Matt Nelson on Oscar Grant shooting: INDEFENSIBLE

Matt Nelson is a former co-chair of TUPOCC.

INDEFENSIBLE
By Matt Nelson
Spokesperson
Milwaukee Police Accountability Coalition

The shooting of Oscar Grant is indefensible. The inaction from the Alameda County District Attorney and Oakland mayor is also indefensible. Recently, I watched a clearer version of the videotape of the shooting. I saw a blatant execution, a total failure of the officers to act to help Oscar live, a clear attempt by all of officers shown in the video to cover up this crime.

All officers involved should be criminally prosecuted by the Alameda County District Attorney. It is likely that this fool, the Alameda County DA Tom Orloff, will not do what is just. So perhaps, the officers will be federally prosecuted, but this means turning over police accountability to the US Department of Justice. This is akin to having the fox guard the hen house.

It is likely the Oakland mayor will do little to halt the daily occurrence of police brutality. With California law as it is now [see Copley Press v. Superior Court, 63 Cal.App.4th 367 (1998)] it is unlikely that true reforms to the BART system of police accountability will be fruitful in Fruitvale, without a protracted legislative struggle.

So what do we want? Remember point #7:

WE WANT AN IMMEDIATE END TO POLICE BRUTALITY AND MURDER OF BLACK PEOPLE, OTHER PEOPLE OF COLOR, ALL OPPRESSED PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNITED STATES (Black Panther Party, Platform and Program- What We Want, What We Believe, 1968).

So what can we do?

Force the DA to bring charges against the officers involved. He has the power to do this. The public should be in his face (office, house, favorite restaurant, bingo hall, bridge club, golf club, and night club) at all times until he concedes.

Expose the corrupt police union(s) which protect criminal cops. If you know how to expose criminal politicians, criminal corporations, and Ponzi scheme criminals, you know how to expose criminal police unions. They will scatter like roaches when the light shines upon them.

Do our own police accountability work, everyday and every night. Safe (cop free) zones, cop watch, know your rights workshops, and the like. We have to be inspired by the great public camera work done to capture the murder of Oscar Grant. We can multiply that by thousands. Let us take care of each other and be accountable for our own neighborhood safety.

Another stolen life taken has been by police violence. It will continue without a powerful, strategic and consistent resistance. We grieve together, but we will fight together for justice. We will stand with the family of Oscar Grant and we know that we cannot allow officers to act above the law.

In the last few years we have witnessed an increase in harassment, racial profiling, false arrests, beatings, and wrongful deaths against young people of color in our cities. Pledging to eradicate police violence and create effective structures of police accountability are necessary first steps in order to keep our people and our families safe. We must continue to offer direct support to the family knowing that they are under tremendous pressure to be silent.

Justice for Oscar Grant is justice for all!

Contact Matt Nelson at: mattnelson64@hotmail.com

Houston police used Tasers more on blacks

Newsvine - Study: Houston police used Tasers more on blacks

Of 1,417 Taser deployments by officers between December 2004 and June 2007, nearly 67 percent were used on black suspects, according to an audit conducted for the city by a team of criminology, statistics and mathematics experts. About 25 percent of Houston's population is black.

The audit was requested by Houston Mayor Bill White in 2006, after several high-profile incidents. ...

Minister Robert Muhammad, with the southwest regional headquarters for The Nation of Islam, said the study shows that police are more apt to use the weapons on black suspects than suspects of other races.

"Can we say it's racism? Yes, and some people would argue no," said Muhammad. "The greater argument is abuse of authority. We give them authority to protect us. But instead of using that authority to protect us, they abuse us with it."

Houston police said their use of Tasers was not tied to race, but to a person's behavior.

"It's not a racial issue. A Taser device is no different from a radar gun. It's race neutral," Executive Assistant Police Chief Charles McClelland said after the Houston City Council meeting during which the report was released.

Prisoners' plight during hurricane Gustav: CR and INCITE action alerts

Forwarded message:


Hey folks - please make this call today in between your Labor Day Weekend activities. Also, INCITE! New Orleans tells us that women prisoners are being shipped to Angola State Prison, an infamous maximum security men's prison, rather than to the state women's facility. This happened last time, and resulted in terrible human rights abuses. We particularly need the "big" organizations among you to make this call - but everyone's voice is needed. MAKE SURE WHEN YOU CALL TO DEMAND TO KNOW WHY WOMEN PRISONERS ARE BEING SHIPPED TO A MEN'S FACILITY, AND THAT THEY BE MOVED TO A WOMEN'S FACILITY IMMEDIATELY.

Also, we are raising money to help get low income women of color, who, as we all know, were devastatingly impacted by Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, out of town safely and back to the City as soon as it is safe. You can donate at INCITE!'s website http://www.incite-national.org, put New Orleans in the "purpose" line of the Pay Pal form, and we will be transferring it directly to the INCITE! New Orleans bank account for distribution to the 500 + constituency and patients of the New Orleans Women's Clinic, created post Katrina by INCITE! New Orleans to meet the overwhelming need for health care for low income uninsured women of color in the wake of public hospital closings and ongoing environmental contamination...

...

What will happen to the prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison located in New Orleans this time?

Critical Resistance (CR) is demanding that the elected officials of New Orleans will not create the same devastating wrongs as they did to the prisoners of Orleans Parish Prison during hurricane Katrina.

1. we demand a full and safe evacuation of all prisoners
2. we demand to know what the evacuation plan for prisoners is
3. we demand to see a public document about that plan immediately
4. we demand information about how we can find people after an evacuation

We are urging every member, ally and comrade of New Orleans across the country, to make at least one call to:

• Sheriff Malrin Gusman: 504.827.8505
  (James Carter's secretary said "Orleans Parish Prison is Gusman's prison")
• James Carter: 504.658.1030
  (Criminal Justice Council Member who is able to put pressure on the sheriff even if they say they can't)
  You can also send an email: JCarter@cityofno.com
  please put in your email subject: How will you protect prisoners this time?

Please call as many times as you can to put pressure on them and let them know our demands and it is their job to be accountable to us!!!!!!!!

For further information from us please contact Critical Resistance New Orleans:
Mayaba: 917.385.5472 or mayaba@criticalresistance.org
Koolblack: 504.813.4714 or koolblack@criticalresistance.org

(If you can't get through due to evacuation please contact:
pilar@criticalresistance.org for further information)

In solidarity,
Critical Resistance

Report of disparities between Baltimore, suburban trials

Jury study raises hackles in city

Prosecutor objects to report of disparities between Baltimore, suburban trials

By Julie Bykowicz | Sun Reporter
August 18, 2008

An Abell Foundation report that found disparity between the verdicts of Baltimore jurors and their suburban counterparts has infuriated the city's top prosecutor.

After reading a March draft of the report, which recommends the creation of a regional jury pool, Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy called the study "potentially divisive" and asked in a letter to Abell President Robert C. Embry Jr. that it "be shelved" or its recommendations reworked.

"Disparities in Jury Outcomes - Baltimore City vs. Three Surrounding Jurisdictions - An Empirical Examination" was supposed to come out in April.

...In the March draft of the Abell report, which was obtained by The Sun, Shawn Flower of Choice Research Associates said she examined 293 cases from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006. That included all jury trials in Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Howard counties, and a random sample of jury trial cases from the city.....

...[Flower] wrote that the disparity in jury outcomes might be explained by "population characteristics and socioeconomic factors" and said the state should explore the concept of a regional jury pool to "neutralize city residents' negative perceptions of the criminal justice system."

"Generally speaking, citizens in the three comparison jurisdictions tend to be more advantaged in all respects than those in Baltimore City - they are better educated, are wealthier and are more likely to own their own homes," she wrote. Prospective jurors in the counties "are also less likely to suffer from the structural disadvantage and social disorganization which often results in the higher incidence of crime and victimization from crime."

...Jessamy condemned Flower's theories about Baltimore jurors and her suggestion of a regional jury pool - a concept she called "extreme and I believe unconstitutional."

"I am simply appalled that in the name of science and research, you reach a conclusion that because a large number of city residents [live in poverty and among crime], they are incapable of performing their civic duty," she wrote.

Police, Feds Set Tone for SF Chronicle Attack of Sanctuary Ordinance

by Carlos Villarreal and Angela Chan, 2008-08-13

Carelessly referencing vague sources and leading with off the cuff remarks by law enforcement, the San Francisco Chronicle and reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken have published a series of damaging articles about juvenile immigrant offenders and the city's sanctuary ordinance. The implication in the series of stories that began to appear on June 29, is that violent felons and crack dealers are taking advantage of the City's Sanctuary Ordinance and specifically a policy at the Juvenile Probation Department that has shielded felons, according to the Chronicle spin, from deportation at taxpayers' expense. A few major facts rarely tempered this incitement of reactionaries: the juvenile court system is very different from the adult criminal courts, the Sanctuary Ordinance never dictated the various tactics used by the Juvenile Probation Department, and the Sanctuary Ordinance doesn't cause violence. To the contrary, the ordinance encourages people to communicate with law enforcement and other government agencies regardless of immigration status.

[link to story]

Race sometimes a problem in eyewitness IDs

Posted on Sun, Aug. 10, 2008
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer

Thompson-Cannino, who is white, had mistakenly picked out one black man; another was guilty of the crime.

"Between the composite sketch and the photo identification, I had messed it up," she said, recalling the 1984 rape and its aftermath. "By the time I got to the physical lineup, Ron Cotton had become my attacker and that was that."

And as she came to learn, she was not the only one to make a mistake so devastating that it deprived someone else of his freedom.

Since 1991, 218 people have been exonerated through DNA testing, and in more than three-quarters of the cases, mistaken eyewitness identifications were crucial in the wrongful convictions, according to The Innocence Project, a legal group that has sought genetic testing and led the charge to free innocent inmates.

Of those, nearly half, roughly seven dozen, involved a person of one race wrongly identifying someone of a different color.

[link to story]