Oakland 100: Charges Dropped for 28 Misdemeanors Related to Oscar Grant Rebellion, 2/6/09: photos

First, all praise to those who showed up and provided coffee, banners, bodies outside and a courtroom presence inside for those who were arrested. As someone who has waited inside jail and inside courtrooms too many times, it makes a difference every time you see bodies in solidarity with you.

I'm not an attorney. But I have been arrested dozens of times and I did listen to the NLG attorney and his response to the follow-up questions outside the courthouse. My understanding is that the charges are not 'dropped', but rather that the state is not pursuing them at this time. This means that they can be reinstated for up to one year.
This is a victory and we should claim it, but this means that the district attorney can use those charges against people for up to a year if they are arrested again or if it proves convenient. If I am mis-stating this, then I hope that one of the NLG attorneys or Midnight Special legal collective will correct me.

I urge everyone who supports justice for Oscar Grant to show up for any and all hearings of those who have been arrested. Again, all praise to the National Lawyers Guild, Critical Resistance, the Oakland 100 Support Committee, Midnight Special and everyone else who was there in solidarity today.

Justice for Oscar Grant. Power to the People.
See you in the streets.

Not pursuing charges, charges dropped. Same diff. DA's can always decide to re-instate charges of any type in cases like these but the odds of that happening are next to nil unless authorities happen to run across some sort of new "evidence" against someone.

Those 28 folks are free of this.

Some of the people with arraignment dates didn't get called, which means that they can be charged within a year. The rest of the folks who did get called had no charges pressed.

Good to see everyone out!