LAPD will not be charged for McArthur Park case

latimes.com/news/local/la-me-melee31-2009oct31,0,5092137.story
latimes.com
LAPD officers won't be charged in MacArthur Park melee
Prosecutors say there is insufficient evidence to prove that any of the 30 officers who were investigated violated the law when using force during the 2007 May Day immigration rally.By Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein
October 31, 2009
The Los Angeles County district attorney's office will not file criminal charges against any of the LAPD officers who discharged rubberized bullets and wielded batons during the 2007 May Day melee at MacArthur Park, officials announced Friday.

After a lengthy review, prosecutors said there is insufficient evidence to prove that any of the 30 officers who were investigated violated the law when using force, although some might have used "questionable tactics."

The melee, which occurred at the conclusion of a pro- immigration rally and received national attention, resulted from poor police training, leadership and communication, prosecutors said. Their finding echoed the Los Angeles Police Department's own scathing report on the officers' actions.

Officers were videotaped wielding batons and shooting less-than-lethal rubberized bullets in an attempt to disperse the mostly peaceful crowd after a small group of agitators confronted police. Dozens of protesters and journalists were injured as officers cleared the park.

The department's "planning, tactical and command failures" were the backdrop for the officers' actions against "both violent protesters and nonviolent protesters and media personnel," prosecutors said in their report. "The media had innocently and unwittingly positioned themselves in an area directly in the path of officers attempting to clear the park."

In the immediate aftermath, Police Chief William J. Bratton removed a deputy chief and commander from their posts. Deputy Chief Caylor "Lee" Carter retired shortly thereafter.

Bratton also said he planned to discipline several officers and called for the termination of others for their roles in the melee.

But internal disciplinary panels gave no officer more than a 20-day suspension. A small group of officers, however, were demoted, according to their attorney.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles City Council agreed to pay nearly $13 million to people injured or mistreated in the May Day melee.

Carol Sobel, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, said that although the LAPD admitted errors in the incident that the "the whole approach toward disciplining officers . . . has been a total whitewash. They could have filed charges against the officers that were seen repeatedly beating people."

But in their report, prosecutors concluded that "not every push or shove amounts to excessive force. We cannot establish that any particular officer's actions were unreasonable or without lawful necessity in light of the tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving circumstances."

They said that tactical gear worn by police made it difficult or impossible to identify specific officers, which is key to any prosecution.

Prosecutors noted that 20 officers and supervisors were subject to department punishment.

Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul Weber praised the district attorney's review, saying that it "sought only truth and justice, and was not influenced by any political agenda."

richard.winton @latimes.com

andrew.blankstein @latimes.com

Statement on Oso Blanco Call-In action

Hey all this is the statement on Oso Blanco Call-In action, circulate it to
anyone who may be interested.

Thanks!
-Mapa
------------ --------

Much Love,

Yesterday I received word from Yona Unaga (Oso Blanco) in usual fashion,
several letters with lots of info, love, and an undying spirit for the
self-determination of indigenous people. It brings me great joy to write
this overview regarding the Oso Blanco National Call-In and Letter Writing
Campaign that was carried out on October 5th, 2009.

Most of you reading this may already know about Oso Blanco aka Byron
Chubbuck, but for those of you who do not, he is a member of the Cherokee
Nation (Wolf Clan) who was sentenced to 80 years for expropriating funds to
send to the
Zapatistas in Chiapas, with the intent of
funding their actions
and especially, feeding Mayan children. Oso has been transferred, harassed,
denied religious items, beaten, gassed, subjected to other types of
psychological and physical abuse, and still to this day, his Indian
ethnicity absent from the prison database.

The campaign was initially started by Citizens In Action, and made public on
*www.osoblanco.org*. The ABCF (U.S./Canada) , Jericho Movement, and
Cop Watch L.A. (CWLA), and many Autonomous ABC’s in the
US and Mexico immediately got involved and a joint action was coordinated
for October 5th 2009.

The October 5th action was planned by those of us on the outside as a
nation-wide day of calling in to the warden of USP Lewisberg, which as Oso
Blanco describes is “another Marion” with its 23 hours lockdowns,
staff
abuse, poor
conditions, and so forth. The call-in time was to be between
7-9am Pacific although anytime on October 5th would be fine

In the days leading up to October 5th Oso Blanco released a statement and
encouraged everyone to get involved, and soon after Oso Blanco's support
group and ourselves here at the ABCF reported getting wind of the event
through other groups and people we had no ties with. Joaquin from CWLA
informed me that a compañero of his had called in to the prison and was
redirected to the out of town manager of “Z” unit instead of the warden,
throwing many of us off.

On October 5th I called in at approximately 9:04 am, and was greeted by a
staff member who cut me off when I mentioned Byron Chubbuck's name, angrily
asking me “Did you just call!?” I replied that I had not and continued
speaking to her as she muttered several comments under her breath before
hanging up on
me. I got in
contact with my comrade Lane and a few others
immediately after who noted similar experiences of having staff mention
previous calls, transferring them to other unrelated phone lines or to the
manager of Z Unit who was on vacation on the 5th and would be returning the
next day.

What this did however was create a buckshot of support through the prison
phone lines where one caller was being transferred 3-4 times and leaving 3-4
messages to 3-4 different people. While there is no way for us to find out
an accurate estimate of how many callers there were, our suspicions were
confirmed when Lane called the manager of Z Unit the next day (October 6th)
to continue the support for Oso Blanco. He reported that the Z unit manager
had just returned from vacation that day and that there was a “flood of
calls, letters, and other correspondence regarding Mr. Chubbuck” on the 5th.

After this, I sent Oso
two typed
letters letting asking him how his
conditions were. I let him know that if we did not hear back from him we
would assume that he was being punished for the 5th and would be organizing
another action. I received word from Oso Blanco yesterday, here wrote a
statement in which he references two cases of beatings, one in response to a
false accusation that he “threw feces at guards”:

Sumner Gray who has been doing support for Oso Blanco for years has reported
receiving 3 letters from him in the days following the action. While no
correspondence has been received from Oso Blanco by the support group since
the 5th it would appear that his mail is flowing again.

I also received a letter from a Native brother who will remain unnamed who
sent his thanks for the Oso Blanco action as well as detailing some of the
torture he and other indigenous prisoners have undergone, I will see if I
can get permission
to
type some of this up and relay it out. This is beyond
prisoner abuse and clearly racial as the Native brothers are struggling for
spiritual reasons and being denied religious items, instead being shackled
and beaten (72 hours for this brother).

*First*: This action and the end results are clear indicators that our
Native American brothers in the struggle are being singled out and there
needs to be more work done to support Indigenous political prisoners, and
Indigenous prisoners in the belly of the beast.

*Second:* Oso Blanco needs support, and lots of it.  Write him and more
importantly he requests that we send him any zines or publications that can
be used to pass around to the brothers inside. Contact me if you are
interested in helping.(*MapachinABC@ gmail.com*)

*Third:* At the moment
Oso is pleased and has
received no abuse, which is
all good news. But we cannot be naive enough to assume that we have “won.”
While we cannot expect the prison system to give Oso a hug and an apology,
we also cannot let the support for ANY political prisoners dwindle. We did
not think up the politics of these movements we consider ourselves a part
of, the older generations paved the way so we could carry out their ideals.
They are in there FOR us, we are out here FOR them.

Let us never forget that!

Statement from Oso Blanco:

“Everything seems to be the same- No harassment yet. Its what they did June
23 and June 24 that ticks me off. IF I did that to them- I'd get 15 years
for assault. But they can do that crap to us and it's no big deal- they hide
our complaint- they lie- what ever, and return our complaint so it will be
considered late and rejected.

I think the captain and housing unit
manager are acting odd-
they ran like
two crazy people to my door today to stop me from getting a newspaper under
my door. Like he and the captain just made a military action...”

Good Work People!

I ain't been hurt.

But time will tell.

Stay Strong Everyone,

-Yona Unaga"



Support Yona Unaga!

BYRON SHANE CHUBBUCK

#07909-051

P.O. Box 1000

Lewisburg, PA 17837

USP Lewisburg



Tayecana,

Mapache ABCF

*MapachinABC@ gmail.com*

*www.osoblanco. org*

LA Weekly - Anarchists Unite: How Does that Work? (Article on the L.A. Anarchist Bookfair Collective)

http://www.laweekly.com/2009-10-22/la-life/anarchists-unite/1

Anarchists Unite

How Does That Work?

By Gendy Alimurung

Published on October 21, 2009 at 5:03pm

• Timothy Norris

  

  Fellowship of anarchy: (from left) Luther Blisset, Sara Galindo., Ralf Camacho, Joaquin Cienfuegos and Vegan Yoga

How many anarchists did it take to organize the recent Southern California Anarchist Conference? No one is really sure. Not even the organizers. Yes, the idea of a conference for anarchists sounds like a punch line waiting to happen. Anarchists find that troubling. “The mainstream recognition of anarchism is chaos and breaking stuff,” says Sara Galindo, sounding exasperated. “We have to redefine it time and time again.”

Galindo and others involved in planning the conference sit in front of the Library for Social Studies and Research in South Central Los Angeles. Technically, the conference is taking place inside the library, but the important discussions occur outside, on the sidewalk.

A handsome 20-something man elaborates on Galindo’s thoughts. “Blowing stuff up is what people think of when they think of anarchy,” says the man, who introduces himself as D’Angelo but declines to give his last name. “Busting a window, I don’t consider it violence. Bombing a baby — that’s violence. The Anarchist Cookbook is not a book anarchists live by. Yes, there’s bomb-making equipment in that book. But this government makes bombs. They make bombs for profit.”

Proponents of anarchy believe that no human being should dominate another. The ideal society is decentralized, with no coercive rulers, no hierarchies, and everybody equal. Anarchy is a great refusal to follow authority.

“We don’t plan to overthrow the U.S. government in 10 years,” Galindo says. “The core of it is changing relationships. With the people we meet on the street. The people we ride the bus with.”

As D’Angelo says, “We don’t want to overthrow the state only to become the state. Not just the U.S. government, but all governments are the problem. It’s not some monster living on the hillside. It’s people.”

A conundrum about anarchy is finding a way to gain momentum as a movement, despite the belief of its members that no single, dominant belief should prevail.

Nevertheless, anarchism is a workable system, D’Angelo says. “Take street tribes, or what the mainstream calls gangs. Some of the ways they organize is anarchistic. We’ve been conditioned to follow authority. Schools are run by bells. They have fences. There’s environmental racism. These institutions are built like society is built. We need to build parallel systems and institutions.”

“If you ask 10 different people, you’ll get 10 different approaches to anarchy,” says Colleen Flynn, a lawyer who discovered anarchy in law school.

The collective that organized the anarchist conference has no president, no vice president, no secretary, no treasurer and no name. Asked how big the collective is, one of its members, Ralf Camacho, thinks for a moment and says, “There’s no set number.”

Members met at Camacho’s house to hash out details for the conference: issues they wanted to discuss; who contacted whom; which speakers were invited; who photocopied the programs. Disagreements were not settled by voting, because anarchists believe that voting divides a group into a majority and minority, which is contrary to the anarchist spirit. Instead, organizers talked stuff out until everybody was on the same page.

Camacho believes that man’s true nature is to be cooperative rather than competitive or selfish. “If it hadn’t been for early man operating on principles of cooperation and mutuality, we wouldn’t be here at all,” he says.

In the collective, no single person is in charge. Each contributes according to his or her abilities. Duties are not set in stone. For instance, the people who drew the fliers would not be expected to draw them next time unless they felt like it.

“I was in charge of providing security, but we don’t call it that,” Camacho explains. “We call it harmony battalions.”

In his day job, Camacho manages security for bars and clubs. “Where I work, there’s hierarchy, and it’s messed up. There is a lot of resentment and animosity. In collectives, where everyone is equal, things run smoother. Especially if there’s not a profit motive, where you’ll do anything or everything to make money. Wouldn’t you guys agree?”

Everyone nods.

“The activist Ashanti Omowali said anarchy is like playing jazz,” says D’Angelo, shifting in his wheelchair. “It’s about improvising.”

D’Angelo goes inside to play chess and Galindo returns with a plate of vegan soy tacos balanced on a clipboard. “With this event, it may look sloppy — ”

“It’s not sloppy!” Flynn interrupts. She swats Galindo with a pamphlet detailing the day’s itinerary.

By now it is late afternoon. The “Resist the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh” session is running late. A few people who thought they were attending an Anarcha-Feminism workshop are actually in the media/cop-watch seminar. A Native American woman gives an enthusiastic, digressive and impromptu speech about her struggles, and proclaims, “We’re going go back to life before Columbus,” to thundering applause.

Then the Black Riders Liberation Party marches in, arms folded, with the black berets, black combat boots, and the stern expressions of their Black Panther predecessors. A young lady named Comrade Laa-Laa reads a prepared statement about the “United Snakes of America” and the “wicked FBI.”

“We have stopped more gang-army violence with our survival programs than the racist U.S. government’s mass incarceration ‘solution’ but have been rewarded with updated Ges ... Ges ... I don’t know that word,” she says.

“Gestapo,” whispers her friend.

“Gestapo violence.”

A guy raises his hand.

“As far as resistance, do you see the violent or aggressive side as self-defense or as a tactic?” he asks.

“No,” Comrade Laa-Laa says. Her hoop earrings smack her cheeks as she talks. “We believe in pure self-defense. You feel me? We’re not going to brutalize on our own community. You feel me? That goes to the point I was making to the other brother about confrontational politics. It works very well.”

“Can anybody become a Panther?” someone asks.

Comrade Laa-Laa says, “To answer your question, all in all, yes.”

In the corner, one man’s hand shoots up. “Do you have a question,” Comrade Laa-Laa asks.

“No. It’s a salute.”

At this point, the schedule pretty much comes off the rails, but somehow everything the anarchists needed to get done is done by the end. When it comes time for the organizing collective for closing remarks, some people cannot be found. They’ve decided to go home.

Film: "El Enemigo Comun"

Native Hip Hop Workshops

Repression, and Indigenous Strategies to Hood Liberation - Presenation by Simon Sedillo 10/23/09

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o193/copwatchla/sadillocopy1.jpg

Repression and Indigenous Strategies to Hood Liberation

Presentation by Simon Sedillo

Film Screening and Discussion

Friday October 23rd 6:30pm

Southern California Library for Social Research "The People's Library"

6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044 (off the 110 Freeway, exit Slauson or Gage).

Simón Sedillo is a community rights defense organizer and film maker whose work has centered on learning from communities in resistance. Sedillo has spent the last 6 years learning, documenting, producing and teaching community based video documentation with communities in resistance across the US and Mexico. Through lectures, workshops, and screenings Sedillo helps open a powerful space for dialogue on the effects of neoliberalism on indigenous communities, immigrant communities, and communities of color in the US and Mexico. Through collaborative media projects, Sedillo’s work has contributed to a growing network of community based media production whose primary objective is to share, teach, and learn from one another, about the construction of horizontal networks of community rights defense.

http://elenemigocomun.net/

Fruits of War Film Screening Oct. 22nd 8pm

http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o193/copwatchla/fruitsofwarcopy.jpg

October 22nd 8pm at the KIWA Cultural Center

Screening of "Fruits of War", a feature length documentary set in El Salvador and Los Angeles.

Presentation by Oscar Sanchez, on the fight to free his brother Alex Sanchez followed by screening and discussion.

Fruits of war follows four former gang members- Bullet, Rebel, Weazel, and Duke, who escaped El Salvador's civil war.

They settled in Los Angeles, eventually becoming involved in street gangs. When they are deported back to El Salvador, they discover a country ravaged by war, and face a new wave of violence as the LA street gangs take root in their homeland.

KIWA Cultural Center. 3465 W. Eighth St., Los Angeles, CA, 90005

Sponsored by the Los Angeles Anarchist Bookfair Collective

We also are asking people to come out to :

Alex Sanchex Bail hearing Oct. 19



Justice = bail for Alex Sanchez... a fair trial for Alex starts with bail. Let's show the media and court that the community is behind Alex at his next hearing.

Our presence matters!

and please sign the petition for a fair trail @ wearealex.org.

Monday, October 19, 2009
12p - Fletcher Brown Squ
corner of main and temple
downtown LA

http://www.wearealex.org