Gangsters in Blue

Last Saturday night, November 3^rd, 2007, I was traveling in my automobile. I parked in a restaurant’s private parking lot. A Snohomish County Sheriff was checking license plates against computer records. I am aware that this has become a common practice. He arrested me for an outstanding warrant, issued October 22^nd, 2007, for failure to appear on a traffic citation. I was in England on a medical emergency, and had notified the Court that I could not appear that day. As he was getting me out of his car in the basement of the jail he exclaimed living the dream!, which startled me. I asked are you serious? He answered in the affirmative.

The jailers, who style themselves Corrections Officers, at the Snohomish County Jail (or Corrections Facility) in Everett, Washington, USA, forced me through a variety of very well-practiced, choreographed, and degrading ordeals – bordering on the sadistic. They were quite clearly enjoying themselves. My clothes were taken and I was issued a thin cloth shirt and thin cloth pants. At around midnight, I was placed in a holding cell in the bookingarea. This room was about ten feet by ten feet, with an L-shaped, concrete bench formed along two walls, about 24 inches wide. A weird stainless-steel toilet-sink was in one corner. A working, though dysfunctional, phone was on the wall. There was nothing else in the room but a bit of toilet paper.

The outside temperature was less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The holding cell has a ceiling fan or ventilator outlet blowing cold air downwards. It felt colder than the air outside. I began shivering and trying to warm myself up. After about two hours of this, a corrections officer called me up to a counter. He presented me with a one-page form to sign. STANDISH was printed on a metal plate attached to his shirt.

The first part of the form was an accurate listing of my confiscated personal property. The second part contained language to the effect of: I hereby consent to medical testing and treatment and other. I did not consent to that then or now. I began crossing out the parts of this section that I would not consent to. I had not yet finished and initialed these corrections before STANDISH went ballistic. He jerked the form out from under my hand and said something curt which I do not recall. He placed me back in the holding cell. [...]

Read the rest of the story at LewRockwell.com (2007-11-10).

First they came for the immigrants.

Then they came for the anarchists.

Here is what the Committee for Public Safety and the local Red Squad have been collaborating on in Tacoma, Washington:

Dear Fellow Human Beings,

At 3 PM, on Friday, November 2nd, the landlord of the building which houses the Pitch Pipe Infoshop received a call from a Tacoma PD lieutenant. He told her that the Infoshop and the Anarchist Bookfair which it is holding this Saturday and Sunday is a homeland security threat and will be monitored by police for the entire weekend. The landlord then approached residents of the building and threatened eviction. As of now, no one is threatened with a sudden eviction.

This is a direct attack on the part of the government against those it disagrees with. The government is attempting to destroy and stop the protests planned for the 9th and 10th of November against the existence of the ICE detention center. It is attempting to shroud the bookfair in a cloud of fear and discourage people from attending. EVERYONE SHOULD STILL ATTEND! We will not allow this attack on our lives from the government.

… The government just threatened us with the same apparatus that we are fighting against: The Department Of Homeland Security. The same apparatus that is keeping people locked in cages in the Detention Center while we write this. They absolutely can not have protests like the ones planned for the 9th and 10th of November against their fascist infrastructure. Beyond this, the military is bringing a shipment of Strykers back through (supposedly) Olympia on Monday. One thing is clear: they are frightened of us.

—InfoShop 2007-11-02: Tacoma Anarchist Bookfair Accused Of Being Homeland Security Threat

Incidentally, please note their ongoing efforts to recruit the business owners and Respectable Citizens of the community as Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter:

The Tacoma PD encouraged the Downtown Merchants Guild to remove all portable items from their storefronts and asked the business owners to be the “eyes and ears” of the police and report any suspicious activity.

The Pitch Pipe Infoshop Collective concludes:

The police stated that potential actions might be directed at shutting down the Tacoma Link Light Rail or towards destroying property. What reason they have to believe this we do not know but are anxious to find out. As to why they are telling everyone these things the answer is simple: they wish to forcibly stop the protests against ICE by whatever means necessary. Plus, they are terrified of so many anarchists being in the area for the glorious homecoming of their killing machines from overseas.

We can not back down from this. Do not let their petty tactics sway you from coming to the Bookfair or to the protests on the 9th and 10th. This is nothing but them attempting to stifle the energy at our backs. Everyone in the area should come together and not allow another one of these attacks. Because if they feel as if they have succeeded in pushing our efforts back, they will not hesitate to do the same to other groups who push against the grain.

I wish them well in their protests tomorrow and on Saturday. The more the State tries to use Stasi-statism to try to harass, intimidate, and lock us down, the more emphatically we need to expose and resist them.

Onward.