And here was a dude what happened to be there yesterday with the Code PINK and the longshorepeople and the Oscar Grant crowd, etc – 100-something souls all told, inbetwixt our Market Street Chevron Buildings and right under the noses of the people of your San Francisco Examiner:
Click to expand
All the deets:
STRIKE MAY 2011!
¡BASTA! CodePINK, Cindy Sheehan, and all Vulnerable Folks are calling on us to STRIKE, MARCH and OCCUPY Sacramento beginning MAY DAY!
On May 1st, May Day, Beltane, International Workers Day, we will gather 11:30am at 24th & Mission, SF, march with the Coalition of Immigrants & all Workers to the 1pm rally in Civic Center, from where we will launch our STRIKE MAY 2011 march to Sacramento!
At 3pm, we will march from the Civic Center to the Ferry Building and take the 6pm ferry to Vallejo.
For the next 8 days we will march to Sacramento thru American Canyon, Napa, Suisun, Fairfield, Vacaville, Winters, Woodland and Davis doing actions – marches, rallies, press conferences, flyering, bannering – along the way. (for the exact route and issues,click here)
We are calling on YOU to STRIKE – NO BUSINESS AS USUAL – and come walk, bike, skateboard, carpool, train with all of us vulnerable folks, to get to Sacramento.
We will arrive in Sacramento on the 9th, the same day the 5 day teachers’ occupation of the Capitol begins. We will set up a TENT CITY and OCCUPY the capitol until the legislature votes OUR budget!
Our general theme is: 1) NO MORE TAXES for WARS & OCCUPATIONS; and 2) NO MORE TAX BREAKS for the RICH & their CORPORATIONS!
We are deeply urging everyone to join us in the STRIKE, MARCH & TENT CITY for however long, however many day(s), hour(s) you choose. (more information, click here)
At the TENT CITY, we are hoping everyone will do teach-ins to share their information, strategize, and build a strong diverse coalition.
If you are willing to endorse and/or STRIKE, please email info@bayareacodepink.org or call 510-540-7007 and leave your name, number, email, and a brief sketch of your plans. Sign up on facebook and twitter (links below).
If you are willing to be active and work on this STRIKE MAY 2011 for however long, in any capacity, before, after, during, please also email or call ASAP!
And come to the next Monday eve organizing meeting 6pm Mudrakers Café (back room), 2801 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley.
TOGETHER we WILL direct our STATE BUDGET to become OUR BUDGET!
End war on women!
End war on workers, immigrants, people of color, unions!
End wars of occupation!
End wars of corporate greed!
End wars on our Mother Earth!
End all wars!
Bring our tax dollars home! Take our tax dollars back from the rich!
Via the hardworking East Bay Citizen comes news of a rallyin support of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle “and our Law Enforcement Officers.” It will go down on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at the Walnut Creek Courthouse at 2:00 PM. O.K. then.
“Anyone who supports Johannes and our Law Enforcement Officers may attend. This is a peaceful rally to show our support for Johannes and the injustices he is experiencing.”
I don’t know, I’m not sure which “injustices” we’re talking about here. Killing somebody by mistake, that can put you in prison, right? Is anybody saying that the jury verdict of manslaughter is an injustice? (Obviously, the absurd murder charges* just weren’t going to happen, right? So, what else was there for the jury to choose from?)
Or maybe injustices could be death threats against family members? That’s all I can think of.
Now-famous 62-year-old Bay Arean Thomas Bruso (akaEpic Beard Man, Tom Swift, and Tom Vietnam) picks fights as he rides AC Transit in the East Bay, of course, (incident video now available in high def) but he also has been known to take BART to visit San Francisco from time to time. For example, here he is near Market Street back when he was just 48, as seen by Caliber photographer Troy Holden:
“Back in 1996, I was working at the intersection of 2nd & Market. Each and every day the man pictured above would walk by my shop, wave a loaf of sourdough in my face, and scream obscenities about the San Francisco 49′ers.”
Let’s find out, courtesy of footage of Tom at an Oakland A’s game last year. Is this a proper use of a Taser? I don’t know. It ended up being a time-saver for the cops, certainly. Would they have felt justified in shooting Tom with bullets at that moment? Obviously not. The question after any Taser discharge is what would you have done if you didn’t have the Taser, right?
Speaking of Tasers and the East Bay, check out this excellent report from Demian Bulwa about how the BART Police Department ran the initial stages of its Taser program.
That’s a poorly-run operation. What about the California Highway Patrol? They seem to do be doing better with Tasers these days. For them, a Taser is just another arrow in the quiver. Check it, a CHP officer on San Francisco’s Octavia Boulevard with his two primary weapons, a Smith & Wesson Model 4006 semi-automatic and a TASER International X26:
So why shouldn’t the SFPD have Tasers? We already trust them with handguns and assault rifles, right? We’ll end up with a few more lawsuits but with fewer dead civilians. Sounds like a win, overall.
And finally, let’s hear from the RAND Coporation. They pondered the use of Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs) for the NYPD and had this to say:
“Our key less-than-lethal force recommendations:
We reviewed reports of about 455 NYPD shootings from 2004 to 2006 and identified 25 cases where we judged that had a less-lethal weapon been available, officers may have used it to subdue suspects instead of using their handguns.
We also note that when other departments have deployed Conducted Energy Devices or CEDs, commonly known by the brand name TASER, injuries to both suspects and officers have declined.
We recognize that some groups have criticized the deployment of CEDs, raising issues of safety, overuse, and misuse. As such we recommend that the NYPD undertake a pilot program for the deployment of CEDs.
Such a program should allow patrol officers in selected precincts to be trained and equipped with CEDs that can incapacitate suspects from a distance. We believe there is evidence that if NYPD officers had access to this device, some number of officer-involved shootings could be avoided, and injuries to both suspects and police officers will decline. A carefully designed pilot program conducted over six to 12 months in a few select precincts would give the department enough information to determine whether the devices would alter the way the NYPD officers apply force and whether the weapons could be used properly.”
That’s correct, it’s right next to his standard issue Smith & Wesson Model 4006 semi-automatic with four-inch barrel and his Swiss-ish sport chronograph (which, for some reason he wears on the right side). Of course, the T.A.S.E.R. is facing the wrong way, so that’s a good method to keep things straight when it comes time to unholster.
But what if bad people get hold of these things? Well…
“Unique Anti-Felon Identification (AFID) tags make it possible to identify the Owner. The Taser C2 cartridges contain 20 to 30 AFID tags that are ejected from the cartridge when a TASER is used. The AFID tags are unique and police can use these to determine the owner of the TASER in case the TASER was wrongfully used.”
Did not know that.
Imagine a world where everyone had access to Thomas A Swift’s Electric Rifle….
Now for some photos, click to expand. These two kicked things off by getting down on the ground and attracting the attention of about 20 camera people. That’s some photojournalism right there. But Young Joe Eskanazi sees this as a problem. (Yes he failed to count himself, and others.)
With City Hall in the background:
This was the bulk of the crowd, conservatively(!) estimated at 150, per an IndyBay commenter. Throw in lots of media, about 50 Canon “L” (for luxury, about $1000 a clip) camera lenses and a ton of cops and you had lots of activity:
Foster Grant, Obama, and Malcom X:
The lone San Francisco Police Department uniformed officer on site in with the crowd was a Captain, leading from the front:
Two helicopters and the Evening Star rising so it’s time to march on over to Union Square and the Financh.:
The march to Powell Station, with more leadership from the aforementioned Capitan.
Orange “less lethal” shotgun with a clip of bean bag bullets. No TASER seen:
Can you see the garbage can? This youth dragged it into the middle of Kearny Street for some reason, inciting a what’s a matter you gesture from a taxi driver. Other youts threw some aluminum chairs for a bit in Union Square:
