div dir="ltr" div There was a small breeze that crawled through the graveyard in Vallejo, California. It seemed that that breeze was honoring along with us the amazing man Mark Flaherty who died January 28, 2016 at the age of forty-seven. When we got to the site of the funeral we saw a group of people spread outnbsp;span class="il"and/spannbsp;waiting for the hearse./div div When the hearse came, Vivian, Mark#39;s sisternbsp;span class="il"and/spannbsp;a long time friend of Poor Magazine came out of her car along with her three daughters. They were greeted by friendsnbsp;span class="il"and/spannbsp;family for the funeral. When the serviced started they had an open casket for the family to see Mark./div div ldquo;Mark was the kind of guy who helped people outrdquo; said a friend of Mark. After people payed their respects the funeral director lowered the casket into the ground along with holy waternbsp;span class="il"and/spannbsp;multicolored flowers. nbsp;/div /div

 

 

 

 

Welcome back to Krip-Hop Nation Breaks Down Lyrics Series in this issue we talk about Dravius Oneil’s song  “Police Abuse the Disabled” Written by Dondravius Ellis aka Dravius Oneil

 

Patrick Wetter, brother, son, mechanic, long-time friend to many, and loving uncle, was just 25 years old, and living with his father, when he was brutally killed by Stockton police on January 6, 2015.  Patrick's death, unlike his life, was extremely violent.  A police dog was sicked on him, he endured six gunshots to his trunk, he was struck with a tazer.  In life, Patrick stood 6 foot 5 inches tall, and his friends and family refer to him as a “gentle giant” and he had the nickname of Tiny.  When he was little his older siblings and parents called him “pokie bear,” and when Patrick was “in trouble” his mother Holly addressed him with his full name of Patrick Wayne Wetter.  Patrick Wayne Wetter went out fighting for his life and died on the floor of his neighbor's home wearing handcuffs and in a pool of his own blood.

 

[image description:  Patrick, a white man in his early 20s stands tall in a white football jersey with the number 32 on the front, he has a beard on the bottom of his chin, a mustache and a round belly.  He has a crew cut, a sweet smile and a tiny birthday hat on the very top of his head.  He is surrounded by green trees and grass at a birthday party for himself and his young niece Gabby in 2012]

Only Patrick Wetter knows why he (allegedly) kicked in the door of his next door neighbor’s home, people he knew, one year ago today, which prompted them to call 911 on him.  When the police arrived, they claim they could see Patrick inside “trying to force his way into a bedroom,” where his neighbors were “barricaded.”  Police say they ordered Patrick to “stop and surrender” and when he “did not comply” the first thing officers on the scene did was release a K9 police dog to attack Patrick.  

The Stockton Police Department have a reputation for excessive use of force, specifically when it comes to police dogs, their K9 units.  There are many instances of the Stockton K9 dogs let loose to maul and attack people, in an unnecessary abuse of force.  In November of 2014 a young Black teenager named James Smith was profiled by officer Houston Sensabaugh (an officer who has killed at least two people on the job).  James, who is Disabled and whose disabilities include Cerebral Palsy, was in a crisis and needed help.  Instead of getting help, Sensabaugh escalated the situation, and aggressively subdued and handcuffed James.  Sensabaugh then released a department K-9, which first attacked a neighbor, Patrina Walker (a bystander), before mauling James, who was down on the ground on his belly in handcuffs.  James and his neighbor Patrina survived the attack.  James has huge scars on his torso and now suffers from PTSD.

Police training is in the use and science of Force rather than de-escalation.  What about the training of the K9s?  What would cause these dogs to attack bystanders and how are these animals treated by Stockton Police?  In June 2015 a police dog named Nitro was left in a hot squad car by a Stockton police officer, and died.  The police narrative mourned the loss of the dog and took no responsibility for the dog's death, and never named the police officer responsible for leaving Nitro in a hot car to die.  This endangerment of K9 life could provide insight into the violent behavior of the dogs.

The police narrative of the brutal killing of Patrick Wetter is easy to find in the mainstream press, framed as police killings are, as an “officer involved shooting” rather than a killing.  The reporting does not investigate those that did the killing at all (the police) and it criminalizes Patrick.  According to the “official statements” by the Stockton Police Department, officers Gabriel Guerrero and Mark Afanasev are the shooters that killed Patrick, and the K9 police dog involved is named Rocky.  The report says that Guerrero and Afanasev were given three days of paid vacation after killing Patrick and are back on the force.  The report states that when Patrick was being attacked by Rocky, he produced a “Dirk or Dagger,” and that he stabbed the police K9 in the shoulder area.”  They claimed Patrick to be in “close proximity with the two officers, then raised the knife over his head in a threatening manner.”   Guerrero and Afanasev then unloaded at least 6 bullets into Patrick's trunk, and he fell to the floor.  The police claim that Patrick fell “still holding the knife in his hand.”  The narrative continues, “Another Officer then deployed a taser striking the suspect. The suspect was then handcuffed and Officers administered first aid and CPR. Medics arrived and took over CPR and then pronounced the suspect deceased at the residence,” the report states.  It seems odd that first aid or CPR could be administered to someone in handcuffs.  The report also claims Patrick to be a “gang member” and talks about his criminal past.  It described his small clip on pocket knife as a “Dirk or Dagger,” and vaguely described the size saying “the blade was curved and appeared to be 3 to 4 inches in length.”

Patrick's mom, Holly Quigley-Papke, said yes he carried a little pocket knife that he used as a tool for a lot of things and that the closest he ever came to being in a gang was that one of his favorite shirts was red.  She also said that in 2014 at the time of his arrests, Patrick was struggling and spent some time homeless.  Holly says that the arrests for “Dirk and Dagger” and resisting arrest happened when he was profiled for being Poor.  The two arrests on the SPD report happened within a month and a half of each other, and these two arrests are what the SPD are stating that establish Patrick as a life-long “criminal.”  Holly says Patrick got into a little bit of trouble and that he was no criminal.  She says Patrick spent a lot of time with his nephews and friends, and that he loved fishing.  She said he really loved being an Uncle.  Patrick's sister Suzan said that Patrick was “one English class away from having his diesel mechanics degree.”  She said Patrick “always kept in contact with his high school friends, along with making new ones along the way.

Patrick had a tight knit group of friends he kept since youth.  One of those friends is Anthony McHenry, Anthony's mom Roseanne Kimball wrote this about Patrick's wrongful death, in response to the mainstream media articles about Patrick:

“First of all, calling him a prowler was off base. He lived right next door. I was told by his sister that the person that he was looking for, was a young man who also lived in the home, who was not supposed to be living there with foster children, as he has a criminal record. Yet, in one news blurb that I read, it stated that someone thought he might be after the teenage girls, as they had grown up. The news reported that it was a group home, when in actuality it was a family home that had a couple of foster children living there.



I, nor his family, are condoning the fact that he broke into the home, but to shoot him not once, but SIX times goes beyond (what was) justified in such a small space.



My concerns as follows:

He was very tall, approximately 6 ft 5 inches. From photos that I saw of the dog wounds, (on foot, and on back) he would have to have bent pretty far down to stab. Why were 2 policemen unable to subdue him with nightsticks, flashlights, etc…while he was bent over stabbing the dog, if indeed this was the case?



Patrick had at least three bad dog bites on his leg. That almost surely would have taken him down, or at the very least stumbling and in extreme pain. If he was down, how could he have lunged at the officers to the point where they feared for their lives? Why were they shooting weapons when civilians were so close? Not one news agency reported the damage the dog did on his leg, which is when he produced his pocket knife and (allegedly) stabbed the dog.



The family states that the blood had pooled in Patrick’s face, which would have occurred had he been lying face down.  How was CPR purportedly administered if he was face down?

Are officers not trained to use less than lethal force? Especially against someone WITHOUT a violent past? Is that not why they are physically trained to be able to take someone down? Why not taze him, pepper spray him, or use another method to subdue him? He had no gun, and the dog was not gravely injured.”

Stockton Police radio transmissions show how fast Patrick's killing happened.  In a matter of a couple minutes of police arriving, Patrick was terrorized by a dog, defended himself, was shot six times, then tazed, then handcuffed, then supposedly given first aid and CPR.  Rather than talking with Patrick, or trying to de-escalate the situation, Stockton police officers used violence as the first and final plan of action.  Patrick Wayne Wetter, Loved One lost to police violence, is missed the most by his family and close friends.  

 

note:  The family of Patrick Wetter have asked that today, on January 6th, 2016, the one year angelversary of Patrick's death, that members of the community light a candle to remember Patrick, and to honor all of those that have been lost to police brutality.

 

Here is the facebook event for the January 6, 2016 call to action candlelight vigil  https://www.facebook.com/events/748377618628064/

 

Here is the facebook Justice for Patrick Wetter page https://www.facebook.com/Justice-for-Patrick-Wetter-335193886679418/  

 

#JusticeforPatrickWetter #PatrickWetter #Justice4PatrickWetter #LovedOnes #IdrissStelleyFoundation #POORmagazine

 

Lisa Ganser is a white Disabled genderqueer artist displaced from San Francisco and now living in Olympia, WA.  They are the daughter of a momma named Sam and this is their second story as a writer for POOR Magazine.

WeSearch Policy Group (WPG) Data Release 2016
UnHoused residents of San Francisco Data Collection
2015- 2016

Tent City WeSearch Statement Demand summary (see below for detail):
SF Mayor Ed Lie and Supervisor Scott Weiner claim they want "homeless people" to "go away" for the multi-billion dollar plantation sports event called The Superbowl. We the houseless, displaced gentrFUKed, evicted, criminalized, disabled and now living on the streets in Tents, Cardboard motels and tarps are demanding the return of thousands of dollars stolen by "sweeps" of our medicine and belongings as well as open land that we can set up our tents or build our own housing - this would be modeled after the Homefulness project - a poor people-led solution to Homelessness

Who are the POOR Magazine WeSearchers:
Data Creators/Collectors: 86 un-housed San Francisco residents dwelling in tents, sleeping bags and cardboard on Duboce, 14th st, Trainor, Cesar Chavez Freeway underpass (*Separate document includes data collectors/creators from Oakland behind Target, on 7th street railroad tracks and behind Peralta street: *Note this is a small sampling of the thousands of un-housed people residing in San Francisco
60% are women ages 24-40
30% are  Peoples of color from all 4 corners of Mama Earth
30% are men
10% trans & non-gender-conforming
60% became houseless after displacement from long-time homes and neighborhoods
80% are living with untreated psychological disabilities
70% are people living with physical disabilities

Theft of Belongings:
    •    100% of un-housed residents have experienced countless incidents of the theft of belongings by DPW/SFPD sweeps in a one year period. (see below) including but not limited to Medicine, Clothes, technology-phones, iPads, chargers, etc
    •    60% of un-housed residents experienced loss of personal effects /belongings with a value of over $2,000
    •    94% were unable to retrieve belongings from the City
    •    100% were unable to replace belongings due to poverty
-Dollar Amount of Belongings Theft from 86 people:
$109,000

Sweep Documentation of 86 Participant WeSearchers:
(below includes ticketing and arrests)
January 2015 thru January 2016

January -March 2015
-24 sweeps of individuals reported on Duboce st
-22 sweeps under 101 freeway - Cesar Chavez   
-12 sweeps of south Van Ness
-23 sweeps of trainer street behind Office Max

March 2015-May 2015
-28 sweeps duboce street
-27 sweeps under 101 freeway
-8 sweeps of S Van Ness
-15 sweeps of Trainer st

May-august 2015
25 sweeps of Duboce at
23 sweeps of under 101 freeway
10 sweeps of S Van Ness
16 sweeps of Trainor

August -November 2015
46 sweeps of Duboce st
33 sweeps of 101 freeway underpass
18 harassment, arrests, seizures S Van Ness
45 sweeps of Trainor- (Tickets increased)

November 2015-January 2016
121 sweeps of Duboce
 47 sweeps, ongoing harassment, seizures of 101 underpass
45 seizures, 13 sweeps, 26 arrests of S Van Ness
52 sweeps, harassment calls, seizures and 10 arrests of trainer st

Demands of UnHoused Resident WeSearchers:
    ▪    -$109, 000 returned for loss of belongings
    ▪    -The Immediate cease and desist of all sweeps, harassment and arrest of un-housed people for the act of sleeping or sitting while homeless
    ▪    -Open and safe liberated land in Yelamu Ohlone territory (San Francisco) to set up tents and run a safe tent city or an abandoned building to build a poor people-led, indigenous people-led, self-determined housing, garden and healing project to build Homefulness - a poor & indigenous people-led solution to Homelessness. ( modeled after Homefulness in Huchuin Ohlone land (Oakland)

The WeSearch Policy Group (WPG) is a project of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE- a poor and indigenous people-led, very grassroots, art-based movement. Please credit POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE WeSearch Policy Group when re-printing

 
 

A cherry lipstick red 1974 Chevrolet glided down 24st street in “la mision” as it’s called by La Raza and so many other working class communities throughout the centuries who built this beautiful barrio after the missionaries stole it from the Ohlone Nation. As the Chevy rolled past each block, Its shining gold rimmed tires seemed to fly above the newest invaders, the hipsters and tech workers, tipping over their 4 dollar coffees and vegan donuts as they walked along the street like they had always been here, displacing rooted communities with every step, profiling young brown and black residents like Alex Nieto with every gaze. When the Chevy stopped in front of the Brava theatre where the new movie Lowrider Lawyers - putting a city on trial, about the community taking back the courts for justice for Alex Nieto, a  young Xicano man emerged. he was wearing a red 49ers jacket and a snap-back cap. He moved slowly toward the front door of the theatre and then disappeared into the atmosphere.

 

The Brava theatre was filled with amor for Alex on Sunday, Jan 3rd. Alex Nieto, a life-long Mission resident and scholarship student’s humble spirit danced on the backs of the theatre chairs and throughout the audience. His quiet revolutionary love surrounded the sold-out crowd of attendees. His sweet soul who had never done anything but be a good sun to his parents, a good friend to his homies a good worker at his job and in his community and a good student to his studies was there in the theatre with us. And he was full of love.

 

“Alex Nieto, you made the world better...When you visited there was always laughter...,”  Margarita Bac Sierra, Ben Bac Sierra’s 12 year old daughter opened the beautiful event with a poem of love to the “Tio” (uncle)  who she had known all her life before he was killed by police for being brown as he peacefully ate his burrito on Bernal Hill before he had to report to his job as a security guard. Her poem was part of a power-FUL opening program that included hip Hop skolaz Equipto and Dregs 1 and the beautiful, undying love and scholarship of Ben Bac Sierra, poet, organizer, teacher, writer and director of this new film.

 

“How did you know he was a gang member?,”  Questioned the lowrider lawyers in the peoples trial that unfolded on screen to a man called Mr. Wolf  hilariously played by community organizer Al Osorio who told the man who eventually called the po’LICE on that fateful Friday night of March 21, 2014, that Alex had a gun instead of a taser

 

“Because he was wearing a red jacket,” Mr Wolf confusedly answered

 

“How do you know that a red jacket and cap means he is a gang member?” the lowrider lawyer continued to probe.

 

“Because i have seen them on TV’ Mr Wolf concluded looking blankly

 

This brutal testimony by the three new mission "residents" including a man who wasn't in agreement that the police should have been called were from the depositions by the new residents of the mission who were taking their dogs up to the Bernal Hill with no concept of who lived in this barrio for years before they ever arrived. Holding racist, classist stereotypes of young men of color which sadly so many middle class white people do hold, proving that like we at POOR Magazine and so many other conscious people said when we first found out about Alex’s murder, Alex was not only killed by police who shot over 49 bullets at this innocent man but he was killed by the benevolent violence ofgentrification.

 

But thats why this movie is such a powerful and urgent example of what we at POOR Magazine call poverty scholarship, La gente/ The people taking back the kkkorts, the institutions of so-called justice, power and oppression that constantly support the testing, arresting and incarcerating of every poor and person of color they get was seized by the people . Taken back by the impacted peoples, those of us who like Edwin Lindo said, a conscious life-long San Franciscan who is running for District 9 in San Francisco, are counted on to fail by the systems in place.

 

Written and directed by Benjamin Bac Sierra and filmed and edited by Peter Menchini with music by Dr Loco (Jose Cueller) and Favi Estrella, and lowrider lawyers played by community leaders, Frisco residents, mission homegirls and homeboys and the amazing Ben Bac Sierra.

 

“Community media, social media, these film showings and the rallies are all so important to keep the truth coming out, said Adante Pointer, conscious lawyer who is representing Alex Nieto’s family in the upcoming trial beginning March 1st at the post-film community panel which also included Roberto Hernandez, Edwin Lindo and Thea Mathews, “because the mainstream media will come out with their usual narrative which will be an attack on Alex’s character and we need to counter that with the truth.” Pointer concluded.

 

Ben saved the best for last, closing this magical day of spirit and art with Alex Nieto singing La mananitas ( Happy Birthday) carrying us out of the theatre with his amor.

 

The movie is a must see, deep and real and dense with life and musica and truth, too short like my fellow POOR magazine staff writer Leroy Moore who went with me said. And like the rhythm from the Aztec danzantes huetlhuetl (drum) from the opening scene in the courtroom which penetrated the settler colonial laws that protect the modern day settler class, with spirit, truth and consciousness, Lowrider lawyers is not only an act of artistic liberation but of our collective liberation as peoples, as youth, as community in unity,

Ben is asking all conscious community to join the family at the upcoming court trial which will begin on March 1, 2016. For more information go on-line to facebook- justice for Alex Nieto killed by SFPD

Leroy F. Moore: Jr.: Thanks you so much for agreeing to do an interview it means a lot to me. You are the son of a great Folk/Blues artist/activist, Josh White Sr. What have you learned from your father musically and social justice?

Josh White Jr.: Dad used to say if you don’t believe what you saying, then those you are singing to won’t believe you and when you are going to sing, make sure your every word can be understood.

Leroy F. Moore: Explain your music and how you come up with topics of your songs being a social activist?

Josh White Jr.: All one needs to do is listen and observe and if you can’t find your own words, there will be writers out there who will and you will have a source to hold on to.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: You have a song that I use in my workshops because it’s a true story of a Black blind musician, CORTELIA CLARK. Please explain his story and why you wrote this song to us.

Josh White Jr.: I was and still am a big fan of MICKIE NEWBURY who wrote the song and from the first time I started to learn C.C, I thought of my old man about his beginnings.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: As a Black Disabled researcher, journalist and music scholar, I was excited when I read the book Josh White: Society Blues about his life. That is where I learned that he was a guide to most famous Blind Blues artists all through the South. Did your father share with you some of these stories?

Josh White Jr.: Leroy, he never talked about the blind men he led. There were 66 different blind black street singers my old man led. From the age of 7 to 16 and a half, none would teach him how to play. So he would pick up the guitar of whomever he was leading at the time when they would go off and do whatever they were going to do without their guitar and dad would play it in whatever tuning it was in and with his own raw talent he found his way.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: I have always had this dream to walk your father’s path that he led blind Blues artists throughout the South. Did he ever share to you his path that he set in the South?

Josh White Jr.: Dad never did. The one story he did recount was watching the hanging of three young black men. I know whenever sang Strange Fruit, he was singing from the eyes of 7 years old.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. From the DVD "Josh White: Free and Equal Blues." he explained about how the streets were full of blind men artists back then. In your view what was the attitudes back then and how did the industry treat Blind Black Blues artistes back then compare today?

Josh White Jr.: In the early 1900s there were many Black blind street singers all across the south and they were not begging, they would stand on the different streets and EARN a living. The record industry had their pick of Black blind singers to record.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. Your website says you’re a social activist. Tell us about your social activism and do you think if your father was alive would he be involved in this moment of heighten police brutality? And have you wrote a song about police brutality?

Josh White, Jr.: Anything that is inhuman… from coal miner’s plight to really any human injustice. I live with do unto others as you would have others do unto you as opposed to, do unto others BEFORE they do unto you. For years I went with a buddy and created music with incarcerated boys. We put music to their writings they gave us from their journals. From two different universities I’ve gotten honorary degrees. When I did the one man show of my father’s live in Lansing, Michigan, that year May 23, 1983 was declared Josh White, Jr. day in the state of Michigan. There are a few more, but this should cover what I am about. If my old man had lived to a 100, he would have been in the forefront of social change.

Leroy F. Moore: How did blind Blues artists get a hold of your father back then and was there other guide persons at that time?

Josh White Jr.: I’m sure it must have been word of mouth, from blind man to blind man. He wasn’t the only lead boy.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: You started performing with your father at four years old so you like your father must of saw the good side and bad side of the music industry especially back then being Black. Please share a story from your childhood that sticks out.

Josh White, Jr.: Let me tell you what my old man used to do, and that I will do today considering the circumstances. Since I was 4 I have sung to white people so most of the places worked again were in a white community. So either at the gig or when going to a joint to eat you always back into your parking space so if you need to leave in a hurry, it is just one move and you’re gone.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: I’m a poet and songwriter and also involve in Black Disability Coalition where we are creating Black Disability Studies and I do believe that story telling is huge using your father’s and your song/s can bring a positive imprint on not only Black disabled/non-disabled but all students. Tell how you use story telling in your school presentations?

Josh White Jr.: All I do is first; carry my old man’s book for all to see. Secondly, I start out with the song “hard time blues” about the southern black man’s plight. Thirdly, telling them about the old man being the first black man to sing at the white house. Four, being one of the first black men to be put on a United States 2postal stamp. Five, the first black singer to have a million seller, the song, “One Meat Ball” Six, his first tour in Europe with Eleanor Roosevelt and lastly, the first black musician for whom Ovation Guitar makers built a Josh White model with his signature on the head stock.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: I truly believe that the struggles of Blues artists are what many Hip-Hop artists went through when Hip-Hop started. What can the founders Hip-Hop who are getting older becoming disabled learn from your father and founders of the Blues?

Josh White Jr.: I am not sure about the word disabled. If you are already a performer there is no reason to stop. Some of the best singers I have ever heard couldn’t get out of their wheelchairs. There is no reason to stop performing; there will always be ears out there to hear.

Leroy F. Moore Jr. I wrote a poem about your father leading Black Blind Blues men throughout the South. How can we pass down this story to others?

Josh White, Jr.: I am not sure but if get in touch with my manager he might be able to direct you. HIS NAME IS DOUG YEAGER,  I WILL EMAIL YOU HIS NUMBER.
 

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: Doing research on blind/disabled Black Blues artists, I realize that there is a lack of Black blind Blues women. What are your view and did your father ever led Black blind women who were Blues artists?

Josh White, Jr.: Good question. I could mention Bessie Smith and other female blues singers but the old man never spoke of them and I checked with a good friend of mine who had a blues show on NPR for years and he could not remember any Black blind women street singers, it might have been too risky.

Leroy F. Moore Jr.: What is your next project and how can people stay in contact?


Josh White Jr.: Just go to my web page, JOSH WHITE JR .COM
 

Leroy F. Moore Jr. Any last words?
 

Josh White Jr.: Thank you for being interested, and if there is anything else, let me know.

PEACE JWJ

Gripping the steering wheel so tightly my hands hurt, I saw my mama so many years before, looking straight ahead to the road, trying to not let the mountain of tears crush her soft face. Now it was me and my sun alone on the highway, 30 years later, trying  to drive away from my torn and  crumbled  heart.. No matter how fast i went it wasn’t fast enough to leave the pain  It was in this ride that the story of houseless mama Lakeisha Holloway floated through the corporate media dial. This in-struggle mama drove her car into Jesse Valenzuela, killing him and injuring several more people while her three year old was in the backseat.

 

Media reports claimed that Holloway, who lived in her car with her baby, was reportedly 'stressed out' after being chased by security guards from parking lots where she had been trying to sleep before the crash. The corporate media went to great pains to put the words stressed and out in quotations, implying a veneer of disgust for this mama in struggle, a consistent theme I have witnessed with reports of poor mothers who commit crimes of desperation like these.

 

Having a child in poverty anywhere in the world is unspeakably hard. Of course variables exist. In the global south the conditions might be much worse than in LA, Texas or Las Vegas. But like my mama always said, the experience of not having access to food or a safe place to take care of your child is universal. From Salinas to Sao Paolo more and more mothers and fathers are unable to secure safe lives for our families and this experience causes a dangerous level of stress. As a parent we are already naturally stressed. Add on the insane stress of poverty and houselessness, as well as many other forms of trauma that many of us poor folks still carry in our hearts and souls after our lives of generational poverty, white supremacy and colonization, and you have a completely unbearable situation. Many of us parents hold on by a thread and raise our children in trauma. Many of us just crack.

 

In 2005 I wrote about LaShuan Ternice Harris,  another 23yr young mama who “cracked”.  In her case she was dealing with houselessness and untreated mental health when she ended up committing the almost unthinkable act of throwing her three babies off of pier 7 in San Francisco. In 2011 I wrote about Rachelle Grimmer, mama of two children from Texas who shot herself and her children in the Laredo county social services agency, after trying, unsuccessfully to get her meager food stamp allotment. Food stamps usually run $180.00 to 340.00 per month. Try feeding your children on that.

 

Lekeisha, LaShuan and Rachelle aren’t “bad” mothers as many people might be quick to say.  What they were were overwhelmed, unhoused, unhelped, extremely depressed and worst of all, completely alone.  In the case of LaShuan and Lekeisha, their depression was untreated because there are no proper mental health services if you are poor, and in all three cases these mamas were isolated with their trauma, depression and impossible situations. Their stories are like my poor single mama’s story, trying to raise me first through welfare crumbs, then as a working poor mama, then becoming disabled when i was 11 and finally becoming  houseless because of what she described as “too many little murders of the soul”. We were without a roof, a network or a solution. This kind of aloneness, specific to US capitalism, which normalizes isolation as “independence”  with no regard for how hard it is for single parents to raise our children without any support  This pathological isolation which is supported by a US “bootstraps” ideology of making it on your own leaves us single parents alone with our pain, our grief and our children.

 

And if you still think these mothers are “bad” then I am “bad”. Twice in my life as single parent I have envisioned myself in violent, horrible scenarios because my trauma-filled mind was unable to handle my personal crises as well as the stress of raising a child. In 2005 when my Sun was just 2 years old and he and my very sick mama, who I was the sole caregiver for  and I were in extreme poverty, again houseless and forced to steal food so my sun could eat, my mind wandered into a hole of suicidal thoughts. and then just recently, after struggling with a very serious personal crisis my mind fell into a horrific scenario of running my car into a pole, only being able to stop myself when I remembered my now 12 year old Sun was in the back seat. In the most recent situation,  one of the only things that kept me ok was repeating to myself, its going to be ok when i get home. That I even had a home, albeit humble, to get warm in, cook food for my sun and myself and most important of all to hide in, kept us alive.

 

Welfare or Hell-fare?

I can’t explain in mere words the simultaneous beauty, blessing and struggle of being the sole caregiver for a human who has only you to turn to. It is why our multi-nationed, pre-colonized ancestors from all four corners of Mama Earth knew that the village was not only important but necessary to support the proper raising of a child. Isolated single parents who are often just barely out of childhood themselves, navigating the impossibility of the capitalist hamster wheel with no support system to turn to and the scarcity model of welfare or hell-fare’ as us poor mamas at POOR Magazine call it, is insanely hard.

 

Once we complete the 55 page proof of income forms and endless applications required for any kind of medical, food stamps or housing support and then if we are lucky and we qualify for the tiny scarcity model crumbs we barely recieve as poor parents for medical, food or housing support, our lives are criminalized for receiving them.  if we have $5.00 dollars to our name and don’t claim it, if we are living with anyone and don’t “claim it” we face immediate disqualification from aide and similarily if we do it claim it we are disqualified. If we are “found” out to be houseless in most states we are at risk of losing custody of our children. And then if we do receive the tiny crumbs of aid we are constantly being threatened with the loss of those crumbs because of one of the aforementioned “crimes of poverty”.  Finally, we live in a time when most major cities have serious housing shortages due to the over-building of luxury housing by mayors who pander to real estate developers and most recently, the newest threat on the last form of poor people housing = privatization across the nation of our public housing, i.e., selling it off to private corporations and on the stock market so more houses can be available to higher income people and no housing is reserved for us poor folks

 

Poor Mamas create our own solutions

I’m not saying US scarcity models, homelessness, isolation and lack of services kill families, but they certainly add to the violence of US poverty and the extreme stress of life as a poor parent. It is why we poor mamas created MamaHouse - a collective home for low-income single parents and children. It is why we poor mamas launched the welfareQUEENS poetry and activism project which teaches both service providers and educators how to properly advocate for mothers and fathers in desperation, as well as to provide an outlet to other poor parents to heal through poetry and story-telling  It is also why we poor folks are working so hard to build and teach on Homefulness a landless peoples land liberation movement that is built on interdependence, not furthers the lie of capitalist independence which isn’t good for anyone, much-less poor, single parents.

 

In the mean-time with the extreme rise in poverty and the growing number of houseless families across the nation I am  asking all people to hold a little more compassion for all families, in all of our moments, good and bad.   

Side by Side 

chair frames and baby toys, 
jackets, toothbrushes coffee cans and pillows
wrapped up in paper made of memories…

“These businesses around here have called the police on me 15 times just today, for just being here, in my tent. I don’t do drugs, I’m not panhandling, I am not bothering anyone. Actually, Im the same as you, I just don’t have a roof." Partice x, Unhoused born and raised San Franciscan resident, who up to six months ago was housed in the Bayview before her rent was raised beyond what she could afford on her $12.00 per hour salary, and now lives in a tent on 14th street was one of 85 WeSearchers collecting data on how our unhoused live, “In a desperate attempt to get housed, i have started another job, i am trying to save money, but it truly seems like I will never be housed in the Bay Area again.

nylon homes buried under lives made of storms
these aren’t the storms of rain and thunder 
sleet or hail- these rain drops include sheriff’s boots
and eviction notices,

I first met Partice when our POOR Magazine family launched our Tent city WeSearch Data project in three locations in the Mission; Duboce street, 14th st & Trainor and all along South Van Ness. We as poor, houseless and formerly houseless folks at POOR Magazine launched this WeSearch (Poor people-led research) because many of us live in these tents or have lived in the cardboard motels, as my mama used to call them when we were houseless throughout my childhood, and we are tired of the lies constantly perpetrated about us without us.

“We aren’t conducting anymore sweeps for the Super Bowl, not any that i am aware of,“ said Sam Dodge from Mayor Ed Lie’s office to multiple news sources who were inquiring about the increased Super Bowl arrests.. The recent statement from the Mayor’s office was rebuked when POOR Magazine held an emergency press conference at Duboce and Trainor streets on Thursday to release the WeSearch data. At 11am in the middle of the press conference not one, but two DPW trucks rolled up on Duboce and began seizing belongings and throwing them in their trash truck.   

POOR Magazine launched this WeSearch effort because not only were so many of us unable to afford to live under a roof in San Francisco and Oakland, but because our lives, our temporary homes were being targeted for arrest, seizure and police harassment more than the usual harassment we always get living outside, in preparation for the pending plantation, corporate sports game called the Superbowl. 

this thunder is made of the sound of your home bouncing on the pavement
the lightening is a po'lice flashlight shining on car windows
and hail filled slices of
foreclosure ….Outside by Tiny, Po Poets Project

“Just in the last week, DPW (Department of Public Works) has taken my belongings and thrown them in the trash over 20 times, if i leave for even an hour everything i own will be gone,” William P explained in his WeSearch report, “what if someone came in your house and took all your stuff while you were gone, I am not living in this tent cause i want to be, this isn’t fun you know,” he concluded. 

WeSearch is a concept I created as a poverty skola who has been researched and pimped multiple times for “studies” about poverty and houselessness. WeSearch is led by us, the usual “targets” of big “research grants” i.e., the poor, disabled, indigenous, houseless, incarcerated/criminalized, institutionally schooled youth and/or ghettoized  elders rather than an academic institution or a non-profiteer who only gets “involved” in researching and studying us when there is grant money, endowments being offered or a school project with a grade.  

There are so many untold stories of how and why people become un-housed. Loss of a job, a partner, the onset of an illness or a crisis, but most of the time, in the Bay Area, its because of a greed-inspired landlord raising rent, evicting for profit so he or she can house the droves of 20-30 something wealthy, mostly white people streaming into town for the Tech industry. When I was a child with my mama our hosuelessness was caused by another little murder of the soul as she called it, losing her job and already being fraught with the trauma of her life as a mixed race, unwanted orphan who barely made it into adulthood, she became disabled after her last job loss and was unable to work, We moved in to the cardboard motels and our car when we had one. and stayed there for over 10 years. Crisis like that doesn’t just go away and it certainly doesn’t go away by being arrested. 

One of the many findings revealed from the WeSearch data is that over $109,000 in personal belongings were seized (read stolen) by DPW and Po’Lice from 85 unHoused San Francisco in the the three SF locations over 2015-16 and $62,000 from 45 un-Housed Oakland residents in 3 outside locations. These are things that are never returned notwithstanding the claims otherwise by DPW and the Mayors office. From jewelry to blankets, to watches, bikes and technology, once its pulled onto the recycling trucks, its gone. And then even more tragically, when poor peoples valuables are stolen by DPW and Po’Lice, it is not considered theft. That somehow just because folks are unhoused we don’t have the right to privacy, to have momentoes, or anything valuable.When me and my mama lost precious family photos, we never saw them again. Its why i now only have one picture of my mama and one baby picture of me.When me and my sun were evicted from MamaHouse for a $700 rent increase, three low-income single parent families were scattered. It took several years to be re-housed safely, and none of us have truly recovered.
  
The other factor thats very important is that from San Francisco to Salinas, so-called public space under 21st century settler colonial laws is no longer public. True, it was never really public, since the beginning of the theft of this 1st Nations territory ( Turtle Island) from Indigenous peoples and the theft of African peoples to work on it, this land has NEVER been free. English settler laws always incarcerated people for being poor and disabled before they even landed on Turtle Island, so the colonizers brought those same laws and institutions here and perpetrated even more. but now they have become deeper and harsher. With the advent of Sit-Lie, Stop and Frisk and Business Improvement Districts, there is a constant attack on our poor bodies who end up without a roof. And as well, contrary to the perception being held in place by these anti-poor laws in the US, just like in global south countries, there are millions of houseless families, elders, children and single adults,  , we just aren’t “allowed” to be seen, because the anti-poor laws which are all raced and classed depending on your melanin, your age and the price of your clothes, don’t allow us to be poor and houseless in public.If you are waiting in line for a new iPhone at a Mac store or a new product at a Best Buy, you can camp, sit, put your backpack down or lie on the sidewalk or in parks for days. 

In the end the WeSearchers created 3 simple demands, including land to build Homefulness in San Francisco ( Yelamu Ohlone Territory) modeled after the houseless peoples land liberation movement in Deep East Huchuin Ohlone land Oakland and the return of the $109,000 dollars lost to theft of belongings and the immediate ceasing of this insane arrest and seizure policy. the cry was simple, “ Ed Lee and Scott Weiner, Give Us Land or We Aren’t Going Anywhere.

What is Mario Woods telling us?  Mario, you made a film, shot a film about your home, the Bayview.  It was titled, “HP From Then till Now”.  Opening shot, your home, mid-shot—the faces and voices of your home—wide shot; shots from different angles—shots all over.  Mario, tell us what it is you see, what are you telling us?  The only thing that many people know about you is the image of you, pursued by the cops, and the gunshots ringing out, piercing your body, which is the black body of the city, the black memory of the city, the memory that the city wants to erase.  I watch your film, shot upon shot, showing the faces of your community—young men of color, smiling and posturing to cover insecurity, to assert their worth by any means necessary to a city that does not value them.  Mario, you took your camera and focused on the faces of the streets, the landscape of Bayview, sometimes shot with an unsteady hand, sometimes steady, framing the Bayview of the past and present in an attempt to figure the future and your place in it; mid-shot, wide shot, close up; shot by shot—the dreams of a better community, one that is not neglected.  But what people saw was your death, your execution, the killing of community, the killing of a vision that is seen in the voices and faces you captured with your camera, your lens, your heart.

 

On March 6^th, community members from the justice for Mario Woods and Alex Nieto Coalitions marched in a show of black and brown solidarity, calling for the firing of SF Police Chief Greg Suhr and to express outrage at the lack of leadership and compassion on the part of the Mayor in the aftermath of the police murder of Mario Woods.  The Alex Nieto contingent gathered on the hill at Bernal Heights Park at the site where Alex was murdered by SFPD.  The area, plagued by the spread of gentrification—the economic and police state mindset intent on ridding the community of low income people, people of color and people who resist the out of control economic war waged in the city.  The parents of Alex Nieto were among those gathered at Bernal Hill, quietly holding the pain and spirit of their son Alex and the community.  In their faces are the land and the scars it bears, land that was stolen long ago from its original inhabitants.  Those who gathered at Bernal honored the 4 corners of mama earth in ceremony as the clouds hovered slowly across the gray wet sky.

 

We walked up the Hill of Bernal Heights Park.  We chanted “We are here in Unity against police impunity!”  Mr. and Mrs. Nieto led the march bearing a banner calling for justice for Alex.  We walked uphill, soon to be followed by the drone of police motorcycles.  Soon we were walking down a slope, heading towards Bayview where the Mario Woods contingent was marching, our hearts, our energy, our calls for justice inching closer in a meeting of black/brown unity to converge on Williams Street as one.

 

The call for justice for Alex Nieto and Mario Woods are interwoven, both calling for the firing of Chief Suhr, both calling for the dismantling of the racist culture of law enforcement in the city and across the country, and both connected to the economic cleansing and displacement in the community.  The justice for Alex Nieto Coalition has worked tirelessly to fight the police narrative that justifies the shooting of Alex.  The coalition recently screened a movie called, “Lowrider Lawyers” where the city is put on trial for the death of Alex Nieto (For a review, see http://www.48hills.org/2016/01/07/lowrider-lawyers-put-the-city-on-trial/).  The civil lawsuit trial in the death of Alex Nieto is set for March 1, 2016.

 

As we inched towards Williams Street, we were met by more cops, on motorcycles, in cars and lining the streets.  Our contingent arrived first, and we stopped and people spoke, representing the SF Labor Council, Poor Magazine, Manilatown Heritage Foundation among other organizations.  As the moments passed, we heard a slow rumble, first soft, then louder.  In the distance was the Mario Woods contingent, making its way closer, banners announcing Justice for Mario, voices in unity and finally the coming together—black and brown—Bayview and Mission, two communities in an embrace of love, of amor for Mario and Alex.  The community—black and brown—converged on Williams, in front of the police station—officers lined in front, standing emotionless in midst of the swelling outrage at their presence, their occupation, their history, that was denounced by black and brown youth in poetry and in testimony.

 

The coming together of black and brown communities was powerful, one of the most powerful and heartfelt things I have witnessed in the city in years.  Gwen Woods, mother of Mario, overcome with grief, confronted officers who stood, impassive.  “You shot my son, like an animal!” she cried, as community stood in support and resistance to the police in the murder of Mario.

 

In a beautiful show of love and solidarity, the parents of Alex Nieto and mother of Mario Woods broke bread  honoring their sons in the Latino Tradition of Dia De Reyes—a Christmas Holiday tradition—where food in shared on Jan. 6^th.  Community organizer Oscar Salinas presented Gwen Woods with a piece of cake. “Amor for Mario Woods…love for Mario Woods” he said.  It was a beautiful showing of black and brown unity.  The rain came down, soft then hard.  Elders and youth spoke, and cake was shared.  In the words of Oscar Salinas on the coming together of black and brown communities, “It’s 2 families coming to the table breaking bread. It’s an important time.  Families share stories—sorrow, pain—but also strength.  2 families mourning, holding each other up.  Now you have 2 communities as one fighting this institution called the SFPD."

 

Note: To see Mario Wood’s short documentary, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No_mQZzBgGY&feature=youtu.be

 

 

© 2015 Tony Robles

 

 

 

“You can’t come in,” the oddly butler-esque dressed sheriff stopped me, my 12 year old sun Tiburcio and literally hundreds of members of the “public” at the door to King Lee’s (Not at all) “public” inauguration.

“We were told it was open to the public,” I countered, 

“It is,” a weird silence ensued and he looked above us. 

“So if its public, we are the public and we would like to go in,” I continued.

“You can’t,” again, a long weird silence ensued. 

We stood there one-sidedly arguing with him for another few minutes and then me and Tibu decided to “find an alternate route” to get in. We proceeded on a hectic journey to penetrate the insane level of FBI, SWAT, Sheriff Dept and private security crawling around the so-called public event. We went up the elevator and down the stairs. we tried unsuccessfully to claim media access, but our “plastic” official PoorNewsNetwork badge was a little to toe-up to garner us legitimacy. We trailed along with the Boys choir, and got stopped as soon as they actually looked at us, our slightly soiled revolutionary black attire giving us away. We hid in the bathroom, thinking we were pulling a James Bond move and would eventually fling the door open and do a body roll out. Dopey us came out and the same police were still there, this time they had increased to double-fold and were staring right at us. 

Finally we ended up in the press box upstairs, standing nonchalantly next to sis-STAR comrade Pearl Ubungen (who eventually got dragged out). We managed to stay quiet until London Breed began to introduce the mini-king and his fiefdom. “Fire Chief Suhr, Fire Ed Lie'" came rolling out of my mouth uncontrollably and with the words came the sign that oddly appeared under my sweat-shirt, If we don’t Fire Chief Suhr and Recall Ed Lee He will Shoot & Evict us All- #Mario Woods, Alex Nieto, Amilcar Lopez, Idriss Stelley, Ron Likkers and Elaine Turner…It was at this moment that a female sheriff appeared from behind the curtain and pulled me away from the area while grabbing my sign and tearing it up violently like i was insulting her personally. Me and Tibu had a plan, if i did get pushed out, he would step away and follow slightly behind. She led us to the place that the Swat team and Po’Lice had designated for all us trouble-makers aka the very angry, evicted, lied to, displaced, houseless, po’Lice terrorized San Franciscans that Ed Lie was supposedly elected by.

From that moment on it was scene out of some old Russian spy novel. Anybody who dared to raise their voice, drop a banner, or boo loudly was at risk of being seized and dragged out. One by one a team of three sheriffs would march in, burrow through the crowd and “find” the perpetrator and drag him or her out, plastic arrest ties dangling off their gun belts. 

At the same time at least 75 suited and booted swat team members with batons raised and helmut glasses down gathered at either exit to escort us out of the little segregated space we had been corralled into. It was actually terrifying for a poverty skola, formerly incarcerated mama like me that can’t get arrested. And yet it was so infuriating that any hardcore truth-teller like me and the other hundreds of community next to me, couldn’t leave. As a matter of fact, there was a mini- conflict between some of us who wanted to lock arms and begin chanting together at the top of our lungs knowing that these paid gangsters might be able to arrest one or two of us but they couldn’t arrest all of us together. But people seemed visibly and understandably intimidated and so outbursts remained singular until the end.

Meanwhile, the weird feudal fiefdom was unfolding downstairs. From the boys choir to the catholic priest, from the poltricksters Breed and Governor Gerrification Fracking Brown to the weird love by Lee’s well-dressed minions in rapt attendance. In the midst of constant boos, shouts to Fire Chief Surh, Ed Lee and Get justice for Mario Woods, Alex Nieto and so many more coming from both 2nd floor sides of the rotundas filled with angry community, there was clapping and honoring and well-wishing. It was nothing less than surreal and so reminiscent of the (S)Election of this mayor who has ruled with greed as his first goal, selling off every part of this town to the gentryTECH nation and in the process displacing and killing families, elders and young people of color. 

The Violent Paper Pusher

People claim he is only a paper pusher (bureaucrat) but don’t get it twisted, paper and pens in the wrong hands can kill people and has led to the death of thousands of poor peoples, disabled peoples, Black and Brown and indigenous peoples from the lie of discovery to Chattel slavery to our present day anti-poor people laws of the 21st century. Other than the very rich, this mayor isn’t working for anyone. It is why we Black, Brown, Disabled and Poor peoples at POOR Magazine visited his house the day before for an action we called Suhr & Lee: Stop Killing SF & Its Black, Brown, Disabled & Poor People -Mayor Lie Must Resign & Greg Suhr Must be fired. He may follow the careful script of Willie Brown who he managed to mention at the inauguration (even thought it really didn’t make sense) but he is responsible for a special kind of disengaged selling off of this town that i don’t think i have really seen before. A 21st century poltrickster sell-out of frightening proportions. 

Crisis after crisis, emergency after emergency, protest after protest every time folks have arrived at Ed Lie’s “public” office in City Hall, it is locked, his doors are guarded by at least four or more Sheriffs and maybe if we are lucky a 20 something clueless aid comes out to speak to us. My favorite moment of tragic comedy was when at least 50 families who were facing police profiling of their suns and eviction due to the privatization of public housing from the mayor’s RAD demonstration ( read privatizing all the San Francisco public housing and turning it into “mixed-income” housing) we showed up singing a gospel song and one of the Sheriffs guarding the door told myself and QueenandiX Sheba, fellow staff writer at POOR Magazine that if we sang one more “note” he would arrest us. For singing. This is the 21st century kingDumb of Ed Lie. 

Staying silent about his overseer

Since the brutal execution of Mario Woods by Po’Lice firing squad for nothing more than being black and still alive in San Francisco hundreds of people have filled the streets demanding Chief Suhr be fired. Demanding justice and accountability. Demanding respect for the mama of this young African Sun and nothing from the mayors office. Not even a call of apology, respect or condolences. 

“Justice for Mario Woods,” Fire Chief Suhr…Fire Ed Lee!!” 

Eventually the tragic comedy was over, but not before at least 15 people were dragged out, several arrested and hundreds more unsuccessfully intimidated for the sole act of not being ok with this theft of a public office, a City and thousands of our lives. We agreed to march out together. Eventually marching single file down the stairs, demanding justice for Mario Woods the firing of Chief Suhr and Ed Lee and all of us. 

Before we left a young sister, Melissa Crosby, called us to arms with the famous Assata Shakur chant…

“It is our duty to fight for our Freedom….

It is our Duty To Win…

We Must love and protect each other

WE Have nothing to lose but our Chains

WE Have Nothing to lose but our chains

James Baldwin proposed that it is, ultimately, the poets--that is, the artists-- that know what it is to be human, who are most qualified to tell us about ourselves.  The poet's report is the one that only the poet can tell--clergymen can't do it, labor unions can't do it, politicians can't do it, etc.

 

Enter "Encore", poems by North Beach poet Diego DeLeo, whose report is the wisdom that has fermented in his mind and spirit for 80  years.  The poems in Encore beg the questions of humanity--who are we?  What is our place in the world and how beauty can overcome all that exists to destroy it.  Some poets cultivate their craft in writing programs or via academia while others cultivate it through life experience--sharing insight garnered through surviving and--in that process of continuing the journey--break through with insight into who we are as people in relation to the past, to the natural world, and to each other.

 

Inhabiting the poetry of Diego DeLeo is the world which his eyes behold, a world filled with the food of metaphor--sequoias that loom larger than skyscrapers, the wood on which he travels life's journey, the dawn, the night sky, the seasons--all making up the tree of love.  With wisdom of life lived, Diego gives us the tree of meaning:

 

Gratitude, patience

Understanding, generosity,

Compassion, friendship:

branches of the same tree.

 

If you grow one

The others will

spring out of you

 

Such wisdom is gleaned through a life lived in North Beach where those values were so graciously manifested--a fabric that Diego helped to weave as a 17 year old immigrant who worked as a bricklayer, becoming part of the foundation of the North Beach community.  Perhaps you have seen Diego on one of his daily walks through the neighborhood.  A strikingly handsome man of 80 years, he bears a striking resemblance to the late actor Cesar Romero.  He exudes warmth and a sense of humor that is engaging as he continually explores the neighborhood, his home, that continually provides inspiration for his poetry.  The music of his native Italian has not left his tongue, as well as the spirt--syllables drawn out in soulful inflections--words weaved within the contours of his native tongue within an English construct, staying true to the soul that is Diego and those that came before him. 

 

Diego DeLeo is an eviction fighter.  He was served an Ellis Act eviction in 2013 and has waged a fight to stay in his North Beach home where he resided with his late wife Josephine for over 30 years.  Diego's heart is the heart of North Beach, its changing landscape brought on by an economic crisis that has hit long time tenants and residents extremely hard--expecially seniors. In the poem, "On Shining Days", Diego takes us to Washington Square.

 

Sitting in Washington Square

like a human ornament

waiting for some of the regulars

to show, i accept both:

The natural selection I feel

And the social selection I see

 

The poems in "Encore" are a beautiful assemblage of what is means to be human.  It is a mandate, a warning to San Francisco that its life blood is being drained because its humanity is being diminished in the pay to play political and economic atmosphere that is choking the community, the life from the city where poets and artists struggle to stay and testify and families and seniors get evicted from their homes.  This debut book from Diego is an instruction manual in preserving the soul of San Francisco, an articulation of what a bankrupt landscape is and how we can save what's worth saving.

 

The poetry in "Encore" is powerful, invoking the soul and spirit of a natural poet who began writing at age 77.  The poems articulate the richness of the city that is beheld in the eyes of this sensitive, insightful poet, intent on illuminating its beauty in resistance to the siege on its very soul by those whose ears are deaf to the report that only the poet can make.  

Diego DeLeo, Bravo!

 Do you know Harriet Tubman bought property for a home for elderly and disabled free Black people.

 

 

Harriet Tubman well known for the underground railroad.  Under the oppressive system of slaver she became disabled with seizures that played apart of here disguise during the underground railroad. In order to fulfill her dream to build a home for the elderly Tubman purchased additional land. In 1896 Tubman bought at auction 25 acres of land adjacent to her property located at 182 South Street. The land was sold for $1,450. The AME Zion Church raised funds and with the support of a local bank providing a mortgage Tubman was able to complete the transaction.  In 1903 as she was unable to make tax payments on the property, she donated it to the AME Zion Church with the condition that the church would continue to operate the home, that way her dream would outlive her. It took 5 years to fully staff and equip the home and on June 23, 1908 the Harriet Tubman Home for the Elderly was inaugurated. Tubman continued to live in her residence until her health deteriorated and could not take care of herself. She moved next door where she was cared for until the day she died in 1913.

When I was a kid, my father would make me sit with him and watch old western movies on TV.  Those movies would be aired in the afternoon—cowboys on horses shooting at things—cowboys, stagecoaches, whiskey bottles—and, of course, Indians.  I looked more like an Indian than a cowboy and my dad would sit, his attention, his mind, his spirit inhabiting each scene, as if he’d been on horseback with a six shooter firing into the expanse of sky as the wild prickly cacti bore witness.  I’d see horses, badges, tumbleweed and gamblers on our little TV set but there was one thing I never saw—buffalo.  “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam…” the song went.  Where were the buffalo?

 

All those classic westerns those afternoons with the old man and not a single buffalo, not even a mound of buffalo shit on the silver screen. There has to be a buffalo, one hanging around somewhere I thought.  So one day I left and went looking for one.  I get lost all the time—I have no sense of direction, especially if someone gives me directions.  If I’m told to turn left, I will turn right.  I found myself in Golden Gate Park—how I got there, I don’t know—I just put one foot in front of the other, my mind guiding me in a daydream without direction.  It was at Golden Gate Park that I came upon buffalo—4 or 5 of them, fenced in.  I stood outside the fence gazing at them. They stood chewing as the sky above seemed to move. 

 

I called out, “Hey buffalo” but they ignored me.  Hey buffalo, I said again.  “Get lost, kid” a voice called out.  I looked at their skin, a burnt brown with patches of wooly growth.  I stayed for an hour before going back home where my father was still watching that old western.  I am all grown up now, a reporter for Poor News Network (PNN). I still live in San Francisco but many people I grew up with are no longer here.  I recently visited Golden Gate Park to seek an interview with one or more of the buffalo in their refuge called the Golden Gate Park Buffalo Paddock.  It was my sincere hope to learn of their feelings about the city, about life; and, it was my hope that I wouldn’t be told to get lost.

 

PNN: Hey buffalo!

Buffalo: I thought I told you to get lost

PNN: That was you?

Buffalo: I might be a buffalo, but I got the memory of an elephant.  I never forget a face.  So, are you still watching those lousy western movies?

PNN: No, that was a long time ago

Buffalo: All lies anyway.  So many buffalo killed.

PNN: What have you been up to?

Buffalo:  I’ve been here, on the land.  The land has always been here.  People change, come and go, but the land is here.  But i'm worried, the way it's going out here, I hope I don't get evicted. I even had one goofy son of a bitch that came around the other day.  He asked if I was renting this place as a short term rental.  Short term rental?  Shit, these folks just got here yesterday and they're asking me if I'm living in a short term rental.  Then he told me that i could make some bread by listing this place on some shit called Airbnb.  I told him, I don't need no airbnb because the air I breathe is good and I can shit whereever I damn well please.  But the guy kept hanging around being a pain in the ass.  Home on the motherfuckin' range ain't what it used to be, i guess.

PNN: What’s changed in the city?

Buffalo: Well, who are all those goofy motherfuckers with beards running all over the place?  They all look like General Custard.

PNN: You mean Custer?

Buffalo: Custer, Custard—What difference does it make?  Someone should airlift some razorblades and drop ‘em.  All them beards running around like something out of burning man.  To me it’s a bunch of burning bullshit. 

PNN: They come around a lot?

Buffalo: yeah, standing by the fence, trying to get my attention, snapping pictures on their little phones.  They’re like flies landing on the ass of a warthog, swarms of them.  You just want to swat them.  I tell you brother, if this fence wasn’t here…

PNN: You ever try to escape?

Buffalo: I did, years ago.  But I ain’t no kid no more.  If I tried that now they’d call the cops and that would be my ass.

PNN: the cops are out of control

Buffalo: Damn right they are.  What they did to that kid Mario Woods was a damn shame.  It was an execution.  They need to fire the police Chief, what's his name, Slur?

PNN: I think it's Suhr

Buffalo: Well, i sure as hell ain't calling him sir.  And what's the Mayor doing?  He's pullin' a wizard of oz.  We'd do better with all-you-can-eat Shrimp Boy, he'd at least set us up with a little cheese bread, which is a helluva lot more than we get out of this mayor.  And I heard about something called text messages that the cops were sending on their cell phones with a lot of racist stuff on it.  Oh yeah, Slurs.  But I ain't in to cell phones...they're out of my range.  But yes, the chief, aesthetically he ain't lookin' too good.  Resembles head cheese under a heat lamp.  But yeah, the cops are off the hook.

PNN: How did you hear about it?

Buffalo: I get the paper.  Some of these old guys drop it off during their morning walks.  But I was reading about it.  5 cops shot that brother. That was wrong, just like they did Alex Nieto.  But you know, they been shooting at us forever.  So many buffalo slaughtered.  So many brothers shot.  Soon there will be no more brothers or sisters left in the city. 

PNN: The black population is 3% in the city now

Buffalo: Damn shame.  I’ve seen it.  A lot of brothers used to come out here and we’d talk.  Them guys were cool.  One of ‘em used to say, “Everything is everything”.

PNN: I’ve heard that one too

Buffalo: It’s true, everything is everything. We are connected to each other, to air and sky and water.  Problem is that you got folks that think everything is theirs.

PNN: Everything’s everything?

Buffalo: Everything is everything

PNN: Any last words?

Buffalo: Yeah…custer can kiss my ass

 

 

© 2016 Tony Robles

Editor's Note: Editors Note: Jose 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. 

“The political Legacy of Malcolm X” by Oba T’ Shaka, Third World Press, $11.95

This book attempts to give another analysis of Malcolm’s theory. Here we read of Malcolm X the revolutionary. Many other books focus on his upbringing or his religious nature, but this book teaches us of his political side.

As a prisoner, I have always drawn strength from Malcolm X, who, like myself, also developed consciously in U.S. prisons. Like so many, I also used these pintas to study and learn from my own history and this drew me to Chican@ revolt. It was the extreme repression of California’s control units which enabled my consciousness to rise up in resistance. Malcolm X’s story is one being reborn many times over in dungeons throughout the U.S.

On page 29 we read of Malcolm’s psychological transformations. Like so many today, Malcolm X went from Malcolm to Lumpen street hustler to Malcolm X the revolutionary. This transformation was brought out by learning from history and what his role was under Amerikkka. He not only fully grasped that role which Amerikkka played in keeping the oppressed thoroughly disoriented, but he laid it out for others to also learn from. On page 32-33, he is quoted as stating…” one of the best ways to safeguard yourself from being deceived is always to from the habit of looking at things for yourself, thinking for yourself, before you try and come to any judgement. Never base your impression of someone on what someone else has said or upon what someone else has written. Never base your judgement on things like that. Especially in this kind of country and in this kind of society which has mastered the art of very deceitfully painting people whom they don’t like in an image that they know you won’t like. So we end up hating our friends and loving our enemies” (1).

This is what I enjoyed about this book, rather than focus on the trivial aspects of Malcolm X’s life, the author concentrates Malcolm’s political contributions for all of those struggling against the oppressor nation. In the above passage, Malcolm highlights how deceitful and crafty our oppressor is and how they have many out of touch with reality and manipulated to the point that some folks love the enemy and hate the people. This is what I mean by Malcolm having a deep understanding of Amerikkka and its foulness.

Many today, especially amongst the Black bourgeoisie, attempt to kidnap Malcolm’s legacy and paint him erroneously, particularly when it comes to Black nationalism. The author reminds us of what Malcolm X thought of Black nationalism where on page 36, Malcolm is quoted as saying it is t” the type of ingredient necessary to fuse or ignite the entire Black community”. This is a truth which applies to all oppressed peoples. Indeed even within Aztlan Chican@ nationalism will be what ignites the entire Chican@ nation. In today’s social reality in U.S. borders revolutionary nationalism of the oppressed is the correct method to propel us forward under today’s conditions.

Another thing that I enjoyed about this book was how the author put revolutionary nationalism in its proper context. Many have said towards the end that Malcolm had moved away from nationalism and into internationalism. But as the author states on page 107 “Malcolm was not changing from Nationalism to internationalism, he was simply linking up African nationalism in America with African nationalism in Africa”.

I believe that Malcolm did begin to see that the Black struggle in the U.S. was linked to that of Africa. As a Chicano I also see that the Chican@ struggle is linked to the struggle in Mexico. Our efforts ultimately are aimed at capitalism-imperialism which works to sabotage our liberation at every turn. For Chican@s revolutionary nationalism is our path forward to the day when Chican@s can decide whether we build a Chican@ nation or remerge to a future liberated Socialist Mexico.

White Marxists nationally and internationally, could not tolerate the existence of a base outside of their control”. Here the author speaks of the fact that Trotskyites work hard to corral non-white revolutionary organizations under their white leader-ship. Those non-whites who attempt to organize oppressed nations under their own leadership are branded as “bourgeoisie” by the Trots. It is a way, as the author explains, to push white nationalism under the guise of Marxism.

A good chunk of the book is focused on what the author calls Malcolm’s “African strategy” where we read how Malcolm attempted to re-orient Black people’s thought back to Africa. It was a re-education process which sought to ultimately get New Afrikans to want to someday re-locate back to Afrika. This is up for debate today.  I think many New Afrikans see the land in the Black Belt as the national territory of New Afrikans, just as Black Haitians would not want to go back to Afrika, but stay in a Black controlled Haiti. Just as many Chican@’s would not want to be under the Government of Mexico. Rather, some would want to build a distinct Chican@ Nation. These are pressing issues even today for the internal semi- colonies. These are questions people need to begin to think about and build their collectives around.

There was some error in this book. For one, the author speaks of “radical” religious groups being a step forward for Black people. He goes on to say that those who are against religion surrounding the Black liberation struggle are pretty much Western influenced. This is a metaphysical approach no matter which nation we are speaking of. A nation will liberate itself on it’s own accord not some supernatural force.

The author also lists a slew of things which he states help in the “disintegration of the Black family” and one of these things is homosexuality. Here the author defends those Westernized (white) patriarchal views which he spent a whole book telling us he’s against, by blaming homosexuality on a broken black family. He adds to gender oppression and as a result strengthens the white ruling class he claims to be against.

Overall this was an interesting book which attempts to give another view of Malcolm’s political thought.

Notes:

(1)    Quoted from Malcolm X speaks, London: Secker and Warburg, 1966, p.91.

Welcome to a new series on Krip-Hop, Krip-Hop Break Down Lyrics, where will take a song from a disabled Hip-Hop/musician artist that put out a strong Krip-Hop politics/life storyline (Using Hip-Hop to display true stories about disability/Deaf situations but no overcoming inspirational bullshit) and we will apply our Krip-Hop political lens to explain what it means to our communities, Hip-Hop arena and how we can use these songs for a better tomorrow. These songs will be audio and written lyrics and a few words from the artists about the song. If artists have videos, then we'll add the video in place of the mp3.

First up is Toni Hickman of Houston, TX and her song, People Pleaser that is on her latest CD, Unbreakable, 2015. In this series we will always start out with the artist’s own feelings about their song then Krip-Hop Nation two cents, the original lyrics with the mp3 song or video.

Toni Hickman’s explain her song, People Pleaser of her latest CD, Unbreakable, 2015

When I wrote this song, I was thinking about how our world has all of these standards of what beauty is. We have all of these boxes that we should fit in in order to be what is considered perfect. Everyone is perfect in their own way, so the idea of a categorized perfection is an illusion. This song is simply saying you don’t have to be a part of the illusion. ~Toni Hickman

Krip-Hop Nation (KHN): Like Hip-Hop, Krip-Hop Nation is lacking woman Hip-Hop artists with disabilities when we began nine years ago. As we, Krip-Hop Nation approach our tenth anniversary next year, 2017, we are making little steps of finding and supporting disabled woman Hip-Hop artists. Krirp-Hop Nation ran across the CD, Cripple Pretty in 2012 by Toni Hickman. Her title of her album, Cripple Pretty blew Krip-Hop Nation away and there can be books upon books write about her title. So when Toni came out with Unbreakable once again my keyboard was on fire. Her 2015 CD can be a college course with a lot of homework. The song and video, People Pleaser has deep meaning and a teaching tool for our society and of course the Hip-Hop industry just on the note it’s by a woman Hip—Hop artist with a disability that put together a music video starring all people with disabilities telling us that we just need too be ourselvesThe first verse says it all.

You don’t have to change your ways/ for them to accept you child/ if you do let it be for you/make them respect you child/ you’re beautiful/ amazing/like a fire in disguise you are blazing/I hope you don’t let this world.. Put your fire your put your fire out.

KHN: In the music video of the song People Pleaser the first situation you see is a black beautiful woman sitting at a huge desk and a Black man comes in and sees her beauty and starts to flirt heavily everything is going well until she moves her wheelchair to get some papers then his expression change from flirting to shocking. This is some real shit unfortunately but to see sand hear it on a screen with a real disabled character hits home. Toni is giving her support and telling her it’s not her but society that needs to change. That is the first time I saw and hear a Hip-Hop song talking empowerment to other real disabled persons in a music video. This song is more than empowerment it’s reality there are many woman Hip-Hop artists however some are still hiding because what Toni sang:

From the way we dress to the way we process the images in our brain/ has an effect on the way we see ourselves/ even people make it hard for us to be ourselves/

KHN: With sexism and ableism running wield in Hip-Hop industry today and in our communities, Toni Hickman’s song and music video People Pleaser is a mirror on what can be and should be especially for youth with disabilities. Enough about me here is the lyrics & video of People Pleaser. Go to her website at http://www.tonihickman.com

LYRICS

You don’t have to change your ways/ for them to accept you child/ if you do let it be for you/make them respect you child/ you’re beautiful/ amazing/like a fire in disguise you are blazing/I hope you don’t let this world.. Put your fire your put your fire out.

Chorus: Go head and be great/ go head and do you/but no matter what you do, please don’t be a people pleaser.

People pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/please don’t be a people pleaser.

You don’t have to follow them/ just make them follow you/you don’t have to be a bad person/and trust your instincts too/ You’re beautiful/ amazing/ like a fire in disguise you are blazing/ I hope you don’t let this world.. Your fire put your fire out.

Chorus: Go head and be great/ go head and do you/but no matter what you do, please don’t be a people pleaser.

People pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/please don’t be a people pleaser.

See you’re beautiful/ amazing/like a fire in the disguise you are blazing..

Rap: From the way we dress to the way we process the images in our brain/ has an effect on the way we see ourselves/ even people make it hard for us to be ourselves/ But I’mma tell you be you/ be the best you don’t worry about fools/ let them choose their own path/ just believe in the light that you have and be Great!

And I hope you don’t let this world/put your fire put your fire out..

Chorus: Go head and be great/ go head and do you/but no matter what you do, please don’t be a people pleaser.

People pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/people pleaser people pleaser people pleaser/please don’t be a people pleaser.

___________________________________________________________________________

Video linkPeople Pleaser

I recently read an article about Airdnd (dnd=death ‘n displacement) CEO Brian “C” recently.  If you don’t know, Brian “C” is founder of Airdnd, part of a number of related businesses making up a cartel that uses the moniker “The sharing economy”.  Brian “C’s” brainchild, Airdnd, is a hosting platform where you can turn your room, house or building into a hotel on a supposed short term basis.  The problem is that people are renting out entire homes and buildings, contributing to an affordability and eviction crisis plaguing many cities.  This business model is a violation of the zoning laws here in San Francisco.   In response, San Francisco passed a law that would regulate short term rentals (Str’s), putting limits on the number of days one could offer a room and requiring those who engage in this practice to register with the city.  Of the many thousands of short term rentals being offered in San Francisco, less than 400 “hosts” have registered with the city. Airdnd refuses to divulge information on their hosts so it’s almost impossible to get an accurate number on how many are engaging in short term rentals.  This situation has put the city in a continuous loop in an effort to get Airdnd to get its s**t together and stop playing ring around the Rosie.

 

Brian “C”, at the helm of a corporation that takes in billions of dollars yet pays no taxes, is a modern day P.T. Barnum—clean, pressed and tech washed—the internet providing app-based absolution (ie: no accountability) for the havoc his so-called clever business model has caused.  According to the article, Brian still inhabits the place where it all started, his apartment, a slick version of the Hewlett Packard garage, offering his couch for $50 a night to allow visitors the pseudo religious experience of a white couch, framed by white walls--a couch with a sleek slickness that Brian--The Reverend Ikea himself--envisions as a homage to his business core value—belonging—a mantra hatched from the Airdnd syntax suites by lawyers, lobbyists and politicians, often repeated in annoying commercials and marketing materials complete with yuppies, babies and suitcases; but in reality, has seeded a sense of not belonging in this city for thousands who lived here before the arrival of the modern day P.T. Barnum/Reverend Ikea.  I recently came across something called AIRBNE, which allows access to people’s homes (illegally of course, following the Airdnd model).  It was through AIRBNE that I secured an interview with Brian’s couch.  It was white, sleek and looked as though nobody had sat on it.  The couch had much to say.

 

TR: How do you like living at the home where Airdnd started?

Couch: I feel neglected

TR: Really, don’t you feel like you belong?

Couch: Hardly

TR: Explain

Couch: I’m tired of accommodating everybody’s ass.  How would you like to be sat on?  And the vapid conversations about wine, cheese and Brian.  The conversations don’t make a dent.  It’s enough to make you want to jump out of a window.  In fact, I already tried.

TR: But you seem sturdy enough to handle things

Couch: looks are deceiving.  I was ok ‘til I got kidnapped.  I could have gone home with a family that would appreciate me.  I’d be part of the family.  I’d of course have to deal with the occasional tortilla chips in the cushion and a stain here and there, but no biggie.  But then Brian comes around, The Reverend Ikea himself.  I’m not myself anymore.  This place looks like nobody belongs in it.  He’s worth billions and he’s pimping me out for $50 a throw.  It’s enough to make you puke.

TR: that’s tough

Couch: And these fools that make the pilgrimage here act as if it were a shrine, the Taj Mahoe

TR: Don’t you mean Taj Majal?

Coach: Call it what you want but it’s pimp central, plain and simple.

TR: how do you keep your sanity?

Coach: I don’t

TR: Any other thoughts?

Coach: yeah…I got to give it to this cat Brian.  A housing tech pimp empire is what he’s created. Pimping everything that ain’t nailed down—the mayor, the supes, the commissions—soon he’ll be charging $75 to crap in his toilet, $100 to camp in the fire escape, which reminds me, how did you get in here?

TR: Illegally, with an app

Coach: Oh, then that’s ok

TR: Any last words?

Coach: this guy, through his so-called clever idea has taken thousands of rental units off the market.  Lots of rent controlled units.  And folks are doing this s**t illegally.  You got realtors and landlords in on this scam, using it as a business model.  A whole lot of ‘em live out of state too.  And they get away with this stuff.  Not a peep from good old Brian though.  You got to be gentle with him as he is a sensitive soul.  “Come, come now Brian, do the right thing now…pretty please with artificial sweetener on top.  You have to nudge him, without a night stick—mind you.  The rest of us that do wrong, they just shoot, but you can’t do that with Brian.  He has a mute button inside him.  Not a sound but lots of fallout.

TR: A tech pimp?

Coach: A modern day P.T. Barnum

 

© 2016 Tony Robles

Editor's Note: Editors Note: Askari and Castlin are two 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. 

 

The Webster’s new universal unabridged dictionary defines the word “hostility” as follows:

1)      A Hostile state, condition, or attitude; enmity antagonism/ unfriendliness.

2)      A hostile act

3)      Opposition or resistance to an idea, plan, project, ec…

4)      A. acts of warfare B. war

So our initial question to the people is: “what does hostility mean to you?” During the formulization phase of constructing our position on this issue, a wise man was asked his thoughts on our agreement to end hostilities (A.E.H.) and he stated:

“the inclusion of the agreement to end race- based hostilities to our struggle against California’s solitary confinement policies, represent a qualitative leap of the insight of all prisoner nationalities, and unites us beyond the fight to free ourselves from C.D.C.R.S torture units. Its promise may foreshadow the triumph of prisoner’s quest for full human recognition…”

It has been said, that the average human being should be able to hold their breath under water for at least (2) minutes without suffering any injury to the brain. But imagine being forcibly held under water for 10 to 40 plus years straight without being able to come up for air?! It is impossible to ignore the potential psychological trauma involved in this process but none the less, we prisoners have continued our struggle to come up for air, only to be repeatedly held down and forced back under water by the corrupt and powerful hands of C.D.C.R.!!! WE CAN’T BREATHE!!!

History has always proven to be a viable guide to making qualitative assessments in relation to where we have been and in what lies ahead in the course of our struggle. Therefore, it is only appropriate that we highlight the essence of our human suffering with examples from our history in C.D.C.R.’S. solitary confinement units.

In the 1960’s, we prisoners were suffocating under the inhumane and deplorable conditions in Soledad’s O-wing. (1.) Prisoners were routinely placed in these strip/quiet cells amidst the foul stench of urine and human feces. In most instances, human waste laid bare on the floor for all to see. And you could forget about the prison guards giving us anything to clean up the human waste. Especially when you factor in how the prison guard wouldn’t give us toilet paper to wipe ourselves or flush our floor-based toilets on a regular basis which could only be done by them. I mean, the prison guards wouldn’t even give us drinking water!! These contradictions brought about a rescue boat in the form of Jordan V. Fitzharris (2.). But it did not contain any life preservers because no sooner than when the federal court ruled these conditions to be unconstitutional, C.D.C.R. made no changes to improve the quality of life in O-wing for the captive prisoner class. WE CAN’T BREATHE!!!

In the 1970’s, we prisoners were suffocating under the inhumane conditions of being deprived of outdoor exercise and access to natural sun-light. Our means of exercise consisted of being let out of our cells to occupy a space in front of it that was no bigger than a public sidewalk. In Spain V. Procunier, (3.) the court ruled these conditions to be unconstitutional and set forth the mandate of prisoners in solitary confinement to receive at least 10 hours of outdoor exercise a week. But 36 years later in 2015, warden B Wedertz of CCI-Tehachapi has admitted that this prison is ill- equipped to meet the mandate of 10 hours of outdoor recreation. In other words, “caged monkeys” in a zoo is receiving more outdoor exercise and natural sun-light than us!! WE CAN’T BREATHE!!!

In the 1980’s, we prisoners were suffocating under the deplorable and out right inhumane conditions at old Folsom and San Quentin State Prisons. These conditions consisted of extreme cold weather during winter months due to prison guards using their guns to shoot out the windows in the housing units. Rat feces circulated throughout the plumbing system, meaning that the designated shower areas for prisoners were inclusive of this type of filth!! Once again a rescue boat appeared on the horizon in the form of Toussaint V McCarthy (4.) where the federal court attempted to take previous rescue efforts a step further by not only ruling these conditions to be unconstitutional but also issuing a “permanent injunction” that mandated these conditions to be immediately changed!! However, instead of any changes coming about, C.D.C.R surreptitiously transferred prisoners out of old Folsom and San Quentin State Prison en masse to Tehachapi, DVI-Tracy, Soledad State Prison, etc. thus, nullifying the injunction. WE CAN’T BREATHE!!!

In the 1990’s, we witnessed the expansion and usage of supermax control units (i.e. “solitary confinement”) take flight wherein C.D.C.R.’s objectives became ever more apparent in the form of torture-based population control. Our suffocation was two-fold!! On the one hand, a culture of police beatings (e.g. “excessive force”) was finally exposed to the public in Madrid V Gomez (5.) Where prisoner Vaughn Dortch was forced into a tub of boiling hot water and had his skin ripped off of him in the most barbaric fashion possible!! Prisoner Greg Dicherson was shot in his chest and stomach area at point blank range in his cell with a 38 millimeter gas gun via the false assertion of being non-cooperative with prison guards. While on the other hand, prisoners were being forced to become informants for the state in order to be released from solitary confinement via “the C.D.C.R. Inquisition” (i.e. “Debriefing”) program. This practice was exposed as being an “Underground Policy” in Castillo V. Alameida (6.) because C.D.C.R. never promulgated it through the administrative procedure act (A.P.A.) to make it an actual policy. The Castillo case also brought about the (6) year inactive gang status reviews, which meant prisoners were lead to believe we could be released from solitary confinement after (6) years. These reviews were a complete sham!! We prisoners had absolutely no constitutional protections under this process, wherein hardly any prisoners were released from SHU. But more importantly, this rescue boat was doomed from the time it left the docks, as it has now been revealed that Castillo is a pig collaborator and became an informant for C.D.C.R. in the current class action lawsuit of Ashker V Brown (7.) that has been mounted against the current conditions of solitary confinement. WE CAN’T BREATHE!!!

It is through this spiral of development that the A.E.H. became manifest in October of 2012. So in reflecting upon our collective struggle, in being unable to breathe for over a half century of pure torture!! it is hard to not think of Eric Garner in the minutes right before his demise, when he uttered the words: “I CAN’T BREATHE!!!”

It is this reality that we prisoners remain confronted with when we put into perspective why we ended our hostilities. It amounts to freedom or death!! It is every prisoner’s aspiration to be liberated from prison. Our A.E.H. puts us in a viable position for this to happen. Especially when we consider how C.D.C.R.  has routinely denied us parole for simply being interned to indefinite solitary confinement status as alleged gang members without a single act of violence to support their position. This speaks to the importance and the manner in which every prisoner has honored and adhered to our A.E.H.. This is commendable on all fronts!! Our exemplary conduct has made C.D.C.R. completely powerless over us as we have successfully taken away the fodder that used to fuel their political rhetoric in labeling us the “worst of the worst”. Our unity, now qualitatively threatens the political, social & economic stability of C.D.C.R.,  which is why their counter-intelligence unit (I.G.I) is issuing all of these bogus cdc.115 rules violation reports (RVR’s) for promoting gang activity.

Our fortitude and resolve of continued unity ensures that our demand in wanting to be liberated from prison will no longer fall on deaf ears!! We now have the power to change the course of history, with C.D.C.R.’s routine parole board denials, just as we have done, in building a movement around abolishing all solitary confinement units. We must begin a similar process in mobilizing our families on this very issue. But until then, “WE CAN’T BREATHE” must become our mantra going forward, as we prisoners refuse to ease up on the powers that be, until every prisoner is able to breathe, by being liberated from these prisons!!

WE CAN’T BREATHE!!!

For more information, contact us at:

Kijuana Tashiri Askari

S/N marcus Harrison #H54077

4B-*B-106

P.O. Box 1906

Tehachapi, CA 93581

 

Akili Catlin #J99402

4B-8C-106

P.O. Box 1906

Tehachapi, CA 93581

 

For the Prisoners Human Rights Movement!!

Reference Notes:

 

1.       For further reading on the conditions in Soledad’s O-Wing, read the melancholy history of Soledad Prison by Min S. Yee. Also see the report of the assembly select committee on prison reform and rehabilitation administrative segregation in California’s prisons from the 1960’s.

2.       The court ruled the conditions in Soledad’s )-Wing unconstitutional in Jordan V Fitzharris 257 F SUPP 674, 682-83 (N.D. CAL  1966).

3.       The mandate of 10 hours of outdoor exercise was established in Spain V. Procunier 600 f.2d. 189,199 (9^th Cir 1979).

4.       The living conditions at Old Folsom and San Quentin State Prison were found to be unconstitutional in Toussaint V McCarthy 801 f.2d. 1080. (9^th Cir. 1986).

5.       A culture of plice terror was revealed in Madrid V. Gomez 889 F. FSUPP. 1146, 1162, 1167 (N.D. Cal. 1995).

6.       Sham inactive gang status reviews were conducted every (6) years per. Castillo V. Alameida Case No: C-94-2847.

7.       Ashker V. Brown, Case No: C-09-5796-CW is a class action lawsuit that challenges the arbitrary policies that have kept prisoners interned to indefinite solitary confinement for the past 10 to 40 plus years. This case can be downloaded at: www. cand. uscourts.gov.

This year, 5^th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People’s Campaign march and rally at the California State Capitol in remembrance Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign for equal rights and justice 49 years ago, uniting all communities as one people to rise up together in solidarity against poverty, addressing many social justice issues such as demanding a decent living wage, accessible affordable housing, the harassment of homeless communities and police brutality, women’s rights issues and immigration injustice/rights issues will be take place this Saturday, January 16, 2016 in Sacramento, California. 

The 5^th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People’s Campaign event will take place from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. with the march commencing at Crocker Park, located at 3^rd and N Street near Downtown Sacramento where the march will cross past the U.S. Department of Immigration building to address the mass deportations under the Obama Administration and will end with a rally at the California State Capitolat 1315 10th Street, Sacramento, California 95814, featuring many speakers from various organizations and performers such as the Brown Berets de SacraAztlan, Justice Reform Coalition, Black Lives Matter, Labor Council for Latin American Advancement AFL-CIO, Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), Peace and Freedom Party, PSL, CAFFE, Answer Coalition, The Right to Rest Campaign, Occupy Sacramento, POOR Magazine and many more.

Historically, Dr. King Jr. called for an Occupation of 3,000 poor people from 10 different urban areas to unite and organize in Washington DC for Jobs, living wages and demolition of Slums to create sustainable jobs to build up those communities, utilizing various organizing tactics and strategies such as direct action and civil disobedience with the intent to continue putting pressure on the U.S. Government, while remaining diligently focused on building up poor communities. Dr. King Jr., a true visionary who had an ongoing plan for years had also called to action in an effort to gradually expand this campaign’s momentum to a global scale, while holding large corporations and Government accountable worldwide.  Sadly, Dr. King Jr. was assassinated just before this action was to take place.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's vision for The Poor People's Campaign will be revisited this Saturday, January 16th in Sacramento as many communities and organizations come together on this day to focus on what the campaign would look like today, focusing on various social justice issues such as fighting for a living wage while building with other low wage workers like; fastfood workers, farm workers and those targeted by killer cops and racial profiling, native & immigrant communities, homeless communities and low income and working-class communities who are faced with daily economic challenges to continue the spirit of what this movement was to be. 

As one of the organizers for The 5^th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People’s Campaign Steven Payan stated: “Five years ago, during the beginning of the Occupy Sacramento movement, we launched this event.  We were thinking of doing something around the MLK event, however we wanted to use this as a platform to address all struggles. It was about the working class and the poor taking charge of the platform, addressing real issues that affect our communities. We are continuing Dr. King Jr.’s legacy in California and demanding wage increase such as $1.00 an hr. living wage increase by 2021. We are addressing several poor people’s issues such as homeless communities being harassed and criminalized for sleeping outside in public places, having their personal belongings stolen daily and being woken up every 2 hours, including addressing immigration issues and in support of the recent Driscoll’s produce corporation worker’s protest against worker’s abuse. 

One of our main goals is to create a bigger network and unify everybody who are addressing poverty issues throughout the state. Right now, one out of three people who are homeless is under of the age of 18 years.  In addition, the Martin Luther King Jr. Poor People’s Campaign will also be marching as a contingent in Sacramento at the MLK 365 parade on Monday, January 18th to occupy a huge space in an effort to remind people that the Dr. King Jr.’s ‘I Had A Dream’ speech was the vehicle to take us there to reach our goal in building a momentum of conscience to create change for better wages, affordable housing access.  So, like any social justice movement, this begins with ‘you’ and how ‘we’ can gather our communities to work together for a better future for the next generations.”

div span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.8125em; line-height: 18px;"Patrick Wetter, brother, son, mechanic, long-time friend to many, and loving uncle, was just 25 years old, and living with his father, when he was brutally killed by Stockton police on January 6, 2015. nbsp;Patrick#39;s death, unlike his life, was extremely violent. nbsp;A police dog was sicked on him, he endured six gunshots to his trunk, he was struck with a tazer. nbsp;In life, Patrick stood 6 foot 5 inches tall, and his friends and family refer to him as a ldquo;gentle giantrdquo; and he had the nickname of Tiny. nbsp;When he was little his older siblings and parents called him ldquo;pokie bear,rdquo; and when Patrick was ldquo;in troublerdquo; his mother Holly addressed him with his full name of Patrick Wayne Wetter. nbsp;Patrick Wayne Wetter went out fighting for his life and died on the floor of his neighbor#39;s home wearing handcuffs and in a pool of his own blood./span/div div p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"[image description: nbsp;Patrick, a white man in his early 20s stands tall in a white football jersey with the number 32 on the front, he has a beard on the bottom of his chin, a mustache and a round belly. nbsp;He has a crew cut, a sweet smile and a tiny birthday hat on the very top of his head. nbsp;He is surrounded by green trees and grass at a birthday party for himself and his young niece Gabby in 2012]/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Only Patrick Wetter knows why he (allegedly) kicked in the door of his next door neighborrsquo;s home, people he knew, one year ago today, which prompted them to call 911 on him. nbsp;When the police arrived, they claim they could see Patrick inside ldquo;trying to force his way into a bedroom,rdquo; where his neighbors were ldquo;barricaded.rdquo; nbsp;Police say they ordered Patrick to ldquo;stop and surrenderrdquo; and when he ldquo;did not complyrdquo; the first thing officers on the scene did was release a K9 police dog to attack Patrick. nbsp;/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"img height="523px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/s4-oVuguiE_FQpZbR-o6DChti3jKHD9RQRPSQIHIbXvNAlEnMWrT69KEvxOGaJr74quN4XjkzKXDU4zMzbtRJ54tR958m41DIyyHGZhPFkFWruLXoEdC4QhBt1wZfRvrg3mVKTZF" style="padding: 4px; margin: 0px 15px 0px 0px; border: 0px;" width="348px;" //span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"[image description: nbsp;Smiling Patrick wears an A#39;s cap, a bright red shirt and blue jeans and holds a white cup, he is seated among many empty tables at Manteca Bowling Alley]/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"The Stockton Police Department have a reputation for excessive use of force, specifically when it comes to police dogs, their K9 units. nbsp;There are many instances of the Stockton K9 dogs let loose to maul and attack people, in an unnecessary abuse of force. nbsp;In November of 2014 a young Black teenager named James Smith was profiled by officer Houston Sensabaugh (an officer who has killed at least two people on the job). nbsp;James, who is Disabled and whose disabilities include Cerebral Palsy, was in a crisis and needed help. nbsp;Instead of getting help, Sensabaugh escalated the situation, and aggressively subdued and handcuffed James. nbsp;Sensabaugh then released a department K-9, which first attacked a neighbor, Patrina Walker (a bystander), before mauling James, who was down on the ground on his belly in handcuffs. nbsp;James and his neighbor Patrina survived the attack. nbsp;James has huge scars on his torso and now suffers from PTSD./span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Police training is in the use and science of Force rather than de-escalation. nbsp;What about the training of the K9s? nbsp;What would cause these dogs to attack bystanders and how are these animals treated by Stockton Police? nbsp;In June 2015 a police dog named Nitro was left in a hot squad car by a Stockton police officer, and died. nbsp;The police narrative mourned the loss of the dog and took no responsibility for the dog#39;s death, and never named the police officer responsible for leaving Nitro in a hot car to die. nbsp;This endangerment of K9 life could provide insight into the violent behavior of the dogs./span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"img height="398px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/0Uxp2YoBLySzsAcIkQJJNvZFtp3l-GwE-PO7srjcHB8csuPI_sIaYp84Bhf5XCpSgmLvZYCfY0jsN--wINMglhWYevYg3fSXzr9uKTEgPFiM8Kzmypzpz0OS6DIWNdpqxi-5FMU7" style="padding: 4px; margin: 0px 15px 0px 0px; border: 0px;" width="530px;" //span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"[image description: nbsp;A two tiered outdoor altar covered in flowers for Diacute;a de Muertos at Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco, with sidewalk chalked names of Loved Ones lost to police violence. Patrick Wetter and Aura Rosser are front and center with hearts drawn around each. nbsp;The bottom of a mural is seen with the words ldquo;STOP CRIMINALIZATIONrdquo; and there is a sign that says ldquo;Justice for Guadalupe Manzo-Ochoa #39;Luperdquo; with hearts drawn on it]/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"The police narrative of the brutal killing of Patrick Wetter is easy to find in the mainstream press, framed as police killings are, as an ldquo;officer involved shootingrdquo; rather than a killing. nbsp;The reporting does not investigate those that did the killing at all (the police) and it criminalizes Patrick. nbsp;According to the ldquo;official statementsrdquo; by the Stockton Police Department, officers Gabriel Guerrero and Mark Afanasev are the shooters that killed Patrick, and the K9 police dog involved is named Rocky. nbsp;The report says that Guerrero and Afanasev were given three days of paid vacation after killing Patrick and are back on the force. nbsp;The report states that when Patrick was being attacked by Rocky, he produced a ldquo;Dirk or Dagger,rdquo; and that he/spanspan style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"nbsp;stabbed the police K9 in the shoulder area.rdquo; nbsp;They claimed Patrick to be in ldquo;close proximity with the two officers, then raised the knife over his head in a threatening manner.rdquo; nbsp;nbsp;Guerrero and Afanasev then unloaded at least 6 bullets into Patrick#39;s trunk, and he fell to the floor. nbsp;The police claim that Patrick fell ldquo;still holding the knife in his hand.rdquo; nbsp;The narrative continues, ldquo;Another Officer then deployed a taser striking the suspect. The suspect was then handcuffed and Officers administered first aid and CPR. Medics arrived and took over CPR and then pronounced the suspect deceased at the residence,rdquo; the report states. nbsp;It seems odd that first aid or CPR could be administered to someone in handcuffs. nbsp;The report also claims Patrick to be a ldquo;gang memberrdquo; and talks about his criminal past. nbsp;It described his small clip on pocket knife as a ldquo;Dirk or Dagger,rdquo; and vaguely described the size saying ldquo;the blade was curved/spanspan style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"nbsp;/spanspan style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"and appeared to be 3 to 4 inches in length.rdquo;/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"img height="564px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/uLaZZw0knO0fVaooHy_FdTK4eHAUg-0y2sSZjOQZGeDBGi_i4WVsAMpRvJx8nvLKaJCZPfeQWbPu8Bn1iie082X4KTJABatT2iXTsA37TtIWl0LuuI7evm7P93fUT0iP1u0izQU0" style="padding: 4px; margin: 0px 15px 0px 0px; border: 0px;" width="477px;" //span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"[image description: nbsp;Young, tall Patrick stands next to a christmas tree, holding two of his nephews who are toddlers, Zackery and Jaylin, with his hands clasped. nbsp;The three of them just used teamwork to put the star atop the tree. nbsp;Zackery is white and is barefoot while Jaylin is Black and wears spiderman slippers. nbsp;Zackery and Jaylin have both been devastated since the police killing of their Uncle] nbsp;nbsp;/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Patrick#39;s mom, Holly Quigley-Papke, said yes he carried a little pocket knife that he used as a tool for a lot of things and that the closest he ever came to being in a gang was that one of his favorite shirts was red. nbsp;She also said that in 2014 at the time of his arrests, Patrick was struggling and spent some time homeless. nbsp;Holly says that the arrests for ldquo;Dirk and Daggerrdquo; and resisting arrest happened when he was profiled for being Poor. nbsp;The two arrests on the SPD report happened within a month and a half of each other, and these two arrests are what the SPD are stating that establish Patrick as a life-long ldquo;criminal.rdquo; nbsp;Holly says Patrick got into a little bit of trouble and that he was no criminal. nbsp;She says Patrick spent a lot of time with his nephews and friends, and that he loved fishing. nbsp;She said he really loved being an Uncle. nbsp;Patrick#39;s sister Suzan said that Patrick was ldquo;one English class away from having his diesel mechanics degree.rdquo; nbsp;She said Patrick ldquo;always kept in contact with his high school friends, along with making new ones along the way.rdquo;/span/p p style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"img height="443px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/00R85O7cW105FiuU7pYo6l_kxqPm8ypV4FifglB9szBiZpKlgkok-DwW27FG93P6VHgUOqm07QCuoiZHqVmWE9N0dR2-czoD2SYq_ChP_OZiyqPvNKgr0p840MZOSWnUniRWsXcc" style="padding: 4px; margin: 0px 15px 0px 0px; border: 0px;" width="665px;" //span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"[image description: nbsp;the family of Patrick Wetter together at the cemetery in front of Patrick#39;s gravesite at his funeral, pictured from left to right are young Gabriel (Patrick#39;s nephew), then Patrick#39;s sisters Suzan and Melissa, his mom Holly, then Patrick#39;s sisters Jeannette and Tiff, in front of that loving row are Patrick#39;s nephews Jaylin and Zackery./span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Patrick had a tight knit group of friends he kept since youth. nbsp;One of those friends is Anthony McHenry, Anthony#39;s mom Roseanne Kimball wrote this about Patrick#39;s wrongful death, in response to the mainstream media articles about Patrick:/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"ldquo;/spanspan style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"First of all, calling him a prowler was off base. He lived right next door. I was told by his sister that the person that he was looking for, was a young man who also lived in the home, who was not supposed to be living there with foster children, as he has a criminal record. Yet, in one news blurb that I read, it stated that someone thought he might be after the teenage girls, as they had grown up. The news reported that it was a group home, when in actuality it was a family home that had a couple of foster children living there./spanbr class="kix-line-break" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / br style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"I, nor his family, are condoning the fact that he broke into the home, but to shoot him not once, but SIX times goes beyond (what was) justified in such a small space./spanbr class="kix-line-break" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / br style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"My concerns as follows:/spanbr class="kix-line-break" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / br style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"He was very tall, approximately 6 ft 5 inches. From photos that I saw of the dog wounds, (on foot, and on back) he would have to have bent pretty far down to stab. Why were 2 policemen unable to subdue him with nightsticks, flashlights, etchellip;while he was bent over stabbing the dog, if indeed this was the case?/spanbr class="kix-line-break" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / br style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Patrick had at least three bad dog bites on his leg. That almost surely would have taken him down, or at the very least stumbling and in extreme pain. If he was down, how could he have lunged at the officers to the point where they feared for their lives? Why were they shooting weapons when civilians were so close? Not one news agency reported the damage the dog did on his leg, which is when he produced his pocket knife and (allegedly) stabbed the dog./spanbr class="kix-line-break" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / br style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;" /br / span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"The family states that the blood had pooled in Patrickrsquo;s face, which would have occurred had he been lying face down.nbsp; How was CPR purportedly administered if he was face down?/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Are officers not trained to use less than lethal force? Especially against someone WITHOUT a violent past? Is that not why they are physically trained to be able to take someone down? Why not taze him, pepper spray him, or use another method to subdue him? He had no gun, and the dog was not gravely injured.rdquo;/span/p p style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"img height="639px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/lO1K1r4uhPSNA9DkjlS1SKZo2XM8uroO2Oyu1Jh_nYoytL5BCY_RmWD_ddE7jz3LDLWc2YNdFSO0zRohL_MYo8voOdH4JkhVFwt4dw5VBfZ9OTOcYWmuKfF5lUDxMBe0pTRtO7C9" style="padding: 4px; margin: 0px 15px 0px 0px; border: 0px;" width="479px;" //span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"[image description: nbsp;Loved Ones lost to police violence are chalked in bright colors with hearts in front of the steps of San Francisco City Hall at a Black Lives Matter protest of the police commissioners meeting shortly after the SFPD killing of Mario Woods. nbsp;Patrick Wetter#39;s name is in the foreground along with the names of Kayla Moore, Phillip High Bear, Phillip Watkins, #39;Lupe Ochoa, Asa B Sullivan, Dontre Hamilton, Raymond Eacret, Kenneth Harding Jr, Alex Nieto and Mario Woods]/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Stockton Police radio transmissions show how fast Patrick#39;s killing happened. nbsp;In a matter of a couple minutes of police arriving, Patrick was terrorized by a dog, defended himself, was shot six times, then tazed, then handcuffed, then supposedly given first aid and CPR. nbsp;Rather than talking with Patrick, or trying to de-escalate the situation, Stockton police officers used violence as the first and final plan of action. nbsp;Patrick Wayne Wetter, Loved One lost to police violence, is missed the most by his family and close friends. nbsp;/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"This story was originally posted on January 6, 2016, the one year angelversary of Patric#39;s death.nbsp;/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Here is the facebook Justice for Patrick Wetter page/spanspan style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"nbsp;/spana href="https://www.facebook.com/Justice-for-Patrick-Wetter-335193886679418/" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"span style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"https://www.facebook.com/Justice-for-Patrick-Wetter-335193886679418//span/aspan style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"nbsp;nbsp;/span/span/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"#JusticeforPatrickWetter #PatrickWetter #Justice4PatrickWetter #LovedOnes #IdrissStelleyFoundation #POORmagazine/span/p p style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"nbsp;/p p dir="ltr" style="padding: 0px; margin: 10px 0px; font-size: 0.8125em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', helvetica, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"span id="docs-internal-guid-870146dc-2daa-3ff8-1d4c-89afab0b414d" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"Lisa Ganser is a white Disabled genderqueer artist displaced from San Francisco and now living in Olympia, WA. nbsp;They are the daughter of a momma named Sam and this is their second story as a writer for POOR Magazine./span/p /div