2016

pnbsp;/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanimg height="629" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/5-TYDlOt4OXXkAEMzT9B_e4XGZ81aX6CvC48KzXt2jkqSLqMdEJd5OmLb262tXVYJzhKdvq8Rp-pn8vS9cqqcDSv10aiUne_iFhsFr0O8l158ZMTUPIvtsu6_HxYhHX6QAPeqs1e" width="602" //span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"span[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A black and white ink drawing of two young Black men, who are brothers, one seated in a wheelchair, the other with his arm on the seated manrsquo;s shoulder. nbsp;Big block letters at the top say ldquo;Justice for Andreacute; and Brysonrdquo; with three exclamation points. nbsp;On the left side of the image, the words ldquo;Drop the Chargesrdquo; run vertical down the page. nbsp;Andreacute;, who is standing, wears a t-shirt with the words ldquo;You Are Love,rdquo; and an image of hands making a heart-shape. nbsp;Bryson, seated, wears a hat that says ldquo;BOSS,rdquo; and stylish sporting gloves. nbsp;They are both wearing cross pendants. Drawing by nomy lamm.]/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanOn May 21, 2015, Bryson Chaplin (21) and Andreacute; Thompson (23) were shot by an Olympia police officer after a failed attempt to steal beer from a Safeway grocery store on the Westside of Olympia, WA. The young Black men are brothers, were unarmed, and while the officer shot at body mass striking several times (as police are trained to do, in the science of and Use of Force), Bryson and Andreacute; thankfully survived the shooting. One of the bullets fired that hit Bryson is still lodged in his spinal column, and has caused paralyzation from the waist down. The white police officer, 35 year old Ryan Donald, was not injured, but did report by radio that he had been ldquo;assaulted with a skateboard.rdquo; The shooter, officer Donald, like every single WA state law enforcement officer (ever) that has used excessive Force, was not indicted and was cleared of any wrong doing. Bryson and Andreacute;, however, are being accused of trumped up and very serious charges of assault. Rather than dropping the charges, which was the rallying plea of the Olympia activist community supporting this family, these charges are being brought to criminal trial./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanimg height="452" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/0d8LtYnDqnkXP6ZVS647RaW3GDMRLI9dwGuEA_3vYv5UwC3A7Pynkztj7toHkKwoFZC1qEfluxZKpYcEIBC2_7lHVmFQSQS4xfiQNY4iXZt550grl3HZFKfIuq1lZfZ1cy6MzdEW" width="602" //span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"span[IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A watercolor painting of a Black family facing a judge in the courtroom. nbsp;The familyrsquo;s backs are to the viewer, with a young man on the end in a wheelchair, and his sister, brother, and mother seated on a bench next to him. nbsp;Beneath the family is what looks like some kind of living organ, red and blue with veins and arteries, it spreads out on the floor underneath the young manrsquo;s wheelchair. nbsp;Over their heads is a tree branch, with a little bird sitting on it. nbsp;The judge facing them is a white woman in a black robe, and behind her is the Seal of the State of Washington, with George Washingtonrsquo;s face on it. nbsp;There are three flags flanking her with golden eagles on top, and along the wall next to her are portraits of four white male judges. nbsp;The words ldquo;Justice for Andreacute; Brysonrdquo; are written in an organic style in brown, with leaves sprouting from them. nbsp;There is a yellow burst of light, hearts and love surrounding the family. Painting by nomy lamm.]/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanOn January 21/spanspanst/spanspan, 2016 at 10:30am the Thurston County KKKourthouse is buzzing with activity. Inside a heavily monitored large crowded courtroom a steady stream of people, accused of crimes (and victims of The System) await the next name to be called, taking turns to meet their fate or find out the date of their next appearance. Some people are no shows. The back of the courtroom is lined with tables as makeshift desks over which check ins are happening. There is a hum of almost distracting voices as folks are last minute prepping to stand before the judge, with mostly white men in suits talking with clients. At the helm of the proceedings is Thurston County ldquo;Superiorrdquo; Court Judge Carol Murphy, a woman, and the most powerful white person in the room, and seated higher than everyone else, to display her power very clearly. Most of the rotating lawyers on both sides are white, while the ldquo;defendantsrdquo; are Black, Brown, Poor and people with Disabilities. On the left wall above the empty jury seats are huge photos of four (presumably very important) white judges who are men. Above the ldquo;superiorrdquo; court judge#39;s high perch is an embossed gold portrait of George Washington himself, the emblem of the state of Washington, a glaring symbol of colonization./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanFront and center of the courtroom, waiting to be called before the judge are the tight-knit Chaplin-Thompson family. In the aisle in his wheelchair is Bryson, holding a Chicago Bulls hat on his lap. To his right is his sister Jasmine, and next to Jasmine is Andreacute;, and to his right is their mom, Crystal Chaplin. You can feel the love between this family, they are a unit. There are members of community in support of Andre and Bryson sprinkled throughout the courtroom. Andreacute; and Bryson wait patiently for two hours, then find out from one of their lawyers, George Trejo, that they can actually leave without being seen by the judge. Hurry up and wait, and now go home. Papers have been signed and the next court appearance is in April 2016, and failures to appear will lead to warrants. /span/span/p p dir="ltr"spanspanimg height="451" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ViuqhxNdqlA94aqcJOpDXrRhMbEM-fXAadd-1Sk7OE5_regBxVa0TE21njhi8EwGQhPx3aQFJnwriPzDqQ15eLDWPJ5K5n-mKDaaIk4BCDordomqZVj82gH8o2TO15Ee--iJwQF6" width="602" //span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"span[image description: Brightly colored chalk on the steps of a blue house reads ldquo;There were no charges for the Olympia cop that shot and tried to kill Bryson Andreacute;.rdquo; There are hearts around their names and the words ldquo;Young, unarmed, love, Black, brothersrdquo; are there. On the steps it reads ldquo;They SURVIVED and face assault charges. This family is in solidarity with the Chaplin-Thompson family. POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY NOW.nbsp;/span/spanJUSTICE FOR ANDRE AND BRYSON.]/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanIn the United States there is a nationwide crisis of profiling, police terror and violence against Black people. It is a low estimate that somewhere in the U.S. every 28 hours a Black Loved One is killed by law enforcement, and that does not consider those ldquo;disappearedrdquo; or who die in custody. In the state of Washington the Black population is 3.6% and in Olympia it is 2% (2010 Census report). The percentage of Black folks incarcerated statewide in Washington is 18.1% (Dec 2015 Department of Corrections). Not unlike other cities, such as San Francisco, where the Black population is 3% and more than half the jail#39;s population are Black, anti-Black racism is alive and well in Olympia, WA and plays out loudly in the actions of police (Ryan Donald) and the white people who call them (employees of Safeway)./span/span/p p dir="ltr"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanimg height="500" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/83O-yxau-_9cFXLJ8BMBeDzNJSQheZri9Vq-viLZXDc_9MD0E4h4CuEyu4bjFVVOCyrrKE7gT5YNHvZ_wPAzG0HKBjd_HA8Mpv2G4Y229He6FD2drxmS5v6pUtqZ-guhtVa-Xt-F" width="429" //span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"span[image description: A racist meme, similar to this one, was found on Ryan Donald#39;s facebook page by a reliable source, and was documented. The meme depicts civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with a dreamsicle (an orange ice cream popsicle) disrespectfully photoshopped into his powerful clenched fist. Words read ldquo;I have a dreamsicle. A Dreamsicle. He has one.rdquo;]/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanREST IN POWER MARTIN LUTHER KING JR./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanIt#39;s 8am on July 7/spanspanth/spanspan, 2016 and Bryson bounces down three steps to the sidewalk in his wheelchair (which has a flat tire), he#39;s gotten extremely good at navigating using his chair. ldquo;I didn#39;t get much sleep,rdquo; he says. Andreacute; joins him, ldquo;me neither,rdquo; he says. They both look very tired, and for good reason, as they are about to make yet another early morning, mandatory pre-trial kkkourt appearance and they have been mourning the loss of many Black extended community members recently killed by police. ldquo;My mom should be right out,rdquo; Andreacute; tells his friend who has come to help with a ride. Crystal#39;s car broke down the night before. Bryson lifts himself into the car while Andreacute; breaks down his wheelchair and finds room for it in the back of the car./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanldquo;/spanspanDid you hear about the shooting, the one in the car?rdquo; Bryson asks his friend. ldquo;Philando Castile!rdquo; they exclaim. The conversation is solemn as the three talk about the violent lynchings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the videos of their executions by police had just been all over social media./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanREST IN POWER PHILANDO CASTILE/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanREST IN POWER ALTON STERLING/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanCrystal emerges from the house ldquo;alright let#39;s go,rdquo; she says./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanToday the courtroom is very empty, on the left are four People of Color, attorney (and Woman) Sunni Ko, then Andreacute;. Next to him is George Trejo then Bryson. On the right side of the courtroom are the two white prosecutors, Scott Jackson and Wayne somebody. There#39;s a different judge presiding, white Judge Tabor, who is flanked by a white stenographer and white bailiff. Judge Tabor is very close to retiring, he announces this from his throne./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanldquo;/spanspanThis is a status conference,rdquo; Tabor announces. He talks about a ldquo;3.5 hearingrdquo; that happened recently where yet another Judge ndash; Judge Dixon ndash; made a ruling of some sort in this case. What he says doesn#39;t make a lot of sense to an outsider, and he#39;s very jokey about it. It does seem strange that this is the third judge involved presiding over the fate of two men, but this guy makes it clear he#39;s the judge presiding now, and will be seeing this trial through./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanldquo;/spanspanMr. Rogers, who is not a party to this case, and represents Donald, (the lawyer of Ryan Donald) is not present,rdquo; the Judge points out. It isn#39;t mentioned but Ryan Donald is also not present./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanldquo;/spanspanAugust 15/spanspanth/spanspan is not gonna work,rdquo; Judge Tabor says. The prosecutors are concurring (fancy lawyer talk) that maybe August 15/spanspanth/spanspan is ldquo;too soon.rdquo; This is the date Andreacute; and Bryson#39;s family and their community thought that the criminal trial was finally set to start. It becomes clear that this kkkourt appearance is about scheduling, (not dropping charges as what seems an obvious solution). Judge Tabor then addresses the defense, and infers that it is taking the defense a long time, he tells Trejo ldquo;this date was set LONG AGO.rdquo;/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanBryson#39;s lawyer Trejo tells the judge that this hold up has everything to do with a defiant and inaccessible officer Ryan Donald. Interviews so far with Donald were unsuccessful. Trejo finds it problematic that when interviewed, officer Ryan Donald had this ldquo;inability to recall disciplinary actionrdquo; that has happened to him as a police officer./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanDonald refused to respond to any questions about racism, having referred to Andreacute; and Bryson as ldquo;thugs.rdquo;/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanAlso, on March 1, 2016, a date set for officer Ryan Donald to be questioned by Ko and Trejo, Donald was a no show. At that time Donald refused to attend, as he was on paid ldquo;administrative leaverdquo; for his involvement with the in-custody death of Loved One Jeffrey McGaugh on February 29, 2016. Officer Ryan Donald was on paid vacation, like happens when kkkops kill someone, for his involvement in a ldquo;mysterious in custody deathrdquo; so he failed to appear./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanREST IN POWER JEFFREY McGAUGH./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanIf Andreacute; or Bryson hadn#39;t shown up for a court date, they would be in jail./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanTrejo also talked about a ldquo;motion to sever accountsrdquo; under the 8.3 motion, because ldquo;the state provided Donald with all the discovery on the case.rdquo; This sounds like Donald is being given all kinds of background information and history about Andreacute; and Bryson, yet Donald won#39;t even answer direct questions, questions being asked by two People of Color, the defense lawyers Ko and Trejo. It is likely that Donald the kkkop is still writing his narrative of what happened./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanTrejo agrees that August 15/spanspanth/spanspan is too soon. The reason for this is the lack of officer Donald#39;s version of what happened the night he shot to kill Andreacute; and Bryson. When he finally complies to that requirement, Ko (Andre#39;s lawyer) explains that expert witnesses will then need time to review his assessment. Ko pushes for Donald#39;s narrative, and some time to review it before trial. There#39;s a deadline for the defense team to interview Donald and it is July 29/spanspanth/spanspan./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanJudge Tabor then said something that sounded a lot like someone who thought fairness and justness and truth are irrelevant. From his seat above everyone else, to a mostly empty courtroom, Judge Tabor said ldquo;I know this case has high visibility, and people have strong feelings. They have a right to their feelings and opinions about what#39;s right and wrong. But that doesn#39;t matter here,rdquo; he said. ldquo;Legal issues need to be assessed here.rdquo;/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanThen the Judge told the court his scheduling conflicts the coming months, and he excused himself from the kkkourtroom so the prosecutors and the defenders could come to a decision about scheduling./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanThe scheduling conversation came off like a strange insiders theatric performance. It takes place in a bubble of laughter and talk of vacations and other pending cases, (SO MUCH GOING ON), and talk of more vacations... Even the stenographer gets in on the scheduling back and forth, describing this judge#39;s jury selection process to be predictable (and hilarious apparently), she described Tabor#39;s jury selection process as ldquo;half hour, half hour, half hour, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, half hour, hopefully done by noon.rdquo; And all the lawyers with the stenographer and the bailiff laugh together, because that#39;s so funny. ldquo;Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,rdquo; they laugh, like no one else is in the room./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanAll the while Andreacute; and Bryson sit there. They are not laughing. They are not in on the joke. They face hard time in prison for failing to steal beer (no beer actually left the store) and for getting almost killed by a racist police officer. Crystal and a few friends, the only other people in the court room, also just sit there. They exchange looks, also not laughing. One of them is a child, even he knows this process is unjust, this Black family#39;s fate in the hands of these people in this system./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanThe defense and prosecution, never ever involving Andreacute; nor Bryson in the conversation, come to the conclusion that October 3/spanspanrd/spanspan is the date the trial will start. It will begin with jury selection. The Judge returns. It is agreed the trial will likely run 3-4 weeks. After all, these folks are the ones with the power, they know how it works, they are experienced and knowledged, they make the decisions. The judge says that someone must coordinate with Mr. Rogers (the lawyer of officer Donald, who is not ldquo;party to this kkkourtrdquo;) to confirm. The judge and Trejo also decide that July 20/spanspanth/spanspan at 8:30am is when Bryson must appear one more time, about those motions Trejo had filed./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanThe community is encouraged to attend July 20/spanspanth/spanspan at 8:30am in support of Bryson./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanThe community is requested to please attend t/span/spanhe estimated 3-4 week criminal trial for Andreacute; and Bryson that begins October 3rd, 2016./p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanplease read the article A Mother#39;s Cry for Justice in the BayView National Black Press by Crystal Chaplin/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"a href="http://sfbayview.com/2016/04/two-sons-shot-in-the-chest-by-police-a-mothers-cry-for-justice/"spanhttp://sfbayview.com/2016/04/two-sons-shot-in-the-chest-by-police-a-mothers-cry-for-justice//span/a/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanimg height="451" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_ztE5SGpR37iPiaQMp3oyzkuuaKeRmrjkuLaXxUQfPl4-n8s_W5xUQLRjQseguRlpB0fkPO6TfE_fY7wCyHSJnWQuJvDiFiDULeavdssEmWLbGqDIr0cL2apvJ3_bA0VJTro_tp1" width="602" //span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"span[image description: It#39;s July 7, 2016 out front of the Thurston County Courthouse just after an appearance of Andreacute; and Bryson. There#39;s a big green leafy plant on the left and the Chaplin-Thompson fam hugging tightly on the right. Handsome and smiling Bryson, dressed in all Black is seated in a red wheelchair. Crystal, Bryson#39;s mom, has her hand wrapped warmly around Bryson#39;s arm, she is wearing a beautiful patterned dress with a black sweater over it. Crystal is also arm in arm with Andre, who is about a foot taller than his mom. Andreacute; is smiling, holding and leaning toward his mother, and wears white pants and cool high tops. This family loves each other.]/span/span/p pnbsp;/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanLisa Ganser is a white, Disabled, genderqueer artist living in Olympia, WA, on colonized Squaxin land. They are a copwatcher, a sidewalk chalker, and the daughter of a momma named Sam./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-ba86569c-d675-74d9-d6a4-a502b3201f02"spanimg height="8" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/i47SWYEoKQSq0gmhPf42CgyWBxZxL60iweKPPvN6tL8jEviaNS8FA2-P7ejOVQdfcml497AllXlWa_F8KnhTbWHZIkUNqYjWOPHPk_wmiIw-SFRGs-yTMmqBIET-j78qgaMuPfr7" width="20" //span/span/p

h1 class="with-tabs" strongnbsp;/strongspanThis is Leroy Moore and I#39;m interviewing today a couple of activists, disabled activists from Chicago. We#39;re gonna talk about the recent DOJ hearing in Chicago on police brutality. So you guys, introduce yourself and introduce your work./span/h1 div class="node" div class="content" pspanstrongCANDACE Coleman:/strongnbsp;My name is Candace Coleman. I am the Community Development Organizer for the youth at Access Living in Chicago. I have the pleasure of coordinating our youth advocacy group, youth and young adult advocacy group called Advance Youth Leadership Power. Lately this year, we#39;ve been focused on the impact of identities of being Black and being people with disabilities./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Great. Who#39;s next?/span/p pspanstrongTimotheus Gordon aka TJ:/strongnbsp;Hello, everyone. My name is Timotheus Gordon, also known as TJ for short, and I am not only an Autistic self advocate, but I#39;m also one of the youth leaders of the AYLP or Advance Youth Leadership Power here in Chicago./span/p pspanstrongLEROY/strong: Thank you. And last?/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER HUFF:/strongnbsp;Yes, hello. My name is Christopher Huff. I#39;m a juvenile advocate, and my work focuses on empowering people with mental illnesses as well as formerly incarcerated youth./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;All right. So thank you all, you three for agreeing to talk about this. Let#39;s get back to what happened at the DOJ hearing, who talked, and what was the subjects, and what do you think that will come from that hearing?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;Well, just to start off, for the last couple of months, the Department of Justice has been in Chicago really investigating the Chicago police department in light of situations such as the Laquan McDonald event. One of the things that we#39;ve been noticing in our youth groups was that the voices of people with disabilities haven#39;t really been heard. Later on, during the investigation and the release of Laquan McDonald#39;s video, it came out that he was a person with a disability, and he went through Special Education. That really kinda drove AYLP into looking into organizing groups like Black Lives Matter and other organizing groups that really have been loud about police brutality in the country. But we just felt like there was just a disconnect of disability voice, and we wanted to use the Department of Justice hearing to honor victims of police brutality through a balloon release vigil, but also give people in the disability community--regardless of race--opportunities to kind of tell their stories at the DOJ hearing./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;I know that one of you talked at the hearing. Was that you, Chris?/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;I#39;m sorry?/span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;I heard that you spoke at the hearing./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Yes, I did. I spoke at the hearing. One of the main reasons behind me speaking at the DOJ event was based upon the idea of believing that the police corruption goes beyond just torture victims, but it also goes into the displacement of people with disabilities. Meaning, I wanted to shed light on my story coming in contact with the Chicago Police Department a couple of months after being diagnosed with a mental illness. And instead of being sent to treatment, I was incarcerated, and I see that tendency for the Chicago Police Department to incarcerate folks with mental illnesses rather than give them actual treatment and services is a by-product of a dysfunctional system./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:nbsp;/strongMm. And TJ, as a person with Autism, I know about the case in Chicago that the police just got off of killing a teenager with Autism. Tell me your experience with police and with the DOJ./span/p pspanstrongTJ:/strongnbsp;Beyondnbsp; hearing, even though personally I#39;ve been stopped by the police before because I was just walking around alone at night. But luckily, nothing else happened, but still I#39;ve been profiled before. But I was mainly speaking on you mentioned Stephen Watts where two police officers pretty much got away with murder along with another person where other police officers where the police also killed the person, but the community essentially actually found them and stopped the officers for killing him. And then later on, I found out that in a Chicago suburb, the police tasered an Autistic person. So it#39;s kinda like my message was that there#39;s a disconnect between the police and their understanding of Autism. It#39;s like they fear Autism so much that instead of getting to know what Autism really is, they quick to shoot, arrest, profile. And it#39;s scaring me also because not only am I Autistic, but I also fit the profile of a thug because of my race, size and my locks ./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;So beyond the DOJ hearing, what else are you guys working on in the police brutality kind of field?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:nbsp;/strongSo our group has been in discussions over the last couple of months in the spring, because we really were trying to figure out where can we I guess make change. One of the things is--and I know, well Leroy, we talked about this a lot, which is--the role that the police play in how we can more so give more power back to the community versus the police. But we live in a city that#39;s very police, we#39;re a police state./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Yes, anbsp; police state./span/p pspanCANDACE: And what is happening is that the police officers-- So in support of the Watts family, the Watts family wanted to put a law in place that required all police officers to get CIT training. Cuz currently right now, only 14% of the police force in this city has CIT training. But as we look at that training, that training is 40 hours, and it#39;s not very disability-inclusive. They#39;re not hearing from the people who have disabilities. It#39;s more based off of a medical model language that doesn#39;t really put a realness to how people actually are when they#39;re in a situation. So currently right now, we#39;re having conversations with what the training entails, who trains, and also, we#39;re trying to figure out how to educate communities of color about disability identity and how to be a part of a community that supports instead of calls the police. So in the fall, we#39;re looking for locations in various parts of the city to have our meetings in the community so we could start to do a community fair. So that#39;s just some things we#39;re working on. And then, we#39;re doing research to possibly do a report about disability identity and police encounters./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;So is this report statewide or mainly the city?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;We haven#39;t made that decision yet, but we#39;re doing research about that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Who is the partners for this report? Is it only your agency?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:nbsp;/strongAgain, we#39;re at the beginning stages. We#39;re doing a lot of research on that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Oh, OK. Wow. It#39;s interesting. So coming out of this interview, what kind of advice would you give to Black, disabled activists that#39;s trying to get into the activism around police brutality? Because I know for me in going to rallies, I rarely see Black, disabled people at rallies. So what#39;s your advice to Black, disabled people on how they can get involved?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;Chris, you wanna start off?/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Absolutely. I would say don#39;t settle for anything less than what#39;s needed to be done. I think at this stage, as it relates to the police brutality in Chicago, there needs to be a system wide restructuring, a complete restructuring of the entire police system in order to focus on empowering communities and providing communities with the skills and the knowledge and the resources necessary to secure and protect their communities. I think policing less and a full restructuring or the development of a fundamentally new system of policing here in Chicago, I believe that disabled community should not settle for anything less./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;OK./span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;I think that one of the things that I saw at the DOJ hearing, we have been in community with various people who have been victims of police brutality and didn#39;t even know it until they showed up at the hearing. I think I would say that I wouldn#39;t want a hearing to be the point of contact to find out information like that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Yeah./span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;And I think it speaks to us really having a space to have that conversation, open and not in a hidden space. So I think I would give the advice to just always stay true to your story, and if you can or are open to it, to tell it. Because even like outside of this building community, people who probably don#39;t even wanna reveal themselves as having a disability. There#39;s still this shame and this stigma and this idea that I don#39;t want people to know. And people are suffering for it./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Yeah, yeah./span/p pspanstrongTJ:/strongnbsp;I would also like to add, not only and if you want to be encouraged to share your stories on how the police affects you as a person of color with a disability, not just share it with it with mainstream media either. We in the age where we can share our stories through almost any form of information blogs and other medias sources outside of NBC, ABC, stuff like that because you get to notice that while there are some forms of media that get our stories out there, mainstream still taking its time to get it. So the more that we tell our stories, the more that the mainstream media will eventually get the connections between what#39;s happening to us as disability community and the police brutality phenomenon, period. And just like I said, to tell our stories through all available media, even like media outside the mainstream. That was very helpful, like blogs, websites, things of that nature./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:nbsp;/strongYeah, you brought up a good point. What do y#39;all think about how cultural work plays in this movement of police brutality? What does cultural work plays into that, especially for Black, disabled artists?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;I think we have a lot of work to do within the disability movement and outside of the disability movement. For example, this weekend it#39;s the Disability Pride Parade in Chicago. People don#39;t know. People mix it up with other identities, thinking that it#39;s related to Gay Pride or something. It seems like we still have to reveal our identities to the world. That#39;s how I feel. So I think truly, within the disability rights community, we still need to do a lot of cultural competency work because there#39;s still a lot of white privilege that is keeping the issue of police brutality and disability quiet. But then also, in the non-disabled community, the idea that people don#39;t care about people with disabilities is also on their side. So we just got a lot of cross-cultural work to do./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Mmhmm./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;There. And I think in addition to that cross-cultural work, I think that there has to be a fundamental change in the way that we interact with people that are across disabilities, whether it be the way people with mental disabilities interact with or work with people with physical disabilities and begin to build that rapport within the current organizing activities and kinda really begin to build those relationships. Cuz right now, I think the biggest thing that#39;s hurting a big part of the movement is the kind of stigma and fear that Candace talks about within the disabled community. It#39;s almost like we#39;ve kinda learned that our voices don#39;t matter. We kinda learn to a large extent that our stories don#39;t matter cuz nobody cares. I think the only way that we can break that mold and break that culture of silence and not talking about the issues and the things that we care about, I think that in order to do that, we have to fundamentally come together, begin to share our stories across different lines./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Totally agree, totally agree. One more question. How is the Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago? Have they embraced people with disabilities, and have they collaborated with you guys?/span/p pspanstrongTJ:nbsp;/strongAs far as collaborating with AYLP, not yet. We would like to, though, it being the beginning phases of that. But as far as at least the citywide level, they recently put out a statement about the story that I mentioned earlier where a police officer almost killed a Autistic young man. But the whole community saved him, basically, from it. While I commend Chicago chapter of BLM for at least putting the idea out there that police brutality affects disabled people in the Black and Brown communities and just under-represented communities in general; however, they#39;re still some language that would still kinda get me. Like for instance, when they mentioned about 80% of police brutality happens to people with mental health, the issue with that is people come up thinking of Autism with mental health. When actually, Autism is a developmental disability, not mental health. So it still needs to be education on what disability really is between the disability community and groups that are acivists like BLM. And also, we need to figure out how can we participate with BLM, because it#39;s inaccessible as of right now. I#39;m sure the other two could chime in on that./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:/strongnbsp;Yeah, anybody wanna chime in on that?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;No, I think TJ summed it up./span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER/strong: Yeah./span/p pspanstrongLEROY:nbsp;/strongOK. Any last words that you guys wanna talk about around this issue or any upcoming campaigns or events?/span/p pspanstrongCANDACE:/strongnbsp;I just wanna say that everything that we do is tied to the system, whether we in education or whether we#39;re not. The services we need, whether mental health is crucial schools/institutionsnbsp; are closing. Unfortunately, every arrow is leading to the prison system, and as a organizer, I know it#39;s important for me to figure out ways to block that path. Which is one of the reasons why we work on the school-to-prison pipeline. But in adulthood, when you#39;re just at home in your community, trying to skate or trying to hang out with your friends or being out and about and something happens, and the police is called, we need to switch from institutional, heavy base support for more community support. And I really wanna work on that./span/p pspanstrongTJ:nbsp;/strongYes, I second that!/span/p pspanstrongCHRISTOPHER:/strongnbsp;Yeah, and I guess the last thing I would like to say is just thank you for having this conversation, and thank you for utilizing your media/column as a platform to really look at these issues. I think the more opportunities that we have to engage in dialog like this, discussing movements, discussing our vision or the impact we would like to make on the system as people with disabilities, I think the more opportunities we have to do this, the more opportunities we have for the movement to grow and develop over time./span/p pspanstrongLEROY/strong: Well, with that, thank you so much./span/p pspanALL LEROY: Thank you./span/p /div /div

pHello Friends Supporters/p p It all started when I was in my early teens. I told my mom that I wanted to go to South Africa in the middle of the US anti-Aparthied movement in which my father and I was apart of. In my high school years I tried to do a paper on what was going on in South Africa for people with disabilities/Deaf and remember this was in the mid 80#39;s before computers. My paper turned out to be a half a page cause I couldn#39;t find enough information on people with disabilities/Deaf in South Africa at that time./p pFast-forward to 2007 when Krip-Hop Nation officially started in full-blown (It was in my brain in the 90#39;s) on myspace and with the internet Krip-Hop blew up internationally and I also continued my networking internationally connecting to disabled/Deaf activists, journalists, musicians including Hip-Hop artists. If you been following my column you would have noticed the coverage of disabled people/artists all of Africa from the Congo to Zimbabwe to Nigeria to South Africa and beyond./p pIf you know me you will also know I live on SSI i.e. a tight budget, however with this tight budget I manage to travel to the UK, Canada around the US spreading the work of Krip-Hop Nation setting up chapters etc../p pWell after years of networking and writing over the internet with African disabled artists/activists especially Hip-Hop artists with disabilities, Krip-Hop Nation aka myself will be flying to South Africa for a tour that will hit five or more cities meeting and performing with all types of artists with disabilities/Deaf in the Disability Awareness Month in South Africa from November 5-December 10th/2016./p pBefore I talk about the outcomes of this tour, let me tell you that I already have my ticket and that is a big thing as a person living on SSI the team in South Africa has been working overtime to get things ready. Big love to Simon Manda who is kicking butt on all the ground work in South Africa from accessible transportation to venues and so much more!/p pEXPECTED OUTCOMESbr / bull; Book of memoirsbr / bull; Talent Showcasebr / bull; Seminars/Roundtable Discussionsbr / bull; Documentarybr / bull; Skills Development/Transferbr / bull; Database of Artists/Creatives with disabilities/Deafbr / bull; Linkages to the DADA Festival/p pHere are our team members:br / bull; Leroy Moore (Founder: Krip Hop Nation- USA)br / bull; Simon Manda (Editor and Co-Founder: THISABILITY Newspaper)br / bull; Nicolene Mostert (Co-Founder: OCAL Global)br / bull; Alun Davies (Co-Founder: OCAL Global)br / bull; Mduduzi Nhlebela (Photography/Videography; Businessman)br / bull; 2 Assistants/p p Therersquo;s a lot of wisdom and ideas in the communities Krip-Hop Nation represents. But these ideas are not shared and applied. Thatrsquo;s what Leroyrsquo;s trip (and the book/film) aim to achieve. Simon and Leroy will be observing, listening, documenting and collaborating with others in Africa and in America to help connect and expand visibility, voices, common bonds and differences with others in a book format. This project is an opportunity to bring out the needed communication between the disability/Deaf community here in the US Africa and to build on our talents onto an international stage that Leroy hopes would lead to more collaborations in the artistic space-like networking artists face to face in an international conference or festival in South Africa with Stevie Wonder as ambassador./p pFriday September 9th, R.e. Spect​ of Zimbabwe, Africa agreed to let his song be the theme song for Krip-Hop Nation#39;s South Africa Tour 2016. He wrote performed this song for Krip-Hop Nation back in 2012./p pHelp out! Give to Krip-Hop South Africa Tour November-December 2016. We have a month and half left to raise funds for this tour so please donate and continue to pass it around. The donations will go to the following:/p p*Publishing a book of stories, art, poetry, essays and song lyrics of artists,writers with disabilities/Deaf in Africa USbr / *Creating, editing, producing and marketing of a film documentary of the tourbr / *Accessible equipment that would make the tour more accessible, including wheelchairs, etc.br / *Performersrsquo; fees/p pOnce again this is more than just a one time tour! nbsp;This tour will create more than a book and film documentary but will set a foundation to bring out the needed communication between the disability community here in the US Africa and to build on our talents onto an international stage that Leroy hopes would lead to more collaborations in the artistic space-like networking artists face to face in an international conference or festival in South Africa with endorsement from Stevie Wonder who is the United Nation ambassador of people with disabilities all over the world. If you know how to get in touch with Stevie Wonder, please get in touch with us at Krip-Hop Nation./p p Fundraising page:/p pa href="https://igg.me/at/S4VPn49O978"https://igg.me/at/S4VPn49O978/a/p pListen to the song read the lyrics:/p pa href="https://soundcloud.com/blackkrip/painting-voices-by-re-spect-ft-keali-new1-theme-song-for-krip-hop-nations-south-africa-tour" https://soundcloud.com/blackkrip/painting-voices-by-re-spect-ft-keali-new1-theme-song-for-krip-hop-nations-south-africa-tour/a/p pnbsp;/p pImage description: Picture of a world with a Black woman and a Black man kissing a Krip-Hop Nation video box. Above are words: USA to Africa South Africa Tour Nov-December 2016. Below is a set of crutches crossing each other with a white hand displaying a sign language sign Below words saying: Brought to You By This Ability Newspaper, Simon Manda Krip--Hop Nation/p pnbsp;/p pThank You,br / Leroy F. Moore Jr.br / Founder of Krip-Hop Nation/Columnist of Poor Magazine/p

pldquo;$5-10.00 per Disc- Hip Hop , Salsa, You name it, we got it,rdquo; At the corner of Vine and Melrose, Hollywood and Vine and Pico and Wilshire in LA, I would scream out my best CD deal of the day. I was 11 years old when i started selling CDrsquo;s. My best location was in front of the 7-11 downtown, until the poLice came and arrested me for soliciting without a license. For years me and my mama sold CDrsquo;s, art and all kinds of other things considered ldquo;illegalrdquo; on the street. We never had a permit or license to vend, sell or solicit. We were harassed, cited and several times i was arrested for it. And yet i lived to tell, write and teach about it. Alton was murdered./p p Broad daylight. Downtown Oakland. Flashes of shiny black and white metal shimmer in the sunlight. My heart stops, blood pools in my stomach. I have no ID, and my mama and me were driving one of many hoopties we had with a broken tail-light. This moment of terror followed by so many more DrivingWhilePoor moments of terror caused me to have PTSD to this day. My mixed race, light-skinned mama and my wite-looking self were constantly stopped because we were driving an old car and/or were parked in neighborhoods sleeping in an old car. We were often harassed, a couple of times thrown against our hood, and three times I was arrested, had our car towed and my disabled traumatized mama was left on the street. And yet we lived to tell, write and teach about it Philando was murdered. nbsp;/p p My houseless, disabled, mixed race mama and I were unhoused sleeping on the street on and off for years, we were arrested, cited, harassed multiple times, which was terrifying and traumatizing but we lived to tell, teach and write about it. Jessica Nelson Williams was murdered./p p This goes out to my fellow light-skinned People of Color and poor white people.br / In so many ways my life of poverty and houselessness, system abuse and hellfare was terrifying and left me scarred beyond words. But i am still here. My big loud mouth is still alive. My big loud, light-skinned mouth is still alive./p p The point of my story is not to rank oppression, to dismantle or disrespect your trauma, fellow light-skinned, working class and poor white people, Poverty, abuse, state- sponsored and personal violence is hella real and kills, If you have lived a life like me and my mama it is blessing you are still alive. And many of us donrsquo;t make it, killing ourselves with the mans poison, with each others fists, with our own minds. Our struggles are very real and devastating and completely legitimate. Our collective trauma-knowledge as poor and unhoused people is why we established the concept of Poverty Scholarship at a class="profileLink" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=39770831995" href="https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/"POOR Magazine/a And has nothing to do with the necessity to understand the depth of danger faced by all Black peoples walking, living, working and driving in this stolen indigenous land/p p The point of this story is to help you understand that the fight for Black life, isnrsquo;t a fight for who is worse off,nbsp; who had more trauma, terror or abuse. the point is to understand thatnbsp; the impact and reality of white supremacy is not just trauma, its a deep and real situation of danger. for Black bodies. Due to a terrifyingly real, historically rooted and extremely dangerous system, Black bodies are in a specific state of danger, a clear and present danger of murder everyday in Amerikkka due to intentional, institutional and multi-generational white supremacy that all light-skinned people of colorrsquo;s(POC) and poor white people arenrsquo;t. And the moment for us to get extremely clear about this and name it constantly is now./p p This means some serious compartmentalization of our own ldquo;stuffrdquo; and the clear-headed recognition of this danger to our Black family members, friends, comrades, neighbors, lovers and community.br / nbsp;br / And once we have gotten over our own personal shit about this danger, to begin to act, educate and activate constantly. To bring up in spaces where our fellow unconscious family members, friends, comrades, neighbors, co-workers and communities dwell. To stand with, walk with, act with Black bodies in the ways that matter and are hard. To always kkkopwatch, to never walk by, drive by or stay uninvolved.nbsp; At POOR Magazine, a poor and indigenous people-led movement, this means supporting fellow unhoused, poor, disabled, elder and youth of color to get new cars, to get current registration, insurance, housing, healthcare, paid for by folks with race, class and formal education privilege, something we teach them in a poor people-led community school we call a href="http://www.racepovertymediajustice.org"PeopleSkool./a Something we are activating with the a href="http://www.poormagazine.org/homefulness"Homefulness Project./a/p p And in this narrative I am in no way saying that light-skinnednbsp; POCrsquo;s, poor and unhoused white people, Trans and disabled peoples are ldquo;saferdquo;. We are not. Period. Point blank. It is merely to clearly articulate the difference and terror we need to see and recognize and name./p p For unhoused, working class and light-skinned POCrsquo;s culture, race, age and gender matters in more subtle ways. For years as a child i had to navigate my ldquo;white skinrdquo; so that my mixed race single mama and i could rent an apartment when we were unhoused and later when myself and fellow Black welfareQUEENrsquo;s and POOR Magazine launched Mamahouse in the Mission I had to do it again, because racism and classism is alive and well everywhere. To acquire housing I was constantly lying about credit histories and wages and landlords were always believing it because white supremacy is alive and well in the land-stealing industry.nbsp; Indigenous, POC, immigrant, trans, youth, elders and unhoused people are constantly under attack by the subtle and not so subtle forces of racism, white supremacy and amerikkklan colonial domination./p p Ultimately the Porsquo;Lice are killing all of us. the fact that they used a robot to kill the alleged poLice murderer in Dallas is telling of a terrifying future to come, more proof that our collective liberation is linked. It is why we have practiced a No PoLice Calls Ever policy at POOR Magazine for the last 20 years and launched it and lived it at Homefulness. But before we can be truly linked it is urgent that we see the ways we are clearly different. It is why we have a motto at POOR Magazine, The Revolution will NOT be Melted in a Pot, which just means we need to respect each personrsquo;s journey through spirit and consciousness, we need to be clear about who we are and how we are different to truly value, support and overstand each of our individual struggles so we can work toward our collective liberation.br / nbsp;/p pemPOOR Magazine#39;s strongFree Revolutionary Journalism program for Po#39; Folks/strong is beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, July 12th at 6:30pm. email a href="mailto:poormag@gmail.com"poormag@gmail.com/a to register.nbsp; The next PeopleSkool for folks with strongRace, Class and/or Formal Education Privilege/strong is in Black august 27th 28th - go to a href="http://www.racepovertymediajustice.org" title="www.racepovertymediajustice.org"www.racepovertymediajustice.org/a to enroll. If you are interested in attending our strongNot Calling the kkkops EVER /strongworkshops which begin in September please email poormag@gmail.com/em/p

pspan class="_4n-j fsl"In the name of 100 year old, lifelong Fillmore resident Iris Canada, who has suffered financial, emotional and physical abuse under California elder abuse law from her landlord, who has been continually harassing her with eviction attempts since early March 2016, a group of advocates will be demanding that the District Attorney, George Gascon press charges of elder abuse under penal code 368./span/p p This demand to the DA follows yet another attempt by the landlord to evict in court today, BlackAugust 10th when the attorney for landlords Peter Owens, Carolyn Radische and Stephen Owens brought yet another filing, notwithstanding the fact that a powerful group of advocates and community showed up to support and resispan class="text_exposed_show"st yet another attempt to evict a 100 year old Black elder from the increasingly white and rich San Francisco, the judge allowed todays appeal to go through putting Iris in the dangerous position of being homeless in her lifelong home,/span/p p Iris, a beautiful and strong grandmother, auntie and lifelong resident of the Fillmore has been fighting an eviction since early March. Though the court granted her a relief from forfeiture, allowing her to stay despite the eviction, it also granted the ownerrsquo;s legal and other fees of $164,000. Ms. Canadarsquo;s attorney, Dennis Zaragoza, has filed an appeal because he believes the court had no right to impose the fees./p p Friday#39;s visit to the DA follows a 2014 series of cases brought by disabled, evicted and displaced elders, family and youth leaders from a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=39770831995extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A604116713081627%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/"POOR Magazine/a, a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/group.php?id=19660954620extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A604116713081627%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/19660954620/"Krip Hop Nation/a, the a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/page.php?id=117617488280955extragetparams=%7B%22directed_target_id%22%3A604116713081627%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/San-Francisco-Bay-View-Newspaper-117617488280955/"San Francisco Bay View Newspaper/a, Idirss Stelley Foundation and Manilatown Heritage Foundation and many more advocates in San Francisco that were never followed up by the District attorney, who consistently rules and acts in favor of the rich and powerful in San Francisco/p p This action is organized by homeless, displaced, disabled and formerly unhoused youth, adults and elders from Krip Hop Nation, POOR Magazine and (inbox us if you want to sign on)/p

p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"For too long, harmful law enforcement and detention policies have worsened mental health and public safety outcomes. The Alameda Jail Fight Coalition has been working hard nbsp;to divert millions of dollars away from Santa Rita Jail for the purposes of investing in appropriate, community-based responses to incidents involving individuals with mental health issues. nbsp;We challenge Alameda County to break away from the harmful cycles of criminalizing mental health conditions and invest in humane solutions that make us all safer./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"Wersquo;re fighting against a $61.6 million construction project at Santa Rita Jail and demanding the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to reject/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" Alameda Countyrsquo;s SB 863 $54 million grant from the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) and/spanspan style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;" invest $7.3 million, Alameda Countyrsquo;s 10% county match, in alternatives to incarceration that keep our families together and our communities safe. /span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"Historically, law enforcement involvement in mental health issues began in the late 1700s, when people with mental illness were routinely confined in prisons and jails. nbsp;Later replaced with large psychiatric institutions because incarceration was deemed barbaric and ineffective, these institutions did little to improve the conditions or outcomes for mentally ill individuals. nbsp;In the 1960s, as part of his proposal to shut down these institutions, President John F. Kennedy promised that ldquo;the cold mercy of custodial isolation will be supplanted by the open warmth of community concern and capability.rdquo;[i]/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"It is clear that both the country and Alameda County has failed to live up to this promise. Massive cuts to mental health services have turned jails and prisons into de facto ldquo;treatmentrdquo; options. nbsp;Between 2009 and 2011, states cut over $1.8 billion in Medicaid funding, including money dedicated to mental health services in the form of supportive housing, access to psychiatric medications, emergency and long-term hospital treatment, and targeted case management and clinic services.[ii] nbsp;While the goal of these cuts was to reduce spending, the costs have been simply passed to other entities, including law enforcement agencies and correctional facilities.[iii] nbsp;The largest providers of public mental health services are jails and prisons with 10 times the number of mentally ill people incarcerated than there are in state run psychiatric hospitals.[iv]/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"In Alameda County, it is estimated that there are more than 65,000 individuals that are in need of mental health services and over 70% of them are living at below the poverty level.[v] While the vast majority of people living with mental health issues are no more violent than the general population and are actually more likely to be victims of violence, a small subsection of people have a much higher risk of violence when their mental health problems go untreated. nbsp;In addition, many people self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, which significantly increases the chances that they will become entangled with the criminal justice system. /span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"Criminalization of Mental Illness/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"When police officers respond to a mental health call, they typically have three options: refer the person to outpatient treatment, hospitalization, or arrest. nbsp;Except in the most extreme cases, outpatient treatment is almost always the most desirable and appropriate option. nbsp;Access to services is challenging because of insufficient communication among agencies. nbsp;Hospitalization is also difficult due to the low number of beds in state-facilities. nbsp;Experts agree that the minimum number of available beds should be 50 per 100,000 people, but the actual ratio is less than half that and more cuts across the country are imminent.[vi] nbsp;In Alameda County, John George Psychiatric Hospital is designed to hold 23 patients but overcrowding has exceeding capacity by more than 300%.[vii] nbsp;The mental health staffing ratios in Santa Rita are even more stark at 1:263. nbsp;In the rest of the state, 25 counties do not have any adult mental health beds and 45 of them do not have beds for children. /span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"The only option left for law enforcement officers who are not equipped to address mental health crises, is to incarcerate the person. nbsp;Overall, about 10% of people are suffering from an acute psychiatric episode when they are first incarcerated and rather than receiving treatment, they simply become part of the criminal justice system. nbsp;Jails are increasingly seeing ldquo;frequent flyers:rdquo; people with mental health issues who are incarcerated for short periods of time and then re-offend soon after their release due a lack of access to appropriate treatment. nbsp;The resulting criminal record can limit access to services that could greatly reduce mental health problems and makes it harder to access housing, employment, and education./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"Call To Action!/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Stand with us in our demands to:/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"1. Stop all construction plans for the new jail /span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"2. Invest in alternatives to incarceration and community health/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.6080000000000003;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"3. Divest from incarceration and policing/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.6080000000000003;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left: 36pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Sign here to add your name to the growing list of healthcare providers who oppose this project: /spana href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.change.org%2Fp%2Fboard-of-supervisors-health-workers-in-bay-area-denounce-new-mental-health-jailh=sAQHq-NTcenc=AZN-yAVqpWkePWIgTDDMlJm14tz7fOaJdHSuAkJbcgVdKAM6AK5nbG02tYhb8-rk8uss=1" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"https://www.change.org/p/board-of-supervisors-health-workers-in-bay-area-denounce-new-mental-health-jail/span/a/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.6080000000000003;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left: 36pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Sign here if you are a California resident opposed to this project:/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;margin-left: 36pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"a href="https://www.change.org/p/alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-no-new-jail-in-alameda-county" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"https://www.change.org/p/alameda-county-board-of-supervisors-no-new-jail-in-alameda-county/span/a/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"nbsp;/p hr / pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[i] To/spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"rrey, E. F., Zdanowicz, M. T., Kennard, A. D., Lamb, H. R., Eslinger, D. F., Biasotti, M. C., et al. (2014, April 8). The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails: A State Survey (Abridged). /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Treatment Advocacy Center/spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Retrieved April 17, 2014, from/spana href="http://www.tacreports.org/storage/documents/treatment-behind-bars/treatment-behind-bars-abridged.pdf" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"http://www.tacreports.org/storage/documents/treatment-behind-bars/treatment-behind-bars-abridged.pdf/span/aspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Page 4./span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[ii]/spana href="http://www.bibme.org/" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;" /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Honberg, R., Diehl, S., Kimball, A., Gruttadaro, D., Fitzpatrick, M. (n.d.). State Mental Health Cuts: A National Crisis. /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"National Alliance on Mental Illness/spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Retrieved April 17, 2014, from/span/aa href="http://www.nami.org/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm?ContentFileID=126233" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"http://www.nami.org/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm?ContentFileID=126233/span/a/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[iii] Hornberg et al, page 1./span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[iv] To/spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"rrey, E. F., Zdanowicz, M. T., Kennard, A. D., Lamb, H. R., Eslinger, D. F., Biasotti, M. C., et al. (2014, April 8). The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails: A State Survey (Abridged). /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Treatment Advocacy Center/spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Retrieved April 17, 2014, from/spana href="http://www.tacreports.org/storage/documents/treatment-behind-bars/treatment-behind-bars-abridged.pdf" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"http://www.tacreports.org/storage/documents/treatment-behind-bars/treatment-behind-bars-abridged.pdf/span/aspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Page 4./span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[v] California Mental Health Prevalence Estimates. Found at: http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/provgovpart/Documents/CaliforniaPrevalenceEstimates.pdf/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"span id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[vi]/spana href="http://www.bibme.org/" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;" /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Israel, J. (2014, February 24). State Of Emergency: 24 States Lack Basic Tools To Identify Open Beds For Psychiatric Patients. /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"ThinkProgress/spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Retrieved April 17, 2014, from/span/aa href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/24/3307231/computerized-database-psychiatric-beds/" style="text-decoration:none;"span style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" /spanspan style="font-family: Cambria; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/24/3307231/computerized-database-psychiatric-beds//span/a/span/p pspan id="docs-internal-guid-c6d027cd-2544-71f8-f3e1-32fe752fe124"span style="font-size: 13.3333px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;"[vii]/spanspan style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;" http://www.ktvu.com/news/2-investigates/136753166-story/span/span/p

pThe recent death of the Mexicano Journalist Ruben Espinoza who was found dead in a Mexico City apartment along with four wimmin was a reminder of the many sacrifices that Journailist make. Delivering the truth is very threatening to those who oppress others. Apparently there is a lot of oppression in parts of Mexico at this time./p pI have read PROCESO, the Spanish language Magazine which Espinoza worked for. It has a reputation for getting to the truth. PROCESO like its sister News Magazine, ZETA, are the rare gems in the battle for truth in Mexcio. Both of these publicatins have always spoke truth to power. They have always called out corrupt officials and translated what the power struggles throughout Mexico were REALLY about. The many deaths of their Journalists speak to the danger in this work./p pBeing a photo Journalist was how Espinoza gave back to the people. He knew that his work posed a threat to his own safety, but any Journalist will tell you that their ability to get truth out there is far more important than themselves. The Journalist is COMPELLED to deliver this truth, it is why Journalists around the world pick up the pen or the camera. nbsp;/p pWhat some say sealed Espinozarsquo;s fate was when he published the photo that he took of Governor of Vera Cruz, Javier Duarte, which was published on the February 16, 2014 cover of PROCESO news Magazine along with the heading ldquo;VeraCruz Lawless staterdquo;. I would say that this may have tipped the scales against him but his career of Journalism seems to have led up to this./p pAll of the bodies showed signs of torture and the wimmin were all raped in this attack. Those who carried out this crime against the people attempted to send the message that truth will not be tolerated in the Mexican@ press. What they do not understand is that there will always be Journalism and this will not change. All their acts did was to create MORE Journalism surrounding the corruption in VeraCruz and other parts of Mexico. All their actions did was shine a larger light on the great Journalists like Espinoza and others who continue his work./p pThe current MexicanGovernmentis undable to provide security to its own people, this has been obvious for some time. It has been a year and they still have not provided Mexican@ families with real answers about the 43 of Ayotzinapa whose parents continue to search for the bodies of those children. As in any oppressive situation, the people will have to obtain justice from their own actions. Internationally we can also raise awareness and shine a bigger light on this Journalist Hunting in Mexico./p pFor the Chicano nation, those Mexican@ Journalists are our heroes and it is from them the living and the dead Journalists where we draw our strength as fellow Journalists. Here I am held in a control unit in U.$. borders and tortured in S.H.U and yet I too understand the importance of delivering truth. I have experienced retaliation for my writing as well, having my mail leaving the prison confiscated, censorship and denying my mail coming into me, not only being held in a windowless cell but then having no electricity in my cell for a month, having no water in my cell for days, verbal coercion, denying my access to cosmetics for months, raiding my cell at 5:00 am and being dragged out handcuffed in my underwear after a critical article of mine was published about this prison etc. I understand that my torture in large part continues BECAUSE I continue to speak truth about the oppression that all prisoners face in the prisons in Califas, in Aztlan and throughout U.$. borders but like the Mexican@ Journalists I know that it is my duty to continue no matter what and this I will do./p pJournalists in prison also face grave threats, not just from the state directly, but also from the agents of the state who arrive in the form of bribed prisoners. It is quite easy to have those who fall for the statersquo;s tactic of subverting the peoplersquo;s unity and pitting us against each other. There are many who do not like for the boat to be rocked for many reasons. Some would say itrsquo;s easier and safer for their behavior if nobody spoke out about the state repression but I would disagree. Exposing the state and educating the people to me is far more important than anything that can be done to me or any other Journalist whether in prison or outside of prison. Raising public opinion amongst my fellow prisoners will always continue because peoplersquo;s journalism is correct and what is correct will always prevail in the end. In the spirit of Ruben Espinoza boldly arouse the people!/p pJose H. Villarreal/p p9-29-15/p pPelican Bay State prison S.H.U./p

pem style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Editors Note: Jose H. Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation./span/em/p p*Artwork by David Velasquez/p pFive traits that are commonly associated with creative people are: Sensitivity, Flexibility, Originality, Playfulness and Productivity./p pI must say that in my own experience, I have seen all of these traits in the artists that I have come across, including myself. I once had a cellmate who totally displayed these traits. His sensitivity was sharp. We would be watching TV and he would point out how the shadows from a tree showed where the sun was./p pHe needed shaders for his pastels and quickly improvised with pages out of a magazine (while I used toilet paper twisted up). Being in prison without proper tools was no obstacle./p pMy old cellmate had originality. He would create art on bars of soap that he carved into flowers. Sometimes he would fold old chip wrappers into picture frames./p pWe joked around in the cell. Sometimes we would see commercials and find out who the people in them looked like. Playfulness was always part of our day./p pMy old cellmate was very productive. He would constantly barter for canteen items and talk about ways to have his art supplement his income once he was released from prison./p pReading about creativity surprised me. I saw so much of this to be true. As an artist I see these traits in almost all artists that I know./p pCreativity is such a universal character with artists, not just when their at their work station but in everyday life./p pJose H. Villarreal/p pnbsp;/p p1-1-16/p

pIRIS CANADA HOSPITALIZEDbr / Iris Canada, the 100-year-old African American woman being evicted from her Western Addition home of over 50 years, is in the hospital right now after she was served with a sheriff#39;s notice to vacate her apartment this Wednesday./p pAccording to her niece, Iris Merriouns, she called Peter Owens, one of her evictors, and when he didn#39;t answer, left a message begging him not to do this to her, not to evict her. Then her heart rate accelerated and she was rushed to the emergency room./p pem*Editors Note -Please Act for Iris- We are asking people to send emails asking that Iris be able to stay in her home- to Peter Owens a href="mailto:owensradisch@gmail.com"owensradisch@gmail.com/a a href="mailto:theothersideofthesfstory@gmail.com"theothersideofthesfstory@gmail.com/a and to Supervisor London.Breed@sfgov.org/em/p

p class="p1"Peace and Balance:/p p class="p1"span class="s1"In Full Resistance Behind Enemy Lines:/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"I am an innocent man and I have spent the last eighteen years of my life inside of a cage for a crime I did not commit. On July 10 1997, I was arrested for the shooting death of Leroy Hargis, a man I never met. I was given a codependent named William Billy Bunce who made a video statement implicating me in this crime he was initially arrested for, same as he did to a Todd Moore for an earlier murder he was arrested for. Later on, William Bunce wrote out a recantation and confession to the crime of murder that he accused me of. The case was severed and my attorney Allan P. Haber, never called William Bunce to the stand in my trial to testify and once I was convicted, William Bunce was released without ever going to trial./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"I am judged for my first crime, where Arnold Southall, was dating my mother and tried to pimp and force her into prosititution, she resisted and he beat her into a coma, I came home from school, and found myself cornered by Arnold Southall, and he took and pulled a gun out on me and attempted to shoot me, we fought for his gun. Arnold Southall lost his life in the struggle. I did not intend to take Arnold Southallrsquo;s life, it was not preplanned, it just happened that during the struggle the gun went off and Arnold Southall lost his life. I was arrested and I confessed to the incident and I plead guilty to Manslaughter at the tender age of fifteen (15) and spent seven long hard years in maximum-security prisons.nbsp;/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Huey Philips and Kenny Nunez, two three time felony offenders came forward only after being arrested for serious crimes, and it is till not clear whether they brought my name up first or if the police did stating that they heard gunshots then allegedly seen me flee the victims building and that they knew me for seven years, or more which is impossible because I was in a upstate prison for seven years and wasnrsquo;t home a full 45 days when this crime took place. Kenny Nunez was arrested for his third felony narcotics sale of controlled substance crack cocaine whereupon he received a sentence of 2 to 4 years at the time when the Rockefeller drug laws were in effect and during the trial Nunez claimed that he did not receive any deals for his testimony. (James Williamson was the prosecutor in my case) Huey Phillips was arrested for assault as his third felony. I had written the court with Philips arrest number in order to obtain his plea allocation, sentence minutes and pre-sentence Report and the court directed me to write to the district attorneyrsquo;s office because the case against Mr. Phillips was never processed or docketed. I wrote the district attorneyrsquo;s office and A.D.A. F.O.I.L. Officer Ms. Sarah Hines stated that the case against Huey Philips is sealed. Huey Philips also testified at my trial under oath and claimed that he never received any type of deal in exchange for his testimony and he, also claimed that he was with his cousin at the time of the incident. Octavius Harding and they observed the whole incident together. Octavius Harding the cousin of Huey Phillips when question at my trial stated that his cousin Huey Phillips is lying because he is H.I.V. positive and is afraid to go to jail and do time.nbsp;/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Erick Pitt came forward 2 and 1/2 years after the crime and stated that he had heard gunshots and that he allegedly had seen me fleeing the victims building. Leslie Neptune, an illegal Haitian immigrant facing deportation who had a severe crack addiction came forward 25 months after the crime and also stated that he allegedly seen me from a five story window flee the victims building after he heard gunshots./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"David Irons, a Gang member to the ldquo;Blood Gangrdquo; and a career criminal serving a sentence of seventy-five (75) years to life for robbery and terrorizing nineteen (19) Holocaust survivors, claimed that I allegedly confessed to him in jail and that I had allegedly plotted to frame the co-defendant that was given to me for the crime I stand convicted for which the co-defendant has already admitted to committing. Common experience teaches that even an innocent person who believes that he will be placed under suspicion may instinctively or protectively resort to conduct which might create the appearance of guilt in order to avoid criminal prosecution. Even so, if of slight value standing alone, and may never be made a basis for a finding of guilt, but only used to strengthen other more direct and substantial evidence of guilt. In this day and age, jail house informants looking to make deals, destroy more lives with lies and deceit than certain diseases. Informants have been falsifying confessions in the United States since at least 1819. At one point in history, Jailhouse informants served a good purpose. They helped authorities monitor dangerous organizations, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. As time progresses, however, jailhouse informants began to obfuscate the truth more than they advanced it. Jailhouse informants are willing to say anything about anyone if they think it will help them. The damage Jailhouse informants inflict is enormous and of the main reasons there are so many innocent people wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. More simply, informants fabricate confessions by asking other inmates why they are in prison. When the inmate tells the informant about the crime of which the police accused him, the informant repeats the story to police as a confession, conveniently omitting claims of innocence. Example: District Attorneys in New York used Laurel Huffman repeatedly, despite his history as a jailhouse informant. They claimed that they had no knowledge whatsoever that Huffman was a habitual informant in Pennsylvania and Arizona, but they never called the district attorneys in either state to find out. Newsday, on the other hand tracked his past through readily accessible public records. Prosecutorial use of jailhouse informants is extremely dangerous for two major reasons besides the ones already stated: First, it is a substantial contributor to convictions of the innocent, and second, it releases a host of unsavory characters back into society. There are no eyewitnesses that claimed that they actually seen me shoot Mr. Leroy Hargis. The 911 phone calls made by witnesses stated that the suspect is 5 foot 10 inches or taller and a stocky 200 pounds or more. I on the contrary am 5 foot 4 inches tall with boots and weigh 160 pounds fully clothed./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Ms. Tasha Cucuta testified that I was with her at all times at Ms. Tasha Cucutarsquo;s apartment and traveled together during the day when the alleged incident took place. My sister, Ms. Tanya Steward, also testified to this fact, both made statements to the police at the police station, neither had criminal records and were both legitimately and gainfully employed; cross examination but the prosecution was totally unproductive and the chronology related by them remained unshaken./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Derrick Harris and Ms. Rose Marie Turner stated that they had actually seen the person who committed the crime and that I am not the killer of Leroy Hargis. They further testified that Huey Philips, Kenny Nunez, and Erick Pitt were known to them because they grew up with them and neither of them were anywhere near the vicinity of the incident when it took place. There were two other eyewitnesses who identified someone else as the actual killer of Leroy Hargis in line ups at the 26th police station conducted by detective Luis Serrano. The identification of these eyewitnesses was never disclosed to me. In a recent F.O.I.L. request that I received a DD-5 (complaint form) made by a detective Albert Acevedo that states he received two photos of me from my parole officer Charles Watson 2 days after the crime. What is so disturbing about this is that I was paroled to the Bronx County and this is a Manhattan Detective who possessed these photos of me a whole month prior to my arrest./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"I have written my trial attorney and asked if he ever had knowledge of the DD-5 and if so why did he not place detective Albert Acevedo on the stand and ask: 1.) Who informed him of my existence and why go to my Bronx parole officer to get photographs of me for investigation in anbsp; Manhattan homicide? 2.) What was he doing with these photos of me, who or how many people did he show these photos to and where are these photos now? My attorney never responded to these questions. The crime scene, control sheet says that a possible blood sample was secured from the crime scene and the medical examiner conducted forensic biology and serology examination on this sample and the results were never turned over to me. Two private investigators, both retired homicide police officers found five eyewitnesses, (Kerry Ross, Errol Robinson, Barbershop owner Master John, Jesse Griffin, and Robert Bradley) to this crime who all stated that I am not the killer of Mr. Leroy Hargis. My trial attorney was made aware of this fact, and interviewed these witnesses. Had each of them subpoenaed or brought to court every day of my trial but did not put not one of them on the stand to testify. I was convicted and sentenced to twenty-five (25) years to life for the killing of Leroy Hargis, (Trial was held before Judge James Yates, part 31, 100 Centre Street N.Y., N.Y. 10013)./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"While I have been in prison, I learned as much as possible how the law is formatted in order to prove my innocence. I have filed every type of motion I could possibly to prove my innocence. I have filed every type of motion I could possibly to prove my innocence. I have filled a 330.30 motion, five 440.10 motions, two 440.20 motions, a Error Coram Nobis Motion, a Writ of Certiorari, a state habeas corpus, a federal habeas corpus, a rearmament motion and a reconsideration motion to every motion and every single one I denied. I tracked down the eyewitnesses my attorney never allowed to testify, and received sworn notarized affidavits from them and I filed another 440.10 motion and was denied. I went to the Appellate Division and was still denied because the court claims that I require an affirmation from my trial attorney explaining why he never put these witnesses on the stand to testify. I hounded my attorney with the request by writing him one letter a week for two years until he finally provided me with an affirmation. I filed another 440.10 motion and was denied again without a hearing. I appealed to the Appellate Division and I was denied again by the same court that stated I need an affirmation and this time with the affirmation, they stated that there was no question of law or fact./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"I have written the District Court, Supreme Court, Magistrate and Administrative Judges, U.S. District Attorney, The District Attorney of ten different countries, U.S. and New York State Attorney General, the Integrity Unit, Conviction review Bureau, forty-eight (48) Congressmen, sixty-two (62) Senators, one hundred and fifty (150) Assemblymen, eighty (80) Councilmen, Thousands of Lawyers, every Bar Association, Legal Aid-Society, Prisoners Legal Services, Exoneration agency, Appeals Bureau, Law Schools, Law library, college, and Innocent Projects in New York State, and even in some other states as well as other countries. Finally the esteemed Law Professor Adele Bernhard of the New York Law School Innocence Project accepted my case and Irsquo;ve already been in the deepest darkest corner of hell for eighteen (18) years now./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"After signing a contract with Law Professor Adele Bernard to represent me, I recently received a disturbing letter from her after she had my case for two years stating that ldquo;I should move on with my life and stop trying to convince people to believe a story that doesnrsquo;t ring true.rdquo; Sometimes the truth doesnrsquo;t sound right just like the cases of Jabbar Collins, David Renta, Marty Tankleff, Derrick Hamilton, Fernando Bermudez, and Jeffery Dskovic and yet because of the persevering fighting these men, they have been exonerated. In the two years that she had my case she hasnrsquo;t interviewed not one witness or filed a single motion on my behalf, all I got from her was false hope and as a GODDESS Worshipper Irsquo;ve learned to expect anything from anyone because the so-called idevil/i was once an angel. Therefore, with an indefatigable writing discipline, I continue my fight and let the world know about the injustice I am forced to endure!/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"I have written also Nancy Grace, Sarah Wallace, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, HBO, Showtime, Crime TV, WBLS, WBAI, WPIX, iEBONY, JET, The New Yorker, Times Magazine, The New York Times, Daily News, Daily Eagle, Daily Challenge, /iThe U.N., Consulate Generals, iNew York and Washington Post, News Week, News Day, USA Today, New York Law Journal, Village Voice, /iNAACP, ACLU, Amnesty International, Mr. and Mrs. President of the United STates, the Vice President of the United States, The Pardon Attorney, iJustice denied, /iCommission on Civil Rights, Division of Human Rights, The Borough President of Manhattan, New York Civil Liberties Union, Churches, Office of Court Administration, Federal Police Defenders, Department of State, Homeland Security, Office of Government Ethics, Legal Action Network, Prison Legal News, the Governor and Lt. Governor, the Mayor and Police Commissioner in New York City, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Internal affairs, The Mayorrsquo;s office to combat police corruption and even Howard Thompson (help me Howard) and I am still in a cage suffering. Just like a slave, my wrist and ankles have permanent rings around them from handcuffs and shackles! I reflect on certain cases and things arenrsquo;t fair for me. Example: Marty Tankleff was accused of killing his own mother and father, witnesses said they saw him do it and he confessed to this crime but without even half the fight I have put forth, he obtained DNA that proves his innocence, yet in my case the District Attorneyrsquo;s Office has the DNA that will prove my innocence but will not give me the serology and forensic biology examination results of the DNA found at the scene of the crime. If I was white and had money, would I be going through such a fight? I wonderhellip;I have lost countless loved ones, and I was not allowed to go to their funerals or wakes. I have been cut with racers and scalpels, stabbed with knives and ice picks by prisoners./span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"I have been psychologically tortured, physically beaten, framed with weapons, and sexually assaulted by prison guards. I did over eight (8) years in solitary confinement and I am still standing, I am still strong and I remain unbroken, but how much more can a human being take? Was the Justice System designed to ensure justice or to test a personrsquo;s mental endurance?/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"bWill YOU help me get justice?/b/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"bIn prayer,nbsp;/b/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"biDr. Al-fatah Stewart, D.D., MsD.nbsp;/i/b/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"See Pending Law Suits: 15-CV-9034 Southern District/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Court of Claims: 127135, 119864, 119738, 119737/span/p p class="p2"nbsp;/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Help Balance The Scales of Justice/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Help Free an Innocent Man/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Dr. Al-fatah Stewart, D.D., MsD/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"#00A2144/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Sullivan Correctional Facility/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"P.O. Box- 116/span/p p class="p1"span class="s1"Falls burg NY, 12733/span/p

pemspanEditors Note: Jose H. Villarreal is one of several power-FUL PNNPlantation prison correspondents. As currently and formerly incarcerated poor and indigenous peoples in struggle and resistance with all plantation systems in Amerikkka, POOR Magazine stands in solidarity with all folks on the other side of the razor wire plantation./span/em/p p*Migra Terror/p p*Original Artwork by Jose H. Villarreal/p pI sent a pen pal of mine, who is also an artist, a drawing of a young girl. I drew the girl holding a rose in her hand. My pen pal wrote back thanking me for the ldquo;folk artrdquo;. This was the first time that I heard this term. The classification between ldquo;insider/outsiderrdquo; art has roots in the contradictions which exist in our society. It is a way to segregate artists along class lines for the most part./p pThe ldquo;elf-taughtrdquo; artist is often the poor artist, the working class artist and the artist from the underclass (Lumpen). In the U.$. the ldquo;insider artistrdquo; often translates to the bourgeois artist./p pChican@ Art is thought of to many as outsider Art. To the Chican@ it is simply Art. For Chican@s and our Art, there is no ldquo;insider/outsiderrdquo; Art. We simply have Art, although we have different genres of Art such as AZTLAN REALISM and other less revolutionary art styles./p pIn my opinion, those who divide art between insider/outsider Art do so because so-called ldquo;professional artistsrdquo; have been formally trained. They create art according to the institutional ldquo;art rulesrdquo;. The shading is done according to the ldquo;properrdquo; way, the traditional form which takes its cues from capitalist culture and the ruling class. Whereas the so-called ldquo;outsiderrdquo; creates and shades in their own way, they break rules, they put what some say is too much paint on the brush and they create genres which have not yet been classified./p pI believe that at its core, art is or has historically been created for the people. Long before classes were created, art was created, despite the moneyed class having expropriated art. We should not accept this. So-called ldquo;outsiderrdquo; art is peoplersquo;s art and should be accepted more in museums and galleries or, better yet, those who create this Art should band together and create our own galleries and museums./p pJose H. Villarreal/p p1-4-16/p

p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanOn Monday, August 15, 2016, members of the community of Olympia, WA responded to POOR Magazine#39;s a href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/5563"National Call for a State Of Emergency/Moratorium on all Use of Force by PoLice/a. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanWe showed up as POOR Magazine Pacific NW at Olympia Shitty Hall and the adjoined downtown Olympia Kkkop shop from 1-3pm to chalk the sidewalks with the national demands of POOR Magazine, to bring love for those lost to police terror with focus on Pacific Northwest Loved Ones and to amplify the demands of Justice for Andreacute; Thompson and Bryson Chaplin. nbsp;/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanimg height="803" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/3y5-9pmItTYRjUnMb-O08ZUoLMmL9LmIIIFlPMIFTYOJYmNQYOQOBmJxTFWMjQTmi4wirq6dk7-ZvVHQLIP5yUwm3_l7pobwDu0ePv3rXMZDRQG5KQl0NcYVNuOhHiGTELot72JD" width="602" //span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"emspanspan[image description: olympia city (shitty) hall is on the corner of 4th Avenue E and Cherry Street. nbsp;We see a mostly blank canvas of sidewalk, and the first chalk of the day that says ldquo;Justice for Andre Brysonrdquo; with a heart around it. nbsp;Colorful chalk also says ldquo;drop the chargesrdquo; and ldquo;fire officer ryan donald.rdquo; nbsp;Therersquo;s a white van with a satellite dish on top of it parked out front. nbsp;The sky is clear and blue.]/span/span/em/p p dir="ltr"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanAndreacute; and Bryson are two young Black men, who are brothers, who survived a murder attempt by white Olympia police officer Ryan Donald on May 21, 2015. nbsp;There were no charges and no accountability for the excessive and violent Use of Force by racist police officer Donald; his actions were found ldquo;justified,rdquo; while Andreacute; and Bryson face bogus assault charges and a href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/5550"possible prison time/a. /spanspan Andreacute; and Brysonrsquo;s trial is set to begin at the Thurston County kkkourthouse on October 3, 2016, and is expected to run four weeks. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanAt 1pm at Shitty Hall, there was an unusual kkkorporate press presence. nbsp;Most of the local liars were there, with vans sporting expensive satellite dishes, and ldquo;reportersrdquo; filing into the building for some event that we were all unaware of. nbsp;The ldquo;media affiliatesrdquo; ignored those of us who had gathered outside with boxes of chalk. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanA small group of us, grounded in love, gathered at the corner of 4th and Cherry to chalk the sidewalks, to demand an end to poLice Use of Force, and to mourn the dead and fight for the living. Young Black activist Lucas Ayenew /spanspanarrived early and began chalking the names of Indigenous Loved Ones who were killed by police, from a long list that he acknowledges is not complete. /span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanldquo;It feels important to do this today because I am leaving to the Dakota Access Pipeline Opposition at Standing Rock in North Dakota tomorrow,rdquo; said Lucas. nbsp;He continued, ldquo;I needed to feel the full weight and entanglement of our struggles, of all that Black and Native and other exploited Lives stand to gain together. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanHe chalked the name of Puyallup Tribal Member Jackie Salyers who was killed by Tacoma police January 28, 2016. Other names of/spanspan Indigenous and First Nations Loved Ones chalked include Christina Tahhahwah, Misty Upham, Rexdale W. Henry, Loreal Tsingine, Amilcar Perez Lopez and John T. Williams. nbsp;nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanThe day was hot and sunny, and Crystal Chaplin, Andreacute; and Brysonrsquo;s mother, brought snacks and water to share. nbsp;Crystal is the leader of the the community group Justice for Andreacute; and Bryson, which recently held their first monthly community meeting in order to get more people involved. nbsp;(The next one will be held October 20, location TBD.) Crystal started in with chalking, writing ldquo;Read a href="http://sfbayview.com/2016/04/two-sons-shot-in-the-chest-by-police-a-mothers-cry-for-justice/"A Motherrsquo;s Cry for Justice/a in the Bayview National Black Press.rdquo; nbsp;/spanspanimg height="451" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/N5Us4L6hm6Lp0J2gx7_L6WT8pKuULJWgsD-d-wYAoi4y2QZoIIGmjsJKdolHU6bS1rc1RSPLD2mkyYzWrdopQjMsPTexpXVR-lkejcYKDhLIgH3i9a208GjSoFQKfnTvnQuCbjTM" width="602" //span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"emspan id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"span[image description: nbsp;Out front of olympia city hall, Lucas Ayenew and Crystal Chaplin, both with brown skin, are down on the ground chalking the sidewalk in bright colors. nbsp;Lucas is chalking Jackie Salyersrsquo; name in pink chalk. nbsp;Crystal is wearing an In Loving Memory of Jackie Salyers t-shirt. nbsp;Near to Crystal is the hashtag #POORmagazine and #fireryandonald. nbsp;Near to Lucas is a box of chalk and hearts with the names of Daniel Covarrubias, Cheacute; Taylor and Danny Spencer, all Loved Ones lost to police violence.] nbsp;/span/span/em/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanAmong us were members of Olympia Copwatch, encouraging folks to attend weekly meetings on Thursdays from 4-5 at Traditions Cafeacute; to report incidents of poLice misconduct. /spanspanAnother chalker was /spanspanBallentine, an activist with strong social justice roots in the Las Vegas area. Ballentine is an anti police-terror chalk artist with a lot of knowledge of Nevada and Pacific NW victims and cases of police terror. nbsp;She herself is a survivor of police terror. nbsp;nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanldquo;/spanspanI came out to chalk because I disagree with the policies of the State of Washington and the City of Olympia regarding use of deadly force by law enforcement. I disagree with the decision to charge Andreacute; and Bryson and I want to make it known,rdquo; said Ballentine. /span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanCrystal Chaplin had a lot to say about the officer who shot her boys. nbsp;ldquo;Ryan Donald has shown nothing but reckless behavior and is a threat to the community,rdquo; she said. ldquo;I am so afraid for my sons and my family. nbsp;What if we cross this officerrsquo;s path? nbsp;What would happen? nbsp;Would he again say he feared for his life and say we came after him and open fire on us? nbsp;This officer needs to be fired and held accountable for his actions.rdquo; /span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanInspired by her words, I dropped to the sidewalk with a piece of purple chalk and wrote the words ldquo;drop the charges! nbsp;Justice for Andreacute; Bryson!rdquo; nbsp;Because it is never too late to drop those charges! nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanldquo;Itrsquo;s never too late to drop the charges. nbsp;Just drop them,rdquo; I say. nbsp;Meanwhile, Ballentine chalked a number of names of Loved Ones lost to police violence, with a heart around each one. nbsp;She chalked the name of Joel Nelson who was killed by a Thurston County sheriff deputy on January 5, 2016 near the Olympia airport. nbsp;Joel was lost to poLice violence just four days after I moved to Olympia from San Francisco./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanimg height="803" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/cZBliBZnDvBFRC415FLaDqAFoowMTLO_Z5CBpQaUbFJBcB64cPm407d3N7C_cWs2mpTSz6aVtx0IMnaMb-FSan1pL4E56oEosRoCI0YCw6CfjvM8cepeyUOPbT7-AJ9-YO6aSf4N" width="602" //span/span/p p dir="ltr"emspanspan[image description: nbsp;the blue and gray olympia poLice department building has chalk in front of itrsquo;s entrance on 4th avenue. nbsp;It says DROP THE CHARGES. nbsp;There is a pink heart with the words Justice for Andreacute; and Bryson inside the heart. nbsp;The chalk also says FIRE OFFICER RYAN DONALD. nbsp;There are at least 3 surveillance cameras visible on the kkkop shop building in this photo.]/span/span/em/p p dir="ltr"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanWhile Ballentine chalked, she shared about her lifersquo;s work of making activism more accessible, describing her plans of nbsp;ldquo;a radical movie night, where documentary films are shown at no cost to people in the community.rdquo; She also shared about her work in Las Vegas, suggesting we continue this work in Olympia, coordinating a ldquo;Second Saturday chalkrdquo; at the same location every month, as a way of growing The Movement and consistently getting the anti police-terror message out, along with a zine for the purpose of outreach. nbsp;We agreed to do a second Saturday chalk-ins in October. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanWhile folks were chalking, Crystal started introducing herself and engaging the community as they passed by, sharing why we were there, demanding an end to poLice Use of Force and informing folks about her familyrsquo;s Justice struggle. nbsp;Raven Redbone of a href="https://m.soundcloud.com/makenobonesaboutit"Make No Bones About It/a radio show on KAOS 89.3/spanspan stopped by the action and greeted Crystal with a huge hug. nbsp;He shared about the local efforts being done to get Indigenous Elder Leonard Peltier freed from prison, stressing the urgency of Leonard needing a compassionate pardon. nbsp;He makes it clear that if Leonard Peltier is not released from prison during the Obama administration, that he will die in prison. nbsp;Raven invited Crystal to speak at the Peltier March for Clemency organized September 17, 2016, and Crystal accepted the invitation./span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanimg height="451" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/KncNg2ztHatkb4IaQhvJcxH5KheRhQzmzY1SVtYGJGN5I0HCa-NkTPjeg6dwTPcPca8vAx5sHophMWxf16H67eCIsBw5adQS4vxhwdvD4veiAkvuHgmmxVV2-qoBxKzaqW7hv_jc" width="602" //span/span/p p dir="ltr"emspan id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"span[image description: nbsp;Lindy, Raven Redbone and Crystal Chaplin are talking in front of olympia city hall. nbsp;Lindy was passing by and joined in the conversation, she has light brown skin, has her hair up, and she is wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt. nbsp;Raven has fair skin and is talking, he is wearing a t-shirt that says ldquo;they were here firstrdquo; with a bunch of animals on top of the earth pictured on it. nbsp;All three agree that there should be Justice for Andreacute; and Bryson.]/span/span/em/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanBy this time, the sidewalk in front of the building was covered in chalk, with many colorful hearts and the names of Pacific NW Loved Ones who have been murdered by poLice. nbsp;These names included Jeffrey McGaugh (Olympia, WA), Kendra James (Portland, OR), Danny Spencer (Olympia, WA), Tyrone Thomas (Spokane, WA), Bodhi Phelps (Gresham, OR), and Otto Zehm (Spokane, WA). nbsp;Also local Indigenous tribes were written in hearts - Squaxin, Nisqually and Puyallup - acknowledging the history of state violence on Native peoples. nbsp;The words ldquo;Loved Onerdquo; were written to acknowledge those not named here./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanAmong the chalked hearts is a big green one, with the name of 19-year-old Christopher Kalonji. nbsp;Christopher was killed by kkkops of the Clackamas County sheriffrsquo;s office, sergeant Tony Killinger and deputy Lon Steinhauer, in Oak Grove, OR (near Portland) on January 28, 2016. nbsp;Christopher was in mental health crisis and needed help. nbsp;Instead of helping, police escalated the situation, and a SWAT team was called in to the Kalonji family home where they killed Christopher. nbsp;Crystal and I recently met Irene Kalonji in Portland at a monthly vigil for Keaton Otis. nbsp;Irene is the mother of Christopher, and our new friend, shersquo;s an immigrant to the US from Ukraine via Israel. nbsp;Irene and her family are devastated by the loss of her son. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanIrene told me, ldquo;My big desire is to look in the eyes of my sonrsquo;s killers and ask them - how can they leave now? nbsp;How can they go to work, back to their family and eat dinner, laugh, teach children to do right things, and at the same time be bearing my sonrsquo;s blood on their hands?rdquo; nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanI learned from Irene that Christopher was a sweet kid who was targeted by police terror more than once because he is a Person of Color (he wore his hair in a natural afro) and because he knew his rights. nbsp;The Clackamas county coronerrsquo;s report, in support of the police narrative (because they are co-workers who work together), says both that Christopherrsquo;s death was caused by gunshots of police, and that his death was a ldquo;suicide.rsquo;rsquo; nbsp;Christopher did NOT kill himself. nbsp;He was MURDERED by poLice. /span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanimg height="401" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/bLhHfmbzrIj4qUtdwwLPy8-s7AihuD-HYyCJi4qtmZMegN6TBmh0ErSFWRqPmTj0yunvRqfrSCz6N7oOQQ_Loum8NxNrQXJ-BpWUHJzF7frrJVF9RvvfE1F6Au0TMsUX2VcSgyHJ" width="602" //span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"span[image description: nbsp;a wide angle photo taken out front of Olympia Shitty Hall and the sidewalk is beautifully covered in colorful chalk. nbsp;Among the many hearts with Loved Ones names lost to police terror are identities of those targeted by poLice Use of Force, each with a heart drawn around it. nbsp;The identities and People include Black, Houseless, First Nations People, Children, Trans, Poor, People of Color, Disabled, Elders, Migrants... nbsp;Next to Andreacute; and Brysonrsquo;s name (who SURVIVED) are the names of Loved Ones Jay Anderson and Phil Quinn, chalked at the request of Phil Quinnrsquo;s family. nbsp;Standing amidst the sea of chalk are an unnamed copwatcher and activist documenting the activities, who remains anonymous and livestreams almost 24/7 in protest of the police state. nbsp;nbsp;To that personrsquo;s left is Crystal Chaplin.] nbsp;nbsp;photo credit: Ricky Osbourne Photo, Olympia/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanFrom out of the Olympia Shitty Hall building emerged Rhiannon Berg, a writer for the local kkkorporate press ldquo;The Olympian.rdquo; Rhiannon directed a question to Crystal, who was chalking. nbsp;ldquo;Were you a part of what happened last night?rdquo; asked Rhiannon. nbsp;Crystal looked to me, both of us confused./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanldquo;What are you talking about? nbsp;What happened last night?rdquo; I asked./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanldquo;The vandalism,rdquo; said Rhiannon./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanNo, Rhiannon Berg, we werenrsquo;t a part of ldquo;the vandalismrdquo; last night. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanWhat Crystal and I gathered from Rhiannon was that there was an action the night before, and it was being referred to as ldquo;vandalism.rdquo; nbsp;When I did some research later that evening, I learned that the action was called by a group of local Anarchists, who took to the streets of Olympia ldquo;/spanspanin solidarity with rioters and rebels in Milwaukeerdquo; with outrage for the poLice lynching of Sylville Smith. nbsp;/spanspanI learned this from the article /spanspana href="https://itsgoingdown.org/olympia-wa-march-solidarity-milwaukee-uprising/"OLYMPIA, WA: MARCH IN SOLIDARITY WITH MILWAUKEE UPRISING/a /spanspanwhich is a first hand account about that action from a writer who was there. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanBy talking with Rhiannon and other members of ldquo;the pressrdquo; coming out of the building, we found out that the Olympia poLice department had just held a press conference held inside while we were chalking. nbsp;The ldquo;press conferencerdquo; was a propaganda spreading opportunity for the Olympia poLice to respond to, and put their spin on, that very action that took place the night before. nbsp;Thatrsquo;s why Rhiannon and all the kkkorporate press had come to Shitty Hall. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanThe poLice press release and press conference referred to that action as being a ldquo;Black Lives Matterrdquo; action, which is not true. nbsp;The only thing true about that sentence, is that, yes, Black Lives indeed DO MATTER. nbsp;Say it like you mean it, City of Olympia. nbsp;Keep saying it. nbsp;Keep saying it until the poLice stop profiling and targeting Black folks. nbsp;BLACK LIVES MATTER! nbsp;nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanHowever, it was local Anarchists that organized and participated in the August 14th action, not an identified Black Lives Matter group. nbsp;The police narrative of that action made no mention of Loved One Sylville Smith or police terror against Black folks, which is what that action was about. nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanldquo;You are reporting about the wrong stuff,rdquo; I told Rhiannon Berg, while we were surrounded by chalked names of Loved Ones lost to police violence. nbsp;Rhiannon asked me if we put out a press release for this this chalk action in support of the moratorium. nbsp;ldquo;No we didnrsquo;t,rdquo; I say. nbsp;ldquo;Good point.rdquo;/span/span/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanimg height="451" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/6nGn_8FIwnIcakAX-v02NveRpfefM55VqSaU20X5LonN1gaopYg5-47B0zoHEzb-K11ymO27R1b5L18714cfdocr9cK0w5vVRCrTf6x_wmOYlNbaFpBSxZqKo1C9D8Nn_MuzExza" width="602" //span/span/p p dir="ltr"emspanspan[image description: nbsp;a blue heart with the name of Disabled Loved One Jeffrey McGaugh inside it, with the words ldquo;mysterious in custody death Olympia 2016rdquo; written beneath the heart in light blue. nbsp;Officer Ryan Donald was one of the officers involved in the death of Jeffrey McGaugh, Loved One lost to police violence on February 29th, 2016, just a couple blocks from olympia city hall where this chalk is. nbsp;Ryan Donald is a police terror repeat offender.]/span/span/em/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanOn August 16 2016, the very next day, the mainstream press put out the police narrative, the propaganda about ldquo;Black Lives Matter vandalizing Olympia.rdquo; nbsp;/span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanLater that night, a white supremacist named Daniel Rowe attacked an inter-racial couple in downtown Olympia, stabbing a Black man (who thankfully survived). nbsp;Daniel Rowe told police he was ldquo;lashing out at the Black Lives Matter protestors.rdquo; nbsp;He was arrested and is reportedly being held on a $500,000 bail at Thurston County Jail./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanTwo days after our chalk, Black Loved One, Omer Ismail Ali was violently killed by police in Kelso, WA./span/span/p pnbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanPlease contact the white house to ask for the compassionate release, for clemency, to free Leonard Peltier, so he does not die in prison. nbsp;(202) 456-1111/span/span/p pnbsp;/p pnbsp;/p p nbsp;/p p dir="ltr"span id="docs-internal-guid-595f7cd8-4bae-8475-b24b-4fc93aef9ddf"spanLisa Ganser is a white genderqueer artist living in Olympia, WA on colonized Squaxin and Nisqually land. nbsp;They are a copwatcher, a sidewalk chalker, and the daughter of a momma named Sam./span/span/p

pToday I got the news that yesterday the young Raza Artist, Antonio Ramos, was shot and killed in Oakland, Califas as he was paining a mural on the wall. It is horrible to hear of any young people being murdered, but to hear of an artist, a cultural worker being killed, is something worse./p pRamos was doing the work that he loved, that is creating art which was peoplersquo;s art. His gift and passion was not just used for Raza, nor for his nation but it was used to give voice and express the experience of all oppressed people. He created art for everyday people and reflected what we see down on the street level of this lopsided society. He helped create murals which helped to speak for the people who could not. For this, I have much unity with Ramos./p pI think a lot about this and what kind of society creates the atmosphere where artists who paint for the people are silenced through death. The artist is after all not only a peace ambassador but a visionary for poor people. The artist is the one who attempts to paint a reality not yet here. All of this is done often without payment or with little payment. For the artist the real payment is the smile on the viewerrsquo;s face, it is the spark of ideas that arrive when onersquo;s art touches the viewer in ways that an article cannot./p pThe only type of society which can create the conditions where Artistas like Ramos can be killed, is one based in extreme oppression. One where Capitalism breeds the inequality which forces people to deal with their own oppression in the wrong ways. Often lashing out at people just like themselves or whose social reality mirrors their own in many ways. We live in such a society where the easiest people to strike out at are those closest to ourselves. Often those who struggle the most, for us who suffer, are the ones who suffer the most./p pI had never met this artist Antonio Ramos and yet I have met so many more just like him. This young muralist, I am sure would have liked us all to reflect on the best that he gave to his community. To die doing what you love to do is so bitter sweet. His short life, I think, allows all artists to think deeply about the importance of art and the importance of artists to create art which helps all of us deal with such a horrible existence in a dog eat dog society./p pMy hope is that the people think of what artists mean to our barrios and our communities. My hope is that Artists are encouraged by those in the communities and supported. Artists work for the people. Peoplersquo;s artists are our heroes not our enemy. If we look to history we see that it was the peoplersquo;s artists that have always spoke on our behalf, often with harm or death because of this. The treatment of our artists should reflect our understanding of this./p pJose H Villarreal/p p9-30-15/p pPelican bay SHU/p

p(Photo by Christopher Cook)/p pThis is racism, this is ageism, Iris Merrioums spoke to the small crowd of media, advocates and POOR Magazine family gathered outside the San Francisco District attorney#39;s office on Friday, BlackAugust 12th. POOR Magazine had organized this press conference to demand a meeting with DA George Gascon for Iris#39;s 100 year old grand-auntie, life-long Fillmore resident Iris Canada, who has been fighting for the right to stay in her home of 50 years since last year.nbsp;br / nbsp;/p div pIris is an owner, she has a life estate, and they have been harassing her because they want her out, Iris added./p p Friday#39;s visit to the DA follows yet another attempt by the landlord to evict Iris in kkkort on Wednesday BlackAugust 10th when the attorney for landlords Peter Owens, Carolyn Radische and Stephen Owens brought yet another filing against Iris to get her out.nbsp;/p p And notwithstanding the fact that a powerful group of advocates from Housing Rights Committee, Senior disability Advocates, POOR Magazine and community showed up to support and resist yet another attempt to evict a 100 year old Black elder from the increasingly white and rich San Francisco, the judge allowed Wednesay#39;s appeal to go through putting Iris in the dangerous position of being homeless in her lifelong home,nbsp;/p p Though the court granted Iris a relief from forfeiture, allowing her to stay despite the eviction, it also granted the ownerrsquo;s legal and other fees of $164,000. Ms. Canadarsquo;s attorney, Dennis Zaragoza, has filed an appeal because he believes the court had no right to impose the fees./p p Friday#39;s visit to the DA follows a 2014 series of elder abuse cases brought by disabled, evicted and displaced elders, family and youth leaders fromnbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/source=gmailust=1471460587854000usg=AFQjCNHyRhMwyivTCgS1heUKWYpLQmKQpQ" href="https://www.facebook.com/PoorNewsNetwork/" target="_blank"POOR Magazine/a,nbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.facebook.com/groups/19660954620/source=gmailust=1471460587854000usg=AFQjCNFNL_G-xkVFRktkyf7LahDo3vD2fA" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/19660954620/" target="_blank"Krip Hop Nation/a, thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.facebook.com/San-Francisco-Bay-View-Newspaper-117617488280955/source=gmailust=1471460587854000usg=AFQjCNGAEUMxt72kapN-rV0xFuLABKaUYA" href="https://www.facebook.com/San-Francisco-Bay-View-Newspaper-117617488280955/" target="_blank"San Francisco Bay View Newspaper/a, Idirss Stelley Foundation and Manilatown Heritage Foundationnbsp;because we were able to prove the clear cases of elder abuse under 368 of the elder abuse code that dictates the standards for Adult Protective Services and Child Protection Servicesnbsp; by landlords for the acts of eviction and pre-eviction harassment of elders and children. In all of the cases we brought, the DA#39;s assistant Sharon Woo went to great pains to show us how the Ellis Act and other land-stealer, settler colonizer born laws protect the landords, even when their falacious evictions for profit resulted in the deaths of Elaine Turner and Ron Likkers and many more elders. After two visits we never heard anymore from the District attorney, who consistently rules and acts in favor of the rich and powerful in San Francisco./p p After Iris explained the complex history of harassment by Peter Owens and other co-owners of the buildingnbsp; which included putting camera#39;s up to spy on Iris, accusations of Iris living somewhere else and an endless list of court filings, that has been happening since this case began we walked into the DA to demand the meeting.nbsp;/p p When we arrived at Gascon#39;s office we were met by a disinterested and patronizing Public Relations person who was there to spin a story but not answer any of our questions. The communications person is coming out to meet with you. said the woman sitting behind the glass at the DA#39;s office.nbsp;/p pWe didn#39;t ask to meet with the communications person, Iris and I shot back in unison, Where is George Gascon?, we opened the elder abuse case in 2015 and there has been no movement since then, Iris concluded.br / nbsp;/p pWhy are you sending a PR person to meet with us?, Leroy Moore from Krip Hop Nation who along with Queenandi XSheba, Vivian Thorp and Laure Mcelroy from POOR Magazine, Tony Robles from Manilatown Heritage Foundation, HRC andnbsp; and so many powerful community members showed up to support Ms Canada and her family.br / nbsp;/p pMr Gascon is not available right now, After almost an hour of patronizing excuses from the Public Relations officer for the DA, the room began to fill up with armed sheriffs.nbsp;br / nbsp;/p pYou need to leave this office right now, another assistant District Attorney who knew me from the last time we came in in 2014 and tried to silence us with a promise of yet another meeting time and then resorted to just calling in the weapon filled sheriffs, who fingered their guns nervously. At one point they blocked the doorway and said Iris couldn#39;t even help her auntie leave the office.nbsp;/p /div pThe story of Iris Canada isn#39;t just about eviction, its about African peoples who were stolen to build this stolen Turtle Island#39; Its about Iris#39;s equity being stolen by settler colonizer paper trails and lying lawyers who have been stealing Black , Brown and 1st Peoples lives and land since the beginning of this capitalist project called Amerikkklan. Its about the pattern of intentional displacement of the Black, Brown and working class communities of San Francisco. Its about disrespect and endless pushing out of poor and working class peoples from their rightful claim to the City they worked to build and yet get no respect from.Its about the disrespect, killing , profiling and genocide of Black and indigenous peoples. Iris story is the collective story of Marcus Books, Mario Woods, Luis Demetrio Gongora Pat, Alex Nieto, Ron Likkers and Elaine Turner.nbsp;br / nbsp;/p pIts called Karma, and God and Mother Nature will be your final judge, Four generations lived poverty skola, teacher and POOR Magazine staff writer Queenandi XSheba called out to the DA#39;s office after the whole community was evicted from the DA#39;s office We will be back, she concluded./p pYes we will. all of us gentrified, displaced, poLice terrorized and never thought about peoples. We will be back. For Iris, for Ron, for Elaine, for Mario, Luis, Alex, Amilcar and so many more.../p pstrongEMERGENCY ACTION REQUIRED/strong:span class="_4n-j fsl"100 Year old Iris Canada has fought eviction from her Western Addition home of more than 40 years. She was evicted by her landlord Peter Owens via the Ellis Act. She won her court case to stay in her home. Her landlord sued for court costs and won. Now she faces eviction. This has caused stress to Iris, which has included a stroke. Judge James A Robertson ruled in favor of the landlord. Let him know that it is wrong to evict an elder. Please call his office and let your voice be heard. His office at SF Superior Court is 415-551-3768./spanbr / nbsp;/p

p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; min-height: 12px;"span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"(Leroy Moorersquo;s Note:nbsp; As you know Krip-Hop Nation have been connecting with musicians/activists with disabilities around the world for years especially in Africa and Krip-Hop Nation will be touring South Africa in November-December 10th.nbsp; Leroy has been following the protests on college campuses in South Africa especially at University of Cape Town with disabled activist, Kanyisa Ntombini who have been organizing Black disabled poor students around disability justice issue on that campus.nbsp; Kanyisa recorded an update for Krip-Hop Nation Poor Magazine.nbsp; Below is the transription of that audio update)/span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; min-height: 12px;"nbsp;/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"Hello, my name is Kanyisa Ntombini. I am 22 years old. I currently live in Cape Town. Here, I#39;m studying at the University of Cape Town, and I#39;m doing Electrical Engineering. I#39;m originally from the Eastern Cape, in an area called Transkei. So Transkei is a former apartheid homeland. Apartheid was the white, colonial rule that we had in South Africa before we got our liberation in 1994. So the area that I live in was designated for Black people. It#39;s a very small area, and it was chosen specifically by the white South Africans because it didn#39;t have, it was very, very dry, not much vegetation, very much useless piece of land. And this homeland, this apartheid homeland didn#39;t have any access to health care, education, transport, just very much poverty-stricken. So when the new government came in, which was a Black majority government, nothing really changed. During the transition between the white government and the Black government, the Black government, which was led by the African National Congress at the time, agreed to a lot of political and economic deals that put Black South Africans at a disadvantage./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"So even though we have a majority Black rule, the majority of the land still is owned by the white people, which form a very small minority of the population. And about 70% of the economy is owned by white people. So right now, I grew up in this little homeland with barely any access to health care and education, and it was very difficult for me growing up in that environment and trying to get an education. When I moved to Cape Town, it was hard in the university because none of the lecturers, tutors, and heads of departments in my field wanted to help me. Instead, I got an email at the beginning of the year saying that I had been excluded from the academic program in the University of Cape Town because I had failed too many courses. Meanwhile, the previous year, I had emailed my tutors, my heads of departments, basically everyone and sent maybe more than 50 emails asking for help, asking for things like note takers because I can#39;t see well on the board, for the lectures to be recorded, just access to mental health care as well, since I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. No one had been willing to help me. Instead, I was just sent an email saying I need to go, leave campus./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"I had also noticed that other Black, disabled students had also experienced the same thing. They were also failing, and they had been asking for help, and no one was giving them help. So I decided to bring those disabled students together at the beginning of the year and to have a sit-in outside the main administration building at the University of Cape Town where we speak about experiences on campus and to tell university management what kind of access we want on campus. We also had a memorandum of demands asking for certain accessibility changes on campus./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"UCT management was there. They received the memorandum. They took pictures of us because there was a lot of news agencies there, and they put them up on their website. They never talked to us afterwards, and they never did any of the things that we had asked. A few months later, we had another sit-in at the disability unit with the same document. UCT management came in, sat with us, listened to us, but did not engage with us. At the same time as this activism had been happening, there was a national right protest in the country by students in their universities saying that they want free, decolonized education in South Africa. So basically, wanted first not to pay any fees, and also for the curriculum to change so that it#39;s not racist, transphobic, ableist, queerphobic. And for also the curriculum to focus more on African issues rather than international issues that are not really relevant to our daily lives here in South Africa./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"The response from the South African government has been of heavy brutality. There#39;s just been a lot of police on our campuses, basically acting violent towards protestors. There#39;s also been a lot of private security as well on campus. And it#39;s just made the environment at the university extremely unstable. At the moment, we#39;re not having classes because of all this violence. The police on one university campus called the University of KwaZulu-Natal also raped a student. They were actually going into their residences and looking for protestors and just causing havoc and a lot of trauma to people. In the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, there has been a report of a worker that died because of clashes with the police. In some campuses, the police have also been using live ammunition on students that are not armed./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"So as Black and Black disabled activists, we have found that we are extremely scared because that#39;s why we haven#39;t been able to do more activism because we#39;re scared that if we protest against the ableism on campus, then the police will come in and attack us. We#39;re also scared that certain of our leaders will be picked off and become excluded, which has been what has been happening in the other campuses. In each of the university campuses, they#39;ve just been choosing the main leaders and expelling them from campus just to make people scared. So that has really affected us a lot, and we haven#39;t been able to do any activism. The climate right now is just tense. Black people, Black students are very scared at the moment. At the same time, we also want our campuses to change, but the violence that we#39;re facing is just inhumane. We#39;ve been treated as animals and not as people who are trying to get an education so that they can make their country better. They#39;re calling us hooligans and just as if we are just a bunch of students trying to destabilize the country when we#39;re actually trying to improve the country by calling upon for a free education./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"So yeah, the mood in South Africa#39;s really depressing. I won#39;t lie. The lives of disabled people in South Africa--well, disabled Black people--is really, really hard. As I mentioned before, because of the way that apartheid--which was the former white government--used to work is that most of the economy is controlled by the white people. So the majority of Black South Africans live in villages that are very much under-resourced and poverty-stricken, with high rates of HIV and unemployment, and also townships. So townships are sort of like an apartheid structure where, in the main town, all the white people live. And then outside the town, the majority of Black people will be put into these small housing projects where there#39;s a huge amount of overcrowding, issues with water and sanitation, high levels of crime, poverty, just horrible things. So the majority of disabled people live in those conditions where they don#39;t have access to health care. The education system in South Africa is very bad, especially in high school. It#39;s bad for able-bodied students, but it#39;s a disaster for disabled students. And also, South Africa is a huge mining country, and most of the mines in South Africa, because of the economy, they are still owned by companies outside South Africa, in the West. So you#39;ll find that there are terrible working conditions where miners are exposed to a lot of dangerous health situations where they end up getting sick. As soon as a miner is sick, they get sent home. So there a lot of miners with Silicosis and also tough health issues who are sent home to die with no compensation, no health care, sent into these poverty-stricken areas for Black people. So there#39;s also that element as well with disability issues in South Africa./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"So yeah, the only thing I can say is the situation in South Africa is terrible. The government puts out this image as if something is going forward, when the lives of Black, disabled people are very horrible in this country. So we would like international organizations to just put pressure on our government to change their policies. I think the most important thing at the moment is for fees to fall. Fees Must Fall has to happen. Free education to all South Africans. The education needs to be anti-racist, anti-ableism, anti-transphobia, anti-queerphobia. That#39;s the kind of education where I want it to be centered on African problems and providing African solutions and for them to stop militarizing our campuses. We want to be able to walk around freely on our campuses and not to have police and private security on our campus. So that#39;s the main thing that we would like:nbsp; International organizations to support us. Yeah./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"But yeah, I#39;m genuinely excited that Krip-Hop is coming to South Africa because the only Black disability activism that ever happens in South Africa is usually very much focusing on, centered on poverty porn, and it#39;s never showing disabled Black people in a position of strength and in a position of power. So a lot of Black--myself included--Black disabled people are very excited for Krip-Hop Nation to come to South Africa and also just to start having the conversations around the lives of Black disabled people in South Africa and to just highlight the conditions that Black disabled people live under. So I#39;m very excited to meet Leroy Moore and just the rest of the team and to just engage with disability activists around the world./span/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"nbsp;/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"PIC Kanyi Disability Justice with a mic and paper in their hands outside of the UCT Bremner Building at University of Cape Town, South Africa/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"nbsp;/p p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"Transcibe by Chery Green/p

pspan style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;"Like thousands of people, I have worked, cultivated and planted seeds, never to see or enjoy the fruits of our labor. We have made and cleaned the most beautiful gardens that I have seen in my life in the mountains of Berkeley for people with money. Earning $10 an hour, we have built and managed houses with immense beauty, only to never see them again. /span/p pspan style="color: rgb(29, 33, 41); font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17.94px; white-space: pre-wrap;"We have silently obeyed the orders of the stewards, managers, and company owners (the owners of the house, the owners of our checks, the owners of our lives). We have been forced into obeying always in silent, but it does not always have to be this way./span/p

div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" b style="font-size: large;"Getting justice for our African Sunsnbsp;/b/div div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" div class="gmail_quote" An arrest is made in the quadruple homicide of young African-American suns in the Fillmore div dir="ltr" div class="gmail_quote" div dir="ltr" By Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia/PoorNewsNetwork-wbrPOOR Magazine div div class="gmail_quote" nbsp;/div div class="gmail_quote" We are determined to get justice for our children, said Sala-haquekyah chandlernbsp; as she and other mothers stood outside the SF courthouse where the alleged murderer of her Sun and three other young African Suns in a quadruple homicide January 9th 2015 was being tried. Little is known yet about all of the facts surrounding thea data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://kron4.com/2016/07/29/san-francisco-police-make-arrest-in-quadruple-homicide/source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNE4IxtnugZA45YmrFhKzD_xxRYG_A" href="http://kron4.com/2016/07/29/san-francisco-police-make-arrest-in-quadruple-homicide/" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"nbsp;arrest of the alleged perpetrators/a, who are being charged with code 187 for homicide of the four boys, but one thing is known for sure, had it not been for the endless resistance, marching, speaking, praying and fighting on the part of the mothers and families of the four murdered boys this case would not have gotten this far.nbsp;/div div class="gmail_quote" br / nbsp;/div div class="gmail_quote" Bback to the beginning/b/div div class="gmail_quote" div dir="ltr" div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" div div div div div They are killing our indigenous children, said Sala-haquekyah chandler r as she stood on the corner of Laguna and Page streets. It had been a few weeks since the execution of 4 young African Suns from the Fillmore District of San Francisco and thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D6ZFBRnwd9xIsource=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNH4en2wtg3rmXRErqQrBVrnTWosbA" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZFBRnwd9xI" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"mothers and their supporters gathered/anbsp;near the scene of the quadruple murder to demand justice. All the mothers held a beautiful banner at the murder site with the faces and names of the four young suns,Manuel Orsquo;Neal, David Saucier II, Harith Atchan, and Yalani Chinyamurindi, who is Sala#39;s sun./div /div p PowerFul sister-mama- community leader Sala has been family with POOR Magazine since my mama Dee and I first started in 1996 doing journalism workshops for other poor mamaz and daddys like us. Sala, like many low-income, Black, Brown and poor mamas including my mama Dee, was struggling to raise her children on the crums of welfare and also were determined to tell our truths and make our own poor and indigenous people-led media./p p Fast foreward to 2001 Sala launched the effort to stop the senseless violence perpetrated by us killing us, i.e, the guns so easily attained by our young peoples of color in our own hoods, towns and barrios. this became the powerFUL march she called thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://www.poormagazine.org/node/2726source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNFDCoZBkD0mk78iMRdS3u4VmH2jtw" href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/2726" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"One Life Walk-/abr / nbsp;/p/div p Then in January of 2015 I received a horrific call that brought me to my knees. Four young African Suns murdered execution- style while driving in a van in the Fillmore district ofnbsp; San Francisco. A neighborhood violated by an onslaught of displacement led by one modern day colonizer devil-oper and poltrickster legislation after another and most recently an influx of what i call thenbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4999source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNHAVmWNSvewPm-ExkQlKDg4oI-bYQ" href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/4999" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"gentryTechNation/anbsp;pushing low and no-income communities of color into smaller and smaller pieces of what used to a thriving Black and Brown neighborhood transforming it into the FillNoMo as coined bynbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://www.poormagazine.org/node/1650source=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNFPY7wdX6l9P3ANW-LR7iym3TUL5w" href="http://www.poormagazine.org/node/1650" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"A. Faye Hicks, Po Poet Laureate/anbsp;of POOR Magazine.br / nbsp;/p/div p It was in the FillNoMo, struggling with this insane climate of removal,nbsp; that these young men were executed. As i prayed, wept and reflected on this horrible murder and because of my own experience through the violence of displacementnbsp; this formerly unhoused, evicted and displaced mama#39;s first mind went to a gentrification motive for these murders or what author and LA poet laureatenbsp; Luis Rodriguez refers to as poLice fueled gentrification.nbsp;nbsp;br / nbsp;/p/div div They came into our communities offering money and guns to young people, sadly, some of them took the bait, they became informants for the poLice. Luis went on to describe how in LA in the 1970#39;s the police were buying off young xicano members of the community to help fuel the dismantling of a strong Brown community. We focused on this important and frightening connection in an interview with Luis for one of our PoorNewsNetwork radio shows on KPFA#39;s Hard knock radio, focused on the rise in gun violence when a community is undergoing gentrification.nbsp;br / nbsp;/div div We will not stop fighting for our Suns, said Sala atnbsp;a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DBi2g3wJRNrwsource=gmailust=1471462996919000usg=AFQjCNHTZGtw_8Acr5YkiEDdsC7Sx2MPDg" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi2g3wJRNrw" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);" target="_blank"POOR#39;s Community Newsroom/anbsp;circle last year who along with other mamaz and community leaders like Yolanda Banks Reed with the Hebrew Cultural Community, refused to let up on the poltricksters, the police or each other.nbsp; p No matter what the motivation of this horrible murder of our children, Sala and the other fierce mamas will not give up until the truth comes to light. As a parent of a 12 year old Sun my heart cries every day for Sala and so many mothers who have lost their suns and daughters to community violence and po#39;Lice violence, whonbsp; like Sala says, will never give up fighting for justice for their babies.nbsp;/p/div /div /div /div /div p /p/wbr/div /div /div /div /div

div No No No - No Recall - a Chinese elder with a small blue jacket yelled above the heads of two Ed Lee recall organizers. His voice was quiet, almost embarassed and unsure of what the words he was saying even meant. The Recall Ed Lie rally had just ended with powerful voices like Yayne Abebe and Oscar Salinas clearly naming the crimes against poor, Black, Brown and Asian San Franciscans and then the dont#39; recall Ed Lee rally which was across the street, proceeded to cross the street en masse, yelling Don#39;t recall Ed Lee, congregating on the same steps where the Recall Ed Lee rally had just been. It was a sad, odd science fiction movie, underwritten by a shadowy group of realtors who work together with Ed Lee attempting to sell off this entire City to the highest bidder./div pHe has pushed all San Franciscans out of San Francisco, he doesnt work for any of us, including the folks across the street, but he does work for the tech companies and the realtors, said Yayne to the small crowd gathered for the Recall Ed Lee rally./p p Since Lee#39;s administration which began under a cloud of lies, including him being a reluctant candidate, the murders of Black, Brown and unhoused people like Jessica Nelson Williams and Luis Gongora has risen, the percentage of Black people has dropped to 3% and unhoused people have been criminalized for the sole act of being unhoused with an alarming rate. Scores of elders 75- 100 years old have faced the a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://sfbayview.com/2014/02/the-crime-of-ellis-act-evictions/source=gmailust=1468703064377000usg=AFQjCNFbpLsFmnxwMHqfbXxKy6XNhXr1Ow" href="http://sfbayview.com/2014/02/the-crime-of-ellis-act-evictions/" target="_blank"crime of elder finaincial and physical abuse/a from eviction and it has been clearer everyday that Lee#39;s goal has been to enable the final selling off of every last piece of land and resources to large corporate interests like Air BnB, Google, Uber, and Ron Conway./p p He allowed a murderous po#39;Lice administration to continue administrating, shuttled in the selling of a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://sfbayview.com/2013/09/rad-public-housing-privatization-stealing-our-last-acre-and-our-one-remaining-mule/source=gmailust=1468703064377000usg=AFQjCNF8ozawYMnTSsPjNxIOicY2fBDQCA" href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/09/rad-public-housing-privatization-stealing-our-last-acre-and-our-one-remaining-mule/" target="_blank"public housing on the private stock market,/a and looked the other way, ignored or straight up locked the door when people POOR Magazine.Idriss Stelley Foundation, Black Lives Matter, The Last 3% and so many more went to his office challenge him./p p But today for me was the final straw. I already lost respect for this man who supposedly grew up in working class roots, even being involved in the I-Hotel fight for liberation in his younger years, but today he took it to a new level by practicing a blatantnbsp; form of elder abuse.br / nbsp;/p div Under Ed Lie we have literally seen the death of elders due to profit based evictions, from Elaine Turner to Ron Likkers and now we face the possible eviction of 100 year old a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=http://sfbayview.com/2016/06/99-seasons-a-vigil-for-eviction-fighter-iris-canada/source=gmailust=1468703064377000usg=AFQjCNFTSdgdOqWcr4e-3uRRo_iJsB_ibg" href="http://sfbayview.com/2016/06/99-seasons-a-vigil-for-eviction-fighter-iris-canada/" target="_blank"Iris Canada,/a similiariy, the most recent population to face more houselessness are people of Chinese descent and yet these hundreds of elders were given a message and sent out here to a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=enq=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DiAH1TdFR3x8%26feature%3Dem-upload_ownersource=gmailust=1468703064377000usg=AFQjCNGqTP8XNBm2czLxD6q-_A4qYMxfvw" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAH1TdFR3x8feature=em-upload_owner" target="_blank"protest a recall they didnt even understand. /abr / nbsp;/div div This recall protest is disrespecting the Chinese community, Scott Weiner, SF Board Supervisor and Ruliing Class yes-man was also conveniently on hand to try to pit the community against the community./div pAs someone who has spent my life listening, respecting,loving andnbsp; caring for elders as my job (I don#39;t get paid for any of my POOR Magazine or community work) This took the exploitation, disrespect and elder abuse to a new level. Lee#39;s actions are downright violent and abusive. He should not only be recalled, he should be charged with crimes against the people of San Francisco./p p nbsp;/p

div Dear Leroy and Poor Magazine,/div div nbsp;/div div Greeting from Kaduna State Nigeria./div div nbsp;/div div This is to share with you some pictures of the newly inaugurated Board Members of the Kaduna State Rehabilitation Board headquarter on the 5th August 2016./div div nbsp;/div div I was opted into the Board as Member. This, I believe will be another platform for us to further press home our demand for the passage of the disability bill with commission./div div nbsp;/div div Already, I have appealed to Members on board to act urgently to salvage the situation of beggars because of the anti begging law passed and which come in effect on September 1st without provision. Chairperson of the board is set to see the Governor accordingly./div div nbsp;/div div Again,our planned rally couldn#39;t have in June and July for lack of funds. We are still nursing the hope that some day it will come to pass./div div nbsp;/div div Julius./div

pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"In April I came into a little money so I decided I would treat myself to a much needed vacation./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I booked a flight for the 19th to LA thinking I would try my hand at street performance and it just happened to be the day before the big marijuana celebration of 4/20./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I booked a hotel for the first night in Inglewood, planning on going to stay in Hollywood after getting a good night#39;s rest. Suddenly the focus of my trip changed because I, like so many others, got the news that Prince, one of the greatest entertainers in history, had passed./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"At first I thought it was a cruel joke but confirmed it after checking several news sources./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I also found out that he didn#39;t have a star on the walk of fame so I decided to investigate further and and see if there was anyway of getting him one./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I contacted Ana Martinez of the Hollywood chamber of commerce, the person who oversees the ceremonies of placing stars on the walk of fame, to see what could be done./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"She told me there were many petitions that had been gathered but unfortunately they would not help because one person is nominated a year posthumously and it still takes 5 years for the star to be placed, and it was up to the family to nominate him./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"Prince was special because he donated millions of dollars to causes and people less fortunate than him./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"That interview was recorded and will be featured in a live radio broadcast sometime in the near future./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I continued my visit innbsp; in Hollywoodnbsp; with a heavier heart than I had when I started./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I was able to stay a lot cheaper by going to a thrift store, purchasing a crocpot/spanbr style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;" /br / span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"And cooking omelets by mixing eggs in a plastic bag with cheese and vegetables/spanbr style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;" /br / span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"And cooking them in a microwave for 3 minutes.nbsp;/span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"I also ate salads that I put together. Most of my cooking utensils I got from dollar stores, as well as seasonings and other ingredients./span/p pspan style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px;"If I had dined in restaurants every day I would have been broke in less than a week. I was able to stay 2 weeks and still had a few bucks when I got back home./span/p