Stand with #NoDAPL - Emergency Rally Noon TODAY in SF
The National Guard and State police raided the camp in North Dakota where Standing Rock Sioux and supporters are valiantly standing up against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Big oil and state agencies are acting without respect for human rights and the environment. In this moment it is imperative that we rise up in solidarity and make our voices heard. You can help out by coming to an emergency rally at noon today in San Francisco & by taking some of the actions listed below.
1) Please come out to an emergency rally at noon today. You will hear from speakers who have been to Standing Rock and about important next steps.
What: Emergency Rally in solidarity with the Peoples of Standing Rock
When: Friday 10/28 12noon-1pm
Where: Department of Justice,450 Golden Gate Ave at Polk St, San Francisco
Who: AIM-West & more
Why: Rubber bullets, tasers, bean bags, & pepper spray has been fired; dogs have been unleashed in the recent past; protesters are being jailed; media communications are being jammed; treaties & human rights are continuing to be violated. It is time we stand together in the Bay Area in solidarity with the Peoples of Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota and against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
How: ALL DRUMS AND GUITARS WELCOMED! COME ON OUT AND BROWN BAG IT. COME FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW YOU CAN HELP!
2) Come to an art build Friday 10/28 & Saturday 10/29 10am - 4pm. Facebook event page
3) Call the White House or tweet at President Barack Obama and say:
6) Join the briefing & coordinating conference call Saturday, October 29th 5pm PDT. Sign up here.
7) Organize yourself &/or large groups of people from your community to to to Standing Rock. Contact organizing@NoDAPLSolidarity.org. to discuss details & schedule a time frame.
We normally don’t use our announcement list for things like this, but we wanted to express how concerned we are about the recent criminalization of journalists and activists covering the events at the Dakota Access Pipeline and elsewhere. If you haven’t read about it yet, here is what has gone down so far:
• On September 3rd, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! was on location at the DAPL construction site when private security forces instigated a violent confrontation with peaceful water protectors. She was not involved in the confrontation and she was not arrested, but for simply being present and reporting on the incident she was charged with misdemeanor rioting, which would have landed her a year in prison. Yesterday the presiding judge dropped the charges.
• Actress Shailene Woodley, who had been camping at Standing Rock and reporting what she saw over social media (her Twitter account alone has 1.2 million followers), was arrested on October 10th while walking back to her RV after attending a prayer action. She is being charged with criminal trespassing, which carries a $3,000 fine and 60 days in jail, if sentenced.
• Award-winning documentary filmmaker Deia Schlosberg was documenting a direct action at a section of TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline in Walhalla, ND, where activists turned off the pipes using the emergency shut-off valves. This was part of a multi-state protest at other oil pipelines in Minnesota and Washington, in solidarity with the people at Standing Rock. Though she did not participate in the action, she was arrested and is being charged with 3 felony counts: “conspiracy to theft of property,” “conspiracy to theft of services,” and “conspiracy to tampering with or damaging a public service.” If convicted, the cumulative prison time for these sentences would be 45 years (more than Edward Snowden faces for whistleblowing on the NSA!). There is a petition to drop all charges here: http://www.howtoletgomovie.com/
• 4 journalists from the alternative media outlet Unicorn Riot have been arrested since last month while covering various direct actions. All four were strip-searched unnecessarily after their arrest, and they are being charged with criminal trespassing. There are more details about their arrests here: http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=10071
These are only the high-profile cases, and these are only pertaining to the DAPL. There are many more lesser-known activists, journalists, and filmmakers in other social movements being intimidated and arrested, their equipment and footage confiscated, and they sit in jail cells waiting for ridiculously trumped up charges to be fabricated and used against them.
This extreme reaction from the authorities is highly unethical and dangerous. That’s not really a surprising comment given the track record of governments everywhere, but we must continue to assert our right as journalists, documentarians, and media-makers to report on current events without retribution.
One of our members traveled to Standing Rock just last month to document this incredibly brave movement and produced this short piece, which we screened at our most recent film night. We're glad he didn't have any trouble, and happy to support this kind of film work in any way we can.
We hope it has been useful to you to have all this information synthesized in one place, and we hope everyone will continue to follow the situation closely and show their support.
I just signed this Color Of Change petition and hope you will too.
For kneeling during the anthem to protest violence against Black youth, these kids from Beaumont, Texas have been severely punished. In retaliation for their brave protest, the local executive board canceled their entire football season, suspended the coaching staff, and threatened to arrest their parents if they attended any future games, practices or events.
We need to support the fight of these children and show them that their protest is heard.
From MacArthur BART, head East on 40th, then left on Telegraph for 5 blocks,
left onto Shattuck for two more; Omni is on your left.
Please RSVP!
Call Carole at: 415 483-4428 or Bob at: 510 595-7811
in San Jose:
Meet: 6 pm Thurs. Oct.27th
at San Jose Peace & Justice Center
48 South 7th Street, 2nd floor (ring the doorbell), San Jose
Directions:
1/2 block north of SJSU between San Fernando Street and Santa Clara Street
22, 23, 72, 73 bus lines have stops close to the Peace Center.
Please RSVP!
Call Donna Wallach (h) 408-557-8824 (cell) 408-569-6608
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty! End Solitary Confinement!
End Life Imprisonment without Parole!
Quality Health Care for all Prisoners! Hep C Meds for All!
End Mass Incarceration! Black Lives Matter! No Stop and Frisk!
Mumia is Innocent and Framed! Free Mumia, Now!
- In solidarity, Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal -
* * * * * * * * * *
We need a renewed fight for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal!
On December 9, 2016 it will be 35 years since the police tried to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and revolutionary journalist, the “voice of the voiceless.” Unable to kill him, the cops, courts and politicians conspired to frame him and sentence him to death for a crime he didn’t commit. Actions on this date will happen worldwide, and Oakland must be part of these protests!
It took an international mass mobilization to prevent his execution. Now, it is taking protest and publicity to keep him alive in prison and to get him effective treatment for his Hepatitis C, which he is still being denied by the Pennsylvania prison system. We need to act!
Read on for more information . . .
We are in the midst of on-going struggles which unite us all: opposition to rampant police killings of Black people; freedom for political prisoners including former Black Panthers, PuertoRican independence leader Oscar Lopez Rivera and Native American activist Leonard Peltier; opposition to the death penalty, life without parole, solitary confinement; big pharma price-gouging; immigrant deportations; the Standing Rock resistance to the destruction of both native lands and the environment; the Puerto Rican struggle against imperialist oppression; and defense of Palestinians from Zionist terror.
Join us in an effort to reignite the struggle to free Mumia, which unites all these struggles. Mumia Abu-Jamal is the “voice of the voiceless.” He speaks for all the exploited and oppressed. The next organizing meeting is at the Omni House, 4799 Shattuck Ave, between 47th & 48th, Oakland, 6 pm Thursday October 27, 2016 to plan action here in the Bay Area for Dec. 9th.
Mumia’s Struggle for Freedom
We advocate joining together now in a renewed fight for freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. December 9, 2016 will be 35 years since the police tried to execute Mumia on the streets of Philadelphia and then framed him, with the complicity of the prosecution and the court, and sentenced him to death. It took international mass mobilization to prevent his execution. It is taking protest and publicity to keep him alive in prison and to get him treatment for his Hepatitis C.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (Williams v. Pennsylvania) ruled that a prosecutor cannot later sit as judge over the same defendant. This is precedent setting for Mumia who has filed a new legal action based on the fact that Mumia’s appeals of his conviction from 1998 on were denied by Justice Ronald Castille who was the Philadelphia District Attorney,—his prosecutor—during his first appeal. If successful, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings that upheld his conviction would be overturned. Mumia would be able to re-appeal the issues of his innocence, jury bias, falsified evidence to obtain a new trial, if not outright dismissal of charges.
It is unlikely that this new legal opportunity to win a court battle for Mumia’s freedom will be repeated. We began the struggle for Mumia’s freedom with the understanding that the fight for Mumia is one that encompasses the fight against capitalist, racist injustice from police street execution to the legal lynching of the death penalty, to frame-up convictions, mass incarceration, and all the horrors of the U.S. prison system. The fight for Mumia is a defense of those who stand in opposition to the policies of U.S. imperialism; it is a case of Black Lives Matter.
Mumia Won’t Be Silenced
Mumia has never succumbed to the state’s attempt to silence him. He is a beacon of light and hope for other prisoners across the US, as well as for all victims of imperialist war, racism and the “incarceration nation.”
We support all legal actions in Mumia’s defense but recognize that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. The Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC) focuses on mass and labor actions to free Mumia. Without such action, the new case for Mumia’s freedom will—as similar attempts have before—be consigned to the “Mumia exception” judicial waste-bucket. We continue to work to get international labor support for Mumia’s freedom and for Hep C treatment. Mumia’s struggles, if supported by a mass movement can not only free him, but also help unite struggles of prisoners and other victims of the racist-imperialist-capitalist system throughout the world.
We support a renewed campaign to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. An event is planned for Philadelphia for December 9, 2016 initiated by the Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the New York Campaign to Bring Mumia Home and a call is in the works.
Initial endorsers of the Dec 9th action in Philadelphia:
International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Wadiya Jamal; Angela Davis; International Action Center; Nation Time Judicial Research; Avenging The Ancestors Coalition (ATAC); Million Woman March; Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement; Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA); Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition NYC; New York State Prisoner Justice Network; Black and Brown Workers Collective; Moratorium Now! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoffs and Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice; Campaign to Free Russell "Maroon" Shoatz; NYC Friends of MOVE; Campaign to Bring Mumia Home; Educators for Mumia; Peoples Organization for Progress; the MOVE Organization; Phillly Coalition for REAL Justice; Susan E. Davis, National Writers Union, UAW 1981*; Action Against Black Genocide; WESPAC; Mundo Obrero/Workers World Party; Millions for Mumia; Philadelphia Foods Not Bombs Affinity; Community and Labor United For Postal Jobs & Services ( CLUPJS); Prison Radio; Wisconsin Bail Out The People Movement; Minnie Bruce Pratt, UAW Local 1981/ National Writers Union *; Zimbabwe Communist League; Royce Adams, International Longshoremen 's Association Local 1291 -AFL-CIO*; Robin Laverne Wilson, US Senate Candidate (NY – Green); Martha Grevatt, Trustee, UAW Local 869*; Northeast Political Prisoner Coalition; Baltimore Peoples Power Assembly; Rev CD Witherspoon Baltimore SCLC President*; Students for Justice in Palestine- Temple; SJP ON THE MOVE; May 1st Coalition for Worker & Immigrant Rights; Labor Against Racist Terror; Estela Vazquez, Executive Vice President, Local 1199 SEIU* *For Identification Only
We ask you to join us in an effort to reignite the struggle to free Mumia, on all fronts. We will look forward to seeing you for an organizing meetings detailed above.
- In solidarity, Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal -
October 29-30: LABOR MOBILIZATION IN SUPPORT OF STANDING ROCK, FIRST NATIONS, IN OPPOSITION TO THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE
"We at Oceti Sakowin Camp welcome any and all support from our Union brothers and sisters. This camp stands to protect our sacred water and support a new energy paradigm, jobs and work in green energy fields. We welcome your support in any ways you feel appropriate, join us in paving a new road to a sustainable future for many future generations." --Message from Standing Rock Council to Labor for Standing Rock, 10/13/26.
In response to calls from Standing Rock, please join a coordinated labor mobilization on the weekend of October 29-30!
Further information is below.
======
The First Nation’s courageous fight taking place against the Dakota Access Pipeline has ignited a world’s attention. This struggle has become most focused at the water protector’s camp located within the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. It contrasts an inherently dangerous project of the fossil fuel industry with the protection of the local and global environment, Native American sovereignty, and the necessity of a sustainable world.
For our sisters and brothers within the unions and the entire working class, the conflict becomes one of dangerous, fleeting employment that will inevitably destroy our planet, and the possibility of full employment to build safe energy and prosperity for all.
With this is mind we recognize that the recent resolution of the AFL-CIO leadership in support of the Dakota Access pipeline is inherently misguided, and in conflict with First Nations, our common environment, and the interests of people worldwide. In addition, the use of force against the people at Standing Rock mirrors the very attacks we have endured through our own history of building our unions.
At the same time, solidarity with Standing Rock has been voiced by growing number of labor bodies, including:
•Labor Coalition for Community Action (A. Phillip Randolph Institute, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, and Pride at Work)
To escalate this growing solidarity, we call on workers everywhere join us for actions on the weekend of October 29-30, 2016, including the following activities:
At Standing Rock:
• Assemble at Standing Rock camp for a labor procession and entrance Saturday, October 22, 10am
• Mid-day lunch gathering to share information on the status and location of pipeline work
• Afternoon actions (picket lines, flyering of pipeline workers etc.)
• Rally back to Standing Rock camp Saturday night for music, discussion, and cultural exchange
• Sunday, October 23 – Possible morning actions, people depart during the day to make it home for Monday work
Elsewhere:
• Post individual or group solidarity selfies of picket signs with labor affiliation, location, and common tagline: #LaborForStandingRock
• Hold local labor solidarity events
With the future of the environment, the rights of First Nations, and the health of the working class at stake, these subsequent actions will help regenerate a labor movement based on the vision of a just, sustainable, and prosperous world for all.
Come on out for the Leonard Peltier Art Show on Sunday, November 13 from 12 PM – 4:30 PM @ The Saxon Pub, 1320 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX.
Join us for art and music with all proceeds donated to the “Free Leonard Peltier Defense Fund!” Come see original artwork by Leonard Peltier and other art donated by local artists.
Featuring Music From:
Walt Wilkins
Johnny Nicholas
Scott H. Biram
and other guests.
SILENT AUCTION from 12:00 – 5:00 PM
Items include a “Texas Guitar” signed by Willie Nelson and much more.
Hosted By:
Connie Nelson
Karianne Boushee (Leonard’s niece)
Chelsea Manning ends 5 day hunger strike after Army agrees to medical treatment
Chelsea Manning ended her hunger strike today (Sept 13) after the Army finally agreed to treatment for her gender dysphoria.
"This is all that I wanted – for them to let me be me,” said Chelsea Manning.
“But it is hard not to wonder why it has taken so long and why such drastic measures were needed in order to get this help that was recommended.”
Chelsea was shown a memo today stating she will receive gender-reassignment surgery under the DoD’s new policy affecting transgender service members.
If this occurs, Manning will be the first trans prisoner in the US to receive this treatment, setting a precedent that could benefit thousands of transgender inmates.
“This medical care is absolutely vital for Chelsea. It was the government’s refusal to provide her with necessary care that led her to attempt suicide earlier this year,” said Chase Strangio, Chelsea’s attorney at the ACLU, “and it was all the more troubling when she became subject to an investigation and possible punishment in connection with the suicide attempt.
We hope that the government recognizes that charging Chelsea with the crime of being denied essential health care is outrageous and drops those charges.” Read more here
Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Stipe protest inhumane charges against Chelsea
After years of inhumane treatment from the Army, Chelsea Manning attempted to take her life on July 5th, 2016.
Daniel Ellsberg: “I stand with Chelsea Manning. I hope you will too.” Michael Stipe: “I support human rights for all people. As an American patriot it is my duty to stand with Chelsea Manning... This is unjustifiable. It is unfair, and it needs to be stopped.” Read more and watch the videos
Chelsea will face a disciplinary board later this month, and could very likely be charged for her own suicide attempt.
Chelsea can continue to be a powerful voice for reform, but we need your help to make that happen. Help us support Chelsea in prison, maximize her voice in the media, continue public education, fund her legal appeals team, and build a powerful movement for presidential pardon.
Today is the 406th day that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
languishes in prison doing felony time for a misdemeanor crime he did not
commit. Today is also the day that Robert McKay, a spokesperson for the
Free Rev. Pinkney campaign, gave testimony before United Nations
representatives about the plight of Rev. Pinkney at a hearing held in
Chicago. The hearing was called in order to shed light upon the
mistreatment of African-Americans in the United States and put it on an
international stage. And yet as the UN representatives and audience heard
of the injustices in the Pinkney case many gasped in disbelief and asked
with frowns on their faces, "how is this possible?" But disbelief quickly
disappeared when everyone realized these were the same feelings they had
when they first heard of Flint and we all know what happened in Flint. FREE
REV. PINKNEY NOW.
Please send letters to:
Marquette Branch Prison
Rev. Edward Pinkney N-E-93 #294671
1960 US Hwy 41 South
Marquette, MI 49855
Please donate at http://bhbanco.org (Donate button) or send checks to BANCO:
c/o Dorothy Pinkney
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022
BACKGROUND:
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
State Seeks to Remove Innocent PA Lifer’s Attorney! Free Corey Walker!
The PA Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed legal action to remove Corey Walker’s attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, in November 2014. On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 the evidentiary hearing to terminate Wolkenstein as Corey Walker’s pro hac vice lawyer continues before Judge Lawrence Clark of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg, PA.
Walker, assisted by Wolkenstein, filed three sets of legal papers over five months in 2014 with new evidence of Walker’s innocence and that the prosecution and police deliberately used false evidence to convict him of murder. Two weeks after Wolkenstein was granted pro hac vice status, the OAG moved against her and Walker.
The OAG claims that Wolkenstein’s political views and prior legal representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal and courtroom arrest by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo makes it “intolerable” for her to represent Corey Walker in the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Over the past fifteen months the OAG has effectively stopped any judicial action on the legal challenges of Corey Walker and his former co-defendant, Lorenzo Johnson against their convictions and sentences to life imprisonment without parole while it proceeds in its attempts to remove Wolkenstein.
This is retaliation against Corey Walker who is innocent and framed. Walker and his attorney won’t stop until they thoroughly expose the police corruption and deliberate presentation of false evidence to convict Corey Walker and win his freedom.
This outrageous attack on Corey Walker’s fundamental right to his lawyer of choice and challenge his conviction must cease. The evidence of his innocence and deliberate prosecutorial frame up was suppressed for almost twenty years. Corey Walker must be freed!
Read: Jim Crow Justice – The Frame-up Of Corey Walker by Charles Brover
Go to FreeCoreyWalker.org to provide help and get more information.
Judge Robert Mariani of the U.S. District Court has issued an order in Mumia’s case, granting Mumia’s lawyers Bret Grote and Robert Boyle’s motion to supplement the record.
New medical records documenting Mumia’s deteriorated condition from February and March, will be presented June 6th. Judge Mariani has also instructed the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to provide any updates and changes in DOC hep C treatment and policies which affect the plaintiff’s treatment.
Calling into Prison Radio, Mumia noted:
“My friends, my brothers, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over, but there is some motion. It means that we’re moving closer to hopefully some real treatment not of my symptoms, but of my disease. I thank you all for being there. And freedom is a constant struggle. I love you all. From what used to be death row, this is Mumia, your brother.”
Mumia remains quite ill. While stable, his curable hepatitis C is still active and progressive. The only treatment Mumia has received over the last 14 months to this day is skin ointment and photo therapy. He has not received the medically indicated treatment for hep C, the very condition that put him in the Intensive Care Unit in March 2015.
Hepatitis C is a progressive disease that attacks Mumia’s organs, skin and liver. Unless the court orders the new hepatitis C treatment - one pill a day for 12 weeks, with a 95% cure rate - Mumia's health will remain at serious risk. Before the court is the preliminary injunction motion, which demands immediate medical care.
The exhaustion of administrative remedy and the procedural hurdles make it extremely difficult for people in prison to actually get their grievances heard through the review process. The Prison Litigation Reform Act was passed specifically to create these very almost insurmountable barriers to access to the courts.
In Abu-Jamal vs. Kerestes, one very telling point was when the DOC's Director of Medical Care, Dr. Paul Noel, took the stand. He said that he had never testified before in court! He has worked for the DOC for over a decade.
That meant that no prisoner had access to adversarial cross examination. Before Mumia’s day in court in late December 2015, no prisoner ever had the opportunity to expose the PA DOC’s blatant lies. Lies so bold that Dr. Noel disavowed his own signed affidavit, and in court he stated that he “did not sign it and it was false and misleading”. The knowingly false and fabricated document was put in the record by Laura Neal, Senior DOC attorney.
Take Action for Mumia
Call prison officials to demand immediate treatment!
Dr. Paul Noel-Director of Medical Care, DOC 717-728-5309 x 5312
John Wetzel- Secretary of DOC 717+728-2573 x 4109
Dr. Carl Keldie-Chief Medical Officer, Correct Care Solutions 800-592-2974 x 5783
Theresa DelBalso-Superintendent, SCI Mahanoy 570-773-2158 x 8101
Thank you for keeping Mumia in your heart and mind,
Noelle Hanrahan
Director, PrisonRadio
SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, AND FREE QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL:
The Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), demands an end to the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The Oasis Clinic’s demand is:
PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
WE DEMAND:
PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
IMMEDIATE AND FREE TREATMENT FOR ALL HCV-INFECTED PRISONERS!
NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!
JAIL DRUG PROFITEERS, FREE MUMIA!
This message from:
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • www.laboractionmumia.org
06 January 2016
Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) was moved by bus from USP Canaan in Waymart, PA. to USP Tucson, Arizona. His mailing address is: USP Tucson United States Penitentiary P.O. Box Tucson, AZ. 85734 (BOP number 99974555)
Sign the Petition:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE Bureau of Prisons, The Governor of Georgia
We are aware of a review being launched of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted and or deserve a new trail because of flawed forensic evidence and or wrongly reported evidence. It was stated in the Washington Post in April of 2012 that Justice Department Officials had known for years that flawed forensic work led to convictions of innocent people. We seek to have included in the review of such cases that of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. We understand that all cases reviewed will include the Innocence Project. We look forward to your immediate attention to these overdue wrongs.
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524
For over 31 years, Major Tillery has been a prisoner of the State.
Despite that extraordinary fact, he continues his battles, both in the prison for his health, and in the courts for his freedom.
Several weeks ago, Tillery filed a direct challenge to his criminal conviction, by arguing that a so-called "secret witness" was, in fact, a paid police informant who was given a get-out-of-jail-free card if he testified against Tillery.
Remember I mentioned, "paid?"
Well, yes--the witness was 'paid'--but not in dollars. He was paid in sex!
In the spring of 1984, Robert Mickens was facing decades in prison on rape and robbery charges. After he testified against Tillery, however, his 25-year sentence became 5 years: probation!
And before he testified he was given an hour and a ½ private visit with his girlfriend--at the Homicide Squad room at the Police Roundhouse. (Another such witness was given another sweetheart deal--lie on Major, and get off!)
To a prisoner, some things are more important than money. Like sex!
In a verified document written in April, 2016, Mickens declares that he lied at trial, after being coached by the DAs and detectives on the case.
He lied to get out of jail--and because he could get with his girl.
Other men have done more for less.
Major's 58-page Petition is a time machine back into a practice that was once common in Philadelphia.
In the 1980s and '90s, the Police Roundhouse had become a whorehouse.
Major, now facing serious health challenges from his hepatitis C infection, stubborn skin rashes, and dangerous intestinal disorders, is still battling.
Major Tillery is an innocent man. There was no evidence against Major Tillery for the 1976 poolroom shootings that left one man dead and another wounded. The surviving victim gave a statement to homicide detectives naming others—not Tillery or his co-defendant—as the shooters. Major wasn’t charged until 1980, he was tried in 1985.
The only evidence at trial came from these jailhouse informants who were given sexual favors and plea deals for dozens of pending felonies for lying against Major Tillery. Both witnesses now declare their testimony was manufactured by the police and prosecution. Neither witness had personal knowledge of the shooting.
This is a case of prosecutorial misconduct and police corruption that goes to the deepest levels of rot in the Philadelphia criminal injustice system. Major Tillery deserves not just a new trial, but dismissal of the charges against him and his freedom from prison.
It cost a lot of money for Major Tillery to be able to file his new pro se PCRA petition and continue investigation to get more evidence of the state misconduct. He needs help to get lawyers to make sure this case is not ignored. Please contribute, now.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Financial Support: Tillery's investigation is ongoing, to get this case filed has been costly and he needs funds for a legal team to fight this to his freedom!
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
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
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
Show your support for Lorenzo by wearing one of our beautiful new campaign t-shirts! If you donate $20 (or more!) to the Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson, we will send you a t-shirt, while supplies last. Make sure to note your size and shipping address in the comment section on PayPal, or to include this information with a check.
Here is a message from Lorenzo's wife, Tazza Salvatto:
My husband is innocent, FREE HIM NOW!
Lorenzo Johnson is a son, husband, father and brother. His injustice has been a continued nightmare for our family. Words cant explain our constant pain, I wish it on no one. Not even the people responsible for his injustice.
This is about an innocent man who has spent 20 years and counting in prison. The sad thing is Lorenzo's prosecution knew he was innocent from day one. These are the same people society relies on to protect us.
Not only have these prosecutors withheld evidence of my husbands innocence by NEVER turning over crucial evidence to his defense prior to trial. Now that Lorenzo's innocence has been revealed, the prosecution refuses to do the right thing. Instead they are "slow walking" his appeal and continuing their malicious prosecution.
When my husband or our family speak out about his injustice, he's labeled by his prosecutor as defaming a career cop and prosecutor. If they are responsible for Lorenzo's wrongful conviction, why keep it a secret??? This type of corruption and bullying of families of innocent prisoners to remain silent will not be tolerated.
Our family is not looking for any form of leniency. Lorenzo is innocent, we want what is owed to him. JUSTICE AND HIS IMMEDIATE FREEDOM!!!
1) Minneapolis Police Officers Will Not Be Disciplined for Fatal Shooting By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/us/minneapolis-police-jamar-clark.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
MINNEAPOLIS — Two Minneapolis police officers followed proper procedure in a confrontation that led to the fatal shooting of a black man nearly a year ago and will not be disciplined, the police chief announced Friday.
Mr. Clark was shot in the head on Nov. 15 in a confrontation with the officers, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, on the city’s north side. The death set off protests that lasted several weeks, including an 18-day encampment around the area’s police precinct.
A local prosecutor and the United States attorney have declined to charge the officers, who are both white, in Mr. Clark’s death, citing conflicting testimony from witnesses.
“These officers did not dictate the outcome of this incident,” Chief Harteau said. “I can say with absolute certainty that I support the actions of Officers Ringgenberg and Schwarze the night of Nov. 15.”
Some witnesses told the police that Mr. Clark was handcuffed at the time of the shooting. But an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension found that the officers had tried and failed to cuff Mr. Clark, and he was shot in the ensuing confrontation after one of the officers shouted that Mr. Clark had his hand on the officer’s gun.
Investigators said Officer Ringgenberg wrestled Mr. Clark to the ground but wound up on his back on top of him and felt Mr. Clark’s hand on his weapon. Officer Schwarze then shot Mr. Clark in an encounter that lasted barely a minute.
A separate Justice Department inquiry is underway into the city’s response to the protests. Demonstrations were largely peaceful, but one on Nov. 18 included skirmishes between officers and protesters that have resulted in at least one federal lawsuit.
The Justice Department has replaced the New York team of agents and lawyers investigating the death of Eric Garner, officials said, a highly unusual shake-up that could jump-start the long-stalled case and put the government back on track to seek criminal charges.
Mr. Garner, 43, died in 2014 on a Staten Island street corner, where two police officers confronted him and accused him of selling untaxed cigarettes. One of the officers, Daniel Pantaleo, was seen on a video using a chokehold, prohibited by the New York Police Department, to subdue him. Mr. Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry for protesters around the country.
Federal authorities have been investigating whether officers violated Mr. Garner’s civil rights in his fatal encounter with the police. But the case had been slowed by a dispute because federal prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials in New York opposed bringing charges, while prosecutors with the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department in Washington argued there was clear evidence to do so.
Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York oversaw the beginning of the federal inquiry before her appointment to Washington, has been considering for months how to proceed.
In recent weeks, the F.B.I. agents who have been investigating the case were replaced with agents from outside New York, according to five federal officials in New York and Washington. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are no longer assigned to the case. It is not clear whether civil rights prosecutors from Washington will work alone in presenting evidence to a grand jury in Brooklyn and in trying the case if charges are eventually brought.
The officials who described the reorganization did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Mr. Garner’s death, followed by the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and several other high-profile deadly police encounters across the country, prompted nationwide protests over how and when officers use force, particularly against black men. Though the Justice Department has required police departments to stop unconstitutional practices and retrain officers, it has rarely brought charges against individual officers in deadly encounters.
To do so in the Garner case, prosecutors must persuade a grand jury that a crime occurred. Normally, that is all but guaranteed and an indictment follows. But Officer Pantaleo’s testimony helped persuade a state grand jury on Staten Island not to bring charges in December 2014. Any decision on charges in the federal case is probably months away, officials said.
The Justice Department and the F.B.I. did not comment.
Stuart London, a lawyer for Officer Pantaleo, said that he had maintained he never violated anyone’s civil rights. “This was always a simple street encounter where Officer Pantaleo utilized his N.Y.P.D. training to subdue an individual,” Mr. London said.
He added: “If it is true that the Justice Department is rejecting the recommendations of seasoned F.B.I. agents and assistant United States attorneys, this is a gross miscarriage of justice. In our system of justice, politics should never take the place of the rule of law.”
Officer Pantaleo was stripped of his badge and gun two days after Mr. Garner’s death, and he has remained on desk duty. But as is typical in such cases, departmental hearings that could lead to his dismissal have been delayed during the criminal investigations.
For Mayor Bill de Blasio, the slow pace of the investigation has allowed the Garner case to linger, a reminder of a flash point during his tenure and a sign of his struggle to balance his pledge to champion criminal justice reform with the practical realities of overseeing the country’s largest local police force.
The changes by federal officials, while reigniting the investigation, also signal a difficult road ahead. Prosecuting police officers is difficult even when investigators agree about the strength of the case. In the Garner case, the Justice Department is moving forward knowing that a team of agents and prosecutors believes the case should not be brought. If it goes to trial, defense lawyers would probably try to exploit that division and use it to sow doubt. They could even try to call F.B.I. agents who were taken off the case as defense witnesses, officials said.
Another complicating factor, according to three federal officials, is that the disagreement between Washington and New York is reflected in the F.B.I. reports, which often become evidence at trial.
These disputes have significantly slowed the investigation. Since Mr. Garner’s death, the Justice Department has opened and completed investigations into fatal police encounters in Ferguson; north Minneapolis; North Charleston, S.C.; and Cleveland. Each was closed except the North Charleston case, which led to federal charges against the officer for shooting an unarmed man in the back as he fled.
The Garner case, though, has dragged on. Two years ago, when Eric H. Holder Jr. was attorney general, he told colleagues that the evidence made clear that the Justice Department should bring charges, according to a former department official. Prosecutors might lose, he said, but the government had to bring the case. Career civil rights prosecutors agreed.
Prosecutors in New York, though, strongly disagreed with that analysis. The dispute hinged on whether Officer Pantaleo intended to violate Mr. Garner’s civil rights. Officer Pantaleo has said he did not mean to put Mr. Garner in a chokehold. The officer said he tried to use a maneuver that involved hooking an arm underneath one of Mr. Garner’s arms while wrapping the other around his torso. During the struggle, Officer Pantaleo said he feared he would be pushed through a storefront window behind him.
Prosecutors and F.B.I. agents in New York argued that video captured by a bystander supported Officer Pantaleo’s account. Civil rights prosecutors in Washington disagreed, saying it showed evidence of willful wrongdoing.
Attorney General Lynch came into office last year in the middle of that dispute. She has a reputation for being deferential to prosecutors in the field rather than dictating from Washington. But she has also heavily relied on the advice of her civil rights prosecutors, who are more removed from the local police departments that they investigate.
3) Nearly as Many Migrants Died in the Mediterranean This Year as in All of 2015 By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
GENEVA — Deaths among migrants crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe are poised to overtake the fatalities last year despite a sharp fall in the number making the journey, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
At least 3,740 people had died by the start of this week trying the perilous crossing, compared with 3,771 in the whole of 2015, William Spindler, a spokesman for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, told journalists in Geneva. An overwhelming majority, nearly nine in 10, died on the trip from Libya to Italy.
“This is by far the worst we have ever seen,” Mr. Spindler said.
So far this year, 327,800 people have crossed the Mediterranean, about one-half the number who crossed last year. On that basis, the death rate could be said to have doubled, he added.
The sharp rise in fatalities resulted at least in part from changing tactics used by smugglers, who have increasingly resorted to mass embarkations loading thousands of people at a time and using less seaworthy boats, including inflatable rubber rafts that do not last the crossing.
“Smuggling has become big business: It’s being done on an almost industrial scale,” Mr. Spindler told reporters. The mass embarkation tactic appeared intended to raise profits and reduce the risk of detection, he said.
Around 153,450 migrants have arrived in Italy this year from North Africa, and at least 3,195 people have died on this route, according to the International Organization for Migration, accounting for close to 90 percent of all the migrant deaths in Mediterranean recorded this year.
Among the latest casualties were four migrants who reportedly drowned after a speedboat identified as belonging to the Libyan Coast Guard attacked a rubber dinghy packed with around 150 people on Friday, collapsing one of the dinghy’s inflated tubes and causing most of the passengers to fall into the sea.
Sea-Watch, a rescue organization based in Germany, said that the speedboat was labeled Libyan Coast Guard and that it retrieved four bodies and rescued around 120 people. The Libyan Coast Guard has denied any involvement in the incident.
Mass embarkations are straining the capacity of rescue services to cope. The Italian Navy and Coast Guard rescued more than 6,000 migrants in a single day early this month and on Monday pulled 2,200 more to safety in the course of 21 rescue operations.
Most migrants arriving in Italy are fleeing conflict or hardship in Nigeria, Eritrea and other African countries, and they are so desperate to get away that they expect to be turned back and to have to make several tries to get across the Mediterranean, said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.
Underscoring once again the dangers of America's unreliable fossil fuel infrastructure, a significant U.S. oil pipeline has been shut down after a leak was reported Monday morning.
Enterprise Products Partners said Monday it had shut its Seaway Crude Pipeline, a 400,000-barrel per day conduit that transports crude oil from Cushing, Oklahoma to Gulf coast refineries. The leak occurred Sunday night in an industrial area of Cushing. The company did not provide an estimate of the volume spilled, but said there was no danger to the public.
"Seaway personnel continue to make progress in cleaning up the spill, substantially all of which has been contained in a retention pond at Enbridge's facility," the company said in a news release (pdf), explaining that the pipeline is a "50/50 joint venture" between Enterprise and Enbridge Inc. "Vacuum trucks are being used to recover the crude oil and return it to storage tanks on-site."
"The impacted segment of the legacy pipeline has a capacity of 50,000 barrels," the release added, "however the actual amount of crude oil released will be significantly less and won't be determined until recovery efforts are complete."
The incident comes after another pipeline rupture in Pennsylvania early on Friday, where 55,000 gallons of gasoline poured into the Susquehanna River, and about one month after a major gasoline pipeline run by Colonial Pipeline Co. had to halt pumping for a couple of weeks due to a spill in Alabama.
Meanwhile, UPI reports that "[t]he release from the Seaway pipeline is the secondassociated with the Cushing storage hub in less than a month. Plains All American Pipeline reported problems with infrastructure from Colorado City [Texas] to Cushing earlier this month."
Environmentalists, Indigenous people, and energy companies are in the midst of a heated debate over pipeline safety. Water protectors and their allies along the proposed route of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) have been saying for months that the project threatens their right to safe drinking water.
"Oil pipelines break, spill, and leak—it's not a question of if, it's a question of where and when," 13-year-old Anna Lee Rain YellowHammer, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, wrote in a recent appeal.
"With such a high chance that this pipeline will leak," she wrote of the Enbridge-backed DAPL, "I can only guess that the oil industry keeps pushing for it because it doesn't care about our health and safety. The industry seems to think our lives are more expendable than others'."
Indeed, referring to the Cushing leak, one observer tweeted on Monday: "That's why we're screaming #NoDAPL! They always break!"
More than two years after police officers fatally attacked Eric Garner on a Staten Island sidewalk, the federal criminal investigation is finally moving forward again.
At least it looks that way. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has taken her New York-based lawyers and investigators off the case and replaced them with a team from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, based in Washington. According to The Times, the investigation had been stalled by an internal disagreement over whether to charge the officers — including Daniel Pantaleo, who used a banned chokehold to take down Mr. Garner, an unarmed black man — with violating Mr. Garner’s civil rights. Federal prosecutors and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials in New York, the article said, opposed bringing charges, while prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division thought there was enough evidence to proceed.
Ms. Lynch’s decision was immediately attacked from opposite directions, showing what a muddle the case has become. The head of the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, Patrick Lynch, accused her of trying to take a “third bite at the apple” after two investigations had failed to reach what he called a “predetermined outcome” implicating Officer Pantaleo. Other critics accused the Justice Department of continuing to drag its feet by not holding officers accountable.
A simpler, less cynical conclusion is that there is an honest disagreement among the lawyers and investigators and that Ms. Lynch chose the best way forward. It’s messy, but it was unavoidable, given the impasse.
Now it’s the Civil Rights Division’s job to settle, as swiftly as reasonably possible, a case that appalled the country two years ago and has had a perplexing and frustrating aftermath. A grand jury on Staten Island did not return an indictment, which was widely seen as a failing of the borough’s district attorney, Daniel Donovan, who is now a congressman. Officer Pantaleo remains on the force.
It all seemed so horrifyingly obvious on the bystander video: Mr. Garner, with no weapon, throwing up his arms. The police officers tackling him, with Officer Pantaleo grabbing Mr. Garner by the neck and shoving his face into the concrete. The dying man saying, over and over, “I can’t breathe.”
Did Officer Pantaleo willfully violate Mr. Garner’s civil rights, or was this an unfortunate mistake by a decent cop who did not want to crash through a store window? Are the officers implicated by their fatally misguided actions in piling their weight on Mr. Garner, pressing his chest into the sidewalk, with hands behind his back — which any trained officer should have known could kill him? Or by ignoring Mr. Garner’s dying gasps?
Nothing is likely to be settled for months, and justice is running behind.
6) Bundy Brothers Acquitted in Takeover of Oregon Wildlife Refuge By COURTNEY SHERWOOD and KIRK JOHNSON
PORTLAND, Ore. — Armed antigovernment protesters led by Ammon and Ryan Bundy were acquitted Thursday of federal conspiracy and weapons charges stemming from the takeover of a federally owned wildlife sanctuary in Oregon last winter.
The surprise acquittals of all seven defendants in Federal District Court were a blow to government prosecutors, who had argued that the Bundys and five of their followers used force and threats of violence to occupy the reserve. But the jury appeared swayed by the defendants’ contention that they were protesting government overreach and posed no threat to the public.
In a sign of the tension that ran through the trial, Ammon Bundy’s lawyer, Marcus R. Mumford, frustrated that the Bundys were not being released, was restrained by four United States marshals after an outburst.
“I knew that what my husband was doing was right, but I was nervous because the judge was controlling the narrative,” said Ryan Bundy’s wife, Angela Bundy, 39, in a telephone interview from the family ranch in Bunkerville, Nev. “But they saw the truth. I am just so grateful they saw it.”
It was not immediately clear how the not-guilty verdicts would affect the government’s strategy in another case stemming from the Oregon occupation, or a trial in Nevada that the Bundy brothers and their father, Cliven Bundy, face for an armed standoff there.
The Oregon occupation, at a remote and frigid reserve in the southeastern part of the state, was rooted in antigovernment fervor and captured the nation’s attention. It had a Wild West quality, with armed men in cowboy hats taking on federal agents in a tussle over public lands and putting out a call for aid, only to see their insurrection fizzle.
In a monthlong trial here, the defendants never denied that they had occupied and held the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters for nearly six weeks, demanding that the federal government surrender the 188,000-acre property to local control. But their lawyers argued that prosecutors did not prove that the group had engaged in an illegal conspiracy that kept federal workers — employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management — from doing their jobs.
Eleven people had already pleaded guilty. One participant, LaVoy Finicum, was killed by the authorities during the standoff.
Ethan D. Knight, an assistant United States attorney, argued that the case was simple: Ammon Bundy had been selective in deciding which laws applied to him and had led an armed seizure of property that did not belong to him.
Mr. Mumford said acquitting Mr. Bundy would be a victory for all Americans. “They’re deceiving you,” Mr. Mumford said, gesturing to the prosecutors. “It’s the government that picks and chooses the rules it’s going to comply with.”
Ammon Bundy, 41, a business owner, testified for three days in his defense. He argued that the takeover was spontaneous and informed by religious belief. But prosecutors, through witnesses and their final arguments, said the group had used the threat of force and violence, crystallized by Mr. Bundy’s call for followers across the nation to come to the refuge with guns.
All seven defendants in the case were charged with conspiracy to impede federal employees from discharging their duties, and they also faced federal weapons charges and could have been given long prison sentences. The unanimous acquittals covered all the charges but one, a theft of government property charge against Ryan Bundy for removing cameras mounted at the refuge, with no verdict rendered on it.
In a statement, Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, said she was disappointed.
“The occupation of the Malheur Reserve did not reflect the Oregon way of respectfully working together to resolve differences,” the governor said.
After asking each of the defendants to rise, Judge Anna J. Brown read off the string of not-guilty verdicts. “It has been a long road,” she told the jury afterward.
Ammon Bundy’s lawyer, Mr. Mumford, then requested that the Bundy brothers be immediately released. Judge Brown denied the request and said that because of pending charges in Nevada, the brothers would remain in federal custody.
Mr. Mumford became agitated. “He is going to be released,” he said in a raised voice.
Judge Brown rebuked him. “Mr. Mumford, you really need to not yell at me, now or ever again,” she said.
As Mr. Mumford continued his protest, four court officers surrounded him, and in the ensuing scuffle, documents and other items on the defense table were knocked to the floor and Judge Brown ordered the courtroom cleared.
Shawna Cox, the only woman among the defendants, expressed fury at the treatment of Mr. Mumford. “I am happy to be free,” she added.
Outside the courthouse, 75 to 100 people gathered after the verdict. One woman handed out American flags. Supporters of the protesters chanted: “Praise God. Praise God.”
One of the defendants, Neil Wampler, was congratulated by supporters. “On to the next one,” he said, alluding to the charges still pending against his fellow defendants.
Ammon Bundy, of Emmett, Idaho, and his brother Ryan, 43, of Cedar City, Utah, and their father were the poster images of the anger over federal control of vast stretches of Western lands. And the armed protesters — later co-defendants — who joined the brothers in their occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge all had similar longstanding distrust of the government.
Mr. Wampler, of Los Osos, Calif., described himself as a 68-year-old hippie, and Kenneth Mendehbach, of Crescent, Ore., a woodworker by profession, boasted of spending at least two decades protesting federal power. Jeff Banta of Yerington, Nev., was one of the last holdouts at the refuge. At 27, David Lee Fry left a job at his parents’ dental practice in Blanchester, Ohio, to join the protest. Ms. Cox has a history of protesting federal involvement on Western lands and is a friend of the Bundys.
In closing arguments last week, the defense lawyers in the case and Ryan Bundy, who represented himself, passionately argued that the government had not made its case. They argued that the presence of paid government informants at the refuge during the occupation muddied the waters and created reasonable doubt about how the decisions of the defendants were made.
“The government was not here to find the truth,” Robert L. Salisbury, Mr. Banta’s lawyer, told the jury before deliberations began. “This case is about people wanting to be heard, and they’re just frustrated with our government.”
7) Philippine Mayor Accused of Drug Links by Duterte Is Killed by Police By FELIPE VILLAMOR and RICHARD C. PADDOCK
MANILA — After President Rodrigo Duterte publicly named him as a drug suspect last summer, the mayor of a small Philippine town said he was not worried.
“If you are not guilty, why should you be afraid?” the mayor, Samsudin Dimaukom, told The New York Times in August.
On Friday, he and nine other men were shot dead at a highway police checkpoint, in what the police described as an antidrug operation.
Mr. Dimaukom and his companions are among about 2,000 people who have been killed in Mr. Duterte’s campaign against drugs since he took office on June 30.
The bloody campaign has been criticized by foreign governments, including the United States, as well as by the United Nations and international human rights groups. But it has proved very popular in the Philippines, where residents say the killing of crime suspects has made the streets safer.
According to the police, Mr. Dimaukom, the mayor of Datu Saudi-Ampatuan, a town of about 20,000 on the restive southern island of Mindanao, was killed after his guards opened fire on officers.
Chief Inspector Elias Colonia, a spokesman for the local police, said the authorities had information that Mr. Dimaukom and his group were transporting a shipment of shabu, a cheap form of methamphetamine widely sold in the Philippines.
According to the police, a checkpoint was set up along his expected route in the town of Makilala, about 70 miles east of Datu Saudi-Ampatuan by road. The mayor and his party approached around 4 a.m., Mr. Colonia said.
“The suspects were heavily armed and fired upon the law enforcers, which prompted them to fire back,” according to a police report. “As a result, 10 malefactors were wounded and brought to a hospital for treatment but were declared dead upon arrival.”
Photographs taken at the scene showed various weapons and what appeared to be sachets of shabu near an S.U.V. with bullet holes in the front windshield.
No police officers were harmed, the police said.
Most of those killed in the antidrug campaign to date have been poor and on the margins of society. Suspected of using or selling methamphetamine, they were shot by the police, ostensibly after they resisted arrest.
But in August, Mr. Duterte identified a number of officials he said were involved in the illegal drug trade, including judges, police officers, military officials, mayors and members of Congress, and threatened to go after them. That group included Mr. Dimaukom.
On Thursday Mr. Duterte said his campaign had entered a new phase and would now target such officials.
Contending that “narcopolitics” had taken hold in the country, he said that he had compiled the names of 5,000 village leaders and 6,000 police officers involved in the narcotics business.
“This list of names, this is it,” he said, waving a thick sheaf of papers.“This is the drug industry in the Philippines.”
In what appeared to be a threat to kill everyone on his list, he added, “The human rights people will commit suicide, if I finish these all.”
Mr. Duterte has not made the full list public, and critics have assailed his approach as McCarthyism, raising questions about how the names were compiled and why charges were not filed instead.
It was not clear whether the police checkpoint that ensnared Mr. Dimaukom was part of the campaign’s new phase.
In August, when Mr. Dimaukom heard his name announced on national television as a drug suspect, he said he was shocked.
“We were really surprised when the president came out to announce it,” he told The Times by email. “Not once were we involved in drugs. In fact, we were fighting drugs. I support the president’s drug war.”
He said he had been wrongly placed on the list of drug suspects because of false accusations spread by his political rivals. He said he was not afraid of an investigation.
“First, our defense is the truth,” he said. “If you are not guilty, why should you be afraid?”
Mr. Duterte had ordered those he named to turn themselves in within 24 hours or be hunted down.
Taking no chances, Mr. Dimaukom reported to the local police hours later. In an abundance of caution, he flew to Manila to meet with top police officials the next morning and said he would cooperate with any investigation.
He said that people in his town knew that he was not involved in the drug trade and that they welcomed him back on his return from Manila. As a backer of the antidrug campaign, he said, he had called for mandatory drug testing of all town employees.
“I am prepared for a lifestyle check, or a drug test or any other investigation that we will be subjected to,” he said then.
But he objected to the name-and-shame approach.
“The first thing affected here is my immediate family,” he said. “It is very painful to be unfairly judged.”
8) Over 100 Held in Crackdown on Pipeline Protesters in North Dakota By SUE SKALICKY and MONICA DAVEY
CANNON BALL, N.D. — In a conflict that has been building for months over the fate of a pipeline through this region, tensions boiled over into skirmishes late Thursday night between law enforcement officials and protesters near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation after officers moved to sweep protesters off private land here.
Scores of officers dressed in riot gear walked in a wide line, forcing protesters out of an area they had been camping in, as face-to-face yelling matches broke out. Several vehicles, including what appeared to be a private security guard’s truck, were set ablaze. A standoff unfolded beside a bridge, where protesters set fire to wooden boards and signs, and held off the line of officers.
By Friday morning, officers said they had arrested at least 141 protesters on charges including engaging in a riot and conspiracy to endanger by fire and explosion. Both sides complained about violent tactics by the other one: Protesters said officials had used pepper spray on them, and officers said that protesters had attacked them with fire bombs, logs and other debris. One woman who was being arrested, the authorities said, had pulled a gun out and fired at a police line.
The confrontation has been brewing for months, as Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, rushes to finish its construction by January. Native Americans and environmental activists, many of whom have gathered here, say the $3.7 billion pipeline threatens the region’s water supply and would harm sacred cultural lands.
Kyle Kirchmeier, the Morton County sheriff, said that protesters had been asked to move away from a campsite they had created on private land and into several roadways, but had refused. “It forced our hand,” the sheriff said. By Thursday morning, he said, the authorities had given up on negotiations with the protesters and moved in to clear the area, where, he said, more than 200 people were gathered. The authorities, some of whom arrived in military-style vehicles, demanded over loudspeakers that people move on, before moving in, going tent to tent.
Protesters were not being asked to leave a second, larger camp that they have set up on federal land, a few miles away. The authorities said that those who were swept off the private land would be permitted to stay in the second camp, where many more protesters have gathered.
But tribal leaders said the land in question is rightly tribal land, and called federal authorities to step in and oversee the actions of local law enforcement authorities — particularly given Thursday’s sweep. “We need our state and federal governments to bring justice and peace to our lands, not the force of armored vehicles,” said Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. “We have repeatedly seen a disproportionate response from law enforcement to water protectors’ nonviolent exercise of their constitutional rights.”
9) After Oregon Verdict, Arguments About the Role of Race By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Reaction to a jury’s acquittal Thursday night of armed antigovernment protesters who took over an Oregon wildlife sanctuary last winter was swift, loud and divided.
People outraged by the verdict took to social media to argue that nonwhite defendants would not have been given such benefit of the doubt, contrasting the acquittal to the way law enforcement and the legal system have treated black people, and to Thursday’s arrests of 141 people in North Dakota, many of them from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, who had been blocking a pipeline project.
“Apparently it’s legal in America for heavily armed white terrorists to invade Oregon,” Montel Williams, the former talk show host, wrote on Twitter. “Imagine if some black folk did this.”
David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, released a statement saying, “Wild lands belong to all of us, not the people who hold them at gunpoint.”
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Readers on the Facebook page of The Oregonianresponded to the verdict.Creditvia Facebook
Equally vehement, if less widespread, comments came from the occupiers’ defenders, who described them as patriots battling a government that improperly controls vast stretches of the West.
Ammon Bundy, the leader of the occupiers, wrote on Twitter: “The people have to insist that the government is not our master. They are our servants.”
The surprise acquittals of all seven defendants in Federal District Court was a blow to government prosecutors, who had argued that Mr. Bundy, his brother Ryan, and five of their followers had used force and threats of violence to occupy the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. But the jury appeared swayed by the defendants’ contention that they were protesting government overreach and posed no threat to the public.
The National Guard and State police raided the camp in North Dakota where Standing Rock Sioux and supporters are valiantly standing up against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Big oil and state agencies are acting without respect for human rights and the environment. In this moment it is imperative that we rise up in solidarity and make our voices heard. You can help out by coming to an emergency rally at noon today in San Francisco & by taking some of the actions listed below.
1) Please come out to an emergency rally at noon today. You will hear from speakers who have been to Standing Rock and about important next steps.
Chelsea Manning ended her hunger strike today (Sept 13) after the Army finally agreed to treatment for her gender dysphoria.
"This is all that I wanted – for them to let me be me,” said Chelsea Manning.
“But it is hard not to wonder why it has taken so long and why such drastic measures were needed in order to get this help that was recommended.”
Chelsea was shown a memo today stating she will receive gender-reassignment surgery under the DoD’s new policy affecting transgender service members.
If this occurs, Manning will be the first trans prisoner in the US to receive this treatment, setting a precedent that could benefit thousands of transgender inmates.
“This medical care is absolutely vital for Chelsea. It was the government’s refusal to provide her with necessary care that led her to attempt suicide earlier this year,” said Chase Strangio, Chelsea’s attorney at the ACLU, “and it was all the more troubling when she became subject to an investigation and possible punishment in connection with the suicide attempt.
We hope that the government recognizes that charging Chelsea with the crime of being denied essential health care is outrageous and drops those charges.” Read more here
After years of inhumane treatment from the Army, Chelsea Manning attempted to take her life on July 5th, 2016.
Although happy to be alive, Chelsea is now facing disciplinary charges from the Army related to her own suicide attempt.
If convicted of these absurd “administrative offenses”, Chelsea could face indefinite solitary confinement for the rest of her prison term (30 years).
Daniel Ellsberg: “I stand with Chelsea Manning. I hope you will too.”
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.
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