Feature Archives

Indybay reporter David Morse has filed a lawsuit against the UC Berkeley Police for violations of the First, Fourth and Eighth Amendments and for violations of a federal law barring the use of search warrants for unpublished journalistic materials. The lawsuit follows Morse’s successful motion to quash a search warrant issued for his unpublished news photographs. Morse was arrested without probable cause a year ago at a UC Berkeley protest he was covering and held on felony charges, which were later dropped.

Martin Cotton II was living houseless and unarmed on August 9th, 2007, when he was severely abused by police, and brought to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility. At the jail, he was further attacked by guards, and left to die on the floor of a cell. On Monday, January 10th, a federal civil rights trial, brought on behalf of Martin Cotton's baby daughter, Siehna Cotton, and by Martin's father, Marty Cotton, will begin in Oakland: Siehna Cotton et al. v. Eureka Police Dept. and Humboldt County Sheriff's Dept.

During the December 7th, 2010 Oakland City Council meeting, outraged and grieving family members, friends and members of the public demanded to be allowed to speak during "Open Forum" at the beginning of the meeting. When the council refused, supporters chanted to the front and Derrick's father spoke along with several others. Later many more spoke. The council's response was to offer to agendize the topic for a future meeting.

After web host Amazon and DNS host Dyn Inc. terminated service to WikiLeaks.org earlier this week, San Jose-based PayPal announced late last night that it has "permanently restricted" WikiLeaks' account. In a statement released on its blog, PayPal accused WikiLeaks of violating its acceptable use policy by "encourag[ing], promot[ing], facilitat[ing] or instruct[ing] others to engage in illegal activity." WikiLeaks has struggled to stay online after initiating the slow release of over 250,000 leaked US diplomatic cables known as Cablegate, and is now available on several mirrors such as wikileaks.indymedia.org.

John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America and Food Revolution, says the film Bold Native "is the controversial story of young adults who just can’t sit by and stay silent in the face of massive cruelty to animals. Unwilling to passively succumb to resignation and despair, they take a stand, not just with their words, but with their actions. Some might see them as threats to society, others might admire them as self-sacrificing heroes, but no one could see this remarkable film and not gain a greater understanding of what courage really means.”

During an anti-IMF protest in Athens, Greece on November 15th, a U.S. anarchist was brutally beaten by the Delta Force, a special police division for anarchists and immigrants. Although she suffered serious injuries and was hospitalized for several days, she is expected to fully recover. In the following days as more protests continued in Athens marking the anniversary of the Junta, several Greek demonstrators have been brutalized by the Delta Force. On November 27th, protesters in San Francisco expressed solidarity with comrades in Greece.

Derrick Jones was shot and killed by the Oakland Police Dept on Monday November 8th 2010 on the 5800 block of Trask Street. On November 11th, protesters took to the streets to protest the murder of another unarmed man by the police. Family members of Jones and Oscar Grant joined a demonstration on Bancroft Way before marching to the Fruitvale BART station, the site of Grant's fatal shooting. BART shut down the station for several hours during the evening commute because of the protest.