Copwatch Yet Again

Come listen to music, sip cocoa, and keep an eye on the bluebellies.

The new Copwatch Santa Cruz Blog debuted on line at http://santacruzcopwatch.blogspot.com/ but we still need lots of help updating it. Give a call to HUFF at 423-4833 if you'd like to help or e-mail rnorse.

Downtown, we'll be taking accounts of police behavior and videoing cops on the beat as they drive poor people away and give out tickets they can't pay. Last week Officer Winston was particularly focused on the African-American Burrito Man and avoided ticketing middle-class folks with dogs (while threatening homeless people carrying them).

The antiwar turnout in the last few weeks was dismayingly small as the Obamatons turn more youth into killers and corpses in Afghanistan. Homeless vets are a significant proportion of the community without shelter outside. Please bring us any accounts of police problems around local vets.

This is both a budget and civil liberties issue locally. Police must be discouraged from being a part of the local War on the Police, and the merchant community that supports these outrages confronted.

The new anti-homeless Downtown Ordinance public assembly constrictions are now being enforced by police. They criminalize more than one hour's sitting on a city bench, make 3 unpaid infractions a jailing misdemeanor, and expand the notorious "No Go" zones downtown for sitting, sparechanging, political tabling, and street performing.

Anti-homeless ticketing for sleeping at night continues with shelter for less than 10% of the homeless community. We'll also be supporting calls for a Tent City when the Armory Winter Shelter closes in several weeksl as is already happening in Sacramento, Fresno, and Ontario CA.

We will also be gathering accounts of harassment in hopes of joining Santa Barbara and Sacramento in challenging anti-homeless Sleeping Bans. Successful lawsuits and political pressure have already ended Sleeping Bans in Fresno, San Diego, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Richmond, and Palo Alto.

We hope to encourage media to counter the City's persecution of those outside using massive police overkill and a new city attorney crackdown with a civil injunction. Please contact attorney Jonathan Gettleman at 427-2658 if you have had positive experiences with Anna Richardson and Miguel deLeon, currently under City Attorney attack.

We have video cameras and tape recorders; bring your own as well.

If you want to volunteer for Public Records Act request work and other behind-the-scenes Copwatching, call 423-4833.

To help plan future events, come to the Human Rights Organization meetings Saturday 3-4:30 PM at the Sub Rosa Cafe 703 Pacific Ave. Or check out HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) at the same place Wednesdays 9:30 AM -11:30 AM.