What I got to say

I would like to start by thanking some people who helped me along the way. First of all my lawyer Eric Luce. Job well done! Also Henry Dohering and everyyone else who worked on my case at the SF Public Defenders Office. I would like to thank my legal support team from the Midnight Special Law Collective. Paul, Greg, Sam, Scott, Dan, and Kris, you all did a great job in your own positive contribution. I would like to thank the people over at the National Lawyers Guild, thanks for your support and help in revealing the truth about that night. Mark Vermulhen and Hunter Pyle for their legal advice and I am sorry that I did not attain you as counsel. I would like to thank California Anarchist Prisoner Support and Prisoner Resistance Project for letting me speak at their events. I would like to thank Bill Carpenter and the folks at Indybay for providing media coverage and letting me post articles and court appearances. I would like to thank Josh and Liz Wolf for their support and I hope Josh will get out of jail soon. Hopefully my release will lead to his. I would like to thank Manish Vadiya at Critical Resistance. Maybe we can write an op-ed about my realase. Slingshot newspaper for publishing an article about my case. Grand jury resisters Nadia Winstead and Richard Brown for their courtroom support and all of those who showed up to suppport me in the early hours of the morning at such a cold solemn place such as 850 Bryant street. I know you didn't want to be there as much as me; thanks for coming. If there is anyone I missed, don't worry you are not unappreciated.

For the past 17 months the goverment has kept going throught he court process threatning to take me trial. For that period of time, the truth about what happened has not been made public. If I was to have gone to trial, the truth about what happened would of come out in a court room. This is one of the reasons why they dropped the charges and advoided trial.
But the truth still need to come out. So if you really want to know, the truth is that I was about to go to trial for running out of the way of out of a police car that was recklessly speeding into a crowd of protestors on a dark unlit street, and that I inadvertently stopped them( thank god or peole would of been run over) by dropping a large styrofoam sign to run out of the way of the patrol car. The sign then then fell underneath the wheels of the car.
When I ran out of the road and on to the sidewalk, I was chased to by Officer Michael Wolf, the cop riding in the passenger seat of the car. He takled me to the ground from behind on the sidewalk and held in me down in a choke hold where I was asphixiated by him (as it was made apparent by the photograh and video taken of me and largely ignored by the courts) I never tried to lynch myself. Being arrested that night and going through the court process, I felt that I was the one being lynched. That police officer had no right to of first strangle me and then charge me with a crime. It is he who is a criminal. I am very dissapointed that nothing has been done about him, or his partner for driving unsafely, by the internal affairs divison of the SF Police Department or the SF District Attorneys Office.
There must not be a double standard about the investigation of this protest. The government must acknowldge that there was criminal misconduct by the police if they are going to say that was some from the protestors, and they must acknowledge that the police instigated this by driving into the crowd at a dangerous speed.
I am sorry about how unfortunate the events and the aftermath of that night were. I don't believe that Offier Sheilds should of been hit over the head, it could of killed him, but Officer Sheilds shouldn't of driven into the crowd at that speed, someone could of been killed or hurt badlly by him. He was also reported using his baton on someone, even by his partner in his police report. These sort of actions usually have a tendency to anger people and sometimes they respond with physical force as they did that night.
I am wrapping up this chapter in my life, but events like these continue on a daily basis throughout the world . We must continue to struggle for justice until all are free. No one is free when others are oppressed. What has happened on the 8th of July in 20005 should serve as an example that rights and freedom to dissent can be taken at anytime suh as they have done to Josh Wolf, threatened to do to me, and currently doing to Cody Tarlow. It should also serve as reminder that the state will even result to violence such as running people over, choking individuals, and beating them with batons and clubs. I am glad that things were not as worse than they have been from that night (as they are in other places of this globe), but their were still crimes by the poice that were committed and they must not go unanswered. It is our duty to make sure they don't.

Thank you everyone for your support and solidarity. I am sure I will see you all at another protest,

Gabriel Mark Meyers