DAYS OF ACTION AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY! October 22 and 23
Resistance and Remembrance
Contact: REDWOOD CURTAIN COPWATCH copwatchrwc@riseup.net (707)633-4493
On Monday October 22nd, people all over the country will be acting-
marching, rallying, uniting, protesting, speaking– against police
brutality.
http://www.scdirectaction.org/copwatch/?p=19
http://www.scdirectaction.org/copwatch/?page_id=2
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2007/10/262162.shtml
Here, behind the Redwood Curtain, we have experienced numerous killings by
the police and have been feeling, in multiple ways, the brunt of
increasingly militarized police forces. At the same time, we are subject
to the (in)justice system, perpetuating the violence and repression. WE
ARE NOT CRIMINALS!!
While Redwood Curtain CopWatch and others do daily work to counter police
brutality, support survivors and their families, and explore radically
different ways for our communities to organize themselves, we believe that
October 22nd and 23rd are opportunities to get together in a BIG way to
show our opposition to the police state and other violent state
repression.
Also, there will be an indoor night space on October 22nd, providing
opportunity to: gather and share information; begin better networking;
bolster resistance to State violence; and further build relationships
necessary to support and understand each other- recognizing that we must
learn from the most oppressed people and communities amongst us.
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so ODIOUS,
makes you so sick, that you can’t take part; and you’ve got to put your
bodies upon the gears and wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
and you’ve GOT TO MAKE IT STOP” –Mario Savio, 1964
SCHEDULE (see below for further details)
October 22nd and October 23rd
Days of Action Against Police Brutality
**Monday, Oct. 22nd**
WEAR BLACK!
Walkout 1:15pm
Public Convergence/Rally 3:00pm
Creation Film, Dinner, Networking 6:00pm
**Tuesday, Oct. 23rd**
Demonstration and Memorial for Christopher Burgess 12 Noon
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WALKOUT!
WALK OUT of school and work at 1:15pm on Monday October 22 IN DEFIANCE OF
THE POLICE STATE.
We will not continue to function as if everything is alright while the
killing and violence continues!! We take notice of the expanding police
state. Police terrorism is unacceptable. On this day, we make a powerful
statement of resistance by walking out- We let our employers, teachers,
fellow students and co-workers know that it is THAT IMPORTANT! We disrupt
the ongoing complicity of our daily lives. We challenge the systems and
institutions in which we live!
COVERGENCE at 3:00pm at the Gazebo in Old Town Eureka
Rally in opposition to police brutality. WEAR BLACK! Speak your mind.
Fight back! Hear words from families of people murdered by the police.
Say “NO MORE” loud and clear with your presence!!
Stand together to show and voice the Power of the People. Those who have
died already and those who are harassed and abused daily deserve for
people to speak– and to demand and create justice.
CREATION at 6:00pm at the Labor Temple 840 E. Street Eureka
Dinner
Film
Networking
Share stories and strategies. Next Steps to continue the movement and
create alternatives to the violence of police. Begin connecting as
support networks. Connect with CopWatch and other groups.
**Tuesday October 23rd**
DEMONSTRATION AND MEMORIAL AT THE EUREKA COURTHOUSE
One year ago, on October 23, 2006, Christopher Burgess was shot and killed
by EPD, when he was 16 years old. Come together to honor his memory and in
protest. NO MORE FEAR FOR OUR CHILDREN!
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Here’s a link to a full size flyer for October 22nd and Oct. 23rd (It
also has good info on how to deal with police, Know Your Rights)
http://rs238.rapidshare.com/files/63031371/Finally____.pdf
Redwood Curtain CopWatch and others organizing the Days of Action welcome
groups and individuals to make their own written statements regarding
police brutality, militarism in our communities, other repressive
functions of the State, or the work your doing in resistance. The
Convergence on the Gazebo or the Creation space in the Labor Temple will
be good places to distribute your statement and/or publicly read it!!
CopWatch would like to compile your statements into a booklet.
COPWATCH PATROLS AND TRAININGS
We believe IT IS CRUCIAL TO BE ON THE STREETS patrolling the police.
The right to watch & the right to videotape are CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED
activities
Just the possibility of a CopWatch presence may deter abusive behavior by
police.
CopWatch Trainings: Thursday Oct 18 6:00-9:00pm Arcata, CCAT
Saturday Oct 20 1:00-5:00pm Eureka
call for details
We want to have CopWatch crews on the streets on October 22nd and 23rd –
at the Days of Action Against Police Brutality. If you are interested
in being on CopWatch patrol, please come to a training. If you can’t make
the training, please call Redwood Curtain CopWatch (707) 633-4493.
Bus schedules: http://www.redwoodtransit.org/
FROM COLLEGE OF THE REDWOODS:
Buses leave from College of the Redwoods on Monday, October 22nd going
North at 1:47pm and 2:15pm. With a WalkOut at 1:15pm, CR students could
have time to do a smaller rally at CR before getting on the bus… police
academy?
NOTE TO ALL:
We encourage you to organize with others to walk out and to
march/rally/protest between the time of the walkout and the Convergence at
the Gazebo in Old Town at 3:00pm.
FROM HSU AND ARCATA:
HSU students will be meeting at the Art Quad on campus after walking out
at 1:15pm. Then, after whatever actions HSU students choose to do on
campus related to police brutality, students and other folks in Arcata,
meet at the Plaza to rideshare to the Gazebo in Old Town.
Buses from Arcata on Monday, October 22nd going South leave from the
Transit Center at 1:40pm and 2:38pm.
People wanting to ride their bikes from Arcata to Eureka on the 22nd can
meet up with other bike-riders at the Plaza– to begin riding at 1:45pm.
OCTOBER 23rd
Please check the bus schedule for Oct. 23rd , the year anniversary of the
killing of 16 year old Christopher Burgess, to get to the Eureka
Courthouse around 12 noon in Memoriam and Protest.
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WHAT’S BEEN HAPPENING ?
Behind the Redwood Curtain there’s been a drastic rise in the presence &
violence of the police.
**In the past 2 months, 5 people in this area have died during police
(EPD, Sheriff’s, CHP) ‘encounters’ or in police custody.**
Over the past 2 yrs:
* Eureka Police Department [EPD] fatally shot 5 people including two teens
* EPD & Sheriff’s Dept. beat a man to death
* 100-200 community members were separated from their families, detained,
and deported in ICE immigration raids
*Sheriff’s and CHP separately shot and killed two men with no witnesses
* EPD, Sheriff’s, and SWAT burned a Hupa man’s house down, killing him
*Humboldt County jail got rid of its Law Library for prisoners
*Suspicious in-custody death of a jailed man awaiting transport to mental
hospital
* More automatic and semi-automatic weapons supplied to local cops
Also, common police behavior has intensified:
*day & night abuse of houseless people for ‘crimes’ like sleeping
*cruel treatment of people experiencing mental health crises
* intimidation of communities of color, native peoples, and youth
* violence and intimidation against people engaged in political activities
The police continuously try to justify killing by saying they feared for
their lives…In EPD history, there have been only 3 line-of duty deaths
of Eureka Police Dept. officers: 2 from car crashes (1947, 1974) and one
from a heart attack (1996).
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MURDERS BY POLICE:
Christopher Arrion Burgess, 16 year-old Native American boy. He was
pepper sprayed by a probation officer who stormed into a house where
Christopher was watching a movie with friends. EPD officer Terry Liles,
who had pulled Christopher out of sleep about 3 years earlier (13 years
old) and beat him until the boy’s skull was fractured, chased Christopher
on October 23, 2006, and shot him in the heart. Killed him. And this,
after years of Christopher being systematically criminalized, and still
being a kind and much-loved kid.
Cheri Lyn Moore, a grandmother, who was distressed about the anniversary
of her son’s death and called mental health, was killed by an overzealous
EPD SWAT team. Cheri lived in an apartment, but was a friend to the
streets. EPD, behaving like they were in an action movie, made what they
call a “welfare check” after calls from mental health, and rather than
allow Cheri to speak with friends and be comforted from her despair,
staked out her apartment with snipers, forced themselves into her
apartment, and shot her multiple times. Killed her.
Martin “Fred” Cotton, a 26 year-old man on the streets of Eureka was
killed by EPD and Humboldt County Sheriffs. EPD was pepper sprayed
Martin, kicked him, beat him with night sticks, and punched him with
fists-for up to 20 minutes. EPD put a hood on Martin and took him
directly to jail to die, and where the beating continued, rather than
immediately bringing him to the hospital. Martin was not seen by medical
staff while in police custody, until he was dead. NONE of the officers
involved were put on any type of leave, nor have their names been
disclosed.
Zachary Cooke- 18 years old: He was in a bed, covered by sheets when EPD
officer Terry Liles shot and killed him. This was about 2 months after
Liles, who was also involved in the shooting of Cheri Moore, killed teen
Christopher Burgess.
Peter Stewart: When an ambulance was called to take a young Hupa man,
Peter Stewart, back to Semprevirens mental hospital in Eureka, he had been
released two days early and was not stabilized, instead the Humboldt
Sheriffs, EPD and SWAT team showed up. Peter Stewart had not committed nor
was he accused of any crime. Peter did not want to go with the
weapon-brandishing police. The cops threw 50 rounds of tear gas and
ammunition into the house, which eventually caught it on fire with Peter
inside. Fire trucks were in the driveway with friends of Peter who were
firemen, begging to be allowed to put the fire out. The police refused
and allowed the housed to burn. Peter was sound dead in the bath tub,
wrapped in wet sheets- an apparent attempt to survive the gas and heat.
Peter’s mother and other family were forced by the police (essentially ‘at
gunpoint’) to stay away. The family witnessed the killing.
James ‘Hans’ Peters, a man from Hoopa, was locked up in the Humboldt
County Jail, awaiting transfer to Napa State Mental Hospital. He, a man
with mental health issues, was in solitary confinement for several months.
He had allegedly hurt a jail guard while he was incarcerated. The jail
clams they found Hans near dead–and that he had hung himself. Then the
jail brought him to the medical hospital and did not inform the family.
When family members eventually arrived, having received an anonymous call
from the hospital staff, the police would not allow the family to see
their beloved or even be told his condition. The family was kicked out of
the hospital and the parking lot by police. Another day passed before his
mother was allowed to see him (he was on life-support)- and only after a
judge’s order. She wasn’t given information on his condition until the
media wrote about the situation. The family doubts everything told to them
by the Sheriffs about Hans dying from a ’suicide attempt’; reasons for
doubt include the nature of the wound and the condition of Hans’ body,
which they saw after he died. Hans died in the hospital, in the
jail/Sheriff’s custody.
Many accounts from people who have been incarcerated in the Humboldt
County Jail include hearing people get KILLED in the jail by Sheriff’s
Deputies and guards. And these stories have always been covered up.
Eloy Infante-Toscano, killed by Sheriff’s Deputy in the woods near Larabee
Valley. Mr. Infante-Toscano was from Mexico. No one but he and the
Deputy were present when he was shot and killed.
Gabriel Cuevas-Maldonado, shot with assault rifle by EPD officer Gary
Whitmer. Mr. Maldonado was in a house when he was killed. He spoke no
English.
EPD Homicides 2005-2006, those admitted by EPD:
Sept. 15, 2005 Gabriel Cuevas-Maldonado, shot by police
Nov. 7, 2005 Shawn Garfield
April 14, 2006 Cheri Moore, shot by police
April 30, 2006 Trevvor Davenport
Oct. 23, 2006 Christopher Burgess, shot by police
Nov. 4, 2006 Anthony Evans
Dec. 8, 2006 Jonni Honda, shot by police
Jan. 4, 2006 Zachary Cooke, shot by police
Feb. 10, 2006 Jason Turnage
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WEAPONS
Assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons are being supplied by a large
corporation (Target) and the DA.
TAZERS
Tazers give off a 50,000 volt blast. EPD is expecting to have a new batch
of tazers soon. The body count in North America now stands at 287 after
having been tasered with this “less than lethal” device. 15 Canadians and
272 Americans since 2001, 9 dead in August of this year alone.
Tazers in Humboldt have been used, for instance, on a person sneaking into
a concert at the Eureka Muni and people following police orders (to walk
away) in Arcata. They are known, not only to be especially lethal to
youth and elderly, but are used as punishment rather than restraint. They
are used excessively wherever they are supplied to police.
One of many similar tazer stories:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/side2/4464516.html
…Since the Houston Police Department armed itself with Tasers, touted as
a way to reduce deadly police shootings, officers have shot, wounded and
killed as many people as before the widespread use of the stun guns, a
Houston Chronicle analysis shows.
Officers have used their Tasers more than 1,000 times in the past two
years, but in 95 percent of those cases they were not used to defuse
situations in which suspects wielded weapons and deadly force clearly
would have been justified.
Instead, more than half of the Taser incidents escalated from relatively
common police calls, such as traffic stops, disturbance and nuisance
complaints, and reports of suspicious people.
In more than 350 cases, no crime was committed. No person was charged or
the case was dropped by prosecutors or dismissed by judges and juries,
according to the Houston Chronicle’s analysis of the first 900 police
Taser incidents, which occurred between December 2004 and August 2006.
Of those people who were charged with crimes, most were accused of
misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies….
CONSTANT VIOLENCE AGAINST HOUSELESS PEOPLE
In downtown Eureka, a private security company (owned by the mayor’s
brother) that is legally not supposed to lay their hands on anyone, has
beaten people who are on the streets. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in
taxes go to pay this private company.
April 25, 2007: On so-called public grounds in Arcata, a peaceful
encampment protest regarding the human rights of houseless people was
raided by 7 police agencies from Humboldt County–after a long night of
rain. Arcata is one of many towns where there is no shelter or ‘free’
place to sleep without police harassment; harassment that sometimes
includes physically violent attacks and confiscation/theft/destruction of
personal gear. Eighteen protesters/sleepers were arrested (and jailed) at
the raid, with no charges later filed. Prior to that, then Arcata Ranger
Bob Murphy, ordered a porta-potty that had been rented by the encampment
participants, to be taken away. [There are NO public bathrooms in
downtown Arcata]. Bob Murphy is notorious for his paid habit/job of
hiding in the woods and sneaking up on, or stalking, people who have found
an otherwise safe place to sleep. Police regularly deprive people living
out-of-doors from sleep. During the encampment, cops used bright lights,
fake raids, and confiscation of peoples’ survival gear (recognized forms
of torture) to harass and keep awake encampment participants. They stole a
man’s vital medication and arrested him when he went to retrieve it. The
police failed to call an ambulance when one of the protesters they
arrested had a seizure on the cement while handcuffed.
VIOLENT TARGETING OF POLITICAL DISSENT
On November 2, 2006, while thousands of people throughout the country
protested the war against Iraq, demonstrators riding bicycles from Arcata
to Eureka were attacked by police, knocking one woman unconscious (and she
was later charged with felony assaults on an officer); That same day, in
Eureka, a row of police in riot gear and armed to the teeth pointed their
guns from the Federal building at quiet rallyers.
As a helicopter circled above them, non-violent demonstrators, mostly
students of color, peacefully walked from Arcata to Eureka on the only
route available (the shoulder of the highway) on May 1st 2006 in protest
of anti-immigration legislation. The walkers were violently intercepted
by police several times. Three petite women on the walk were arrested and
physically abused by the police during the walk. No charges were filed
against the arrested women
There is a history of violence (sometimes deadly) and collaboration by
police and civilians, against local non-violent forest defenders. Guns
have been shot at old-growth tree-sitters. Huge trees have been felled
while protesters were in the area, one such incident killing activist
David “Gypsy” Chain. Prior and subsequent to that murder, the police have
been PRESENT and allowed trees to be felled with protesters in the
immediate area. There have been hundreds of instances of police using
physical brutality and tactics of torture against non-violent protesters,
and many instances of police collaboration with life-threatening acts
(including vehicular manslaughter attempts) by non-officers. EPD and
Sheriffs used pepper spray on young, immobilized non-violent protesters
through massive spraying and q-tip application straight to the eye. None
of the officers involved in any of the above incidents, occurring
frequently over 2 and ½ decades, have ever been put on leave for their
participation. The DA’s (current and former, Gallegos and Farmer) have
NEVER prosecuted civilian or police for violence against forest protection
activists- even lethal violence.
POLICE TERROR AGAINST FAMILIES IN THEIR HOMES
Sheriffs Dept. Drug Task Force terrorizes families who have small 215
marijuana grows– at gunpoint. Wayne Hansen (Sher. Dept.) is consistently
involved in the terrorizing.
Sheriff’s deputies went to a long-time multi-family property in Trinidad
because County inspectors were having difficulty getting in contact with
the land owner regarding building and health permits. Sheriffs rammed into
the unlocked home of a young couple, and pointed a gun at the woman who
lives there– she was holding her infant and standing next to her 4 year
old son.
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COPWATCH: MORE THAN JUST WATCHING THE POLICE.
We formed Redwood Curtain CopWatch, outraged about excessive police force,
EPD killings, and the harassing and brutal role that police have in and
against our communities. We’ve been sharing strategies of survival,
witnessing, and resistance to police brutality and transformative
community actions with CopWatch groups throughout the country.
Redwood Curtain CopWatch NOT ONLY documents oppressive, abusive police
activity…
Also, we work on supporting victims of police brutality & people caught in
the criminal (in)justice system.
COPWATCH INVITES YOUR STORIES so we can support individuals- & their
families- who have been brutalized/harassed/murdered by police, keep a
public history/log of specific abusive cop activity, and spread truth
regarding harmful incidents& trends.
We seek to Create Support Networks of community options (that don’t
involve the state) for people when: they believe they’re in danger; need
emotional or mental health support; are being harassed; have problems in
their neighborhoods; have fear due to their immigration status…
We believe that building community and neighborhood relationships is
essential to protect each other from police violence. Community building
will go a long way toward ending other violence in our lives.
We have found that State-sponsored “solutions” such as police, the mental
health system, and local “homeless plans”, most often deceive and
terrorize us.
We believe that for true justice, we must examine and address the
underlying oppression & mindsets that lead to unmet needs, economic
disparity, fear of each other, and all forms of violence.
As a community we can work towards creating real justice that heals &
transforms rather than destroys and erases. Police violence does not make
us safe.
RESIST POLICE BRUTALITY!
For Victim Support WE NEED:
. Healers, good listeners, counselors, survivors
. People to speak with victims and witnesses& document their stories in
safe settings
. Lawyers & organizations to file lawsuits, petitions, etc.
. Supporters in courtrooms
. People demanding justice through direct action, protest, outreach, etc.
. People to staff a HOTLINE
For Community Support WE NEED:
. Healers & healing networks to work OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM (i.e. Icarus
Project, mental health support, physical health networks, rape crisis
help, domestic violence victim support, addiction counseling)
. Support & organizing for and with youth, immigrant communities,
houseless people
. People to give workshops on subjects including: know-your-rights,
non-violent direct action, racism, sexism, etc.
. Gathering & office spaces
. Digital video cameras, tapes, digital audio recorders