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Summary: Rally in Support of Oscar Grant Arrestees and for Justice
The harder they come, the harder they fall....
On Friday, November 19th, a coalition of groups and individuals held a press conference and rally outside Oakland District Attorney Nancy O'Malley's office.
Those participating demanded that DA O'Malley drop all charges pending against protesters who took to the street, on July 8th of this year and again on November 5th, to demonstrate their outrage at a system that condones lynchings under color of law.
Another demand was that the DA appeal the decision of LA Judge Robert Perry to toss out a jury's finding that former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle intentionally discharged his firearm when he fatally shot Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009.
Participants and speakers included several people arrested on November 5th, as well as representatives of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Jack Heyman of the ILWU Local 10, members of the the recently formed Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression, and members of the New Year's Movement, the Oakland 100 Support Committee, the Oakland General Assembly, OneFam, Advance the Struggle, and BAMN.
Speakers denounced the "false flag operation" (as one man aptly described it) undertaken by the OPD on the night of the November 5th—undertaken to obscure the truth of what really went down, which included the entrapment and unconstitutional arrest of over 150 peaceful demonstrators attempting to march to Fruitvale BART, the use of excessive force or beatings by officers, the illegal seizure of arrestees' DNA, and the withholding of medical treatment and food to prisoners in custody.
They pointed out that, contrary to press statements issued by OPD Chief Anthony Batts and subsequently repeated as gospel by major media outlets, demonstrators/marchers were entrapped en route to Fruitvale, confronted with an overwhelming display of military machinery and force, and given no opportunity to disperse.
Speakers also denounced Batts's misrepresentations on November 5th—which even the OPD has since discredited— that an officer had his gun taken from him by a demonstrators, while another was hit and wounded by [a protestor in] a car.*
Finally, Batts and the OPD were called out for pretending that they were prepared to escort a march to De Fremery Park in West Oakland following the sentencing announcement. Prior to November 5th, representatives of the OPD had stated to community organizers that no march to De Fremery Park was going to take place. Moreover, on the eve of November 5th, they installed a mobile wall on 17th Street to prevent any such march.
To paraphrase the remarks of one young person arrested on November 5th, none of us should be surprised by egregious police conduct when we live in a society in which the police can get away with murder. That said, the overall message expressed by participants at yesterday's press conference and rally is that folks will continue to stand up and organize against violence perpetrated by the police, and won't be deterred by repressive tactics from so doing.
______________________________________________________________________
* As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on November 9, 2010 (http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-11-09/bay-area/24822417_1_protests-end-bart-officer-johannes-mehserle-oscar-grant):
"Police Chief Anthony Batts declared the protest an unlawful assembly on the grounds that a 29-year-old woman had ripped a holster and gun from an officer's belt. But Thomason said Monday that although the officer had 'felt a tug on his right side, on his duty belt,' there was 'no independent evidence' that the protester was responsible.
"The gun and holster ended up on the ground, where another officer retrieved them, Thomason said. The woman, whose name wasn't released, was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest and trespassing.
"The only other major incident involved an Oakland officer who was accidentally struck and injured by a patrol car. He suffered a knee injury but is expected to recover, Thomason said."
\
Those participating demanded that DA O'Malley drop all charges pending against protesters who took to the street, on July 8th of this year and again on November 5th, to demonstrate their outrage at a system that condones lynchings under color of law.
Another demand was that the DA appeal the decision of LA Judge Robert Perry to toss out a jury's finding that former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle intentionally discharged his firearm when he fatally shot Oscar Grant on January 1, 2009.
Participants and speakers included several people arrested on November 5th, as well as representatives of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), Jack Heyman of the ILWU Local 10, members of the the recently formed Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression, and members of the New Year's Movement, the Oakland 100 Support Committee, the Oakland General Assembly, OneFam, Advance the Struggle, and BAMN.
Speakers denounced the "false flag operation" (as one man aptly described it) undertaken by the OPD on the night of the November 5th—undertaken to obscure the truth of what really went down, which included the entrapment and unconstitutional arrest of over 150 peaceful demonstrators attempting to march to Fruitvale BART, the use of excessive force or beatings by officers, the illegal seizure of arrestees' DNA, and the withholding of medical treatment and food to prisoners in custody.
They pointed out that, contrary to press statements issued by OPD Chief Anthony Batts and subsequently repeated as gospel by major media outlets, demonstrators/marchers were entrapped en route to Fruitvale, confronted with an overwhelming display of military machinery and force, and given no opportunity to disperse.
Speakers also denounced Batts's misrepresentations on November 5th—which even the OPD has since discredited— that an officer had his gun taken from him by a demonstrators, while another was hit and wounded by [a protestor in] a car.*
Finally, Batts and the OPD were called out for pretending that they were prepared to escort a march to De Fremery Park in West Oakland following the sentencing announcement. Prior to November 5th, representatives of the OPD had stated to community organizers that no march to De Fremery Park was going to take place. Moreover, on the eve of November 5th, they installed a mobile wall on 17th Street to prevent any such march.
To paraphrase the remarks of one young person arrested on November 5th, none of us should be surprised by egregious police conduct when we live in a society in which the police can get away with murder. That said, the overall message expressed by participants at yesterday's press conference and rally is that folks will continue to stand up and organize against violence perpetrated by the police, and won't be deterred by repressive tactics from so doing.
______________________________________________________________________
* As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle on November 9, 2010 (http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-11-09/bay-area/24822417_1_protests-end-bart-officer-johannes-mehserle-oscar-grant):
"Police Chief Anthony Batts declared the protest an unlawful assembly on the grounds that a 29-year-old woman had ripped a holster and gun from an officer's belt. But Thomason said Monday that although the officer had 'felt a tug on his right side, on his duty belt,' there was 'no independent evidence' that the protester was responsible.
"The gun and holster ended up on the ground, where another officer retrieved them, Thomason said. The woman, whose name wasn't released, was arrested on suspicion of resisting arrest and trespassing.
"The only other major incident involved an Oakland officer who was accidentally struck and injured by a patrol car. He suffered a knee injury but is expected to recover, Thomason said."
\
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CROSSPOST:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/15/18664269.php
"Same-Old-Same-Old from the Corporate Media: the Oakland Justice for Oscar Grant Protests"
- by Joseph Anderson
Monday Nov 15th, 2010
Introduction by the very prominent San Francisco Bay Area radio journalist, writer and columnist, Davey D:
This article by Joseph Anderson is important on a number of fronts. First it details accurately much of what took place in Oakland, CA, on Friday night, November 5th, 2010, after the sentencing was announced. The writer, along with photographer and photo-journalist Jay Finneburgh, not only monitored and documented the Justice for Oscar Grant march, and subsequent wholesale mass arrests, but kept a phone line open to our studios so folks not inside the riot police lines could actually hear what was being said. What was described by Anderson, documented by Finneburgh, and experienced by legal observers [including the NLG, one of whose members was also arrested, along with Andrea Prichett, founder of CopWatch] was a far, far, far cry from what was reported on the TV evening news when police held a press conference boasting about mass arrest numbers (152!). [In addition, officially and 'pretextually' declaring an entire neighborhood, a minority neighborhood, of course, to be "a crime scene", is a new political tactic by the police.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~
San Francisco BayView newspaper
November 10, 2010
— Cops entrap Justice for Oscar Grant marchers: two eyewitness accounts —
"Same-Old-Same-Old from the Corporate Media: the Oakland Justice for Oscar Grant Protests"
by Joseph Anderson
— Berkeley, CA
http://sfbayview.com/2010/cops-entrap-justice-for-oscar-grant-marchers-two-eyewitness-accounts/
(Originally published in the San Francisco Bay Area by DaveyD.com, also published by the Berkeley Daily Planet, and a shorter version published by the UC Berkeley Daily Californian, as well as other publications and websites.)
And:
"Cops Arrest 152 Justice for Oscar Grant Protesters"
- by Lynda Carson
(~Half-way down the page, under, "Cops entrap Justice for Oscar Grant marchers: two eyewitness accounts", November 10, 2010, below Anderson's longer commentary.)
The East Oakland neighborhood woman's eloquent, moving, and chilling account of the 'martial law', paramilitarized riot police troops', neighborhood seige!
She writes as close to the haunting and surreal experience and feeling of actually being there as anyone who has a heart, but wasn't there, could imagine.
There are numerous, equally eloquent and haunting, GREAT PHOTOS accompanying the articles by Oakland photographer Jay Finneburgh, who was also swept up in the wholesale mass arrests when the police saw him taking photos.
The San Francisco Bay View (SF BayView) is the Bay Area's longtime, venerable, African American newspaper, founded and published by Willie & Mary Ratcliffe.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
KPFA-fm, Berkeley, CA, Hard Knock Radio show — November 8, 2010 – 4:00pm PT (time counter, 7:08-23:32 ; ~16 minute interview)
Davey D interviews Joseph Anderson
— On what the Bay Area corporate media reported vs. his eye-witness account of the Justice for Oscar Grant march and the OPD's (Oakland Police Department) indiscriminate wholesale mass arrests (by riot cops as far away as Sunnyvale and even Modesto) that ended it.
http://kpfa.org/archive/id/65222
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For larger posted photos by Jay Finneburgh:
images from oscar grant rally and march
- by jay finneburgh
posted Sunday Nov 7th, 2010
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/07/18663397.php?show_comments=1#18663863
(the last photo is great and almost says it all about OPD's behavior in photo form)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Despite repeated promises by the OPD, especially with every new police chief, or by every new mayor, the OPD is basically often out-of-control when it comes to the people's rights to even peaceful, or overwhelmingly peaceful, political demonstrations.
Remember this photo and projectile shot – the photo and shot that went 'round the world – of a woman shot in side of her face (almost her neck!) by an OPD high-velocity projectile aimed directly at her – the defining photo – from the April 7, 2003, OPD _police riot_ against the totally peaceful, anti-war, Oakland dock protest? Well, peaceful, until the OPD started indiscriminate violence – firing barrages of projectiles, rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring numerous demonstrators and even dockworkers, and knocking over people with their speeding motorcycles.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/04/07/15963321.php?show_comments=1
About 20 protesters were arrested in a planned, _nonviolent_ , civil disobedience, but police then also surrounded and arrested close to 100 people who were simply watching the protest from across the street! OPD has been trying to say that citizens don't have a right to even peacefully march or even just be there watching!: We and our even greater numbers and re-determination, have to show the OPD that that's not true!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Also see:
at sfbayview.com
"We come out to protest police brutality and what happens? We get a police state."
http://sfbayview.com/2010/we-come-out-to-protest-police-brutality-and-what-happens-we-get-a-police-state/
And:
at DaveyD.com
"Do Not Resist the Police! Oakland Police Conduct Mass Arrest During Oscar Grant Protests"
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/do-not-resist-the-police-oakland-police-conduct-mass-arrest-during-oscar-grant-protests/
"Where are all the Oscar Grant protests when we’re shooting each other in the hood?"
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/where-are-all-the-oscar-grant-protests-when-were-shooting-each-other-in-the-hood/
"Oscar Grant Orgs Condemn OPD: Homeland Security, CIA, FBI & DOJ Descended on Oakland"
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/oscar-grant-orgs-condemn-opd-as-homeland-security-cia-fbi-doj-descend-on-oakland/
.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/15/18664269.php
"Same-Old-Same-Old from the Corporate Media: the Oakland Justice for Oscar Grant Protests"
- by Joseph Anderson
Monday Nov 15th, 2010
Introduction by the very prominent San Francisco Bay Area radio journalist, writer and columnist, Davey D:
This article by Joseph Anderson is important on a number of fronts. First it details accurately much of what took place in Oakland, CA, on Friday night, November 5th, 2010, after the sentencing was announced. The writer, along with photographer and photo-journalist Jay Finneburgh, not only monitored and documented the Justice for Oscar Grant march, and subsequent wholesale mass arrests, but kept a phone line open to our studios so folks not inside the riot police lines could actually hear what was being said. What was described by Anderson, documented by Finneburgh, and experienced by legal observers [including the NLG, one of whose members was also arrested, along with Andrea Prichett, founder of CopWatch] was a far, far, far cry from what was reported on the TV evening news when police held a press conference boasting about mass arrest numbers (152!). [In addition, officially and 'pretextually' declaring an entire neighborhood, a minority neighborhood, of course, to be "a crime scene", is a new political tactic by the police.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~
San Francisco BayView newspaper
November 10, 2010
— Cops entrap Justice for Oscar Grant marchers: two eyewitness accounts —
"Same-Old-Same-Old from the Corporate Media: the Oakland Justice for Oscar Grant Protests"
by Joseph Anderson
— Berkeley, CA
http://sfbayview.com/2010/cops-entrap-justice-for-oscar-grant-marchers-two-eyewitness-accounts/
(Originally published in the San Francisco Bay Area by DaveyD.com, also published by the Berkeley Daily Planet, and a shorter version published by the UC Berkeley Daily Californian, as well as other publications and websites.)
And:
"Cops Arrest 152 Justice for Oscar Grant Protesters"
- by Lynda Carson
(~Half-way down the page, under, "Cops entrap Justice for Oscar Grant marchers: two eyewitness accounts", November 10, 2010, below Anderson's longer commentary.)
The East Oakland neighborhood woman's eloquent, moving, and chilling account of the 'martial law', paramilitarized riot police troops', neighborhood seige!
She writes as close to the haunting and surreal experience and feeling of actually being there as anyone who has a heart, but wasn't there, could imagine.
There are numerous, equally eloquent and haunting, GREAT PHOTOS accompanying the articles by Oakland photographer Jay Finneburgh, who was also swept up in the wholesale mass arrests when the police saw him taking photos.
The San Francisco Bay View (SF BayView) is the Bay Area's longtime, venerable, African American newspaper, founded and published by Willie & Mary Ratcliffe.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
KPFA-fm, Berkeley, CA, Hard Knock Radio show — November 8, 2010 – 4:00pm PT (time counter, 7:08-23:32 ; ~16 minute interview)
Davey D interviews Joseph Anderson
— On what the Bay Area corporate media reported vs. his eye-witness account of the Justice for Oscar Grant march and the OPD's (Oakland Police Department) indiscriminate wholesale mass arrests (by riot cops as far away as Sunnyvale and even Modesto) that ended it.
http://kpfa.org/archive/id/65222
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For larger posted photos by Jay Finneburgh:
images from oscar grant rally and march
- by jay finneburgh
posted Sunday Nov 7th, 2010
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/11/07/18663397.php?show_comments=1#18663863
(the last photo is great and almost says it all about OPD's behavior in photo form)
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Despite repeated promises by the OPD, especially with every new police chief, or by every new mayor, the OPD is basically often out-of-control when it comes to the people's rights to even peaceful, or overwhelmingly peaceful, political demonstrations.
Remember this photo and projectile shot – the photo and shot that went 'round the world – of a woman shot in side of her face (almost her neck!) by an OPD high-velocity projectile aimed directly at her – the defining photo – from the April 7, 2003, OPD _police riot_ against the totally peaceful, anti-war, Oakland dock protest? Well, peaceful, until the OPD started indiscriminate violence – firing barrages of projectiles, rubber-coated steel bullets, injuring numerous demonstrators and even dockworkers, and knocking over people with their speeding motorcycles.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2003/04/07/15963321.php?show_comments=1
About 20 protesters were arrested in a planned, _nonviolent_ , civil disobedience, but police then also surrounded and arrested close to 100 people who were simply watching the protest from across the street! OPD has been trying to say that citizens don't have a right to even peacefully march or even just be there watching!: We and our even greater numbers and re-determination, have to show the OPD that that's not true!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Also see:
at sfbayview.com
"We come out to protest police brutality and what happens? We get a police state."
http://sfbayview.com/2010/we-come-out-to-protest-police-brutality-and-what-happens-we-get-a-police-state/
And:
at DaveyD.com
"Do Not Resist the Police! Oakland Police Conduct Mass Arrest During Oscar Grant Protests"
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/do-not-resist-the-police-oakland-police-conduct-mass-arrest-during-oscar-grant-protests/
"Where are all the Oscar Grant protests when we’re shooting each other in the hood?"
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/where-are-all-the-oscar-grant-protests-when-were-shooting-each-other-in-the-hood/
"Oscar Grant Orgs Condemn OPD: Homeland Security, CIA, FBI & DOJ Descended on Oakland"
http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/oscar-grant-orgs-condemn-opd-as-homeland-security-cia-fbi-doj-descend-on-oakland/
.
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