hey y’all,
it’s such an honor to offer this cross-posted piece (originally on my blog, Kloncke,) in the webspace of a thinker, writer, and creator who’s most inspired me in my own artistic/political practice. and in a community that continues to hearten and amaze me. thanks bfp, maia, blackamazon, Wheelchair Dancer, and so many of you, for your extraordinary, life-giving work.
yesterday, after about 20 hours in custody, i got out of jail, having been mass arrested along with 150-200 others for “unlawful assembly”: marching in the streets to protest police brutality and impunity.
as expected, legal consequences and repression for poor black and brown youth will be the worst. some of the people arrested for nonviolent crimes in the july 8th protests (the day Mehserle was convicted) will spend more time in prison for those nonviolent acts than he will for killing a human being. similar outcomes are expected this time around.
your thoughts and good wishes are appreciated, too. thanks, everyone, much love, and take care,
katie
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[Today, former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle was sentenced to 2 years in prison, with 146 days already served, for the involuntary manslaughter of Oscar Grant. The Grant case marked the first time in California's history that a peace officer was tried for murder.]
Whereas
We as women, transgender people, two-spirit people, queers, gender-oppressed people, and allies of the Bay Area mourn the loss of Oscar Grant;
Whereas we recognize that this young man was just one of countless victims of police violence;
Whereas we understand and experience police repression, particularly in poor, queer, and working-class communities of color;
Whereas we know that police violence both enables and enacts rape, brutalization, and degradation;
Whereas police violence compounds the dangers we face in domestic violence, sex trafficking, and homophobic and transphobic hate crimes;
Whereas police enforce the criminalization of our disabilities, addictions, and mental illnesses;
Whereas police enforce the criminalization of our skin color, sexualities, style of dress and speech, gender identities, religious practices, and nations of origin;
Whereas police violently enforce our subservience to an economy that enriches elites, while slaughtering, starving, sickening, and stealing from us as workers, child-rearers, and culture creators;
Whereas the rich and influential deploy police to violently crush our efforts toward self-determination, from queer social spaces to workplace strikes;
Whereas the rich and influential deploy police to kill or capture our leaders and heroes, like the recently deceased political prisoner Marilyn Buck;
Whereas police are employed to do as they are ordered;
Whereas police violence comes 10% from individual bigotry and improper training, and 90% from a capitalist state system designed to protect property, not people;
Whereas such a property-focused police system, controlled by the rich and influential, enacts and supports gender-based and sexual violence;
And Whereas such a system can never be adequately reformed, based as it is in the fundamental inequality borne of a patriarchal capitalist system:
We maintain compassion for individual police officers who both experience and inflict suffering; who face and enforce mortal danger.
We vow, in the effort to end sexist violence throughout the world, to eradicate the police system of the United States as we know it; and to transcend the misogynist capitalist system that demands this type of policing.
We undertake this mission with no hatred in our hearts toward individual police officers or those who support the police system.
We accept this responsibility out of love for all people, and the unquenchable desire for universal freedom and equality.
In the service of this calling, we will sing, strike, fuck, fight, rest, write, rebel, and rebuild until we achieve liberation for all beings.
The Sacramento County, California, district attorney's office has dismissed charges against 79 people, including some who have already pleaded guilty. Most of those cases involve DUI charges. The move comes after prosecutors and police said they found marked discrepancies between the written reports of Officer Brandon Mullock and what was recorded by the camera in his patrol cruiser. Mullock resigned from the force earlier this year after he was accused of pulling his gun in an off-duty incident.
Mr. Frank Carson:
I am a longtime MPD employee and just read the Modesto Bee article
regarding Sergeant Plante. Thank you for the courage that you show in
defending the right position. The majority of MPD are happy that you
disclosed this. Fact is, police brutality is still going on and the solid
hardworking police officers have reported this ongoing activity to Captain
Balentine and Chief Harden who have done NOTHING about it. These criminal
allegations about police brutality on graveyard night shift known as “5B” have
gone on for several years. Captain Balentine and Chief Harden have turned
their heads the other way.
Veteran employees Kelly Rae and Dave Brown, to name only a few, have
directly reported police brutality and mistreatment of Modesto Citizens to upper
management. These two officers have also confronted Lt. Cloward.
Cloward has directed sergeants to leave these guys alone. Lt. Cloward,
Captain Balentine and Chief Harden are all K-9 buddies and will protect each
other. The officers committing these acts are James Murphy, Orrin Nelson,
Florencio Costales, and Joe Lamantia. All work together and pick on ganger
types and helpless citizens. Lamantia just killed a man armed with a
spatula.
The veteran officers who will tell the truth about this brutality are Sergeant Dan Sharder, Sergeant Carlos Castro, Officers Kelly Rea, Mike Thomas, Joe Torres and Dave Brown. Officers Rea and Brown have actually been keeping notes because they are so fed up with Captain Balentine and Chief Harden ignoring this ongoing police brutality problem. Brown and Rea have specifics as far as dates, times and case numbers. They will not cover this up.Mr. Carson, I suggest you subpoena all of these people along with K-9 use of force reports (especially Murphy’s dog) and I bet the chief will try and hide behind these use of force reports. Chief Harden has no credibility or integrity and will protect his upper management.You should also subpoena city manager Greg Nyhoff as he has apparently been informed of the mistreatment of citizens and has also failed to deal with Captain Balentine or Chief Harden on these very well known issues.
Copies of this letter have been sent to the Modesto Bee and City Council as well.I would tell you my name, but I am afraid of retaliation.
There were a couple of results from last night that Reason readers with an interest in criminal justice should find encouraging.
The first was the reelection of Dallas County, Texas, District Attorney Craig Watkins. It was close, but it looks like Watkis pulled it out. Watkins is a former defense attorney who in 2006 took over one of the most notoriously ruthless DA offices in the country. He's also the first African-American DA in Texas history. Watkins set up a special unit within DA's office whose sole charge was to find innocent people who had been convicted by the prosecutors who previously occupied the office. It's probably of no coincidence, then, that Dallas County leads every county in the country (and most states) in exonerations. Watson actually had critics, who argued that it wasn't a prosecutors job to free the wrongly convicted. So it was good to see Dallas voters give him their approval, if only by a slim margin. (Read my interview with Watkins here.)
The other encouraging news from last night is that Colorado voters soundly rejected judges Terence Gilmore and Jolene Blair. Gilmore and Blair were reprimanded by the Colorado Supreme Court in 2008 for withholding exculpatory evidence while they were prosecutors. That withheld evidence helped them convict Timothy Masters of a crime he didn't commit. While Masters served a decade in prison, Gimore and Blair were promoted to judge. The reprimand and finding that they convicted an innocent man did not preclude them from sitting on the bench, where they presided over criminal cases.
Voters stepped in where the system failed. Masters' family and supporters started a campaign to get the two removed from the bench. Of the eight judges up for retention in Colorado's 8th Judicial District, only Blair and Gilmore were rejected, and both were rejected by at least 60 percent of voters. The other six judges were retained with at least 70 percent of the vote. It's pretty clear that the Masters case is why they lost.
In an age when there's far too little accountability for misbehaving prosecutors, Gilmore and Blair got some belated comeuppance. More of this, please.