal activity, all had their bank accounts and credit cards frozen. This retaliatory response by our government is consistent with the extrajudicial nature of US drone strikes.

We must support these former drone operators who have taken great risks to stop the drone killing. Write or call your US Senators, your US Representatives, President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, and CIA Director John Brennan demanding that Michael Haas, Brandon Bryant, Cian Westmoreland, and Stephan Lewis be applauded, not punished, for revealing the criminal and extrajudicial nature of drone strikes that has led to so many civilian deaths.

Petition

URGENT: Sign and Share NOW! Drone Whistleblower Protection Petition
https://www.change.org/p/barack-obama-congress-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-protect-the-drone-assassination-program-whistleblowers?recruiter=436431670&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink

Contacting your Government
- White House comment line: 202-456-1111
 
- Email President Obama: president@whitehouse.gov and cc info@whitehouse.gov
 
- White House switchboard: 202-456-1414 for telephone numbers of your Senators and Representatives.

- Email your Senators and Representatives:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/
http://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

-Contact Ashton Carter Secretary of Defense: Go to http://www.defense.gov/About-DoD/Biographies/BiographyView/Article/602689 and select appropriate icon.

- Contact John Brennan, CIA Director: Go to
https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/leadership/john-o-brennan.html and select appropriate icon.

For more information on the 4 Drone Whistleblowers:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1502272456740302/
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43z6EMy8T28
(Must see Democracy Now interview with the 4 drone operators)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/life-as-a-drone-pilot-creech-air-force-base-nevada

*http://thefreethoughtproject.com/drone-pilots-bank-accounts-credit-cards-frozen-feds-exposing-murder/#fqt0crLvckG2OdbD.99

Code Pink Women for Peace: eastbaycodepink@gmail.com








*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Save Ashraf Fayadh

Palestinian poet sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.

Ashraf Fayadh, Palestinian refugee poet and artist living in Saudi Arabia, has been sentenced to death by a Saudi court, on charges of apostasy or abandoning his faith in Islam. The charges appear to be based on his poetry and writing and also maybe a form of retaliation for posting an online video showing Saudi religious police lashing a man in public.

Fayadh is a Palestinian refugee who was born in Saudi Arabia and has become a leading member of the young Saudi art scene. He was arrested in January 2014, his identity documents confiscated, and held for a lengthy period without charge. He was then sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes; after he appealed; he was re-tried last month and sentenced to death. He did not have legal representation.

Fayadh is being sentenced to death after having been jailed for more than 22 months in the Saudi city of Abha without clear legal charges beyond “insulting the Godly self” and having “ideas that do not suit the Saudi society.” These charges are based on the complaint of a reader’s interpretation of Fayadh's 2008 poetry collection titled, Instructions Within.

“According to Fayadh’s friends, when the police failed to prove that his poetry was atheist propaganda, they began berating him for smoking and having long hair,” reported the Guardian. Fayadh said his poetry book, Instructions Within, is “just about me being [a] Palestinian refugee…about cultural and philosophical issues. But the religious extremists explained it as destructive ideas against God.”

This is not the first time that Saudi authorities have arrested Ashraf Fayadh. The poet was detained before after a Saudi citizen filed a complaint with the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice accusing Fayadh of having “misguided and misguiding thoughts.” Fayadh was bailed out of jail at the time, only to get arrested again. According to sources close to Fayadh, the poet has been denied both visitation and legal representation rights.

Amnesty international stated, “We condemn these acts of intimidation targeting Ashraf Fayadh as part of a wider campaign inciting hate against writers and using Islam to justify oppression and to crush free speech. We express our solidarity with Fayadh, hoping to increase support for the poet as well as pressure to release him. Our efforts should come together to ensure the proliferation of free speech and personal freedoms. We specifically call on Saudi intellectuals to express solidarity with Fayadh against Takfiris’ intimidation practices meant to silence poets, writers, and artists like him. Let the flag of creativity fly free and remain innovative. Remaining silent towards Fayadh’s detention is an insult to knowledge, literature, culture, and thought as well as to freedom and human rights.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins the call for the immediate freedom of Ashraf Fayadh. His imprisonment, persecution and death sentence by the Saudi regime reflects the deeply reactionary and far-right role played by the Saudi regime in the region—alongside its close imperial partners in the United States, Canada and Europe—that threatens Palestinian and Arab culture, life, and movements and works to block and suppress any struggle for liberation.

One hundred Arab intellectuals have called for Fayadh’s release and so far over 10, 000 people have signed an AI petition to save his life. Please sign and share the petition. https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Amnesty_international_Save_the_palestinian_poet_and_artist_Ashraf_Fayadh/?tUPvwdb

To take further action:

1. Call the Saudi Embassy in your area and demand freedom for Ashraf Fayadh. In the United States, call 202-342-3800. In Canada, call 613-237-4100. Find the embassy in your country here: http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/saudi-arabia

2. Protest at the Saudi Embassy in your area for freedom for Ashraf Fayadh. Print signs and materials, and gather outside the Saudi embassy with Palestine rights activists, artists and others to demand his freedom. See the list of Saudi embassies here: http://embassy.goabroad.com/embassies-of/saudi-arabia

3. Contact your government officials. The Saudi regime is a close partner of the United States, Canadian and various European governments. Demand that your government pressure the Saudi regime to release Fayadh. In Canada, Call the office of the Foreign Minister, Stéphane Dion, at 613-996-5789 and demand Canada pressure Saudi Arabia to release Fayadh, or email: stephane.dion@parl.gc.ca. In the U.S., call the White House (202-456-1111) and the U.S. State Department (202-647-9572); demand the U.S. pressure Saudi Arabia to release Fayadh. In the EU, contact your Member of the European Parliament—you can find your MEP here:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

Please also write letters, Facebook posts, emails or send Facebook messages to your local politicians, newspapers and friends to publicize this dire case and spread the information about the situation of Ashraf Fayadh.

—Steven Katsineris

Information from Amnesty International, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and AVAAZ.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
Commute Kevin Cooper's Death Sentence

Sign the Petition:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php


Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case. Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.

"The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case

Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.

In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.

Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.

Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.

Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."

Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.

Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.

In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.

In solidarity,

James Clark
Senior Death Penalty Campaigner
Amnesty International USA

News Updates

  • Death Row Stories
    Kevin Cooper's case will be the subject of a new episode of CNN's "Death Row Stories" airing on Sunday, July 26 at 7 p.m. PDT. The program will be repeated at 10 p.m. PDT. The episode, created by executive producers Robert Redford and Alex Gibney, will explore how Kevin Cooper was framed by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and District Attorney.Viewers on the east coast can see the program at 10 p.m. EDT and it will be rebroadcast at 1 a.m. EDT on July 27. Viewers in the Central Time zone can see it at 9 p.m. and midnight CDT. Viewers in the Mountain Time zone can see it at 8 p.m. and ll p.m MDT. It will be aired on CNN again during the following week and will also be able to be viewed on CNN's "Death Row Stories" website.
Kevin Cooper: An Innocent Victim of Racist Frame-Up - from the Fact Sheet at: www.freekevincooper.org
 
Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.

Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin.  He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence.  In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.

There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:

  The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?

  The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."

  Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.

  These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.

  The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.

Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.

The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.

The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited…         (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)

     This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*




For Immediate Release – Thursday, October 29, 2015 
Solitary Prisoners' Lawyers Slam CDCR for Sleep Deprivation

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

SAN FRANCISCO – Yesterday, lawyers for prisoners in the class action case Ashker v. Brown submitted a letter condemning Pelican Bay prison guards' "wellness checks," which have widely been viewed as sleep deprivation. The letter was submitted to United States Magistrate Judge Nandor Vadas, and calls on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to put an end to the checks.

Last month, prisoners achieved a historic victory in the settlement of Ashker v. Brown where the indefinite long term solitary confinement was effectively ended in California, with Magistrate Judge Vadas currently monitoring implementation of the settlement terms.

The guards at Pelican bay Security Housing Units have been conducting disruptive cell checks every 30 minutes around the clock for three months, causing prisoners widespread sleep disruption. The process is loud and according to prisoners, "the method and noise from the checks is torture."

Attorneys representing Pelican Bay SHU prisoners have just completed extensive interviews with prisoners who demand that "the every 30-minute checks have to be stopped or people are going to get sick or worse." In addition, they report that regular prison programs have been negatively impacted.

"To sleep is a fundamental human right," said Anne Weills, a member of the prisoners' legal team and one of the attorneys who conducted the interviews with prisoners in Pelican Bay. "To take away such a basic human right amounts to severe torture, adding to the already torturous conditions of being in solitary confinement."

Most prisoners report low energy, exhaustion and fatigue. Most state that they have trouble concentrating. They try to read, but they nod off and/or can't remember what they have read. Their writing is much slower ("I can't think to write"), and describe the constant welfare checks as having a negative impact on their mental state.

While this recent attorney survey was specifically focusing on sleep deprivation and its effects, prisoners volunteered information about the negative impact of these frequent checks: yard policy and practice has reduced access to recreation, access to showers has been reduced, programs and meals are being delayed, and property for those newly transferred to Pelican Bay is still being delayed and withheld.

Sleep deprivation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners and their attorneys are demanding that these checks be halted.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

UPDATE:

Albert Woodfox, Angola Inmate, Can Be Tried 3rd Time, Court Rules

By ASHLEY SOUTHALL  
NOV. 9, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/us/angola-inmate-can-be-tried-3rd-time.html?ref=us


Free Albert Woodfox!

On June 8, 2015 a federal judge granted Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox unconditional release. Albert's conviction had already been overturned three times - most recently in 2013 - yet every time the state has appealed.

Today, Albert is still behind bars after spending four decades in cruel, unjust solitary confinement. He believes that he and fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert King, were first placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for their activism. All three men were members of the Black Panther Party. Together, they came to be known as the Angola 3.

It is time for the State of Louisiana to stop standing in the way of justice. Call on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to ensure Albert's cruel and unjust confinement is not his legacy. Learn more

http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=35593&ea.tracking.id=Country_USA~MessagingCategory_PrisonersandPeopleatRisk&ac=W1506EAIAR2&ea.url.id=414689&forwarded=true

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Amnesty for all those arrested demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

 

Amnesty for ALL those arrested
demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Sign and distribute the petition to drop the charges!
Spread this effort with #Amnesty4Baltimore

"A riot is the language of the unheard"
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An estimated 300 people have been arrested in Baltimore in the last two weeks. Many have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested include journalists, medics and legal observers.

One individual arrested for property destruction of a police vehicle is now facing life in prison and is being held on $500,000 bail. That's $150,000 more than the officer charged with the murder of Freddie Gray.  

The legal system has made it clear that they care more about broken windows than broken necks; more about a CVS than the lives of Baltimore's Black residents.

They showed no hesitation in arresting Baltimore's protesters and rebels, and sending in the National Guard, but took 19 days to put a single one of the killer cops in handcuffs. This was the outrageous double standard that led to the Baltimore Uprising.

 Sign the petition to drop the charges on all who have been arrested.

Petition to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

Download PDF of Petition 

http://www.answercoalition.org/amnesty_for_all_those_arrested_demanding_justice_for_freddie_gray?utm_campaign=baltimore_amn1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake
City Hall, Room 250,
100 North Holliday St.,
Baltimore, MD 21202

Dear Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

I stand in solidarity with those in Baltimore who are demanding that all charges be dropped against those who rose up against racism, police brutality, oppressive social conditions and delay of justice in the case of Freddie Gray. The whole world now recognizes that were it not for this powerful grassroots movement, in all its forms, there would be no indictment.

It is an outrage that peaceful protesters have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested include journalists and legal observers.

Even the youth who are charged with property destruction and looting should be given an amnesty. There is no reason a teenager -- provoked by racists and justifiably angry -- should be facing life in prison for breaking the windows of a police car.

The City of Baltimore should work to rectify the conditions that led to this Uprising, rather than criminalizing those who took action in response to those conditions. Drop the charges now!

Sincerely,
[add your name below]

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!

Sign the Petition:

http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos


Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:


Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.

I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.

American Federation of Teachers
Campaign for America's Future
Courage Campaign
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RH Reality Check
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
The Nation
Working Families






*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*


URGENT ALERT

MAJOR TILLERY IN 

HOSPITAL!







Sometime yesterday Major Tillery, a 65 year-old man, was rushed to the hospital from SCI Frackville. Since hearing this yesterday evening through the prison grapevine, family and attorney have tried to learn more.

Today, the only thing we have been told by Superintendent Brenda Tritt is that this was "a routine admission" and Major is "receiving the appropriate medical attention." Nothing more to to Major Tillery's daughter, Kamilah Iddeen--not the hospital, the reason for rushing Major to the hospital, no agreement for family and legal visits.
Major Tillery has liver disease and a liver shunt, arthritis with chronic back and hip pain, and a festering skin rash and open sores. Major Tillery has filed grievance after grievance objecting to the lack of medical treatment and refusal to renew needed medical devices.

Major Tillery has been imprisoned for 30 years, 25 in the hole and in the most severe super max prisons in the country. For prison officials his crime is his advocacy for other prisoners and leadership capabilities, including challenging abusive prison conditions and inadequate medical treatment. He has been subject to retaliation by prison authorities since he began his successful legal effort to stop the overcrowding and curb the inhumane conditions in SCI Pittsburgh over 25 years ago. See, Tillery v. Owens (1990)

In early 2015, Major complained about the spreading skin disease at SCI Mahanoy, where he was then imprisoned. He stood up for Mumia Abu-Jamal and other prisoners who were suffering from this. For his acts of solidarity, Major Tillery was transferred to SCI Frackville and then put in the hole on falsified charges. After four months with limited food rations, deprived of commissary, contact visits and allowed less than one-hour a day of exercise, Major was released into general population. This was two months less than his prison sentence of six months in the hole – the prison's response to an international campaign for Major!

Now Major is in the hospital. He is not being allowed contact with his family or attorney. They are not being given any real information on his condition.

Call prison officials and demand:
Visits with Major Tillery by his family and lawyer. Full medical information and treatment should be provided to his family and lawyer.
Stop the Retaliation Against Major Tillery. He should be exonerated for the false charges of drug possession and this misconduct removed from his record.
Transfer Major Tillery from SCI Frackville back to SCI Mahanoy or to another facility in eastern Pennsylvania to remain near his family.

Dept. Of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel           (717) 728-4109
Superintendent Brenda Tritt, SCI Frackville           (570) 874-4516

Write to
Major Tillery AM 9786
SCI Frackville
1111 Altamont Blvd.
Frackville, Pa. 17931

For More Information, Go To: Justice4MajorTillery/blogspot
Call/Write:
Kamilah Iddeen (Major Tillery's daughter) (717) 379-9009, Kamilah29@yahoo.com
Nancy Lockhart (843) 412-2035, thewrongfulconviction@gmail.com
Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq. (917) 689-4009, RachelWolkenstein@gmail.com


Justice4MajorTillery/blogspot





*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*




MUMIA'S FINAL APPEAL FOR HEALTHCARE DENIED!

Last night Mumia got notice that the final appeal of his PA Department of Corrections grievance was denied. Listen to his reaction here.

This denial comes on top of the magistrate Judge's proposal to deny Mumia's right to treatment last week.

Remember-- one of the reasons the Judge gave was her claim that Mumia had not "exhausted his administrative remedies" or received a final denial of his request for care. Now he has received that denial.

We know that withholding Mumia's care is immoral and illegal. We are confident that we will win this battle in court- but we can't do it alone.





We have 3 days left to raise $2,948 to support Mumia's legal team in securing his right to hepatitis C treatment!

If you have already joined us, we're inviting you to ask one friend to match your gift. We need about 50 more freedom fighters to join us to reach our goal— and we want you to make that happen with us!

If you haven't given yet- now is the time to make a contribution for Mumia. Will you join us?

Health care is a human right- for Mumia, and for all prisoners. Let's prove it.‪ #freemumia #fight4mumia

Reply directly to this email to respond to the campaign owner, Prison Radio . Visit the campaign page to view all comments and updates for this project.

Help spread the word about the campaign!
PRISONRADIO.ORG

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
 
Updates from the New "Team Free Lorenzo Johnson":
Thank you all for your relentless effort in the fight against wrongful convictions and your determination to stand behind Lorenzo.

To garner even more support for Lorenzo Johnson, we have been hard at work updating the website and developing an even more formidable and dedicated team. Please take a moment to visit the new site here.

During the month of July, Lorenzo wrote two new articles for The Huffington Post titled "When Prosecutors Deny Justice for the Innocent," and "Hurry Up and Wait for Justice: The Struggle of Innocent Prisoners." In these articles, Lorenzo discusses the flaws in the criminal justice system, which he deems is a "serious problem in this country."

Lastly, Lorenzo has a message to you all.

A Letter from Lorenzo:

July 23, 2015
Dauphin County Prison
Harrisburg, PA

Dear Supporters,

I hope all is well with everyone and your families. As for myself, I'm still on my journey in pursuit of my vindication. Sorry for my website being shut down for a couple of weeks. It was being transferred to a new provider and management. I'm back and will do my best to keep everything up to speed with what's taking place.

I would like to thank ALL of my loyal supporters in the U.S. and in the MANY different counties that have signed on to support my innocence. Thanks for all of the letters, emails, photos, etc. Like I always say, I get energy to carry on and inspiration hearing form you, please stay engaged in my struggle.

As of this moment, nothing has changed, but – the continued delay tactics are constantly being used by my prosecutor, Deputy Attorney General William Stoycos. With the mounting of evidence that supports my innocence and police and prosecution misconduct claims that is steadily piling up, you would think that I would be having a couple of evidentiary hearings on my actual innocence appeal that have been pending since August 5, 2013.

At the time of this writing, I've been moved from SCI-Mahanoy to Dauphin County Prison and locked down for 23 hours and 40 minutes a day. In the 20 minutes I get to come out, I get to take a shower and make a short call. Prosecutor Stoycos had me moved so I can be a witness in his attempt to have my codefendant Corey Walker's attorney removed from representing him. How dare he call into question an attorney who is seeking justice for her client, when prosecutor Stoycos himself violated multiple constitutional rights of mine and Mr. Walker, that led to us being in prison for 20 years and counting.

Prosecutor Stoycos is continuously abusing his power and his endless resources he has at his disposal. He is not tough on crime, he's tough on Innocent Prisoners. Prosecutor Stoycos is doing everything in his power to prevent justice from taking place. I encourage everyone to continue to speak out against my nightmare, invite others to get involved by going to my website and signing my Freedom Petition and whatever else they're willing to do.

On a positive note, I just enrolled in warehouse management trade and started on July 13th. Unfortunately, you're only allowed to miss a couple of days and Prosecutor Stoycos had me temporarily transferred on July 14th … It's extremely hard on Lifers to get into these trades due to the fact that Lifers are placed at the back of the list of ALL vocational classes. I try to further my education every chance I get, so when I do come home, I will be certified in different work.

The month of the hearing has come and left, without me being brought to the courthouse … I'm one of MANY innocent prisoners who endures this non-stop madness in our pursuit of Justice and Freedom. Now that my webpage is almost caught up to speed, I promise prompt updates and as everyone knows that contacted me directly, I personally reply to those in the states and out of the country. For those who can make a financial contribution, everything counts. Take care and let's continue to fight until we achieve Freedom, Justice, and Equality for all innocent prisoners.

"The Pain Within"

Free the Innocent
Lorenzo "Cat" Johnson

[Note: Lorenzo has since been transferred back to SCI Mahanoy and can be reached at his usual address.]

Thank you all for reading this message and please take the time to visit the new website and contribute to Lorenzo's campaign for freedom!

Write: Lorenzo Johnson
            DF 1036
            SCI Mahanoy
            301 Morea Rd.
            Frackville, PA 17932

 Email: Through JPay using the code:
              Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
                                     or
              Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com

Have a wonderful day!
- The Team to Free Lorenzo Johnson


freelorenzojohnson.org

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

 Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!

Click HERE to view in browser

http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/


On December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton Harbor.

The prosecutor, with the judge's approval, repeatedly told the jury "you don't need evidence to convict Mr. Pinkney." And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV. PINKNEY TO THE 'ALTERED' PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.

This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.

With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney's appeal.

Checks can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney.  Mail them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI 49022.

Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.

For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search "Pinkney").

We urge your support to the efforts to Free Rev. Pinkney!Ramsey Clark – Former U.S. attorney general,
Cynthia McKinney – Former member of U.S. Congress,
Lynne Stewart – Former political prisoner and human rights attorney
Ralph Poynter – New Abolitionist Movement,
Abayomi Azikiwe – Editor, Pan-African News Wire<
Larry Holmes – Peoples Power Assembly,
David Sole – Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice
Sara Flounders – International Action Center

MESSAGE FROM REV. PINKNEY

I am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...) ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2 days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this racist."

Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney

Michigan political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.

No material or circumstantial evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an "Occupy the PGA [Professional Golfers' Association of America]" demonstration against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the city of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.

The Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do this again!

To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.

Contributions for Rev. Pinkney's defense can be sent to BANCO at Mrs Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

COURAGE TO RESIST

 http://couragetoresist.org/

New Action--write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning's clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.

Please write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks' whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea Manning's release from military prison.

It is important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner, imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely that any of these individuals would independently move to release Manning, a reduction in Manning's outrageous 35-year prison sentence is a possibility at this stage.

Take action TODAY – Write letters supporting Chelsea's clemency petition to the following DoD authorities:

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

101 Army Pentagon

Washington, DC 20310-0101

The Judge Advocate General

2200 Army Pentagon

Washington, DC 20310-2200

Army Clemency and Parole Board

251 18th St, Suite 385

Arlington, VA 22202-3532

Directorate of Inmate Administration

Attn: Boards Branch

U.S. Disciplinary Barracks

1301 N. Warehouse Road

Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2304

Suggestions for letters send to DoD officials:

The letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning's sentence is reduced.  The letter should NOT be anti-military as this will be unlikely to help.

A suggested message: "Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military regulations in the course of being true to her conscience.  I urge you to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning's sentence to time served."  Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.

Consider composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).

A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above

This clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning's upcoming appeal before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning's new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the prosecution's—and the trial judge's—misconduct during last year's trial at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea's legal fees at this critical stage!


Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*



B. ARTICLES IN FULL


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) How Mark Zuckerberg’s Altruism Helps Himself
"He created a limited liability company, one that has already reaped enormous benefits as public relations coup for himself. His P.R. return-on-investment dwarfs that of his Facebook stock. Mr. Zuckerberg was depicted in breathless, glowing terms for having, in essence, moved money from one pocket to the other. ...But what this means is that he amassed one of the greatest fortunes in the world — and is likely never to pay any taxes on it."
The Trade
By JESSE EISINGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/business/dealbook/how-mark-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself.html?src=busln

Mark Zuckerberg did not donate $45 billion to charity. You may have heard that, but that was wrong.Here’s what happened instead: Mr. Zuckerberg created an investment vehicle.

Sorry for the slightly less sexy headline.

Mr. Zuckerberg is a co-founder of Facebook and a youthful mega-billionaire. In announcing the birth of his daughter, he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, declared they would donate 99 percent of their worth, the vast majority of which is tied up in Facebook stock valued at $45 billion today.

In doing so, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Chan did not set up a charitable foundation, which has nonprofit status. He created a limited liability company, one that has already reaped enormous benefits as public relations coup for himself. His P.R. return-on-investment dwarfs that of his Facebook stock. Mr. Zuckerberg was depicted in breathless, glowing terms for having, in essence, moved money from one pocket to the other.
An L.L.C. can invest in for-profit companies (perhaps these will be characterized as societally responsible companies, but lots of companies claim the mantle of societal responsibility). An L.L.C. can make political donations. It can lobby for changes in the law. He remains completely free to do as he wishes with his money. That’s what America is all about. But as a society, we don’t generally call these types of activities “charity.”

What’s more, a charitable foundation is subject to rules and oversight. It has to allocate a certain percentage of its assets every year. The new Zuckerberg L.L.C. won’t be subject to those rules and won’t have any transparency requirements.

In covering the event, many commentators praised the size and percentage of the gift and pointed out that Mr. Zuckerberg is relatively young to be planning to give his wealth away. “Mark Zuckerberg Philanthropy Pledge Sets New Giving Standard,” Bloomberg glowed. Few news outlets initially considered the tax implications of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plan. A Wall Street Journal article didn’t mention taxes at all.

Nor did they grapple with the societal implications of the would-be donations.

So what are the tax implications? They are quite generous to Mr. Zuckerberg. I asked Victor Fleischer, a law professor and tax specialist at the University of San Diego School of Law, as well as a contributor to DealBook. He explained that if the L.L.C. sold stock, Mr. Zuckerberg would pay a hefty capital gains tax, particularly if Facebook stock kept climbing.

If the L.L.C. donated to a charity, he would get a deduction just like anyone else. That’s a nice little bonus. But the L.L.C. probably won’t do that because it can do better. The savvier move, Professor Fleischer explained, would be to have the L.L.C. donate the appreciated shares to charity, which would generate a deduction at fair market value of the stock without triggering any tax.

Mr. Zuckerberg didn’t create these tax laws and cannot be criticized for minimizing his tax bills. If he had created a foundation, he would have accrued similar tax benefits. But what this means is that he amassed one of the greatest fortunes in the world — and is likely never to pay any taxes on it. Any time a superwealthy plutocrat makes a charitable donation, the public ought to be reminded that this is how our tax system works. The superwealthy buy great public relations and adulation for donations that minimize their taxes.

Instead of lavishing praise on Mr. Zuckerberg for having issued a news release with a promise, this should be an occasion to mull what kind of society we want to live in. Who should fund our general societal needs and how? Charities rarely fund quotidian yet vital needs. What would $40 billion mean for job creation or infrastructure spending? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a budget of about $7 billion. Maybe more should go to that. Society, through its elected members, taxes its members. Then the elected officials decide what to do with sums of money.

In this case, it is different. One person will be making these decisions.

Of course, nobody thinks our government representatives do a good job of allocating resources. Politicians — a bunch of bums! Maybe Mr. Zuckerberg will make wonderful decisions, ones I would personally be happy with. Maybe not. He blew his $100 million donation to the Newark school system, as Dale Russakoff detailed in her recent book, “The Prize: Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?” Mr. Zuckerberg has said he has learned from his mistakes. We don’t know whether that’s true because he hasn’t made any decisions with the money he plans to put into his investment vehicle.

But I think I might do a good job allocating $45 billion. Maybe even better than Mr. Zuckerberg. I am self-aware enough to I realize many people would disagree with my choices. Those who like how Mr. Zuckerberg is lavishing his funds might not like how the Koch brothers do so. Or George Soros.

Mega-donations, assuming Mr. Zuckerberg makes good on his pledge, are explicit acknowledgments that the money should be plowed back into society. They are tacit acknowledgments that no one could ever possibly spend $45 billion on himself or his family, and that the money isn’t really “his,” in a fundamental sense. Because that is the case, society can’t rely on the beneficence and enlightenment of the superwealthy to realize this individually. We need to take a portion uniformly — some kind of tax on wealth.

The point is that we are turning into a society of oligarchs. And I am not as excited as some to welcome the new Silicon Valley overlords.

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------**---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2) In Pennsylvania, a Steel Mill and Its Workers at a Crossroads
By

BRACKENRIDGE, Pa. — For two years, Chris Cummings, a maintenance mechanic, worked 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. six days a week to help prepare for the opening of a gigantic $1.2 billion steel rolling mill that was supposed to bring hundreds of secure, well-paying jobs to the Allegheny River Valley.But then Mr. Cummings’s employer, Allegheny Technologies, locked him and his co-workers out after their union, the United Steelworkers, balked at accepting the far-reaching concessions that the company said were essential to help compete against domestic rivals and Chinese imports.

Since Aug. 15, Allegheny has locked out 2,200 workers at 12 plants in six states in what has become one of the nation’s largest and longest work stoppages in years.

As unions have weakened in recent decades, more corporations have turned to lockouts to wring givebacks from their workers. In this latest showdown, Allegheny has taken on the nation’s biggest, most combative industrial union. If the steelworkers lose, it could prompt another wave of me-too concessions and represent a further humbling of organized labor just as it was starting to gain ground on other fronts.

“The employer is playing hardball, there’s no doubt about it,” said Richard Hurd, a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. “It puts a lot of pressure on the workers and the union.”

Already, Allegheny’s three-and-a-half-month lockout has dealt a painful blow to this aging, blue-collar town, 22 miles upstream from Pittsburgh, raising doubts about whether the new rolling mill, with its bright blue walls soaring 40 feet above the river, will ever provide the big economic lift it had promised.

Company executives say that they need lower labor costs and that no one will gain if the new plant can’t thrive in the global economy.

But many steelworkers say Allegheny is seeking to enhance its own prosperity at their expense. They contend the company is undermining the middle class in the nation’s industrial heartland by demanding a two-tier contract with lesser benefits for future hires, insisting upon a four-year wage freeze and requiring many employees to pay at least $2,000 more a year for health coverage.

“This is our reward for putting in all this overtime to help open the new mill?” asked Mr. Cummings. “I do think it’s absolutely necessary for the company to stay competitive. But they’re asking too much.”

During his 70-hour workweeks, Mr. Cummings said he often returned home after his son, now 6, and his daughter, now 20 months, were in bed. “My wife was telling me she felt like a single mom,” he said.

After locking out its workers, the company brought in hundreds of temporary replacements. The unionized workers have been picketing outside the plant around the clock, with signs mocking the replacement workers, saying things like “Danger: Scabs Trying to Run Mill” and “Scabs Equal Dishonor.”

Instead of picketing, Fran Arabia, president of the steelworkers’ local here, said, “we should be cutting a ribbon right now.”

Week by week, the locked-out workers are growing more anxious. The company terminated their health coverage on Nov. 30. Christmas and freezing weather are approaching, and their six months of unemployment insurance will run out in February.

Robert S. Wetherbee, the president of Allegheny’s Flat-Rolled Products division, said the company needed to drive a hard bargain because the market had shifted significantly. Stainless steel prices are down 30 percent since April and Chinese producers are gaining a greater share of the business. The company’s flat-rolled division, he said, lost money in 10 of the last 11 quarters.

Mr. Wetherbee said Allegheny’s workers were very well paid, averaging $70 an hour in compensation, including pensions, health coverage, overtime and paid time off, some $20 higher per hour than its competitors. The union called those numbers vastly exaggerated.

“It became a competitiveness issue and to some degree a survival issue for the stainless steel portion of our business,” Mr. Wetherbee said. “With this mill, we invested close to $400,000 per job in the Allegheny Valley. Now we have the obligation to keep the business competitive.”

The new rolling mill — four football fields long — is a marvel of automation. Workers hunch over control panels that monitor six powerful milling machines that press, squeeze and flatten two-foot-thick red-hot slabs into nearly mile-long coils of thin steel sheet in a matter of seconds.

With one-third of Allegheny’s blue-collar employees eligible to retire before 2020, Mr. Wetherbee said it made sense to seek a two-tier contract.

“We’re faced with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bend the cost curve on a major part of our costs,” he said. “If we’re going to be competitive, we have to be in a position where we have a different benefit structure for the next generation we hire.”

Like many unions, the United Steelworkers abhor two-tier contracts, convinced that they sell out future generations and sow tensions between older and younger workers.

The steelworkers complain that Allegheny wants to replace traditional pensions with less generous 401(k)’s for new workers and to give them a health plan that is not as good as the one current workers have. Under the two-tier proposal, future workers, upon retiring, would have a more meager health plan and no life insurance.

“The China crisis of today doesn’t mean that people who go to work for this company and retire 35 years from now shouldn’t have anything in retirement,” said Tom Conway, the steelworkers’ vice president overseeing the negotiations. “We’ve made major moves in this bargaining, to share more of the health costs, and it’s just not enough for them.”

Not long ago, when the company was called Allegheny-Ludlum, workers endearingly called it “Uncle Al” because of its generosity. But the steelworkers say Mr. Wetherbee, who joined Allegheny in 2010 after 30 years at Alcoa, has brought a more confrontational approach.

“He told us that they couldn’t be this paternalistic,” Mr. Conway said. “If this is paternalistic, I’d hate to see what an abusive parent is like.”

Analysts are divided over the concessions the company is seeking.

Paul Clark, director of Penn State’s School of Labor and Employment Relations, said Allegheny was seeking to exploit the temporary fall in prices and profits to extract deep permanent cuts. “They’re using the excuse of the industry downturn,” he said, “not just to adjust to the new situation; they want to go well beyond what’s justified by the downturn.”

But John Tumazos, a steel industry analyst in Holmdel, N.J., criticized the union’s approach. “Leo Gerard, the union’s president, is thinking of the century-old model, holding rallies in downtown Pittsburgh and mill towns, when this company is between a rock and a hard place,” Mr. Tumazos said. “The union isn’t making things better. They should be holding their protest rallies in Beijing.”

According to Allegheny Technologies, the steelworkers averaged $94,000 in pay last year, including incentive pay and overtime. “That’s not middle class, that’s upper middle class,” said Dan Greenfield, the company’s vice president for investor relations.

Todd Barbiaux, an overhead crane operator, derided that figure, saying it failed to take account of last year’s unusual situation.

“In reality we’re $60,000-a-year guys,” he said, even when incentive pay and Sunday differential are added to the steelworkers’ base wage of $24.99 an hour. With the push to build the new mill, he made over $100,000 last year only because of “a lot of 80-hour weeks, with more than 600 hours overtime.” But that’s not normal, he said. “You’re working one and a half years in a year.”

The steelworkers are further angered because they’re being pressed for major concessions after Allegheny’s chief executive, Richard Harshman, received $8 million in compensation last year, up 70 percent from the previous year. His 2014 pay jumped because of a larger base salary, a $1.4 million bonus, more stock awards and a pension that was valued higher.

Mr. Harshman told analysts in October that the company’s production was meeting expectations notwithstanding the lockout. But the steelworkers dispute that. As they spend their days picketing, they say they see far fewer trucks carrying steel coil out of the plant.

The union, asserting that the company has violated labor laws, has asked the National Labor Relations Board to declare the lockout illegal and order the company to pay more than $30 million in back wages. Company officials insist the lockout is lawful.

Scott Laliberte, who fixes brick linings in Allegheny’s steel furnaces, said he sometimes worked 30 days in a row last year, allowing him to save extra money. But the physical strain was too much. “You feel you don’t have a life,” he said.

The lockout is taking a further toll on his family, he said. “If this goes on,” he said, “I’ll probably find another job and not go back. They’re going to lose a lot of good people.”

The union wants to return to regular workdays, after having agreed to extra-long workweeks to get the new rolling mill running. Mr. Laliberte and other steelworkers are fuming that the company’s proposal would allow it to require such schedules as it sees fit, including 16-hour days and 70-hour weeks.

Mr. Wetherbee said Allegheny would never have another opportunity like this to bring down costs and assure profitability. “We decided we couldn’t kick the can down the road any further,” he said.




*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3) Illinois: Chicago to Release Second Police Video
By



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) Mixed Verdict for Donald Blankenship, Ex-Chief of Massey Energy, After Coal Mine Blast
By

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Donald L. Blankenship, whose leadership of the Massey Energy Company was widely criticized after 29 workers were killed in the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, was convicted Thursday of conspiring to violate federal safety standards, becoming the most prominent American coal executive ever convicted of a crime related to mining deaths.But in a substantial defeat for the Justice Department, the verdict, announced in Federal District Court here, exonerated Mr. Blankenship, Massey’s former chief executive, of three felony charges that could have led to a prison term of 30 years. Instead, after a long and complex trial that began on Oct. 1, jurors convicted Mr. Blankenship only of a single misdemeanor charge that carried a maximum of a year in prison.

“We are disappointed, but not as disappointed as we could have been,” said William W. Taylor III, a lawyer for Mr. Blankenship, who will appeal the conviction. Sentencing is expected next spring.Mr. Blankenship was not tried on any charges that accused him of direct responsibility for the deaths at Upper Big Branch, which investigators said exploded because of improper ventilation that allowed gases to accumulate. But prosecutors argued that his leadership had laid the groundwork for a catastrophe. There was not necessarily a formal conspiracy, prosecutors acknowledged, but they said that Mr. Blankenship’s example and tone had set Massey on a course that put profits ahead of lives.

Federal officials said they welcomed the verdict, mixed as it was. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said the decision sent “a clear message that no mine operator is above the law, that there must be accountability when people lose their lives because of the neglect of their employer.”

The prosecution of Mr. Blankenship was one of extraordinary political, legal and emotional significance in West Virginia, a state where many residents have long believed that coal companies and their leaders faced only cursory scrutiny. After they started their deliberations on Nov. 17, jurors twice reported in handwritten notes that they could not agree.

But just after noon on Thursday, it fell to a coal miner’s daughter, Judge Irene C. Berger, to face a crowded courtroom and pronounce a unanimous jury’s findings.

Relatives of the dead miners sat in the front row, their arms sometimes trembling as they bowed their heads in silent prayer. Mr. Blankenship, who appeared impassive in the courtroom, waited between two of his lawyers. Guilty on a version of count one, the judge announced, and not guilty of the second and third counts, which involved accusations of securities fraud and false statements and together carried decades in prison.

“Is this or is it not your verdict?” Judge Berger asked the eight women and four men of the jury. Yes, each replied.

The jury’s verdict came after its members heard descriptions of Mr. Blankenship’s fortune — he was paid nearly $18 million in 2009, the last full year before the explosion at the mine just about everyone called “U.B.B.” — and saw documents that portrayed him as a manager with sophisticated knowledge of his multibillion-dollar corporation. Jurors learned about his demands for production reports from Upper Big Branch every 30 minutes, even on weekends, and they heard him, on audio recordings, chastising and lecturing subordinates.

Perhaps most crucially, they heard dueling interpretations of an array of memos and programs about safety at Massey, a company that had thousands of safety citations and, according to the government, embarked on little more than a safety charade.

Mr. Blankenship’s lawyers, however, said that prosecutors had stretched federal laws and the evidence to their limits in their quest to prosecute Mr. Blankenship, a Republican who has suggested that the case against him was a form of political retaliation.

“Nobody’s blaming the miners,” Mr. Taylor said during his closing argument last month. “But the government wants you to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Don Blankenship is a criminal because this mine got citations.”

On Thursday, as he had for months, Mr. Taylor said that the case should have never been brought. But prosecutors, in interviews during the jury’s deliberations, defended their approach in a wide-ranging inquiry that began soon after the disaster and, ultimately, amassed a varied record.

“If we were going to have a shot at who, if anyone, was responsible for the circumstances that might have contributed to this event, then we would need to investigate this like we investigate criminal cases,” said R. Booth Goodwin II, the United States attorney. “How is it that this happens, and how is it that we have what seemed like a Third World mine disaster in the 21st century here in America?”

Last November, almost three years after the company that bought Massey agreed to a $209 million settlement with the Justice Department, a grand jury indicted Mr. Blankenship. He assembled a roster of lawyers for a defense that cost millions of dollars, while prosecutors weighed how to present a complicated case. Unlike the prosecutors, Mr. Taylor would not agree to discuss how the case unfolded.

There were, for instance, matters of how to explore the details of mining with jurors — prosecutors even considered taking the jury to a simulated mine — and how to explain gaps between the law and common perceptions of it, a particular concern for the conspiracy count.

“The hard part is getting the jury to understand that an unspoken conspiracy is just as much a conspiracy as sitting in a back room writing out a pact in blood,” said Steven R. Ruby, an assistant United States attorney.

In the end, it was just the conspiracy charge that persuaded jurors.

“I think it is a compromise verdict, but you have to remember that the two charges that received acquittals were for conduct quite different than culpability for operating an unsafe coal mine and violating laws that are intended to prevent precisely what occurred,” said Patrick C. McGinley, a West Virginia University law professor who was involved in the state’s investigation of the deaths at Upper Big Branch.

“A century of mine disasters and failing to hold coal company executives responsible is over,” he said.

And here in Charleston, family members of Upper Big Branch miners said they were somewhat vindicated by the verdict.

“Even though Mr. Blankenship may not be convicted of all of these crimes, he is guilty, my friends, and he is not guilty of just being a liar, cheating fraud,” said Judy Jones Petersen, whose brother worked at Upper Big Branch.

She later added, “I just wanted someone to step forward and say, ‘He is guilty. He is guilty.’ ”

Shortly before Dr. Petersen spoke, Mr. Blankenship emerged from the courthouse. Asked for his response to the verdict, he winked. Pressed for a further explanation, he said: “Just a wink. A wink and a nod.”


*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) Meal Plan Costs Tick Upward as Students Pay for More Than Food
By

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Before his 35-mile commute through Appalachian hills to classes here at the University of Tennessee, Michael Miceli eats a gigantic breakfast. It is his way of getting through the day without spending money on a campus lunch.Food deprivation is merely one trick Mr. Miceli uses to minimize his college debt, now creeping past $22,000. So the $300 bill he got from the university this semester — for food — sent him into a tailspin.

“I was in near panic at the thought of having to borrow more money,” said Mr. Miceli, 23, a linguistics major.

For the first time this year, the University of Tennessee imposed a $300-per-semester dining fee on Mr. Miceli and about 12,000 other undergraduates, including commuters, who do not purchase other meal plans. The extra money will help finance a $177 million student union with limestone cornices, clay-tiled roofing and copper gutters, part of a campus reconstruction plan aimed at elevating the University of Tennessee to a “Top 25” public university.

Tennessee’s contract with its dining vendor, Aramark, is just one example of how universities nationwide are embracing increasingly lucrative deals with giant dining contractors, who offer commissions and signing bonuses to help pay for campus improvements and academic programs. It is part of a new model of raising money through partnerships with private vendors, officials say, and with state funding for higher education still below pre-recession levels, a way to replace lost revenue.

Under its contract, which runs through 2027, Tennessee will get 14 percent of all food revenues plus $15.2 million in renovations to dining facilities.

In exchange for signing a 20-year contract that runs through 2034, the University of Virginia recently got a $70 million contribution from Aramark, based in Philadelphia — in addition to $19 million in renovations and annual commissions increasing to $19 million a year. Texas A&M announced a 10-year deal in 2012 with Chartwells, a subsidiary of the British-based Compass Group, that included a $22.7 million signing bonus and $25 million in capital investments.

Universities frequently announce the windfalls with great fanfare, but critics say the cost gets passed on to students and contributes to the expense of college. Tom Mac Dermott, a dining consultant who works with universities, said upfront payments were built into the price of the meal plans. “When you keep tacking on this stuff, the cost of the plan goes up.”

President Obama mocked gourmet college food in a speech in February at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis, suggesting that it raised college costs. And meal plan fees are increasing annually at many schools, driven partly by demands that food be locally sourced, freshly made and hormone-free.

Yet the particulars of the contracts reveal that much of the meal plan cost does not go for an individual’s food. Colleges use the money to shore up their balance sheets, create academic programs and scholarships, fund special “training tables” to feed athletes, and pay for meals for prospective students touring campus.

Like many such deals, Texas A&M’s agreement with Chartwells comes with a catch, Mr. Mac Dermott said. If Texas A&M wants to cancel the deal, a pro rata portion of the money must be repaid.

“Suppose the operator isn’t doing well over time?” Mr. Mac Dermott said. “The university can’t get rid of them. The investments are made on the guarantee that if the contract is terminated by either party, the client will return the money. That’s not a gift.”

But Phillip Ray, A&M’s vice chancellor for business affairs, said there was no clawback if the contract were terminated for cause. “People say, ‘You’ve signed this big deal, now they own you,’ ” Mr. Ray said. “Not at all. We call the shots.”

In 2013, the year after A&M entered its agreement, several dining facilities there were temporarily closed by the county health department, which found rodent droppings and a roach infestation.

Other colleges have deals that offer sweeteners — renovations to the president’s house, private parties catered for employees, free meals for athletic officials in exchange for free football tickets.

These arrangements, which auditors have criticized, can create revenue streams outside the normal budgeting process for funding pet projects, raising the potential of abuse.

At South Carolina State University, a historically black institution, a 2014 audit found that students paid $343 a year in “hidden costs” for food. The money was rebated to the institution by its vendor, Sodexo, a French company, partly to pay for a $5 million wellness center, which was never built. The university, under new leadership, said it has ceased the practices described.

An audit this year at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette found that the food vendor catered free parties for children of a university employee while inflating bills to the university. In a response to the audit, the university said the employee had repaid the fees.

For food vendors, one of the critical components in turning a profit is a guaranteed revenue stream.

Hofstra University on Long Island announced in 2013 that it would require a minimum buy-in from all residential students. Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., will require participation by even seniors who live in dormitories with kitchens next year, said Skyler Golann, chairman of the student dining committee.

“There’s definitely been a backlash,” said Mr. Golann, a sophomore from Hinesburg, Vt. Brandeis said the requirement would help pay to renovate dining halls without increasing tuition and other fees.This is how mandatory meal plans have become a political issue, both on campus and off. The New Jersey General Assembly last year adopted a ban on mandatory meal plans, although it was never approved by the Senate.

“Some colleges were particularly egregious in requiring high-cost meal plans,” said Assemblyman Joseph P. Cryan, who sponsored the legislation. Meal plans at some private schools cost more than $3,000 a semester.

The mandatory meal plans that have created the biggest controversies are those imposed on students who live off campus. One of the first protests arose in Alabama, where students at several universities sued to block the plans, but the Alabama Supreme Court ruled against them in 2011.

Danny Evans, a Birmingham lawyer for the students, said that since his lawsuit, the idea has “gone viral,” spreading to other colleges. This year, in addition to the University of Tennessee, colleges ranging from Loyola New Orleans to Suffolk County Community College on Long Island — a commuter school with no dormitories — have announced mandatory commuter meal fees.

Responding to complaints, administrators said dining was important for commuters because it fostered campus community, citing studies showing that students with meal plans stay in school longer.

Administrators here at the University of Tennessee, where a $1,899-per-semester meal plan is mandatory for freshmen who live on campus, first floated the requirement that other students buy a $300-per-semester meal plan at a meeting two years ago. Grant Davis, a student who attended the meeting, at which Aramark served lobster ravioli, said, “We knew we were being greased.”

Students protested the plan, garnering more than 1,000 signatures practically overnight on a petition titled “Don’t Force Feed Us.”

Phase 1 of the new student union building, heralded as the cornerstone of a campus transformation, opened this year, with a Chick-fil-A, Subway, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Starbucks and several other restaurants.

Students can get refunds if they do not eat the food, but experience at other schools shows that most succumb to the fast-food temptations.

Mr. Miceli, a senior from Dandridge, Tenn., intends to ask for a refund.

Even so, he said, he regards the money as a loan to the university that he could not afford.




*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) Justice Dept. Plans to Investigate Chicago Police After Laquan McDonald Case
By and

CHICAGO — The Justice Department plans to begin a far-ranging investigation into the patterns and practices of the Chicago Police Department, part of the continuing fallout over a video released last month showing the police shooting of Laquan McDonald, a person familiar with the case said Sunday.The investigation, similar to those of troubled police departments in Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, could be announced as early as this week.

The Justice Department has long had concerns about the Chicago department. But the current scrutiny centers on a controversy that began with a two-paragraph statement a year ago from the Chicago Police Department about the death of a young black man who had been shot 16 times by the police.“Near the intersection of 4100 S. Pulaski, uniformed officers confronted the armed offender who refused to comply with orders to drop the knife and continued to approach the officers,” said the statement, from Oct. 21, 2014. “As a result of this action, the officer discharged his weapon striking the offender.”

On the night of the shooting, a police union spokesman, Pat Camden, went further, announcing at the scene that Mr. McDonald was “a very serious threat to the officers and he leaves them no choice at that point but to defend themselves.” Mr. Camden said, “He was coming at the officer.”

For months in 2014 and 2015, as police shootings were drawing close scrutiny around the nation, that was all most Chicagoans knew about Mr. McDonald’s death. That changed last month when a county judge ordered that a police video be made public. It showed Mr. McDonald seeming to try to jog or walk past officers, then veering at an angle away from them before being shot, again and again, even as he lay on the pavement.

The video outraged many. Along with anger over the shooting, there is an added element fueling frustration here: a lingering sense that the authorities, from the police department to City Hall, tried to keep the case out of the spotlight as long as possible.

“No person, no sane human being who’s lived in this city, no sane human being, looks at this situation and thinks there weren’t people who knew a lot and refused to divulge it,” said Mariame Kaba, a member of the Chicago-based activist group We Charge Genocide. “That, to me, is a cover-up.”

Critics have raised many questions.

Did Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s re-election fight play a role in his administration’s decision this year to pay $5 million to Mr. McDonald’s family members even before they filed a lawsuit? Why did City Hall include a provision in the settlement to keep the video private at least temporarily? And why did it take Anita Alvarez, the Cook County State’s Attorney, 13 months to charge the police officer involved in the shooting? She waited until hours before the city was forced to release the video to charge the officer, Jason Van Dyke, with first-degree murder.

“People have a lot of questions, and I don’t think this is going away any time soon,” said the Rev. Marshall E. Hatch, who leads a West Side church. “It was almost surreal to think people thought this was a life that could be thrown away and walked over for apparent political advantage.”

The authorities in Chicago insist there was no cover-up, and on Sunday night a spokesman for Mr. Emanuel said the city welcomed the Justice Department’s decision.

Last week, a spokeswoman for Mr. Emanuel, Kelley Quinn, said, “Any suggestion that politics played a role in this investigation is patently false.” Faced with growing criticism and demands for his resignation, Mr. Emanuel wrote an op-ed column in Chicago’s newspapers over the weekend, calling for broad changes at the police department but also laying out a defense of his own role. “What I strongly reject is the suggestion that the videotape of the McDonald shooting was withheld from the public because of the election,” Mr. Emanuel said.

Already, outcry over the case appears to be forcing a change. Under scrutiny over another case — a police shooting that occurred only days before Mr. McDonald’s death — Mr. Emanuel says that the city will now reverse course from its longstanding practice and release police video from that case sometime this week. The video will show the fatal shooting of Ronald Johnson, 25, on Oct. 12, 2014. Chicago police say Mr. Johnson pointed a gun at officers, but a lawyer for his family said that the video will show that he was running away.

The confrontation with Mr. McDonald, who was 17, began after 9 p.m. on Oct. 20, 2014 when he was stopped by the police after a report of someone breaking into vehicles on the Southwest Side. Officers said Mr. McDonald had a three-inch folding knife and ignored calls to drop it. Instead, they said, he walked and jogged away and at one point slashed the tire of a police car.

A growing number of officers followed him for several blocks. A police dashboard camera video, made public on Nov. 24, shows Officer Van Dyke’s police vehicle pulling up just before the shooting began. He fired 16 shots at Mr. McDonald from about 10 feet away, prosecutors have said. No other officer at the scene fired his gun, although at least five corroborated Officer Van Dyke’s version of events — that Mr. McDonald appeared to be coming at them in a threatening way.

After the shooting, the Independent Police Review Authority, a group assigned to review police shootings in Chicago, began investigating. Within two weeks, the city’s information was handed over to prosecutors to conduct their own criminal inquiries.

As lawyers for Mr. McDonald’s mother began looking at the case in late 2014, they say they found puzzling contradictions. Some witnesses disagreed with the police account that Mr. McDonald was coming at Officer Van Dyke. Workers at a nearby Burger King said the police arrived almost immediately after the shooting and began intensely studying a computer that handles the restaurant’s surveillance system.

Later, the Burger King’s surveillance recordings of more than 80 minutes — covering the time of the shooting itself — seemed to have vanished. Ms. Alvarez has said that there is no evidence of tampering and that the camera would not have captured the shooting anyway. Still, a federal investigation, which is continuing, is believed to be looking at questions, including the missing Burger King video, what other officers said at the scene that night, and why police dashboard cameras collected little audio.

By February 2015, the lawyers for Mr. McDonald’s mother had obtained the dashboard camera video itself. Michael Robbins, one of the family’s lawyers, said the lawyers had subpoenaed the video as part of a separate probate case. On Feb. 27 they contacted the city, seeking $16 million before they filed any lawsuit.

As it happened, three days earlier, Mr. Emanuel had learned that he was about to face an intense, six-week test of his leadership. He had failed to get the 50 percent plus 1 vote that he needed to win re-election to a second term outright, and was forced into an April 7 runoff with Jesus G. Garcia. Mr. Emanuel’s campaign was especially vulnerable among some black and Latino voters who had been upset by his administration’s closing of nearly 50 public schools as well as policing and crime.

“If that video would have surfaced around that time, he would have lost the whole support of the black, African-American community in Chicago,” said William Calloway, an activist here.

Mr. Robbins said he believed that the issue unfolded when it did simply because he and his co-counsel were able to assemble their evidence at that point. “How much did politics play in on the city’s end?” Mr. Robbins said. “I don’t know. From our standpoint it was happenstance.”

After a meeting in mid-March, lawyers for the family and the city reached an agreement to pay the family $5 million. City Council approval was needed, though, and that body’s next meeting was on April 15, eight days after Mr. Emanuel won re-election.

Chicago law department officials said settlements before lawsuits have even been filed are not unprecedented. The speed with which negotiations proceeded, the officials said, reflected the wishes of the lawyers for the other side and the nature of the case.

The city included in their settlement with the McDonald family a provision barring release of the video until criminal investigations were complete. Law department officials said that has been standard practice in Chicago for decades so as not to hinder such investigations. In this case, they said, no one expected the investigations to take much longer. City officials also said the family itself was not eager for the police video to be made public.

Mr. Emanuel himself was aware of the case and the video at the point at which a city settlement was being weighed, city officials said. His office did not respond to questions about when the mayor first learned of the case and the video. He has said he did not watch the video until it was released to the public.

On April 15, Chicago’s City Council approved the settlement. Stephen R. Patton, Chicago’s Corporation Counsel, had already told members of the council’s finance committee at a public meeting: “The shooting officer contends, as I understand it, that Mr. McDonald was moving toward him. He was in fear of his life.” He also told them: “The plaintiffs contend very vehemently that Mr. McDonald had been walking away from the police and was continuing to walk away from the police, and they contend that the videotape supports their version of events.”

Requests from the media for the video came, one after the next. At least one Chicago news radio station asked for the video as early as December 2014, a police spokesman said. All the requests were denied. The city argued that the video was exempt from the state’s public records law because it was part of a continuing investigation. A freelance journalist, Brandon Smith, filed suit to see the video — an effort the city’s lawyers continued to fight until the Cook County judge ruled against them on Nov. 19.

After that, Mayor Emanuel changed course. He said the city would no longer fight the release, and urged prosecutors to conclude their investigations. He has since said a task force needs to decide whether to change a policy of keeping evidence private while investigations are going on.

Asked last week whether he would have won re-election in April if the public had seen the McDonald video at the time, Mr. Emanuel grew testy.

“That’s a hypothetical,” he told a crowd gathered to watch him interviewed on stage with Politico at the Willis Tower. “And that said, I faced the election, faced the voters. They made a decision.”


Matt Apuzzo contributed reporting from Washington.





*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) Caspian Sea Oil Rig Continues to Burn, Heightening Risk of Spill
By

MOSCOW — A fire on an oil platform in the Caspian Sea burned on Monday for a fourth day, and the Azerbaijani company that operates the site warned that the fire could spread to the oil wells that feed the platform, heightening the risk of a spill.

Workers were evacuated on Friday, but one of two lifeboats capsized in rough seas, leaving 29 people missing and presumed dead.

There have been no reports of spills so far. While rich in oil, the Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed inland body of water in the world, is also vulnerable to ecological damage.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Western companies including BP modernized the Caspian offshore industry. But the platform that caught fire on Friday was a legacy platform from the Soviet period, built in 1984.

BP has no relation to the site, which is operated by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, but it does operate nearby drilling rigs. A burst natural gas pipeline started the fire on Friday.

Whatever the eventual consequences of the fire, an accident so costly in lives and risky to the Caspian Basin is sure to raise alarms about safety in the offshore oil industry, still struggling to rebuild its reputation after the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

So far, 33 workers have been rescued and one body has been retrieved from the water, Baldamirza Aliragimov, the chief engineer of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan’s production division, Azneft, told journalists on Monday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

On Sunday, in an indication that rescuers did not expect to find the missing 29 men alive, the company said it had sent a request to neighboring countries to search for bodies in their territorial waters.

Over the weekend, the company tried to extinguish the fire by spraying it with water from nearby ships, without success, Mr. Aliragimov said.

Out on the sea on Monday, fierce winds were buffeting the platform with gusts of up to 50 miles an hour, or about 80 kilometers an hour, he said.

The structure, the No. 10 platform in the Gunashli field, had been pumping natural gas and about 6,700 barrels of oil a day from 28 undersea wellheads.

On Saturday, the state oil company said in a statement that it had shut the wells and sealed a pipeline leading to land to try to avert any spillage.



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

8) New Chicago Police Video Prompts Rebuke From Mayor Rahm Emanuel
By

CHICAGO — The Chicago police, facing almost daily protests and a newly announced Justice Department investigation, released footage Monday night showing a 38-year-old black man being shocked by a Taser and dragged down a hallway by officers in 2012.The officers’ treatment of the man, Philip Coleman, received a withering rebuke from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose handling of other police use-of-force cases has prompted calls for his resignation, and who has announced a series of policy changes and personnel moves in recent days as pressure mounted.

“I do not see how the manner in which Mr. Coleman was physically treated could possibly be acceptable,” Mr. Emanuel said in a statement. He added, “Something is wrong here — either the actions of the officers who dragged Mr. Coleman, or the policies of the department.”Mr. Coleman, whose first name is spelled “Phillip” in police records but is listed as “Philip” in a lawsuit filed by his father, later died at a hospital. A county medical examiner noted trauma on Mr. Coleman’s body, but said his death had been caused by an allergic reaction to a medication given at the hospital.

Mr. Emanuel said he had not received a “sufficient answer” about how the officers treated Mr. Coleman, “and as a result I do not consider this case to be closed or the investigation into what happened that night to be over.”

The footage of Mr. Coleman joins a grim, growing collection of Chicago police videos released in recent weeks. The fallout from the videos has led to the departure of the police superintendent, the creation of a task force to study police accountability, the replacement of the head of the city’s Independent Police Review Authority, a federal investigation into Chicago police practices and a series of protests that continued Monday evening.

Hours before the Coleman video was made public, prosecutors released footage of a Chicago officer fatally shooting Ronald Johnson, who was 25 and black, in the back in 2014. The police and prosecutors said Mr. Johnson was armed with a handgun, a claim disputed by family members. The officer who shot Mr. Johnson was not charged with a crime.

Also, on Nov. 24, after being ordered to do so by a judge, city officials released dashcam footage from 2014 that showed Officer Jason Van Dyke firing 16 shots at Laquan McDonald, who was 17 and black. Most of the shots were fired after the teenager, who was carrying a knife but veering away from officers, had fallen to the ground. Officer Van Dyke told investigators he feared for his safety, but prosecutors charged him last month with first-degree murder.

Though the video releases in the Johnson and McDonald shootings had been widely anticipated here, Mr. Coleman’s case had played out with less media attention. But the manner in which the Coleman footage was released — at the end of a busy news day, and with detailed statements from Mr. Emanuel and John J. Escalante, the interim police superintendent — suggested that city leaders recognized the potential for intense scrutiny at a time when many protesters have accused the Chicago police of systemic mistreatment of black people.

Mr. Coleman was arrested on Dec. 12, 2012, after the police responded to a report that he had assaulted his mother. Mr. Coleman was held in a Chicago police lockup on the city’s Far South Side, where he is shown on surveillance video resting in a small cell with spartan furnishings.

At one point, six uniformed officers enter the cell, and Mr. Coleman sits up. He appears to speak for a minute or so with the police before the encounter becomes more tense. Several officers are shown physically restraining Mr. Coleman, and a Taser is deployed. An officer then drags Mr. Coleman out of the cell.

Police documents released with the video claim that Mr. Coleman was combative in the cell, and that he also fought with officers after being taken to a hospital, where he was again Tasered by an officer who they said was in “fear of sustaining serious injury.”

“The offender continued his attempts to kick and strike the officers and fireman until officers were finally able to subdue him,” reads a police report about the hospital tussle written after Mr. Coleman’s death. “This was only after a nurse injected a sedative into the offender after an extended struggle.” That report lists Mr. Coleman as the offender and the police officers as victims.

An autopsy report by Dr. Ponni Arunkumar, Cook County’s assistant chief medical examiner, noted dozens of bruises and cuts on Mr. Coleman’s body. But Dr. Arunkumar ruled the death accidental, and the result of a reaction to haloperidol, a medication used to treat mental illness.

Mr. Coleman’s father, Percy, sued the city in federal court after his son’s death, and a civil trial is set for March. The lawsuit claims arresting officers knew that Mr. Coleman required medical treatment for “mental health issues,” and accuses the police of failing to provide that care and of using excessive force.

Superintendent Escalante, in a statement released with the mayor’s, said he agreed with the decision to continue investigating the Coleman case. He also said his department would re-evaluate how it deals with mentally ill people.

“Independent of the facts that led to his arrest or the actions at the hospital, we are held to a higher standard and we must strive to live up to it every day,” Mr. Escalante said. “While the independent investigation is ongoing, we will be doing our own review of our policies and practices surrounding the response to mental health crises.”



*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

9) No Charges for Chicago Officer in 2014 Shooting of Ronald Johnson
By and

CHICAGO — For days, officials here have faced scathing criticism for taking too long to share what they knew about the death of Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by a police officer in October 2014 as a dashboard video camera captured it all. On Monday, the authorities seemed determined to make a sharply different impression as they released video of another fatal police shooting of a black man from the same month, which has also become a source of contention in the city.In an hourlong presentation that included audio from 911 calls, detailed maps, witness interviews and dashboard video, the Cook County state’s attorney, Anita Alvarez, said that her office would not bring charges against Officer George Hernandez in the fatal 2014 shooting of Ronald Johnson. Ms. Alvarez said the array of material provided clear evidence that Mr. Johnson had been armed with a gun, resisted arrest and posed a potential threat to pursuing officers.But the elaborate nature of the presentation also underscored the intense public pressure and distrust local officials, from the Police Department to City Hall, have faced since the release last month of the video of Mr. McDonald. That dashboard video outraged many Chicago residents by showing that Mr. McDonald was veering away from an officer when he was shot, and that the officer continued firing bullets into him after he had already fallen to the ground.Scrutiny of the Chicago Police Department is also coming from the United States Justice Department, which announced on Monday that it had opened a sweeping investigation into possible civil rights abuses, including whether there have been racial disparities in the department’s use of deadly force.

For months, city officials had fought to prevent the McDonald video from becoming public, saying they did not want to hinder investigations. Until late last week, they had similarly worked to block the release of the video in Mr. Johnson’s case.

“I’m not hiding anything,” Ms. Alvarez said of the Johnson case on Monday.

Several dozen protesters gathered Monday night on a South Side street near where Mr. Johnson was shot. The group marched from the site, chanting “Justice for Ronnieman” and “No justice, no peace.” A local Black Lives Matter organizer deemed the findings in Mr. Johnson’s death a cover-up, called for a special prosecutor to re-examine the shooting and demanded the resignation of Ms. Alvarez and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

A lawyer for Mr. Johnson’s family said that Officer Hernandez should have been charged with murder, accusing the Chicago police of planting the gun and of falsifying reports. The lawyer, Michael Oppenheimer, described Ms. Alvarez’s lengthy news conference on the case as an “infomercial.” And he called the authorities’ handling of the case “a cover-up from the beginning.”

“He had no right to shoot him in the back, no right at all,” Mr. Oppenheimer said. “He wasn’t carrying a weapon.”

The video shows officers with guns drawn chasing Mr. Johnson, who was 25. At one point, he sprints behind an unmarked police car and runs toward a park. Three police officers then jump out of the unmarked car with guns drawn, and flashes can be seen coming from Officer Hernandez’s weapon as Mr. Johnson is running away.

Ms. Alvarez said enhanced images from the video suggest Mr. Johnson was holding a gun in his hand, and the police reported immediately after the shooting that they had found a Browning 9-millimeter pistol with a 21-round magazine in his right hand. She said that someone Mr. Johnson had been riding in a car with just before the shooting occurred heard him cock his gun.

Prosecutors say Officer Hernandez fired five shots. One hit Mr. Johnson in the back of the knee, another hit him in the back of his shoulder and exited near his eye.

“Based upon an objective review of the evidence and the law, we have determined that the prosecution could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the actions of Officer Hernandez were not reasonable and permissible under the laws of the State of Illinois,” Ms. Alvarez said.

Ms. Alvarez, who has faced intense criticism for waiting 13 months to bring a murder charge against Jason Van Dyke, the police officer in the case of Mr. McDonald, is facing a difficult re-election fight in March.

Mr. Johnson’s mother, Dorothy Holmes, who has sued the city, maintained that her son posed no threat to the police and criticized the prosecutor for taking more than a year to announce a decision in the case. Mr. Johnson died on Oct. 12, 2014, just eight days before Mr. McDonald was shot to death by the police in a different neighborhood, on the Southwest Side.

“I’m not going to stop until I get what I want for him, and that’s justice,” Ms. Holmes said on Monday. “If that had been anybody in her family that got killed like that,” she added, referring to Ms. Alvarez, “that officer would have been charged with murder, and that case would have been looked into way before a year.”The new Justice Department investigation into the patterns and practices of the Chicago Police Department was announced in Washington by Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch. Though largely the result of fallout over the McDonald case, the federal investigation will look beyond his shooting to examine systemic patterns by the Chicago police, including racial stereotyping and other possible abuses.

A similar investigation by the Justice Department into the police and municipal court in Ferguson, Mo., after the police shooting death last year of an unarmed black teenager, led to a searing report showing numerous abuses.

The Obama administration, buffeted by nationwide unrest over police conduct, has opened about two dozen investigations into law enforcement agencies, including in Baltimore and Los Angeles. But the Chicago investigation is one of the biggest ever opened by the Justice Department into reports of police abuse.

The Justice Department investigation comes in addition to a separate federal investigation into the McDonald case that is expected to review allegations of missing surveillance video and the statements of other police officers who had corroborated Officer Van Dyke’s version of the shooting. Mr. McDonald was carrying a three-inch knife, and Officer Van Dyke said he feared for his safety.

“Building trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve is one of my highest priorities as attorney general,” Ms. Lynch said.

At City Hall, Mr. Emanuel, who at one point last week suggested that a Justice Department review of the city’s police force would be “misguided,” said on Monday that he now welcomed the review. “It’s in our self-interest as a city,” he said. “We are at an inflection point.”

Mr. Emanuel spoke in a news conference beside the newly appointed head of the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates police shootings, and the city’s interim police superintendent. Both of their predecessors have been ousted in the days since the McDonald video was released.

“I’m taking responsibility for what happened,” Mr. Emanuel said, “and I’m taking responsibility for fixing it.”

But as reporters pressed Mr. Emanuel and the interim police superintendent, John J. Escalante, on their handling of the McDonald case, the mayor cut off the news conference and led his fellow speakers out the door while journalists continued to shout questions.

Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting from Washington.






*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*





































__._,_.___
Posted by: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
Reply via web post • Reply to sender • Reply to group • Start a New Topic • Messages in this topic (1)





.


__,_._,___
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment