Police State & Prisons News

On September 8, more than 30,000 people marched in San Francisco as part of a major international climate mobilization. The “Rise for Climate Jobs, and Justice” march filled the city’s streets just days before the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). Protesters took to the streets again on September 13th after the summit had commenced, this time shutting down the intersections and substantially disrupting the entrance into the GCAS venue.

Prisoners in at least 17 states are coordinating sit-ins, hunger strikes, work stoppages and commissary boycotts from August 21 until September 9 — the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison uprising. At New Folsom Prison, a hunger strike started by Heriberto Garcia on August 21 has grown. On August 25, around 500 activists turned out for a solidarity rally at San Quentin Prison.

On July 30, around 50 security guards of NutriAsia and 20 members of the Philippine National Police in Marilao and Meycauayan violently dispersed the striking NutriAsia workers while an ecumenical mass was being held at the picketline near the factory gates. Nineteen were arrested. Arrestees were released two days later, but still face charges and the strike continues.

Responding to undercover video footage of cruelty, activists with Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) marched to a Petaluma factory farm which supplies eggs to Whole Foods on July 30. Over twenty police officers and Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies were present to deny protesters access to the facility. Activists then marched five miles to the Petaluma Whole Foods location, which sells the farm’s eggs bearing misleading animal welfare labeling.

On July 23, hundreds attended a vigil-turned-protest for two Black women stabbed at an Oakland BART Station. Nia Wilson, 18, was stabbed to death the previous evening while standing on the platform of the MacArthur BART Station in North Oakland. Her older sister Latifah was also stabbed, but survived the attack. Speakers called on the crowd to take action to defend and protect Black women. The stabbing occurred on the eve of a planned white supremacist “Proud Boys” gathering scheduled for Berkeley August 5.

A long-standing logging road blockade defending the Rainbow Ridge in the Mattole River watershed was raided in recent days, but activists are still in the woods and on the road, struggling to hold the line. The Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) wants to gain access to the area to log in un-entered Douglas fir forests. HRC is owned by San Francisco's Fisher family, owners of the GAP empire. Activists say the Fishers need to feel the heat.

In a relatively quick victory after protests at the jail recently ramped up, Contra Costa Sheriff David Livingston announced on July 10 that his department will cancel its contract with ICE at the end of a 120-day waiting period. Sheriff Livingston said that protests and public pressure played a role in the decision to cancel the contract.

UPDATE 7/9: Police raid Occupy ICE SF.

On July 2, "Block ICE" protesters set up a chain link and barbed wire fence in front of the main entrance to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services building in San Francisco. Later, tents went up in front of metal gates used by buses transporting detained immigrants. A core group of protesters are now staying around the clock at the encampment. A statement released by occupiers reads, "We are also standing against a system of border imperialism that makes arbitrary definitions of citizenship".

Demonstrators decrying Trump's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents were in the streets throughout the month of June. An even larger wave of protest hit on June 30, a national day of action, with rallies held locally in dozens of Northern California cities. One of the largest protests was at the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, the only ICE detention center in the Bay Area.

On May 24, San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón announced that he will not be filing charges against the police officers who murdered Mario Woods in 2015 and Luis Góngora Pat in 2016. The following evening, protesters expressed their disgust with the decision by shutting down traffic near the Mission District police station. A series of protests have been held in front of Gascón's house.

Approximately 500 animal rights activists organized by the Direct Action Everywhere network staged a non-violent vigil in defense of caged and tortured chickens on May 29. The group was attempting a rescue operation at Sunrise Farms, an industrial egg facility in Petaluma. Thirty-nine people were arrested by local law enforcement after they attempted to enter the farm to document conditions and demand the transfer of sick or mistreated birds.

Kiilu Nyasha was loved and cherished around the world. She was a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party (BPP). Kiilu, 78, passed away on April 10. A memorial service is being organized by Kiilu’s close family and friends for Sunday, May 20. Beloved friends, family, comrades, and admirers of Kiilu are welcome to a community gathering that celebrates Kiilu’s life and principled pursuit of liberation for all oppressed peoples.

Justice Teams Network launched on May 2 to build power against systemic State Violence in all its forms. The Network is a statewide coalition of rapid response organizations across the state of California that will mobilize communities to respond radically to state violence. The Network will focus heavily on legislation as well as a public information campaign around the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights, the single largest obstacle to police accountability.

California lawmakers have introduced a measure that would alter the standard for when law enforcement officers can use deadly force. The Police Accountability and Community Protection Act (AB 931) would change the standard of firearm use from "reasonable use" to "necessary force." SB 1421 will give the public access to police records related to use-of-force investigations and complaints against officers for sexual assault or other serious job-related dishonesty.

At the March 27 Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting, five-plus hours of discussion ended with a decision that Urban Shield as currently constituted would end after the 2018 war games and exposition. The vote left open-ended what Alameda County’s regional disaster preparedness activities would be in future years, but the Supervisors were decisive that it would not be the Urban Shield event, which began in 2007.

Update: Oakland passes strongest community control of surveillance in the nation on May Day.

Davis and Berkeley have adopted the new law that mandates public transparency, vetted use policies, and annual reporting to protect human rights and reins in secret, unfettered surveillance by local law enforcement. Oakland is in the final stages of the adoption process. A California surveillance transparency law (SB 1186) passed through its first policy committee on April 5 at the State Senate Public Safety committee.

On April 15, Prisoners United of Silicon Valley started a peaceful protest to demand humane treatment in the jails. Their hunger strike is the third in two years to protest substandard jail conditions and a lack of opportunity to move out of isolation. Over 70% of Santa Clara County’s jail population are pretrial detainees, many of whom remain fighting their cases for five years or more because they can’t afford bail.

The National Lawyers Guild of Sacramento contradicts the lies being circulated by cops and corporate media regarding what occurred at the Stephon Clark demonstration in Sacramento on March 31. NLG Sacramento states, "We witnessed cases of harassment and excessive force by the California Highway Patrol and Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, including the unprovoked hit-and-run of a demonstrator, the issuance of unlawful orders and threats to our legal observers."

Sacramento police shot Stephon Clark seven times from behind, according to an independent autopsy conducted by pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, who was hired by Clark’s family. The autopsy contradicts the Sacramento police department’s claim that Clark, who was unarmed at the time, was advancing towards officers Terrence Mercadal and Jared Robinet when they shot 20 times and killed him.

To support transformational change for Black communities in Sacramento, the Build. Black. Coalition and Black Lives Matter Sacramento announced they are creating a multi-year plan in partnership with the Sacramento Kings to support the education of young people and to provide the workforce preparation and economic development efforts needed to truly #BuildBlackFutures. The effort to support and lift up Black youth begins this Friday, March 30 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the South Sacramento Christian Church.

Black people, especially women, are more likely to have been unarmed when killed by police than non-blacks, according to a new study of nationwide data. This risk also appears to increase in police departments with a greater presence of non-white officers, report the researchers. A key finding of the study is that nearly 60 percent of black women killed by police were unarmed at the time of the interaction.  While the odds of being killed by police when unarmed were about the same for black and white males, the high percentage of unarmed black women killed by police significantly increased the overall odds for unarmed blacks.

Black Lives Matter Sacramento writes: The murder of Stephon Clark was unjustified. On March 18th at 9:13 pm, Stephon was murdered, and while the police interrogated his family, the family was not told that his body was in their backyard. Four hours later at 1:00 am, his grandmother looked into the backyard, and saw his body on the ground, shot up. Within 48 hours Sacramento Police Department changed their story four times: first, they said he was carrying a gun; then they said he was carrying a “toolbar;” then they stated he was carrying a wrench; lastly, they confirmed that he only had a cellphone.

Chief Deputy Craig Wilson of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office has been appointed to the new editorial board of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. The process was initiated by the Sentinel's new managing editor, Kara Meyberg Guzman. The appointment raises serious questions concerning the Sentinel's journalistic independence, and the news organization's ability to adequately respond editorially to issues of police brutality and brutality within the Santa Cruz County jail system. Wilson oversees Santa Cruz County's corrections Bureau, a department he has managed as deaths spiked at the jail.

Defend J20 Resistance writes: On January 20, 2017 at the massive protests in Washington DC against Trump’s inauguration, militarized police attacked and mass-arrested over 200 protestors, charging 214 of them with an unprecedented eight felonies. The first trial against 6 defendants ended with a verdict of not guilty on all charges. In this touring presentation, you'll hear an overview and critical analysis of the case this far, highlighting its role and significance in the changing landscape of political repression in the United States.

Joshua Shepherd writes: I have a self-inflicted wound. I joined the United States military. I didn't know. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I was borne of wounded folk. I became wounded myself. Let us heal. I am currently using a Twitter account @FortressBayArea to name militarisms past and present. I aspire to a kind of community solidarity where we challenge our neighbors to stop inflicting wounds for their own sake and that of others. The foundation of the modern Bay Area was laid on conquest. Of land, of people, of spirit. One of UC Berkeley's cornerstones was shifted 5° to align with the Golden Gate and mark the coming conquest of the Pacific.

Hundreds of immigrant rights activists, including many students, unionists, and other allies, surrounded the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in San Francisco to disrupt ICE's daily patterns of mistreatment and dehumanization. Increased ICE activity has been reported throughout the Bay Area, the Central Coast, and in the Central Valley. Reports from rapid response networks confirm that ICE agents have recently arrested hundreds of people in cities including Monterey, Oakland, Fresno, Napa, San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Clara, and Salinas.

Chinga la Migra reports on an action against Francisco Cantú which took place on February 19 in San Francisco, and the cancellation of his event in Oakland the following day: After being shut down by comrades in Austin and forced to publicly admit he is against abolishing Border Patrol by comrades in New York, Cantú decided not to read from his book or discuss it as had been planned, and at the last minute, announced that he would only be signing books. A few minutes into the book signing a group of us disrupted it by reading prepared statements and handing out flyers, as well as free copies of No Wall They Can Build.