Strike Against Police Terror
reaching out to all yall in different countries or states with different angles and ideologies and tactics
Folks in "LA" are considering a strike tactic for the fall primarily against police terror and for black struggle, keeping in mind the disproportionate targeting of trans women of color and people with disabilities, the under or unemployed
Trying to put together a primer or suggestion guide on where to get started in organizing a strike: if you have any basic accessible literature or suggestions , outreach methods, strategies you’ve taken, please message me or email me ([email protected])
my personal reason for supporting this is:
- a strike is a tactic, and within it many tactics can be taken
- it can be practice to get us mobilizing and maybe in 3 yrs or so we can actually have a majority participation strike
- it gives us reason and a goal for having rolling actions and workshops (medic training, autonomous actions, alternatives to the police) that have continuity/connectedness for a larger goal (liberation and autonomy)
- it decreases dependence on any one organization and can bring back fluidity in autonomous actions
- it can encourage decentralized actions (collectives and organizations with different styles working together)
- it gives us ground to flesh out the difference between striking for concessions and striking for /toward autonomy
- i want to find a way to pressure organizations and nonprofits to close their doors and support the streets instead of coopting street actions
- if we form strike committees there is the possiblity to activate them for larger shutdown actions going forward (think shut down, strike, shut down, strike, repeat)
- this way we aren’t just waiting on uprisings (which is a valid important avenue to explore how to expand the ruptures) and can make our own goals instead of reacting on a case by case basis, instead we incorporate those reactions into a larger strategy
- we can practice collective strategy and defense which will be useful in the coming decades. we can also look and ask each other what is needed to actually do this, how can we support everyday people to do this instead of it being a disconnected strategy, how can we approach businesses and ask them to shut down so others can have the time/ day to participate)
Feedback is very much appreciated. I feel like years ago we were talking about what to do and some of those strategies and tactics have come to fruition (i.e. decentralizing the tactic of filming the police, pushing the idea of police abolition) we do have the collective input to popularize tactics, the issue is that those tactics tend to lose their edge, intention or content as they become popularized. if we were to popularize the strike as a tactic going forward (since we have done them before in 2012 etc) it might be more difficult to lose its content if we keep pushing for autonomy as a framework of action
#strike#authority#police#anarchism#communism#socialism#direct action#reform#revolution#resistance#organizing#strategies#collective actions#revolt#uprisings#police terrorism#police reform#rebellion#police brutality#prisons#work#labor#unions#underemployed#take action#racism#white supremacy#black liberation#black lives matter
“American exceptionalism isn’t just ignoring the bad that American and other Imperialist countries have caused, it is criminalizing, victim blaming, and punishing how people respond after they have been attacked. We expect those who have seen their countries invaded, their loved ones murdered, who live in fear of the next drone attack, or rape from a station soldier to just pray for peace and bestow forgiveness”.
what the fuck is a pro police peaceful gathering.? the police are not peaceful. policing is not peaceful.
Proposal:
Monthly Shame a Cop/Pig Days Halloween dressing up as witches to vanquish cop demons
So CA just amended 148 and 69 of the penal code to say that filming the cops doesn't constitute interference or disruption of an officer. Which we already knew. They are calling this police reform even though it doesn't enforce any restrictions on the police. Use of force by police is the problem, not filming the police, which was never "illegal". Like great they aren't *supposed* to harass copwatchers now, does that keep them from escalating or attacking the people they detained? and really this is probably because they are now filming us constantly no probable cause needed through body cam monitoring.
Police Reform in California? or Not (on the removal of the grand jury process and the right to film cops)
With our own social media newsfeeds on scroll with grassroots coverage of police terrorism, the media and elected officials are looking to appease growing anger in response to abuse and ongoing anti black executions by the police. This week state legislators in California patted themselves on the back for passing key “reforms” around police violence accountability, or so they said.
Time and time again we are hearing stories of unnecessary harassment by the police resulting in the death penalty. As if “stop and frisk” wasn’t bad enough in creating constant fear in communities of color, we are witnessing the normalization and heightened visibility of “stop and kill” tactics by police against people of African descent harassed in situations non black people would survive, or not even be detained over. Yet the stops continuously turn into executions over minor infractions and major ego issues on behalf of the police or while in custody.
The mainstream news cycle plays on repeat defending the actions of the police even when they retaliate violently against any public outpouring of grief or protests demanding accountability. Before we go giving too much credit where credit is not due let’s really look at what has changed.
The governor just signed SB-411 also known as the “right to record” bill amending sections 69 and 148 “interfering with an officer” to exempt photography, audio and visual recording of police.
The added text includes “(g) The fact that a person takes a photograph or makes an audio or video recording of a public officer or peace officer, while the officer is in a public place or the person taking the photograph or making the recording is in a place he or she has the right to be, does not constitute, in and of itself, a violation of subdivision (a), nor does it constitute reasonable suspicion to detain the person or probable cause to arrest the person.” For full text.
This is because police have detained, harassed, attacked and jailed people for filming them in spite of the fact that there has never been a law against filming the police. The changes to sections 69 and 148 do not make any significant difference because the problem was never whether filming the police was legal or not, considering it was implied as free speech activity.
The problem was and is excessive police violence/ use of force and abuse of power when interacting with people. Not whether we have the “right to record” but that the police react defensively with violence and communities targeted by anti blackness and law enforcement are not given the same space and privilege to “exercise their rights” to begin with. The problem is the quick-to-execute use of force by police, and the lack of intervention to prevent police violence or create consequences for it.
Bills like this are part of the problem because ultimately we don’t want to just be able to record police violence, we’ve been doing that, we want to be able to prevent or stop it. This bill doesn’t address deadly executions by cops and it isn’t police reform, it’s a token dropped in a wishing well when copwatching is no longer enough and has actually become co-opted by the state through the use of bodycams.
Effective next year, California will be the first state to ban the use of grand juries in determining whether to file charges against police responsible for using deadly force.
The grand jury is not a court proceeding, but a separate legal body empowered to determine whether criminal charges should be brought. Grand juries have served as a secretive process that can help police effectively outmaneuver the system they enforce by circumventing arrest and charges. It’s like a fake trial, with no transparency, to determine whether there should be a trial. The prosecutor/DA has to initiate the grand jury process, and has the most influence in how it goes.
Evidence gathered is kept quiet and then released strategically, and most grand juries result in no indictment for killer cops. Grand juries take time, they dull the urgency felt right after someone is killed by police and have been used by law enforcement and other agencies to prevent movements from springing up in the place of state justice.
Non-police suspects are never given the opportunity to have a legal body outside of court determine whether criminal charges should be filed. The police arres on charges, the DA or city attorney’s office prosecutes no questions asked. Since we know that police are not going to charge themselves with a crime, especially a felony assault or murder charge, the sole decision on whether to pursue prosecution in cases of police involved fatalities still falls to the DA. It’s almost as if the police are the ones who decide if charges are filed.
The court already has a system for pursuing felony charges- most people get arraigned and face a preliminary hearing. But grand juries are preferred when it comes to public officials or high profile cases. The grand jury was never a requirement to indict police, and is only required in cases involving federal felony charges. Why police benefit from an entirely different process than the one they enforce is beyond me. This means that getting rid of the grand jury process for police means next to nothing since it still comes down to the discretion of the prosecutor. A prosecutor who has had the power the entire time to investigate and charge police personnel but often chooses not too. One person, one position, and that person and position works closely with the police at all times. Their job depends on it.
It’s good that there will no longer be selective use of the grand jury process to buffer police from criminal prosecution while making it appear like the situation is being investigated. Now it’ll be clear- they are charged or they aren’t. But with no alternative presented, no process put forward to help families who just lost their loved ones and often end up facing increased harassment by the police, removing grand juries doesn’t really do a damn thing.
It actually regulates, but does not reshape, how we deal with police use of deadly force. It doesn’t provide any guidelines on how the DA should handle deadly force cases or provide any consequences whatsoever if those guidelines aren’t followed or enforced.
This is why uprisings and public outpouring of people in the streets, disrupting the means of social order (which depends on ignoring anti black state violence) is the leading cause for most indictments or trials for killer cops. Currently, there is no intentional or accountable process for determining responsibility for lives taken by cops even though the number of deaths at the hands of police this year alone has passed 711. Just yesterday Aug. 13th the police executed Joe Bart in Oakland and Redel Jones, a 30 yr old black woman in Los Angeles.
So what’s becoming clear is that it’s no one’s job but ours to create consequences for the police and to challenge and put a stop to anti black racism and deadly violence. The state isn’t going to guarantee basic trials and due process to deal with violent racist crimes by state representatives (the police) and it sure isn’t putting resources toward preventing police terror.
It doesn’t address structural racism built into policing and the court system, or why police are so exempt from being policed or captured by the court system themselves. It doesn’t address the way prosecutors and police collaborate with the media to slander the reputation of their victims. It doesn’t offer any new proactive solutions, or any alternatives to investigate the police when an officer involved death happens. It actually implies that if the DA doesn’t choose to charge the police in open court, that evidence might not ever be released.
These laws are the tiniest chip off the entire system of police privilege in California, but they don’t restrict law enforcement in any capacity and that is by design. This is a large reason why more and more people are turning their attention away from state sponsored “reform” and looking for ways to structurally alter “justus” as we know it.
“The violence of the American state takes the lives of so many people consistently, Its heartbreaking. Whether it's from a bullet to the body, a bomb dropped over seas, the lack of care or the wrongful conviction of innocent people, we have a system that needs to be overturned. It does not respect the inherent dignity and sanity of life. When I was 13, I believe, my cousin Junie was sentenced to life in prison. I remember the night he came to my home afraid of what he knew was coming, I remember the dark hall way/entrance he stood in as I was told to take my little brothers, sister and cousin upstairs into our room. That was that last time I remember seeing my older cousin Junie. Evidence, just recently, has now surface that he was wrongly convicted. He, Junie has spent the last 14 years of his life on earth in prison, human cage for a crime he did not commit! It shakes me at my core knowing I live in a country the cares so little about Human life, my life. His son. Junie wasn't able to be in his sons life. My father's sister, my aunt is raising money for his legal fund. please support if you can. Either way my family, seven generation back and seven generation forward shall be free physically mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I believe in my prayer and in the hope for a better world.“ PLEASE REBLOG. FOREVER. PLEASE SUPPORT. We can’t say how many people are incarcerated for fraudulent evidence, racist individuals, kkorupt kops and criminal injustice poverty trap systems... but we do have the opportunity to help this person and their family!
Community Justice Solidarity, Philadelphia End Police Brutality PVD
Black autonomy is key, our rebellion must be ours and ours alone. Yes, there are allies who also have a vested interest in changing the current power structure; the success of their struggle does not necessarily mean the success of ours. Anti-blackness is the foundation of this country. All other races either benefit or are punished for it depending how close they are perceived to be to blackness. White supremacy is not something exclusive to just the European race, but that white supremacy is perpetuated also in other non-black cultures as well. We see anti-darkness amongst other communities of color as well. I make a distinction from anti-darkness and anti-blackness, because you can still be of dark skin and still perpetuate anti-blackness. This is why the quick reaction to unify under all colors, and as just humans is lacking the critical understanding necessary to achieve anything more than a band-aid to a gushing wound.
For that, and many other reasons, white people should NEVER lead or organize resistance of any sort. Especially not black resistance in which they are the benefactors of both white supremacy and anti-blackness. Allowing white people to organize black resistance makes as much sense as allowing the police to dictate how you protest against police brutality. There is an enormous amount of entitlement, and again white supremacy for a white person to even think they should be organizing around black struggle. There is also a certain amount of internalized white supremacy where we believe white people should be allowed to be included to organize amongst our spaces.
Bobby London, It’s Time for Black Liberation, Can’t Dictate Revolt
Police Reform vs. Abolishing the Police:
This conversation is more nuanced than an either or argument, even though I have framed it in such a way. When discussions are had on this it is discussed usually around what is attainable. Now, if you’re only talking about superficial institutional reforms like body cams, special prosecutors, and community advisers, then sure, you can achieve any legislation that does not threaten the current practices of the police. But if you are talking about real institutional reforms which would have an effect on the power of the police state, such as: defunding and demilitarizing, which I agree that if we are going to talk about reform then we should start there; then the question I must pose is: do you believe the United States government, one of the most militarized empires in the world, will allow their domestic military to be pacified? I also ask the same to those who believe that we can abolish the police without abolishing the whole governmental institution.
Bobby London, Can’t Dictate Revolt
I don't have any doubt there will be legislation to seemingly address the movement against police terrorism. What I fear is these new laws regarding the police are likely to say more about regulating our behavior around police than to address over policing, racist criminalization, mass incarceration or police executions of black life. Police reform is unlikely to create any consequences that might prevent police use of force real time on patrol instead focusing on how police behave after someone has been murdered.
dystopiance reblogged
LA Times Runs PR for LAPD: Solidifies Police Surveillance
Anyone in Los Angeles, and especially poor non white communities of color, will tell you that police choppers flying or hovering incessantly over your heads is not news.
So imagine the surprise when I read the LA Times recent article, which might as well have been featured in Minority Report, a popular dystopic fiction movie.
Gone are the days fearing government overreach targeting “thought crime” criminalizing areas or people before an incident occurs. Now, we are in the era of “predictive policing” where technology is utilized for organized violent groups like the police, which systemically murder non white life while the conditions of violence and poverty remain the same, or get worse.
Even more troubling is the undoubted credibility given to mainstream “known by name” publications like the LA Times who conspire with the LAPD to bottom line pro-cop anti-poor narratives that invisiblize the structural and racial violence of the police.
But the article is much more dangerous than it seems. While impacted (as opposed to benefiting) communities have organized tirelessly for alternative strategies to prevent crime, resourcelessness, violence and poverty in their communities the LAPD is opposed to all of it choosing instead to use a “hammer” approach of structural violence against youth of color.
Instead of more resources to prevent the conditions that create crime, resources take the form of funding for police, who just reached a negotiated settlement with the city for a 7% pay increase over the next three years. (also uncritically written about by the LA Times)
But the story isn’t that we have uncritical media or lack of investigative journalism, it’s that these tactics are used by the police for a long period of time before they are ever mentioned by the media. They are experienced long before they are “represented” in a palatable form for the consuming audience. When they are mentioned, it’s done in a way that legitimizes the policy almost like the police called the Times and asked them to run a story because their ready to finally acknowledge what poor hyper patrolled people have known all along.
What’s troubling is the framing of the article, despite the evidence presented.
Craig Uchida, a policing consultant who analyzes data for the LAPD and offers advice on crime prevention strategies, says it is too early to prove a definitive link between the flights and drops in crime. But the results so far, he said, are encouraging.
"Certainly it provides another layer and blanket of security for our folks," says Capt. Ed Prokop, who until recently oversaw the Newton Division."
Which means that while being marketed to the middle class aspiring populace, the increase in police helicopters probably has more to do with control and power for police and prisons than it does with “crime”.
Especially given that it is not proven to prevent crime, but is likely to displace crime to other areas. A side effect we’ve seen again with “gang injunctions” which also rely on “hot spots”, faulty profiling and police databases to create a restraining order in certain neighborhoods but likely has more to do with property value, development and ultimately the displacement of working class black and brown families.
While air patrols are frequent, the frequency has increased without much formal acknowledgement (until now) let alone input by the communities made to suffer the consequences. These disturbances have rather been a non-debatable aspect of increased militarization and surveillance culture “pioneered” by LAPD.
A few years back there was discussion from local activist communities about how to track the growing number of air-ships and map out the surveillance tactics of the police. In Echo Park for example, an area reeling from the influx of redevelopment, displacement and increased police harassment to effect gentrification- there were air-ships at all hours of the night sometimes for hours on end.
One night, a few of us meddling as we might in the affairs of the unaccountable police, decided to review the actions of police and investigate the situation. We found the established perimeter and began questioning why the police had shut down a block between 3rd and Beverly on Lucas.
We were told it was unsafe, that there was an armed gunman and to move away from the situation. We kept a distance and filmed, and as the chopper lingered for 5 hours we realized that the urgency and demeanor of the police was off. They were not moving cautiously, from building to building as people were trapped inside of their homes. In fact, in one lot an officer who had a higher rank modeled and illustrated to the group of officers running tactics how to use bolt cutters to get through a lot gate that was not locked.
It became apparent that not only were the police using poor neighborhoods heavily populated with people of color and migrants for training purposes but the prolonged use of the chopper at night was also designed to lay out the groundwork for increased air occupation and gauge how people respond. Just two weeks later we experienced a similar situation near Elysian Park where police locked down an entire neighborhood for 3 hours and went door to door and house to house unlawfully searching and occupying the street.
So while the LA Times and other mainstream propaganda rags are serving as the mouthpiece of the LAPD, communities are still left to deal with the fall out. Though there is rising movement against the execution of black life by law enforcement, the system that legitimizes collateral damage by the police runs smoothly through the mechanisms of institutional media. While we investigate the police in our own neighborhoods, the dominant narrative and apologists alike tell us that authority demands trust. The LAPD has proven that it deserves neither.
It seems cops can do no crimes Position and power Weaponized with lies And if someone dies They're immediately forgiven While the people they hunt In debt, sent to prison Judge sits back and collects People made property whatever the offense Charges filed no questions asked The prosecutor is from the same class Privileged and blue in the face Bailiff dangles those chains Dangles those chains A cops mistake is putting on the badge not the trigger they pull When it's already too late don't talk to me about It Apologist
dystopiance reblogged
futuristpraxis-deactivated20160
Anyone interested in chatting about what leftism will look like in a mass-surveillance context functioning alongside an increasingly fascist/reactionary state that aims to deploy surveillance information to preemptively suppress political threats?
I wrote a paper for my surveillance studies class that is relevant: http://www.academia.edu/10304239/Police_Body_Cameras_and_The_Mike_Brown_Law_Is_More_Surveillance_The_Answer
Give it a look? Let me know what you think
praxisandcapital
I like this article and think you have very solid analyses. I don’t know that state resources can ever be deployed against its own oppressive dynamics and structures, but there should definitely be a focus on how we can dismantle oppression at large. The discourse on body-cams, BLM, and police-lynchings is ranging widely in political temperament, but the focus seems to be gravitating towards reform based incentives and accountability structures, rather than attacking the function of the state, the prison industrial complex, and the police as such. Whether or not the movement will solidify as a political reformist or will radicalize into a large anti-capitalist/anti-facist/anti-patriarchal movement concerned with the abolition of the state as we know it today, is up to the movements ability to be self-aware of its own limitations and name its own needs for political development and structural/tactical sophistication. So far, it is very clear that the police fully intend to use body-cams to strengthen their ability to produce condemning narratives of the victims of police violence, explicitly taking measures to prevent communities from using the footage against the cops who use lethal force. The reality of this reform exists in opposition to its ideological representations in media and discourse.
dystopiance reblogged
New broadcast on police terrorism and imagining a world without cops.
Have you heard this new broadcast yet? Check it out... and the info drop can be found here: http://onresistanceradio.tumblr.com/post/107715750843/info-drop-new-broadcast-audio
Source: SoundCloud / On Resistance
dystopiance reblogged
Its Time For Black Liberation, Not Liberalism
White Supremacy & Anti-Blackness is about power, it is about domination, and it is instilled into every factor of the world we know. It is so infectious that even for someone with black skin it takes more conscious effort to not replicate it than it does to perpetuate it. It is because of this that it is important that we understand our own internalized anti-blackness and white supremacy, and begin to question and deconstruct what that looks like.
This is important so that we do not continue to perpetuate those things onto each other. We see that happening a lot now with rhetoric from liberal blacks who when talking about white on black murder say, “we should be fair, more black people are killed from black on black crime.” Apologism for this white supremacist police state is not helping our community, neither is the constant attempt to dilute the black in this resistance. We have seen #BlackLivesMatter turn into #AllLivesMatter (this is reference to what most presume to be just a hashtag stating that their lives matter, and not related to the organization). We’ve also seen, specifically here in Los Angeles, too many white people taking a lead role in organizing protest. There is this idea, that we can not do this alone, that police violence is everyones problem, so everyone should be working on this. This approach, ignores the systemic larger issue at play, that these black lives are not just being murdered because we have trigger happy police, but it is because we live in a white supremacist society that devalues black lives.
Black autonomy is key, our rebellion must be ours and ours alone. Yes, there are allies who also have a vested interest in changing the current power structure, the success of their struggle does not necessarily mean the success of ours. Anti-blackness is the foundation of this country. All other races either benefit or are punished for it depending how close they are perceived to be to blackness. White supremacy is not something exclusive to just the European race, but that white supremacy is perpetuated also in other non-black cultures as well. We see anti-darkness amongst other communities of color as well. I make a distinction from anti-darkness and anti-blackness, because you can still be of dark skin and still perpetuate anti-blackness. This is why the quick reaction to unify under all colors, and as just humans is lacking the critical understanding necessary to achieve anything more than a band aid to a gushing wound.
For that, and many other reasons, white people should NEVER lead or organize resistance of any sort. Especially not black resistance in which they are the benefactors of both white supremacy and anti-blackness. Allowing white people to organize black resistance makes as much sense as allowing the police to dictate how you protest against police brutality. There is an enormous amount of entitlement, and again white supremacy for a white person to even think they should be organizing around black struggle. There is also a certain amount of internalized white supremacy where we believe white people should be allowed to be included to organize amongst our spaces.
Do not allow your oppressors to organize you, they will have you running around in circles, making sure your tactics hold no true threat. Because black liberation comes at a cost to their privileges.
You can’t have a conversation about unity and coming together when some still have chains on their feet. It is the structure of white supremacy and the institutionalization of white supremacy that has allowed for the lives of black people to be murdered by police every 28 hours, and that has allowed it to become a normalized occurrence in this country for years.
While the two cops who were allegedly murdered by one black man allow for war to be publicly declared on the black community. For the mayor to state that the whole city will be in mourning. Where were the cities mourning when their city’s police officers killed Eric Garner? Were the cities mourning when their justice system failed Esaw Garner? You cannot take the issue of race out of this struggle, when the reason why we struggle is because of our race.
THIS IS A HELLA IMPORTANT READ.