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Anti-WarVIDEO: Police Brutality Lawsuits (Bicycle Activists v. Berkeley Police)
Chronicling some of the major issues in four lawsuits brought by bicycle activists against the Berkeley Police Department. This video chronicles some of the major issues in four lawsuits brought by bicycle activists against the Berkeley Police Department, cases which you can read more about at this story:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/01/1563964.php The video was shown to the Berkeley City Council on Monday, February 10, 2003 before they entered into a closed legal session. Approximately 16-20 supporters showed up on 24-hour notice for the 10-minutes of public hearing and deferred their time to the video. At the end, their faces looked stricken with shock and speechlessness, some of them having experienced one or more of the incidents. The day before, the video was shown to a full house at La Pena at the 7th annual Bicycle Film Festival. This was the exact two-year anniversary of the most egregious of the incidents, which occurred at a Reclaim the Streets demonstration. It was also the birthday of Tristan Anderson who was brutalized by police and arrested on outrageously trumped up charges on that day, two years ago. Happy birthday Tristan. The videos proceed factually and chronologically yet do not deal with a large number of incidents and facts which are either too complex, too numerous, not captured demonstratively on video, or dealt with the many who were abused (some very seriously) who are not plaintiffs in the cases. Note that video, though extremely important, never shows everything. Let me know if you need the video in a different format in order to view it and I will try to post that.
As Oil War Looms in the Gulf
Why is the City of Berkeley persecuting bicycle activists even more, by dragging out these cases?
Comments (Hide Comments)that photo again...
Wednesday Feb 12th, 2003 8:43 AM
 powelldevil2.jpgr60125.jpg not sure why it didn't work
injustice from commissioner Rantzman
Wednesday Feb 12th, 2003 11:05 AM
I want to add that showing the video at council was complicated by the fact that I was forced to go before Commissioner Rantzman for the second full day in walk-in court. regarding a "$10" bicycle registration ticket stemming from a demonstration (the cop couldn't get me on the noise ordinance or demonstrating without a permit, so he then asked if my bicycle was registered).
I should not have had to go before Commissioner Rantzman because I had "filed" a CCP section 170.6 motion to refuse him because of his proven bias against bicyclists in general and myself in particular. The City Council legal session begins at 5 PM. Walk-in court begins around 7:30 AM waiting in line. Rantzman refused to answer my questions and made me sit down until the end of the calendar, made me wait through a recess including the video for the "3:30" calendar, although it was already close to 4 PM. Despite his promiset to see me when he got back, he took another case. This type of unjust treatment is so infuriating. To be falsely cited, then made to endure this abuse and the loss of two days of my life in what is essentially a glorified jail, and to be openly discriminated against and treated differently from the others present. The first walk-in court day, I was the last one called (out of 45). There was at least one time before that when I was the last one called. He further calendared me for a misdemeanor "failure to appear" due to an error the court made, because he would not hear my explanation of how I missed the court date I didn't know about. I am good about making court dates I know about -- I've done it probably hundreds of times now. So now I have to hire an attorney or try to get a public defender, as "failure to appear" is a misdemeanor. There needs to be a campaign to expose commissioner Rantzman and to correct this situation. I am certainly not the only person he has treated with gross unfairness, but for many reasons I won't elaborate on what I know here. Because of this delay, and the fact that the City would not provide me with a VCR at the legal session (although they certainly had them in the building to use during the five full days of depositions the week previous) I had to go get one, and in the process brought an earlier edit of the tape. So the Council has only seen a much rougher, although narratively essentially identical, version of this piece. Could the delay in Rantzman's court be part of an effort to make me miss the legal meeting? It's quite possible. Please contact me (see above) if you would like to participate in the campaign. In defense against Rantzman
( jmeggs account AT site bclu dot org )
Thursday Nov 3rd, 2005 5:24 PM
I submitted the following dual brief today in Walk-in Court while defending against my latest two citations from the Berkeley Police Department:
http://bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/arraignmentbriefs-20051103.pdf You can read my detailed description of the first citation here: http://bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/PRC-JasonMeggs-20050626.pdf It is a document I submitted to the Police Review Commission as a formal complaint. These are referenced along with other incidents under Abuse Repors -> Case histories at BCLU.ORG, http://bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/ |