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Hi everyone,
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/?
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.
Thanks for reading!
~ Liberated Lens ~
Sources:
1. Ratner, Lizzy. "Amy Goodman Is Facing Jailtime For Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline. That Should Scare Us All." The Nation, Oct. 15th 2016. Accessed Oct. 17th 2016.
2. Funes, Yessenia. "Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman For Covering DAPL." Colorlines, Oct. 17th 2016. Accessed Oct. 17th 2016.
3. Rickert, Levi. "Actress Shailene Woodley Among 27 Arrested for Trespassing Near DAPL" Native News Online, Oct. 12th 2016. Accessed Oct. 17th 2016.
4. Knight, Nika. "Filmmaker Faces 45 Years in Prison for Reporting on Dakota Access Protests" CommonDreams, Oct. 15th 2016. Accessed Oct. 17th 2016.
5. "Filmmaker Charged With 3 Felony Counts for Documenting Tar Sands Pipeline Protest" RT, Oct. 13th 2016. Accessed Oct. 17th 2016.
Copyright © 2016 Liberated Lens film collective, All rights reserved.
If you're receiving this, it's probably because you signed up for our announcement list at a film night or other Liberated Lens event. Thanks for your interest and support!
Our mailing address is:
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Innocent on Death Row:
A Conversation With Kevin Cooper
Wednesday, October 26, 5:00 P.M. - 6:30 P.M.
USF School of Law
Room KN 102, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117
Presented by the University of San Francisco School of Law Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Criminal Justice Society, and Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project
When: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 (5:00-6:30 pm) (Food will be Served)
Where: USF School of Law, Room KN 102, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117
* The event will be recorded and streamed/broadcast by KUSF at a later date so please be on time!
In 1985, Mr. Cooper was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of a family of four in Chino Hills, San Bernardino County, California. He has maintained his innocence ever since while litigating his case in state and federal court. In 2004, Mr. Cooper was granted a stay of execution, but hisfederal habeas corpus petition was denied in 2009.
Today, Mr. Cooper awaits a ruling on his pending petition for executive clemency from the Honorable Governor for the State of California, Jerry Brown. Mr. Cooper does so while the People of California consider competing initiatives, Propositions 62 and 66, to terminate or expedite the death penalty, respectively, and the State of California works on creating and implementing a functional lethal injection protocol. Mr. Cooper will provide insight into these and other issues while fielding questions from
attendees following a panel discussion about his case. It is Mr. Cooper’s hope that the program will help all attendees better understand what he means when he says: “If anyone honestly opens their eyes, hearts, minds and ears and truly sees, feels, learns and hears exactly what’s going on in this country today, they will get involved to make this country a much better place for everyone!”
---PANELISTS---
KEVIN COOPER. Mr. Cooper will participate from San Quentin via a telephone call to his attorney, Mr. Hile. NORMAN C. HILE, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. Mr. Hile is Senior Counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He has represented Mr. Cooper since 2004.
THOMAS PARKER, The Sentinel Group. Mr. Parker spent 45 years with the FBI as an agent, national investigator of violent crimes, and Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Regional Office. In 2011, Mr. Parker led the latest investigation of Mr. Cooper’s case. Mr. Parker is “absolutely convinced Kevin Cooper is innocent.”
CAROLE SELIGMAN, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee. Ms. Seligman is a retired elementary school teacher, member of the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the former office manager at Prison Radio.
Innocent on Death Row:
A Conversation With Kevin Cooper
Wednesday, October 26, 5:00 P.M. - 6:30 P.M.
USF School of Law
Room KN 102, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117
Presented by the University of San Francisco School of Law Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Criminal Justice Society, and Keta Taylor Colby Death Penalty Project
When: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 (5:00-6:30 pm) (Food will be Served)
Where: USF School of Law, Room KN 102, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117
* The event will be recorded and streamed/broadcast by KUSF at a later date so please be on time!
In 1985, Mr. Cooper was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of a family of four in Chino Hills, San Bernardino County, California. He has maintained his innocence ever since while litigating his case in state and federal court. In 2004, Mr. Cooper was granted a stay of execution, but hisfederal habeas corpus petition was denied in 2009.
Today, Mr. Cooper awaits a ruling on his pending petition for executive clemency from the Honorable Governor for the State of California, Jerry Brown. Mr. Cooper does so while the People of California consider competing initiatives, Propositions 62 and 66, to terminate or expedite the death penalty, respectively, and the State of California works on creating and implementing a functional lethal injection protocol. Mr. Cooper will provide insight into these and other issues while fielding questions from
attendees following a panel discussion about his case. It is Mr. Cooper’s hope that the program will help all attendees better understand what he means when he says: “If anyone honestly opens their eyes, hearts, minds and ears and truly sees, feels, learns and hears exactly what’s going on in this country today, they will get involved to make this country a much better place for everyone!”
---PANELISTS---
KEVIN COOPER. Mr. Cooper will participate from San Quentin via a telephone call to his attorney, Mr. Hile. NORMAN C. HILE, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. Mr. Hile is Senior Counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He has represented Mr. Cooper since 2004.
THOMAS PARKER, The Sentinel Group. Mr. Parker spent 45 years with the FBI as an agent, national investigator of violent crimes, and Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Regional Office. In 2011, Mr. Parker led the latest investigation of Mr. Cooper’s case. Mr. Parker is “absolutely convinced Kevin Cooper is innocent.”
CAROLE SELIGMAN, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee. Ms. Seligman is a retired elementary school teacher, member of the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the former office manager at Prison Radio.
When: Wednesday, October 26, 2016 (5:00-6:30 pm) (Food will be Served)
Where: USF School of Law, Room KN 102, 2130 Fulton St., San Francisco, CA 94117
* The event will be recorded and streamed/broadcast by KUSF at a later date so please be on time!
In 1985, Mr. Cooper was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders of a family of four in Chino Hills, San Bernardino County, California. He has maintained his innocence ever since while litigating his case in state and federal court. In 2004, Mr. Cooper was granted a stay of execution, but hisfederal habeas corpus petition was denied in 2009.
Today, Mr. Cooper awaits a ruling on his pending petition for executive clemency from the Honorable Governor for the State of California, Jerry Brown. Mr. Cooper does so while the People of California consider competing initiatives, Propositions 62 and 66, to terminate or expedite the death penalty, respectively, and the State of California works on creating and implementing a functional lethal injection protocol. Mr. Cooper will provide insight into these and other issues while fielding questions from
attendees following a panel discussion about his case. It is Mr. Cooper’s hope that the program will help all attendees better understand what he means when he says: “If anyone honestly opens their eyes, hearts, minds and ears and truly sees, feels, learns and hears exactly what’s going on in this country today, they will get involved to make this country a much better place for everyone!”
---PANELISTS---
KEVIN COOPER. Mr. Cooper will participate from San Quentin via a telephone call to his attorney, Mr. Hile. NORMAN C. HILE, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. Mr. Hile is Senior Counsel at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. He has represented Mr. Cooper since 2004.
THOMAS PARKER, The Sentinel Group. Mr. Parker spent 45 years with the FBI as an agent, national investigator of violent crimes, and Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Regional Office. In 2011, Mr. Parker led the latest investigation of Mr. Cooper’s case. Mr. Parker is “absolutely convinced Kevin Cooper is innocent.”
CAROLE SELIGMAN, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee. Ms. Seligman is a retired elementary school teacher, member of the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the former office manager at Prison Radio.
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Labor for Palestine endorses Labor for Standing Rock mobilization!
Please:
- RSVP event and share widely
- Post union endorsements and local mobilization plans here
- Like Labor for Standing Rock on Facebook
- Sign and promote Urgent Call on the AFL-CIO: Reverse Support for the Dakota Access Pipeline
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:
•Amalgamated Transit Union
•American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 -- City College of San Francisco Faculty Union
•Border Agricultural Workers
•California Faculty Association
•Communications Workers of America
•Industrial Workers of the World
•IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus
•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)
•Labor for Palestine
•National Nurses United
•New York State Nurses Association
•National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981
•Service Employees International Union
•United Electrical Workers
•SEIU 503 OPEU
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.
Please join us.
#LaborForStandingRock
#StandWithStandingRock
#No DAPL
#MniWiconi
#SolidarityForever
#greenuninonism
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Labor for Palestine endorses Labor for Standing Rock mobilization! Please:
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: •Amalgamated Transit Union •American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 -- City College of San Francisco Faculty Union •Border Agricultural Workers •California Faculty Association •Communications Workers of America •Industrial Workers of the World •IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus •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) •Labor for Palestine •National Nurses United •New York State Nurses Association •National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981 •Service Employees International Union •United Electrical Workers •SEIU 503 OPEU 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. Please join us. #LaborForStandingRock #StandWithStandingRock #No DAPL #MniWiconi #SolidarityForever #greenuninonism *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........**..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Chelsea faces charges related to suicice attempt
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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.
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.”
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.
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 videosChelsea 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.
Please donate today!
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
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Letter from a prisoner involved in the current prison strike:
Texas Prison Officials retaliate against me
for protesting prison slavery
By Keith "Malik" Washington
On October 5, 2016, I was transferred to the Telford Unit from the Coffield Unit. At Coffield, I had become the target of a coordinated effort by the State of Texas to retaliate against me for organizing a campaign that seeks to end prison slavery.
There are elements and individuals within the Texas Criminal Justice System that don't want to acknowledge the humanity of prisoners. The Slave Plantation mentality is deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of the oppressor and the oppressed.
Telford, where I am now housed, is the home of a horrible Solitary Confinement control unit. I was sent to this control unit in order to be neutralized.
Prison officials are also using their new Social Media Ban to punish me when my friends or supporters post any kind of information about me. It is crucially important that you continue to share with the world what is happening to me and to so many other imprisoned Freedom Fighters who are trapped inside Amerikan prisons. This attempt to silence prisoner voices and the voices of our free-world supporters is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Journalist Raven Rakia, who resides in New York City, actually traveled to Texas to interview me for an upcoming exposé she is working on. Texas prison officials denied her access to me!! I just cannot describe to you how dangerous this situation is becoming.
I attempted to place Raven Rakia and other media correspondents and friends on my visiting list. Prison officials denied receiving any updated visitation forms from me!
Sisters and brothers, I cannot fight these people without your help. I am asking you to call the Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas -- 903-628-3171 -- and demand that I be granted visits from media correspondents, friends, and lawyers. I am requesting that media correspondents and lawyers attempt to visit me and make contact with me so that I can relay to the public how Texas has framed me and isolated me.
Our struggle begins with amending the 13th amendment: we must abolish Prison Slavery in Amerika!
Furthermore, we must confront and question law enforcement agencies who attempt to demonize and criminalize #Black Lives Matter! The murdering of Black people by the police must be addressed.
Prisoner Rights activist Laura Whitehorn said, "Rather than slaughtering black people outright, the prison system carries out genocide through political repression."
Sisters and brothers, I am taking a risk by communicating these words to you. I am asking you to do something to help me shed light on the nature of the Texas Criminal Justice System.
Dare to struggle, dare to win! All power to the people!
Keith H. Washington #1487958
Telford Unit
3899 State Hwy 98
New Boston, TX 75570-5669
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Letter from a prisoner involved in the current prison strike:
Texas Prison Officials retaliate against me
for protesting prison slavery
By Keith "Malik" Washington
On October 5, 2016, I was transferred to the Telford Unit from the Coffield Unit. At Coffield, I had become the target of a coordinated effort by the State of Texas to retaliate against me for organizing a campaign that seeks to end prison slavery.
There are elements and individuals within the Texas Criminal Justice System that don't want to acknowledge the humanity of prisoners. The Slave Plantation mentality is deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of the oppressor and the oppressed.
Telford, where I am now housed, is the home of a horrible Solitary Confinement control unit. I was sent to this control unit in order to be neutralized.
Prison officials are also using their new Social Media Ban to punish me when my friends or supporters post any kind of information about me. It is crucially important that you continue to share with the world what is happening to me and to so many other imprisoned Freedom Fighters who are trapped inside Amerikan prisons. This attempt to silence prisoner voices and the voices of our free-world supporters is a gross violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Journalist Raven Rakia, who resides in New York City, actually traveled to Texas to interview me for an upcoming exposé she is working on. Texas prison officials denied her access to me!! I just cannot describe to you how dangerous this situation is becoming.
I attempted to place Raven Rakia and other media correspondents and friends on my visiting list. Prison officials denied receiving any updated visitation forms from me!
Sisters and brothers, I cannot fight these people without your help. I am asking you to call the Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas -- 903-628-3171 -- and demand that I be granted visits from media correspondents, friends, and lawyers. I am requesting that media correspondents and lawyers attempt to visit me and make contact with me so that I can relay to the public how Texas has framed me and isolated me.
Our struggle begins with amending the 13th amendment: we must abolish Prison Slavery in Amerika!
Furthermore, we must confront and question law enforcement agencies who attempt to demonize and criminalize #Black Lives Matter! The murdering of Black people by the police must be addressed.
Prisoner Rights activist Laura Whitehorn said, "Rather than slaughtering black people outright, the prison system carries out genocide through political repression."
Sisters and brothers, I am taking a risk by communicating these words to you. I am asking you to do something to help me shed light on the nature of the Texas Criminal Justice System.
Dare to struggle, dare to win! All power to the people!
Keith H. Washington #1487958
Telford Unit
3899 State Hwy 98
New Boston, TX 75570-5669
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Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw Kindle Edition
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Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!
Click HERE to view in browser
http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/
UPDATE:
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
Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.
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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.
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TAKE ACTION: Mumia is sick
Website:
| 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. Please read the New Yorker article, Why it is Nearly Impossible for Prisoners to Sue Prisons. 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 MumiaCall 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 |
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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
Mumia Is Innocent! Free Mumia!
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Imam Jamil (H.Rap Brown) moved
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:
https://www.causes.com/actions/1671495-the-forgotten-imam-jamil-abdullah-al-amin-h-rap-brown?utm_campaign=post_mailer%2Fcampaign_update.cb_71432&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes
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
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524
Signed,
Luqman Abdullah-ibn Al-Sidiq
Luqman Abdullah-ibn Al-Sidiq
https://www.causes.com/actions/1671495-the-forgotten-imam-jamil-abdullah-al-amin-h-rap-brown?utm_campaign=post_mailer%2Fcampaign_update.cb_71432&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes
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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
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
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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
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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
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
freelorenzojohnson.org
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Sign the Petition:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php
"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 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
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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
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Campaign to Free 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
freelorenzojohnson.org
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B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Police arrest more people for marijuana use than for all violent crimes — combined
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B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Police arrest more people for marijuana use than for all violent crimes — combined
On any given day in the United States, at least 137,000 people sit behind bars on simple drug-possession charges, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch.
Nearly two-thirds of them are in local jails. The report says that most of these jailed inmates have not been convicted of any crime: They're sitting in a cell, awaiting a day in court, an appearance that may be months or even years off, because they can't afford to post bail.
"It's been 45 years since the war on drugs was declared, and it hasn't been a success," lead author Tess Borden of Human Rights Watch said in an interview. "Rates of drug use are not down. Drug dependency has not stopped. Every 25 seconds, we're arresting someone for drug use."
Federal figures on drug arrests and drug use over the past three decades tell the story. Drug-possession arrests skyrocketed, from fewer than 200 arrests for every 100,000 people in 1979 to more than 500 in the mid-2000s. The drug-possession rate has since fallen slightly, according to the FBI, hovering near 400 arrests per 100,000 people.
Defenders of harsh penalties for drug possession say they are necessary to deter people from using drugs and to protect public health. But despite the tough-on-crime push that led to the surge in arrests in recent decades, illicit drug use today is more common among Americans age 12 and older than it was in the early 1980s. Federal figures show no correlation between drug-possession arrests and rates of drug use during that time.
But the ACLU and Human Rights Watch report shows that arrests for drug possession continue to make up a significant chunk of modern-day police work.
"Around the country, police make more arrests for drug possession than for any other crime," the report finds, citing FBI data. "More than one of every nine arrests by state law enforcement is for drug possession, amounting to more than 1.25 million arrests each year."
In fact, police make more arrests for marijuana possession alone than for all violent crimes combined.
The report finds that the laws are enforced unequally, too. Over their lifetimes, black and white Americans use illicit drugs at similar rates, according to federal data. But black adults were more than 2½ times as likely to be arrested for drug possession.
"We can't talk about race and policing in this country without talking about the No. 1 arrest offense," Borden said.
The report calls for decriminializing the personal use and possession of drugs, treating it as a public-health matter instead of a criminal one.
"Rather than promoting health, criminalization can create new barriers to health for those who use drugs," the report says. "Criminalization drives drug use underground; it discourages access to emergency medicine, overdose prevention services, and risk-reducing practices such as syringe exchanges."
The report reinforces its point by noting the lengthy sentences handed down in some states for possession of small amounts of drugs.
For example, it sketches the history of Corey J. Ladd, who was arrested for possessing half an ounce of marijuana during a 2011 traffic stop in New Orleans. Because he had convictions for two prior offenses involving the possession of small amounts of hydrocodone and LSD, he was sentenced in 2013 to 17 years in prison as a "habitual offender." He is currently appealing the sentence to Louisiana's Supreme Court.
"Corey's story is about the real waste of human lives, let alone taxpayer money, of arrest and incarceration for personal drug use," Borden said. "He could be making money and providing for his family."
But Ladd's treatment is far from the harshest drug-possession sentence uncovered by ACLU and Human Rights Watch researchers, who conducted analyses of arrest and incarceration data from Florida, New York and Texas.
In Texas, for instance, 116 people are currently serving life sentences on charges of simple drug possession. Seven of those people earned their sentences for possessing quantities of drugs weighing between 1 gram and 4 grams, or less than a typical sugar packet. That's because Texas also has a habitual-offender law, allowing prosecutors to seek longer-than-normal sentences for people who have two prior felonies.
"In 2015, more than 78 percent of people sentenced to incarceration for felony drug possession in Texas possessed under a gram," the report found.
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2) Pennsylvania Faculty Members at 14 State Universities Go on Strike
2) Pennsylvania Faculty Members at 14 State Universities Go on Strike
Thousands of university faculty members in Pennsylvania went on strike Wednesday morning after negotiations for a new contract between their union and state representatives broke down.
It is the first time that the union, the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, has gone on strike in its 34 years. It represents more than 5,000 professors and coaches at 14 institutions across the state and has been without a contract since June 30, 2015.
Kenneth M. Mash, the union president, said in an interview on Wednesday that representatives for the state system walked away from negotiations at around 8:30 Tuesday night. “I never heard of anything like it with such a major strike looming, but that’s what they did,” Dr. Mash said.
In a statement on the union’s website, he wrote, “At 11:35 p.m., we made a last attempt to negotiate through back channels. We waited until 5 a.m. We are headed to the picket lines.”
No new meetings were scheduled, he said on Wednesday.
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education said in its own statement that it had “concluded five days of negotiations Tuesday without reaching agreement on a new contract.
“While the two sides made significant progress in the talks that began Oct. 14, including reaching tentative agreements on more than a dozen issues, including distance education, recruitment and retention of high-quality faculty, and professional responsibilities of faculty outside the classroom, they were not able to reach overall agreement.”
The union represents faculty members from state-run colleges with a combined enrollment of more than 100,000 students: Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania.
It does not represent the faculty at Penn State University, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and Lincoln University.
Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, said in a statement that he was “extremely disappointed” at the failure by the two sides to reach an agreement. “The resulting strike is detrimental to the system and will have far-reaching effects for years to come,” he said.
A key issue for those on strike is health care: who pays for it and how much. The state system said that it had offered the faculty members the same health care package as other state employees.
“We don’t understand how A.P.S.C.U.F. can argue that faculty members should be entitled to a better health care plan than our other employees,” a spokesman, Kenn Marshall, said in a statement.
Dr. Mash said, however, that the union had accepted “dramatic” reductions in health care coverage and had offered to pay deductibles, accept an increase in premiums and pay more for prescriptions.
“They’ve gone after the quality of education that we provide, going after our adjunct faculty,” 60 percent of whom are women, Dr. Mash said.
The state had urged students to attend classes despite the strike.
Some students appeared to be joining the picket lines, organizing on Twitter under the hashtags #PassheStudentPower and #withAPSCUF.
News of the strike briefly crashed the union’s website. Email responses from Kathryn Morton, a spokeswoman for the union, warned that she would be walking the picket line and may be delayed in responding to messages.
Ms. Morton’s message said, “If you are emailing from a university email address, I will not be able to respond until the strike is resolved, as answering a university email address would be crossing the picket line.”
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3) Black Man Is Arrested While Walking, and Minnesota City Starts a ‘Conversation’
3) Black Man Is Arrested While Walking, and Minnesota City Starts a ‘Conversation’
The mayor of Edina, Minn., said officials were taking steps to improve relations between the police and minority residents after a white officer’s arrest of a black man who was walking in the street to avoid construction work on a sidewalk last week prompted an outcry.
The measures were outlined in a five-page announcement, titled “Questions People Are Asking,” that was posted on the city’s website Tuesday. They include a review of police arrest procedures, more bias training for officers and a request for input from the N.A.A.C.P. in Minneapolis on how to collect demographic data on traffic stops.
The mayor, James Hovland, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that the steps would be taken despite the city’s conclusion that the officer, Lt. Tim Olson, had followed proper procedures when arresting Larnie Thomas, 34, on Oct. 12 for walking in the street and, according to the Edina Police Department, blocking traffic.
A bystander uploaded a seven-minute video to YouTube showing the officer confronting Mr. Thomas, who resisted and cursed at the officer before he was handcuffed. More than 620,000 people had watched the video as of Wednesday, and many shared it and remarked on social media about the way the police handled the encounter.
The Minneapolis chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People described the arrest as “humiliating” and “a vivid reminder that blacks are still too often seen as second-class citizens in the State of Minnesota and in this nation.”
An online backlash grouped Mr. Thomas’s treatment by the police into categories in which African-Americans are singled out as being suspicious or are arrested during routine activities, like shopping and driving.
Mr. Thomas was given a citation charging him with disorderly conduct and failure to obey a traffic signal, and he was dropped off by the police at a shopping mall at his request, the police said. Mr. Hovland said the citation was later dismissed “in the public’s interest.”
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension declined the city’s request to investigate the episode because it did not involve a death or serious injury, Jill Oliveira, a spokeswoman, said in an email on Tuesday.
Mr. Hovland said that Edina, just southwest of Minnesota, was trying to improve ties with the city’s black residents to pre-empt the possibility of escalating tensions. Minorities make up about 10 percent of the city’s population, and of that population, blacks compose 3 percent, according to census figures.
“We are grateful to have this opportunity to have this conversation in the absence of a bad event,” Mr. Hovland said. “We need conversation beyond the community from people of color to help us understand how to have this conversation.”
Nekima Levy-Pounds, the president of the N.A.A.C.P. chapter in Minneapolis, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that the mayor and several City Council members had apologized in a three-hour community meeting late Tuesday over what had happened to Mr. Thomas.
Ms. Levy-Pounds said the organization would work with the city on reforms and bias training, and as the city composed a citizens task force to address racial concerns.
“In light of the egregious incident that happened, the city of Edina responded at the City Council meeting in a way that demonstrated a level of compassion, and they signaled that they heard what the people had to say,” she said. “I have not seen that happen in any jurisdictions that I have covered.”
In the police report, Lieutenant Olson said he was driving an unmarked patrol vehicle at about 11:46 a.m. on Xerxes Avenue when he saw Mr. Thomas in the street and cars trying to avoid him. Lieutenant Olson wrote that Mr. Thomas did not respond to multiple requests to “get out of the road, stop and return to me,” and kept walking.
Lieutenant Olson got out of the car and “grasped his shoulder.”
The video recorded by the bystander, Janet Rowles, shows Lieutenant Olson gripping Mr. Thomas by the back of the jacket and pulling him to the squad car.
“For what?” replied Mr. Thomas, who was wearing headphones.
“You’re walking down the middle of the street,” the lieutenant said.
Mr. Thomas said that he was on the “white line,” referring to the shoulder of the road.
When the officer told him to put his hands on the hood of the patrol car. Mr. Thomas resisted, asking what he had done and slamming his backpack on the hood of the vehicle.
After another officer arrived, Mr. Thomas was handcuffed and put in the squad car.
Mr. Hovland said the phone messages that flooded into his office afterward reflected the challenges his city faced: Some said Lieutenant Olson had escalated matters by disrespecting Mr. Thomas, and others said Mr. Thomas had made matters worse by being “belligerent.”
“How are we going to figure out what to do to make sure people feel respected every step along the process?” the mayor said.
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4) Police Cite Self-Defense as Sergeant Fatally Shoots Bronx Woman, 66
4) Police Cite Self-Defense as Sergeant Fatally Shoots Bronx Woman, 66
A police sergeant responding to a call about a 66-year-old woman acting irrationally in a Bronx apartment fatally shot her after she tried to hit him with a baseball bat on Tuesday, the police said.
Officers went to a seventh-floor apartment at 630 Pugsley Avenue in the Castle Hill neighborhood a little after 6 p.m. in response to a neighbor’s complaint, the police said.
About 10 minutes later, the sergeant entered the apartment and found the woman, who was alone, in a bedroom holding a pair of scissors, Assistant Chief Larry W. Nikunen, commanding officer of patrol for the Bronx, said at a news conference.
The sergeant persuaded the woman to drop the scissors, but she then grabbed a baseball bat. As she tried to hit him, the sergeant fired twice and struck her in the torso, Chief Nikunen said. She was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center.
The chief said there had been “several incidents involving this individual with similar types of calls” in the past, but he did not have details of the previous calls.
The names of the sergeant, whom Chief Nikunen said was an eight-year veteran of the New York Police Department, and the woman were not released. The chief said the sergeant had a Taser, which was not used. Why it was not used will be part of an investigation.
In a statement, the Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., called the shooting “an outrage,” noting that the police were aware of the woman’s history and that the sergeant had a stun gun. He called on Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, and Darcel D. Clark, the Bronx district attorney, to investigate.
“While I certainly understand the hard work that our police officers undertake to keep the streets of our city safe every single day, I also know what excessive force looks like,” Mr. Diaz said in the statement.
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5) Britain Will Posthumously Pardon Thousands of Gay and Bisexual Men
5) Britain Will Posthumously Pardon Thousands of Gay and Bisexual Men
LONDON — Britain will posthumously pardon thousands of gay and bisexual men who were convicted of sexual offenses that were decriminalized decades ago, the government announced on Thursday. In addition, the process for people who are still alive and want to clear their name will be streamlined.
The decision comes nearly three years after Queen Elizabeth II formally pardoned Alan Turing, the British mathematician regarded as one of the central figures in the development of the computer, who was convicted on charges of homosexuality in 1952. He committed suicide in 1954.
The government apologized in 2009 for its treatment of Turing, who made a major contribution to Britain in World War II by cracking Germany’s Enigma coding machine, and the head of Britain’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, apologized in April for past discrimination against gays.
Consensual sex between men over age 21 was decriminalized in England and Wales in 1967, in Scotland in 1980 and in Northern Ireland in 1982. The age of consent for homosexual sex was reduced to 16, the same as the age of consent for heterosexual sex, in 2001.
Under a proposal that some have called the Turing Law, deceased people convicted of sexual acts that are no longer criminalized will receive an automatic pardon.
Among them could be Oscar Wilde, the Irish playwright who was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor in 1895 after being accused of sodomy, although the complexity of his case makes it difficult to know for sure. He was tried not once but twice, and only after he withdraw a criminal libel lawsuit against his accuser.
The Ministry of Justice said, however, that no deceased individuals would be singled out by name.
Under a 2012 law, many living people who were convicted of sexual offenses that are no longer illegal can apply to have their names cleared and their offenses expunged from their criminal records.
Under the plan announced Thursday, they will receive an automatic pardon, without additional review by the government. Some 15,000 of 65,000 men who were convicted under such laws are still alive, according to John Sharkey, a member of the House of Lords who put forward the Turing Law.
“It is hugely important that we pardon people convicted of historical sexual offences who would be innocent of any crime today,” Sam Gyimah, the parliamentary under secretary of state for prisons and probation, said in a statement.
John Nicolson, a Scottish member of Parliament, has put forward a bill, which Parliament is scheduled to debate on Friday, that would offer an automatic blanket pardon to living Britons convicted under offenses like gross indecency that were used to target gay and bisexual men.
Mr. Gyimah said the Conservative-led government did not support the legislation because it “could lead, in some cases,” to pardons for people whose convictions included offenses that are still crimes, like sex with a minor and non-consensual sexual activity.
Paul Twocock, director of campaigns, policy and research at Stonewall, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, said it disagreed with the government’s interpretation of Mr. Nicolson’s bill.
“We welcome the government announcement to issue a posthumous pardon to all gay and bi men unjustly prosecuted for being who they are, but we don’t think it goes far enough,” he said in a statement.
Matt Houlbrook, a professor of cultural history at University of Birmingham and the author of “Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918-1957,” said he was worried that the posthumous pardons contributed to oversimplification of both history and the identities of men like Turing.
“The metaphor of the closet fails to capture the nature of queer life before 1967: interwar London was home to a vibrant urban culture that was perhaps more visible than at any time before the 1970s,” he wrote in a blog post, when the debate over Turing’s pardon was underway.
He also noted that gay identity meant something very different decades ago. “The most remarkable thing about queer urban culture is that it was, to a large extent, composed of and created by men who never thought themselves queer,” he said.
In an interview, Mr. Houlbrook said he thought the government’s announcement had “symbolic and practical importance” for those who are still alive, but still found it insufficient.
“At the same time, a retrospective pardon doesn’t do much to atone for the realities of what it was like to be arrested and prosecuted at the time,” he said. The gesture, he said, was only part of a reckoning with “the uncomfortable truths from its past” that British society needs to go through.
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6) A Rape and Murder Prompts Thousands of Argentine Women to Protest
6) A Rape and Murder Prompts Thousands of Argentine Women to Protest
BUENOS AIRES — Women across Argentina stopped work for an hour on Wednesday and took part in mass demonstrations to demand more protection after an escalation in attacks against women and girls this month.
Thousands marched, most dressed in black, down a central avenue in Buenos Aires waving signs with the names of victims and chanting slogans, including the name of the movement, “Ni una menos” (Not one less) and “We want to live.”
“Every day there is one woman less,” Daniela Valle Lende, 27, said under a persistent rain. “None of us is exempt from the violence.”
This was the third national protest organized by Ni Una Menos, a movement of women’s rights advocates, since the first was held in June of last year.
The march was hastily organized on social media after the rape and murder of LucÃa Pérez in the coastal city of Mar del Plata. Ms. Pérez, a 16-year-old high school student was drugged, raped and impaled on Oct. 8 by at least two men, according to an initial investigation by MarÃa Isabel Sánchez, the prosecutor in the case.
Three men have been arrested in connection with the case.
Ms. Pérez was one of 19 women and girls murdered in the first 18 days of October, according to the Secretariat of Human Rights.
Between 2008 and 2015, one woman was killed every 30 hours in episodes of domestic violence for a total of 2,094 victims, according to La Casa del Encuentro, a women’s rights group.
Organizers of the rallies called on the government, justice system and the police to do more to stop the violence. They also demanded a clampdown on the trafficking of girls for prostitution, more opportunities for job promotions, equal pay with men, longer maternity leave, child care for working mothers and free access to lawyers for victims of domestic violence.
“If we don’t have economic independence, it’s impossible to stop the violence of machismo,” said MarÃa Florencia Alcaraz, 31, a journalist and member of Ni Una Menos.
Before the marches, Argentina’s president, Mauricio Macri, said he would push ahead with carrying out a proposal, announced in July, to reduce violence against women. The legislation would include establishing a hotline to report abuse, better monitoring of abusers, and shelters. “We are going to continue with this task, which is what the vast majority of Argentines want,” Mr. Macri said.
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7) ‘Lions Hunting Zebras’: Ex-Wells Fargo Bankers Describe Abuses
7) ‘Lions Hunting Zebras’: Ex-Wells Fargo Bankers Describe Abuses
Mexican immigrants who speak little English. Older adults with memory problems. College students opening their first bank accounts. Small-business owners with several lines of credit.
These were some of the customers whom bankers at Wells Fargo, trying to meet steep sales goals and avoid being fired, targeted for unauthorized or unnecessary accounts, according to legal filings and statements from former bank employees.
“The analogy I use was that it was like lions hunting zebras,” said Kevin Pham, a former Wells Fargo employee in San Jose, Calif., who saw it happening at the branch where he worked. “They would look for the weakest, the ones that would put up the least resistance.”
Wells Fargo would like to close the chapter on the sham account scandal, saying it has changed its policies, replaced its chief executiveand refunded $2.6 million to customers. But lawmakers and regulators say they will not let it go that quickly, and emerging evidence that some victims were among the bank’s most vulnerable customers has given them fresh ammunition.
This week, three members of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco, Wells Fargo’s hometown, introduced a resolution calling on the city to cut all financial ties with the bank. They cited both the recent scandal and past cases — particularly the $175 million that Wells Fargo paid in 2012 to settle accusations that its mortgage brokers had discriminated against black and Hispanic borrowers.
After the Senate Banking Committee held a blistering hearing last month with the bank’s chief executive, John G. Stumpf, who has since retired, it followed up with a letter containing 58 additional questions for the bank. Among them: What proportion of the harmed customers are old, members of ethnic minorities or military veterans?
The committee is still waiting for a response. The Justice Department and California’s attorney general are also investigating the bank.
In interviews and lawsuits, Wells Fargo employees have described in vivid detail some of the predatory practices they saw.
At a branch in Scottsdale, Ariz., members of a local Native American community would arrive like clockwork every three months with checks for their share of the community’s casino revenue. It was then, said Ricky M. Hansen Jr., a former branch manager there, that some bankers would try to dupe them into opening unnecessary accounts laden with fees.
In California, it was people with identification cards issued by Mexican consulates. The absence of a Social Security number made it simpler for Wells Fargo employees to open fraudulent accounts in those customers’ names. Wells Fargo is one of the few major banks to permit accounts to be opened without Social Security numbers.
And in Illinois, one former teller described watching in frustration as older customers fell prey.
“We had customers of all ages, but the elderly ones would at times be targeted, because they don’t ask many questions about fees and such,” Brandi Baker, who worked at a branch in Galesburg, Ill., said in an interview.
When Mr. Stumpf testified before members of Congress — once in the Senate and once in the House — he was pressed hard on whether any demographic group had been disproportionately affected. He said he was not sure.
Wells Fargo does not collect information on its customers’ ethnicity, Mr. Stumpf said. Of the two million potentially unauthorized accounts the bank uncovered in its internal review, the affected customers “skewed to younger people, not older people,” he told the House Financial Services Committee.
In the Los Angeles area, for instance, college campuses were considered prime spots for employees seeking to rack up new accounts because younger customers had a tendency to trust a banker’s advice.
Athena McDaniel-Watkins, a former teller who worked in and around Los Angeles, said a banker she worked with would take stacks of forms with him on campus visits and encourage busy students to sign the blank papers — he would fill them out later, he told the students.
“So the customer essentially handed the banker a blank check,” Ms. McDaniel-Watkins said. “The banker was then able to list as many accounts under that application as he wanted — or, in many cases, as many as he needed to hit sales goals for that day.”
Steven Curtis, who also worked at several Wells Fargo branches in the Los Angeles area, said that when college students showed up asking for overdraft fees to be waived, bankers would sometimes tell them they could do so only by closing their account and opening a batch of new ones.
The practices in California were also described in a lawsuit the Los Angeles city attorney filed against Wells Fargo in 2015. Among the complaints was that employees specifically sought out Mexican citizens because their identity documents were easier to misuse.
If customers complained, Wells Fargo employees advised them “to ignore the unauthorized fees and letters from collection agencies because the lack of a Social Security number means the debt will not affect them,” the lawsuit said.
Since the scandal broke, Wells Fargo says it has eliminated the sales goals that pressured bankers to open sham accounts. It has also replaced Mr. Stumpf with Timothy J. Sloan, formerly the chief operating officer, and begun contacting all of its deposit customers to ask if they would like to review their accounts. The bank is still conducting an internal investigation into its sales practices.
“We are confident that these important steps put us on the right path to better helping our customers,” said Richele J. Messick, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman. “We will continue to work hard to restore our customers’ faith and regain the public’s trust.”
Current and former Wells Fargo employees say the problems continued well into this year.
Ashlie Storms, a former banker at a Wells Fargo branch in West Milford, N.J., said she quit her job in August, soon after learning that a banker at another branch had manipulated the accounts of one of Ms. Storms’s regular customers, an older woman with memory issues.
The woman had come to deposit a large check, only to have the banker use it to open new checking and savings accounts without her approval. The next day, the customer and her daughters arrived at Ms. Storms’s branch, confused about where her money had gone and why she could not gain access to it.
“What should have been a five-minute conversation turned into a three-hour complaint to corporate from the customer about the actions this banker decided to take without the customer’s consent,” Ms. Storms said. “The banker was a top producer for our region, always receiving recognition from management for her sales.”
The dynamics varied from branch to branch, former employees said in interviews. There was no systematic corporate policy or ethos of targeting specific groups of customers.
“Bankers wanted the quickest, easiest sale — the low-hanging fruit,” said Mr. Pham, the former Wells Fargo banker in San Jose. “The extreme pressure forced people into it.”
In some places, demographic patterns created distinct openings.
In the Phoenix area, managers gleefully looked forward to the days when the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community made its quarterly per capita distribution payments, said Mr. Hansen, the former branch manager in Scottsdale.
Members of the Native American community would head straight to the bank with their checks, and employees would encourage them to use the money to open new accounts. Sometimes it was on the up and up: Mr. Hansen said that he looked forward to being able to open several dozen new accounts in one day but that he always tried to match customers with products that fit their needs.
Others did not. Mr. Hansen learned that one enterprising branch manager had invented “per capita day packages,” jammed with five or more bank accounts. Customers would be told that they needed separate accounts for such purposes as traveling, grocery shopping and saving for an emergency.
“They would deposit their money and get hit with fees like crazy, because they got confused about what account they were using,” Mr. Hansen said. “They would use the wrong debit card and overdraw their travel account, and then when they came back three months later, they would lose hundreds of dollars from their next check paying off those fees.”
While lawmakers and investigators continue digging, some Wells Fargo customers and former employees, including Mr. Pham, are meting out their own punishment. A group that coalesced on Facebook has declared Nov. 12 National Close Your Wells Fargo Account Day.
Some people are not waiting until then.
Michael Masterson, who lives in Concord, Calif., posted on the group’s Facebook page about refinancing his mortgage this week to move it away from Wells Fargo.
“This was an action I took as an individual looking to sever ties with what I regard as a dishonest financial institution,” he said by email.
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8) Late-Term Abortion Was the Right Choice for Me
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/opinion/late-term-abortion-was-the-right-choice-for-me.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
8) Late-Term Abortion Was the Right Choice for Me
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/opinion/late-term-abortion-was-the-right-choice-for-me.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
BERKELEY, Calif. — I was 21 weeks pregnant when a doctor told my husband and me that our second little boy was missing half his heart. It had stopped growing correctly around five weeks gestation, but the abnormality was not detectable until the 20-week anatomy scan. It was very unlikely that our baby would survive delivery, and if he did, he would ultimately need a heart transplant.
In the days that followed, after the poking and prodding, after the meetings with pediatric cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons and geneticists, my husband and I decided to terminate our pregnancy. I was 22 weeks pregnant when they wheeled me into the operating room, two weeks shy of viability in the state of California.
For us, the decision was about compassion for our unborn baby, who would face overwhelming and horribly painful obstacles. Compassion for our 2-year-old son, who would contend with hours upon hours in a hospital, missing out on invaluable time spent with his parents, and the death of a very real sibling. It was about compassion for our marriage. Perhaps most important, it was about our belief that parenthood sometimes means we sacrifice our own dreams so our children don’t have to suffer.
As the day of my termination approached and I felt my baby’s kicks and wiggles, I simultaneously wanted to crawl out of my skin and suspend us together in time. I wanted him to know how important he was to me, that the well of my grief and love for him would stretch deeper and deeper into the vastness of our family’s small yet limitless life. He may have moved inside me for only five months, but he had touched and shaped me in ways I could never have imagined.
To Donald J. Trump and politicians like him, a late-term abortion is the stuff of ’80s slasher films. “You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother,” Mr. Trump said during Wednesday night’s debate, a description void of consideration for women, medical professionals or the truth. Such politicians would have you believe that women like me shouldn’t get to make the choice I made. That our baby, despite his tiny misshapen heart and nonexistent aorta, should have a chance “to live,” even though that life might have lasted mere minutes. Even though that life would have been excruciatingly painful. These politicians are ignorant of the sacrifices and blessings that come with carrying a pregnancy (let alone a nonviable pregnancy). They do not understand that a majority of women who have late-term abortions are terminating desperately wanted pregnancies.
I am fortunate to live in a state that allows abortions after 20 weeks. At least 13 states restrict such procedures; 15 more have moved to defund Planned Parenthood, where many low-income women go for reproductive care.
Many women have made the kind of difficult decision I had to make. When it happens to you, they come out of the woodwork. Friends, neighbors, colleagues. A friend of my mother-in-law said to me early on, “You will always carry this loss, but someday, it won’t define you.”
As the two-year anniversary of my abortion approaches, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that we made the right decision for our family — and that our government has absolutely no place in the anguish which accompanies a late-term abortion, except to ensure that women and their families have the right to make their choice safely and privately.
Saying goodbye to our boy was the single most difficult and profound experience of my life, and the truth is, it has come to define me. Today I am a better mother because of him. I am a better wife, daughter and friend. He made me more compassionate and more patient. He taught me to love with reckless abandon, despite the knowledge that I could lose it all.
We named him Lev, the Hebrew word for heart.
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9) ‘I Am Alone’: Migrant Children in Calais ‘Jungle’ Face an Uncertain Fate
9) ‘I Am Alone’: Migrant Children in Calais ‘Jungle’ Face an Uncertain Fate
CALAIS, France — They left their countries, mostly Afghanistan, Ethiopia or Eritrea. They traveled with smugglers, walked across countries and continents, crossed mountains and rough seas, and endured airless trunks, thieves and muggers.
And many are just 10 to 17 years old.
They are the 1,300 or so children of the Jungle, as the sprawling migrant camp outside the French port of Calais is known. Most have arrived here without family, sometimes with the blessing of parents, sometimes not.
After harrowing journeys, they have camped with some 6,000 to 10,000 other migrants, depending on who is doing the counting, awaiting a chance to sneak into Britain to reunite with family or friends. They speak no French, little English, and their future is anything but certain.
The fate of these young people has now become a major sticking point in determining the Jungle’s shaky future. The French government plans to demolish the camp again, for the second time this year. The destruction could come as early as Monday.
But before then, it needs to figure out what to do about the children.
Britain is allowing in a thin trickle — those with relatives in the country — after negotiations described as tough by French officials. For the rest, the French government has pledged to take care of them, in housing facilities set aside for young people.
In interviews in the Jungle Books Kids Café, a shack hung with fabrics and a poster of a London bus, a number of the Jungle’s young people sat on donated sofas this week and described their journeys in halting English or Pashto.
These boys have the smooth faces of youth but the quick and wary movements of those who have suffered and expect more.
Each country traversed is marked by a particular set of hardships or, more rarely, kindnesses — journeys “full of dangers and experiences,” as Wassal, a smiling black-haired Afghan boy of “about 14” said, with wonder in his voice.
The only connection between the experiences is danger, in the boys’ telling.
“A very, very high mountain in Iran,” Wassal said. “When you were putting your hands for climbing, it was like knives. We walked for 14 hours on that mountain. We were very thirsty there.”
In Iran, the smugglers put him and three others in the trunk of a car to hide them from the authorities.
“There was rubber,” he recalled, “and it was not letting the air to come in. Every part of your body was hitting the side of the trunk.”
Bandits tried to stop the car.
“We wouldn’t stop. They started firing, by Kalashnikovs. It was very dangerous,” Wassal said. “If they had shot the car, it would have been two or three dead.”
Finally, he arrived in Bulgaria.
“We were walking for 10 days in Bulgaria,” Wassal said. “We were near to getting weak because no food or water.”
“We have used many vehicles, many movements of our body — running, skipping, hiding, walking sometimes,” he said. “I walked a very far distance.”
Others had similarly harrowing, if disjointed stories, filled with fears and traumas.
Ayub, 16 and wafer-thin, recalled how he left his home in the restive Oromia region of Ethiopia one night after taking part in antigovernment protests.
“When I called my mother, she cried,” he said. “She said, ‘You come home.’ I said, ‘I can’t.”’
After that, he was on his own.
“I crossed the desert,” he said. “I am alone.”
Once on the other side of the desert, there was a 12-day boat journey from Egypt to Italy.
“The food finished after six days,” Ayub recalled. Three people on his boat died.
“We drank the salt water,” he said. “I wanted to fall in the water.”
In Paris, he slept for four nights on the sidewalk before the Red Cross took him in.
Nurullah, 15, the son of an Afghan farmer, said that “because of the problems with the Taliban, it was compulsory that I leave.”
His parents “were very anxious and worried about me,” he said in Pashto, through a translator.
Nurullah made his way to Hungary, where “the police were ordered to shoot,” he said. “They were hitting the people. There were many dogs they were letting on us.”
Alikh, 12, a slight Afghan with bushy eyebrows, traveled through seven countries — Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Austria and Italy — with “friends” before reaching France. In Iran, the police beat him, and in Bulgaria there was no food or water.
Few of these young people look back or complain, however. All want to go to Britain and believe they will eventually make it, with or without relatives there.
“This journey was better than that I submit to the terrorist organizations,” Wassal said firmly.
For now, they spend their days shooting pool, tussling among themselves or dodging the sprawling migrant camp’s adults, who are not always benevolent.
At night, many play the same risky, rarely successful game as the adults: sneaking onto trucks, trains or ferries for passage to Britain’s perceived El Dorado. Again and again, they are caught by the police and turned back.
“This is not life, in the Jungle,” said Saleh al-Matar, 17, a bright-eyed Syrian who left behind his elderly father, who was too weak to travel. “Everything here is difficult. The simple things, to go to the toilet — you are scared to go to the toilet.”
Had he known what the Jungle was like, he would not have gotten into that “very small boat” between Turkey and Greece to “risk my life,” the young man said.
But Saleh ended up as one of the lucky ones. By Wednesday, he escaped the Jungle and was admitted to Britain, where he has a brother.
The French authorities are determined to tear down the Jungle down, citing not just the dangers but the inconvenience the camp poses to the port of Calais, which sits at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel that runs to Britain.
Not least, the camp has become one of the most glaring manifestations of Europe’s failure to deal with the migrant crisis. For all those reasons, the French authorities want it gone.
This week, Patrick Visser-Bourdon, a French police official, strode down the Jungle’s central alley, flanked by a phalanx of well-armed riot police, some carrying shields.
Making his way along the gravel path, the police official spread the word among the camp’s makeshift restaurants — smiling, smoking a cigarette, clapping migrants on the back — but letting them know that the Jungle’s days were numbered.
“I’m telling them that I can destroy,” he said. “It’s a legal decision, everything has to be closed.”
The 6,000 to 10,000 migrants in the Jungle will then be bused to vacant government-owned housing all over France.
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10) The Death of Deborah Danner
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10) The Death of Deborah Danner
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Remember the name: Deborah Danner.
She was killed by a New York police sergeant on Tuesday in her Bronx apartment. Neighbors had called 911, saying she was acting erratically. A team of officers arrived and, according to the police account, found an agitated Ms. Danner brandishing first a pair of scissors, and then a baseball bat. She took a swing at the sergeant, who shot her twice.
The investigation has just begun, but the case looks bad for the department. Police Commissioner James O’Neill almost immediately placed the sergeant, Hugh Barry, on modified duty, stripped of his badge and gun. Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference that the sergeant had not followed training or protocols for dealing with those with mental illness, and for some reason had neither used his Taser nor waited for specialized officers trained to deal with such situations. Mr. O’Neill said: “We failed.”
Ms. Danner, 66, now joins a tragic group of people whose mental illness leads them into a dangerous, often fatal, collision with the police. She would have been another cipher, another mental-health casualty, her inner struggles known only to her family and friends, but for a remarkable essay she wrote four years ago, “Living With Schizophrenia,” which her lawyer shared with The Times.
To read its six shattering pages is to come face-to-face with the isolation, self-doubt and crushing misery of mental illness. “Even the smartest people/persons in the world could not function in the realm of normalcy with that monkey on their backs,” she wrote. She told of the constant unease of not knowing where her sickness would take her: “What if my medication fails me? I ask myself, will I know if it does? Will the illness overpower its effectiveness? When? Where?”
And she wrote this:
“Is that a delusion, I ask myself, my belief that I am worthy of respect and a ‘normal’ happy life?”
Of course she was worthy of respect and happiness. The police had been called to Ms. Danner’s apartment before. Her family and neighbors knew of her torment. It is hard to see how a group of officers with Tasers could have ended up using lethal force against a sick woman. Hard to see, and yet entirely predictable.
Mr. de Blasio has vowed to make sure this never happens again. The answers that came too late in this tragedy are obvious: A citywide effort to expand mental-health care, which the de Blasio administration has begun. Sending mental-health professionals to accompany officers on calls like these. Swiftly completing training for all officers in defusing mental-health confrontations — a program Sergeant Barry had not yet undergone.
The head of the sergeants’ union has denounced the mayor and commissioner for admitting police failure, calling it a political rush to judgment. Investigators will determine whether Sergeant Barry feared for his life; his story will be given due consideration, his innocence presumed. No such mercy will ever be available for the late Deborah Danner.
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10) Mexico Arrests Ex-Chief of Police in City Where 43 Students Disappeared
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/world/americas/iguala-mexico-arrest-felipe-flores-velazquez.html?ref=world&_r=0
10) Mexico Arrests Ex-Chief of Police in City Where 43 Students Disappeared
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/world/americas/iguala-mexico-arrest-felipe-flores-velazquez.html?ref=world&_r=0
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s federal police on Friday arrested a fugitive former municipal police chief who is a major figure in the investigation into the disappearance of 43 college students in September 2014.
The former chief, Felipe Flores Velázquez, was in charge of the local police force on the night that the students vanished in the city of Iguala, which is in the southern state of Guerrero.
The Mexican government says that police officers handed the students over to members of a local drug gang, who killed them and then burned the bodies. International human rights experts have cast doubt on the investigation.
The Mexican authorities have detained 128 suspects in the case, but Mr. Flores, who was at large for two years, had eluded them until now.
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11) Minneapolis Police Officers Will Not Be Disciplined for Fatal Shooting
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
11) Minneapolis Police Officers Will Not Be Disciplined for Fatal Shooting
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.
Chief Janée Harteau said an internal investigation found that the officers were warranted in using deadly force against the man, Jamar Clark, 24.
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.
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Posted by: bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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