Most Recent Legal Update

Is this the officer here? I didn't even follow that at the time because it seemed like normal citizens and people who were undercover were all mixed together

Phone # Quick List:
SF District Attorney's Office: 415-553-1752

General Information: (415) 553-1752

Public Information Officer -
Mark MacNamara: (415) 553-1596 mark_macnamara [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Office of Citizen Complaints 415-597-7711

SF Police Commission: 415-553-1667

SF District Attorney
Spot Check Enforcement office: 415-553-9530

Safe Start Liason
Inspector Hans Anderson: 415-553-1754

Jonah Zern: 510.654.8613
(defendant, available for comment)

I am free!!!!! Thank you for everyone who helped!! Especially Ethan, Mary, David, Larry, Chris, Rachel, Nita, John, Midnight Special, O.R., cellmates, and others, I truly saw how terrible, racist, violent, and
unneccessary our prison system is, and how easy it is
for a cops lie to put someone in jail.
PLEASE CALL THE DA'S OFFICE TOMORROW AND ASK THEM TO
DROP THE CHARGES FOR ME AND JEREMY ROCHELLE, WE ARE
BOTH INNOCENT SCAPEGOATS! General Information
(415) 553-1752 and Public Information Officer: Mark
MacNamara: (415) 553-1596 mark_macnamara [at] ci.sf.ca.us

Reporters my # is 510.654.8613 I am excited to talk
about my experience!


MEETING TOMORROW!(Tuesday!) 7PM, Castlemont HS, Library:
Struggles for Racial Justice in Education, Reaching
Out to Parents: 86th Ave and Macarther Blvd
Please be there!! Bring ideas and visions for action.

Here are the best numbersI have:

Office of Citizen Complaints 415-597-7711 - though
all city offices are closed on for the MLK holiday, at
least I got a live operator at this number and she
said she was going to page someone who is on call and
have them call me back. I'll report back when and if
I actually get some news. (I've been waiting a short
time so far.)

SF Police Commission: 415-553-1667

SF District Attorney's Office 415-553-1752 - This is
the main number. I couldn't leave a message or reach
anyone on the holiday though.

Here are two other numbers given to me by people at
the jail or the SFPD:

SF District Attorney's Spot Check Enforcement office -
(I think that's what it's called and though it may
have nothing to do with this case, at least I was able
to leave a message.) 415-553-9530

Inspector Hans Anderson, the Safe Start Liason. He
also may have nothing to do with this case, but you
can leave a message anyway: 415-553-1754

(the following is from Jonah Zern, one of the people the cops arrested the other day at the breakaway march in San Francisco ....
for more info check out http://www.indybay.org,

followed by update and comments from me, chuckE...)

------------------------message from Jonah Zern, Oakland Schoolteacher arrested Sat------

CALL THE DA'S OFFICE AND ASK THEM TO
DROP THE CHARGES FOR ME AND JEREMY ROCHELLE, WE ARE
BOTH INNOCENT SCAPEGOATS!

SF District Attorney's Office

Public Information Officer -
Mark MacNamara: (415) 553-1596 mark_macnamara [at] ci.sf.ca.us

I am free!!!!! Thank you for everyone who helped!! Especially Ethan, Mary, David, Larry, Chris, Rachel, Nita, John, Midnight Special, O.R., cellmates, and others, I truly saw how terrible, racist, violent, and unneccessary our prison system is, and how easy it is for a cops lie to put someone in jail.


------chuckE's update on case, followed by email/commentary to Jonah---------

UPDATE: CALL THE DAMN INFO OFFICER FOR HALLINAN and check out their website for info on Jeremy and Jonah's cases. The guy is real fun to bug and charging these people for any crime seems ludicrous, especially considering the circumstances. Bottom line____both of them seem rather innocent, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And well the cops look shady as hell, and stupid too, and of course the INS deserved it anyway....and no I did not see who did it, but I am so sure that these folks are innocent that I am spending time writing this, sending it out and posting it on the web..

SF District Attorney addy http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/site/da_page.asp?id=273

--and finally that stupid email from me to Jonah---------------------------------

hey man i didn't even see you get nabbed, but would be willing to be a character witness if you get desperate...i'll tell them that i have known you as an adament peacenik...always hanging out with people who are against property destruction

as for jeremy...i swear he came up and talked to me a few moments before he got arrested...i was trying to pay attention, but did not figure out who the other person was who got arrested...then i saw jeremy's picture and realized that he had come up to me on market st right before he got arrested...and talked to me about how he wasn't used to these types of marches, or didn't know the organizers or something, he asked who organized the march and i said the usual suspects(shit i didn't know and didn't really want to think about it)

anyway would like to hear info about arraignment on friday and what all we can do besides calling the DA, which I will try and get my lawyer friends to begin to(NLG folks)...I am sure some of them are already helping out anyway

all this shit seems really strange and suspicious...ah, i think that it is just the dumb cops/system...lack of intelligence, etc...

hope you are well

in struggle - chuckE

PS - SMASH THE STATE

Thank you everyone for all your support. Someone gave me a better # for the DA's office yesterday: 415.553.1741 Please don't be angry with them when you call. It is not them who falsely arrested us. Please only call and state that you believe or know that we are innocent and feel the charges should be dropped.

No arraignment date has been set yet. Likely because they know the charges are false and are considering dropping them. Please stay tuned! We need everyone's support until the charges are completely dropped!

Jonah

Thank you again!!

Jonah

Charges were dismissed today "pending investigation"(always true of protest charges, press release below)

Letter About a San Francisco Jail

My name is Jonah Zern. I am a substitute teacher in Oakland and the co-coordinator of the Peace and International Relations Committee of the Oakland Education Association and was one of two protestors falsely arrested on Saturday, January 18, 2003 at the anti-war rally of 200,000 people in San Francisco. I want to thank all those who came to my aid and state how important people’s calling the District Attorney, jail and Mayor’s office and the rally organized outside the jail was in both our release and in today’s dismissal of our charges.

I want to make sure that my arrest helps to shine a spotlight on the bigger issues of the prison industry and how it is destroying our communities. I saw how much me being in prison hurt those close to me. I can't even imagine how much it destroys communities of color, about 2/3 of the people in prison were black, very, very few were white, no-one I met were even middle class - when I ask students who I teach in Oakland, "how many of you know someone in prison?" without fail 3/4 of the class raises their hands.

There are many more political prisoners than just Jeremy and I. Most people who I met were in fact there because of non-violent crimes of poverty, such as using drugs or taking money for a place to sleep, or because they had been profiled as a black male. My cell-mate was going to be in jail for a year for taking money from a Wal-Mart, a company that has sweatshops all over the world and viciously fights unions within its own doors. People I met were brilliant, caring, and being deeply hurt; a large portion of people I met talked matter-of-factly about the last few times they had been in prison. One was 18 and talked about how much more difficult the conditions were in jail than his multiple times in Juvie. There are much deeper doors that we need to open, to know that just because two community leaders supported by a massively popular movement are freed of our charges that we cannot rest or put this behind us.

There are so many people suffering in our own community from intolerable government oppression; oppression that continues a cycle of poverty, sadness, and hopelessness. We cannot shed tears for the millions of Iraqis suffering from our government's sanctions and war-mongering without also taking to heart the call to stop incarcerating Black and Latino children. We cannot fight for justice abroad and ignore what amounts to the genocide of a people within our own nation. The total number of inmates in local, state and federal prisons has quadrupled in the past 20 years to more than two million. Two-thirds of all nonwhite adult males are arrested and jailed between the ages of 18 and 30 nationally. On any average day in America, one of every four African Americans between the ages of 20 and 29 is in jail, prison, or on probation or parole.

If my community was so hurt by my two days in jail, where I received much media support, phone calls from political and community leaders, how much does it hurt whole communities of poor people of color who are only told that their brothers, husbands, boy-friends, girl-friends, sisters, mothers, uncles, aunts, friends are in jail because they are “no good”. How can a community lift itself up, when the institution of power is pushing it down with all its might.

It is time that we say “NO WAR ON THE PEOPLE OF IRAQ! NO WAR ON THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES! BOOKS NOT BOMBS, SCHOOLS NOT JAILS!” It is essential that our anti-war movement also become a civil rights movement.

* (prison is data from Platt, in Social Justice Journal, Vol. 28, No.1, 2001)


PRESS RELEASE:
JANUARY 23, 2003
CHARGES ON TWO ANTI-WAR POLITICAL PRISONERS DROPPED; ARESTEES CALL FOR END TO POLITICAL TARGETTING AND WAR ON THE POOR

Contacts:
Jonah Zern, Co-Coordinator, Peace and International Relations Committee, Oakland Education Association, 510.654.8613
Riva Enteen, National Lawyers Guild, 415.285.1055
John Viola, Zern and Rochelle’s Attorney, 415.902.5491

Charges falsely levied against Jeremy Rochelle, 21, San Francisco, and Jonah Zern, 25, Oakland, at Saturdays major anti-war rally in San Francisco have been dismissed. The two were held in SF City jail for two days and released on Martin Luther King Day on their Own Recognizance. The charges are dismissed pending investigation, a normal charge for protest dismissals that give the District Attorney the right to re-introduce charges for one year.

The community with national and international support played a major role in supporting Rochelle and Zern, both while they were in prison and once they were released. Supporters made calls of support to the District Attorney, Mayor and the Jail and organized a rally of approximately 60 people outside the jail calling for their release. “The Guild recognizes that courts are more likely to do the right thing if people create the political climate for them to do so.” Said Riva Enteen of the National Lawyers Guild.

Supporters expressed concern that Zern and Rochelle’s arrests were politically motivated. Many police were seen watching protestors committing illegal actions, while Zern and Rochelle who had done nothing, but are prominent activists in the Bay Area were targeted. “ Post 9-11 is not a war against terrorism it’s a war against dissent, there are serious attacks against constitutional rights of speech and association.” said Enteen

Zern, a substitute teacher in Oakland, further expressed concern that money diverted from social spending to a war on Iraq would also lead to deepening poverty and more prisoners. “Most people I met in prison had committed either crimes of poverty or were singled out as black people. I want to make sure that my arrest helps to shine a spotlight on the bigger issues of the prison industry and how deeply it is hurting communities of color. If the United States goes to war with Iraq, money will be taken away from poor communities and will lead to even worse conditions and more prisoners.”


###

I hope you are also concerned about ending US aid to Apartheid Israel. If you doubt Israel is apartheid then go to http://www.divest-from-israel-campaign.org and hear an Israeli Refusenik Soldier explain. Did you know that Israeli delegates are in DC right now trying for another $12 Billion at least in aid on top of what our government already gave them (over $4 Billion +)? And that this has been buried or not reported at all in the mainstream US media? Yet it was reported in the UK and Israel prominently. I hope you will draw attention to these issues as well.

I would like to thank everybody who put there time and/or energy into my legal situtation. This is a small example of how the people can make positve change within the dark justice system. I do not protest the war in iraq but i protest the inconsiderate values of our culture. Which inevitably lead to war and explotation around the world.