Feature Archives

After spending seven years in prison under draconian conditions for exposing US war crimes, Chelsea Manning was re-imprisoned one year ago in an attempt to coerce her to testify in a grand jury related to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. When Chelsea continued to refuse to testify on a principled stand of opposition to the unjust and corrupt practice of secret grand juries, she was also slammed with fines of $1,000 per day in an attempt by judge Anthony Trenga to pressure her into testifying.

Mike Rhodes reports: My first history lesson about Fresno’s corrupt underbelly was in the late 1990s when I read Mark Arax’s book "In My Father’s Name." It is a great book about Arax’s search for the killer of his father, which dives deep into Fresno’s interesting but corrupt past. Arax, writing for the Los Angeles Times, quoted Larry Miller, a retired federal agent who busted numerous Fresno bookies with connections to the Fresno Police Department in the 1960s. “It was a rotten town with a rotten police force and the citizens didn’t mind. Their indifference was practically suffocating.”

On February 24, a report emerged about officers from Fresno Police Department's Homeless Task Force assaulting a homeless man who they were attempting to evict from an encampment. The brutalization happened in Fresno on February 21 at a homeless encampment near West Avenue and Freeway 180. As David — the homeless person in the photo — was attempting to say "my advocate is on her way," he was thrown to the ground. After the Sargent slammed him to the ground, David was punched and all he could remember was getting hit multiple times and kicked in the head by all four officers.

The Anti Police-Terror Project again joined with multiple organizations to lift up the radical legacy of Martin Luther King all weekend long, culminating in the 6th Annual Rally and March on Monday, January 20. The Oakland MLK march demands were: Housing as a Human Right, Close the Camps, No School Closures, End Police Repression, Climate Justice, No More War. Cities that held Martin Luther King Jr weekend events around the Bay Area included San Francisco, San José, Santa Rosa, El Cerrito, and Hayward.

On November 18, unsheltered mothers claimed possession of a vacant investor-owned property in West Oakland. After receiving an eviction notice, Moms for Housing declared that they intended to remain in their new home and petitioned the courts to allow them to stay. Wedgewood refuses to negotiate with the moms on a sale backed by the Oakland Community Land Trust. At the latest court hearing on December 30, the judge did not issue a ruling, but might any day. Separately, Moms for Housing pushed back against a public relations ploy by Wedgewood — using affiliated Los Angeles nonprofit Shelter 37 to soften the company's image as it attempts to evict the moms.

On November 24, what was to be known as the Housing Justice Village began to take shape in Oscar Grant Plaza in front of Oakland City Hall. Housed and unhoused activists set up a number of tents on the grassy lawn to protest the city's never ending war against the homeless: demolitions, evictions, and tows of residential vehicles. In a political show of force, the city of Oakland directed a small army of police to mass arrest and jail 22 of the demonstrators on what would otherwise be a citable infraction. On December 2, arrestees held a press conference to address the city's attack and why they protested in the first place.

After attorneys for the family of Isiah Murrietta-Golding released video of the 16-year-old being shot in the back of the head while fleeing officers, over 100 people protested in Fresno on October 28. The demonstration was held at the Federal Building in downtown Fresno. Some called it murder and protest signs demanded justice. Speakers spoke passionately about ending the constant shooting of young people in Fresno by the police. Police chief Jerry Dyer is running to be the mayor of Fresno, but Reverend Floyd Harris, who spoke at the demonstration, said he has taken out papers to run against Dyer.