2011-07-17 "‘Why should you die for a transfer?’" by Willie Ratcliff from "San Francisco Bayview Newspaper"
[http://sfbayview.com/2011/why-should-you-die-for-a-transfer/]
Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff can be reached at publisher@sfbayview.com or (415) 671-0789.
---
Sister Halimah Allah writes from Los Angeles on July 18: “As I watch another Black man – shot down in the street like a mad dog by occupation forces paid for by our tax dollars and 456 years of dehumanization – I read accounts of the incident and wonder: What is this young man’s name? Who are his people: family, friends etc.? Does he have a mother? Does she know her son is dead? (Peace be upon him.) I’m the mother of four Black men! I’m grandma to nine grandsons. I’m great-grandma to one. I’ve seen this scene too many times in my 70 years! I wonder: WHO WILL MOURN for this young Black Man? WHO WILL MOURN for all those yet to fall at the hands of our ever-open enemies? Who will mourn for us all?”

When police stopped a teenager stepping off the T-train yesterday to show his transfer as proof he’d paid his fare – $2 at most – he ran from them. They shot him as many as 10 times in the back and neck, according to witnesses. For many long minutes, as a crowd watched in horror, the boy, who had fallen to the sidewalk a block away, lay in a quickly growing pool of blood writhing in pain and trying to lift himself up as the cops trained their guns on him and threatened bystanders.


Having killed the boy at 4:44 p.m., according to the San Francisco Chronicle [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/17/MNVU1KBGHI.DTL], in broad daylight at the main intersection – Third Street between Palou and Oakdale – in Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco’s last largely Black neighborhood, the police seemed eager to terrorize the community. They waited and waited and waited as the teenager stopped moving but continued breathing before eventually setting him on a gurney and taking him to the hospital, where the Chronicle reports he died at 7:01 p.m.
“Why should you die for a transfer?” asked a witness known as Tiptoe in the crowd of hundreds of residents that soon gathered in the plaza at the Oakdale/Palou light rail stop. “Justice will be brought!” hollered one man repeatedly in a booming voice as the crowd shouted at the long line of police in riot gear standing between them and the dying youngster. “I saw the riot squad fly by me on Palou yesterday – five trucks in all,” wrote Bayview resident Sherry Bryson on Facebook.
As usual following police murders, the San Francisco Police Department came up with an excuse. The Chronicle relayed it: “As the officers tried to detain the man, he took off running and drew a gun, police said,” according to staff writer Joe Garofoli. “When the suspect shot at the officers, they returned fire, fatally wounding him,” he continued, quoting SFPD Sgt. Michael Andraychak.
None of the many witnesses I spoke with yesterday saw the young victim either holding or shooting a gun and firmly believe he was unarmed. ABC7’s Carolyn Tyler balanced the police claim that they shot the youngster in self-defense by interviewing Trivon Dixon, who said: “He was running. How could he be a threat in retreat? And he wasn’t running backwards, turning around shooting. He was in full throttle, running away from the police. I don’t see in any way how he could be a threat to the police.”
On Sunday, KTVU.com reported an announcement by San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr that a gun had been found which he said belonged to the victim [http://www.ktvu.com/news/28578277/detail.html]. That police have also kicked off the usual campaign to demonize the victim is evident in KTVU noting that “the suspect had an extensive criminal record out of state.” And in another standard response to a police murder, KTVU reported, “Police patrolled the Third Street corridor Sunday with an additional 10 officers due to an increase in gun violence in the past three weeks.”
“How come a Black man can get shot for not having a transfer? How come a Black man has to be so terrorized that he feels that he has to run for not having a transfer?” ponders activist and graduate student Malaika Kambon. “These kinds of killings have not, would not, do not ever happen in white communities anywhere in the world,” she notes in a Facebook discussion.
“This is insane! They are shooting people over transfers?” exclaimed Renaldo Ricketts on Facebook. “Over a transfer – a piece of paper? That is just so wrong!” wrote Sherry Bryson.
“Why did they have to chase him for a transfer?” wrote Latashia Burleson, who started the discussion. “There are many people on the bus who didn’t pay. What they gone do, chase everyone down? And they wonder why they don’t get no respect or cooperation in the community. This makes my blood boil. It has to stop!”
On June 29, Bayview- and Mission District-based POWER, heading a coalition of transit and civil right activist groups that recently helped secure 12,000 free passes for low-income youth passengers, staged a demonstration calling for free Muni – free transit passes for all passengers, the San Francisco Examiner reported [http://www.sfexaminer.com/blogs/under-dome/2011/06/san-francisco-group-wants-free-muni-agency-says-would-cost-least-190-millio]. The San Francisco Municipal Railway, known as Muni, has followed up major rate increases in recent years with greatly intensified police fare enforcement, imposing heavy fines and even jail time for riders who are unable to prove by showing a paper transfer that they paid their fare.
“Let’s all remember that we are second class citizens to the police. Period,” remarked Robert Pineda.
“We have a Mafioso-type situation in San Francisco,” wrote Alan Collins, “where the police make endorsements of so-called ‘moderate’ political candidates and those candidates very often win election and you almost never hear anything from them that amounts to criticism, let alone any type of serious investigation, of the police. This has made SF a city with police who are simply unaccountable, can be assured of getting away with virtually anything, and a collection of elected officials who know that if they do anything that counters what the police want, they will be treated the way Rupert Murdoch has operated with his media empire: reward and punishment.”
“As the state has removed any illusion that it exists to serve or protect people, we can see clearly that it exists only to push us into prisons and to shoot us in cold blood. Two single dollars are worth more to them than our lives. The very existence of the police clearly endangers all of us,” concluded an anonymous writer on Indybay.
A comment on YouTube under the video, “SFPD Ruthlessly Shoots and Kills Unarmed 19yr old Man over $2 Bus Fair,” posted above, reflects the common wisdom in the community that this was a public execution with a purpose: “The white man did the same thing during slavery. They would take a Black man and whip him or kill him in front of all the slaves, to make sure the slaves got the picture of who’s in control.”
A press conference and speakout has been called for Monday noon at Third and Oakdale by the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Education Not Incarceration, the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and Poor Magazine. According to Indymedia, a protest will begin at 5 p.m. Tuesday in Dolores Park.

This frame from a video shot by a bystander shows the teenager struggling to lift himself out of a pool of his own blood as a San Francisco police officer – one of several – aims his gun at the boy rather than trying to save his life. – Video frame: TheOneNonly457
As night fell, firefighters washed the teenager's blood off the sidewalk and police and reporters talked. Rick Hauptman, who posted this photo on Facebook, noted: "The police seemed almost jolly. I saw many handshakes among them; I couldn't figure that out. Were they solely being respectful to their colleagues and to senior officers, or was it something else?”

2011-07-16 "Oscar Grant's best friend is shot, killed" by Henry K. Lee from "San Francisco Chronicle" newspaper
[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2011%2F07%2F16%2FBAB31KBCN2.DTL&tsp=1]
The best friend of Oscar Grant who was there the night a BART police officer fatally shot the unarmed man was shot and killed at a Hayward gas station, authorities and friends said Saturday.
Johntue Caldwell, 25, of Fremont was found behind the wheel of a Cadillac parked at the Union 76 gas station at West Tennyson Road and Calaroga Avenue about 5:35 p.m. Friday, according to police and friends.
The victim had been sitting in the Cadillac when someone walked up to the vehicle and fired several rounds, said Hayward police Lt. Roger Keener. The assailant fled and was not located after a search of the area.
The motive for the slaying was not known, but police do not believe this was a random act, Keener said.
"Investigators will be focusing on learning anything they can about this incident from people who may have been in the area at the time," Keener said. "Through their investigation, they also expect to determine if the victim was the intended target of this attack."
In 2010, Caldwell filed a $5 million federal civil rights lawsuit, saying he was mistreated by a second BART police officer, Marysol Domenici, before Officer Johannes Mehserle shot Grant in the back on the platform of Oakland's Fruitvale Station early Jan. 1, 2009. Mehserle was recently released from custody after serving half of a two-year prison term for involuntary manslaughter.
Caldwell, the father of two young sons, was the godfather of Grant's daughter, Tatiana, now 7, who received a $1.5 million settlement from BART in connection with Grant's death.
Caldwell's suit, which is still pending, said Domenici ordered him to the ground, threatened him with a Taser, touched the stun gun to his face and cursed him using a racial slur. Caldwell was "mentally and emotionally injured," his attorneys wrote.
Dale Allen, an attorney for BART, said after the suit was filed that Caldwell had a "significant criminal history" and was one of three men who cursed at and physically challenged officers as they detained Grant and three others after a fight on a train.
But John Burris, an attorney for Grant's family whose civil suit against BART officers is pending, said Saturday, "Nothing I know about Johntue says that he was involved in any illegal activity."
Burris said, "Johntue was a wonderful young man. He had career objectives. He and his mother were very, very close. He and Oscar had been friends since early childhood. They were as close as brothers could be, and this is a tragedy of the highest order. It's hard to imagine that another young man of that relatively small group of people is dead."

Johntue Caldwell

"Uhuru Solidarity of Oakland" wrote:
No matter how you look at it, this is a terroristic system we live in.
Johntue Caldwell was on the platform with Oscar Grant.
He had a lawsuit pending.
They try to say he had a criminal record but it is this system that has a criminal record for killing African people.
Vigil for Jontue Caldwell, tonight, 6pm, July 16, 2011
West Tennyson Road & Calaroga Ave., Hayward, CA

2011-07-16 "A New Era in Policing?"
[http://surfcityrevolt.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-era-in-policing.html]
News of "Predictive Policing" first surfaced around the new year. Hailed as the next generation of policing, it seeks to direct police resources to "times and places" where there is a greater likelihood of crime being committed. Sometime in January, the Santa Cruz Police Department finished submitting crime reports from the last eight years to George Mohler [http://math.scu.edu/~gmohler/homepage.html], a mathematics professor at Santa Clara University. Santa Cruz is the first city in the nation to embrace this model. In Mohler's own words: "The more you put police in areas where there is more crime, the more efficiently you're policing the city." The Sentinel article about SCPD's adoption of the program can be found here [http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17105195]. In this article, rather than rehashing what has already been said, we will emphasize the unstated significance of predictive policing and point towards ways to frustrate, antagonize, or just operate within a town that will try to predict your crime before you commit it.

New Smell, Same Shit -
Since at least some future police reports will be a product of predictive policing, while the analytics that power predictive policing are fed by prior police reports, it is likely that the predictive policing will create reinforcing feedback loops [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback]. As predictive policing recognizes a concentration of criminal activity, it will direct police resources towards that concentration. The concentration can be geographical, like the Bonesio's Parking Lot, and also have a temporal dimension, like closing time. By directing police patrols towards these locations, the police can harass, detain, or arrest people more efficiently. Their actions result in police reports that get funneled back into the predictive policing analytics, further concentrating crime in these already targeted areas.
By targeting places where crime is already reported, predictive policing increases social division: bad neighborhoods are further ghettoized, while pressure it taken off good neighborhoods. Kids in the upper westside take "d-methamphetamine" (marketed as Deoxsyn for ADHD) to get high and feel good, while those trapped in desperate circumstances smoke dirty crystal for the same reasons. One group is mostly ignored by police, while the other is criminalized. Predictive policing further concentrates police pressure on the more targeted group. This is not to say that the ideal solution is some equitable form of policing, only that existing social divisions are further sharpened by this program.
At least some of the inspiration for predictive policing comes from the success of computer analytics in determining the actions of consumers. As Police Chief Magazine reports [http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1942&issue_id=112009]:
[begin excerpt]
Advanced analytics are used in almost every segment of society to improve service and optimize resources. Some examples include customer loyalty programs that track purchases and provide specifically targeted coupons that are based on recent or related purchases and algorithms that create models of customer preferences and recommend products to similar customer groups.
[end excerpt]
In every corner of our lives, data is being collected about us and our actions. These data storehouses have been utilized to sell us consumer goods tailored to our specific tastes. Now, these databases are becoming fodder for the predictive policing analytics. In a Department of Justice bulletin on Community-Oriented Policing [http://www.nij.gov/nij/maps/gps-bulletin-v2i4.pdf], the first "tool" listed in a "predictive policing toolbox" was to: "Identify data from other agencies (e.g., schools and hospitals) that may be useful for predictive policing analyses". Predictive Policing might be the bridge between the warehousing of personal and relational data and the always-tightening clampdown of social control. Advanced analytics, of course, have always been part of the police toolkit, but until now they have been reserved for large operations, usually run by federal agencies. Now, the same techniques are becoming available at local levels.
As these techniques trickle down to local agencies, coupled with Jerry Brown's restructuring towards local government, police are realizing that "community" initiatives are of increasing importance. If the police are going to be on your block constantly, they want to do it with a smiling face. Put differently, they want to avoid being a target for the antagonism they deserve.
Defenders of predictive policing say that it doesn't target individuals, only locations. But you'd be blind if you couldn't see that different areas are defined by the presence of different social groups. For instance, one distinct group of people hangs out on the Pasatiempo Golf Course while another hangs out outside the laundromat on Barson St. This new advance in policing is only a new excuse to do what police have always done: reinforce class divisions and quarantine "undesirable" social groups.

Responding to Predictive Policing -
One clear way to avoid or frustrate the mechanisms of predictive policing is to follow the good ol' criminal adage--Don't shit where you eat. By taking crime out of the neighborhoods where we live, perhaps we can lessen the pressure on those places. One study of predictive policing found a correlation with the number of housing code violations in a neighborhood and the amount of burglary. Basically, people were burglarizing poor neighborhoods, which rationalized a police presence in those places. By decreasing "broke-on-broke crime" [http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2010/12/15/newposterbroke.pdf_600_.jpg], we are also fighting an increase of police patrols. For an interesting primer on how rich people defend against burglary, we here at SCR would recommend Jack MacLean's Secrets of a Superthief [http://www.scribd.com/doc/59565220/Jack-maclean-secrets-of-a-superthief]. He robbed exclusively from rich neighborhoods and did it with mad style.
Beyond doing crime intelligently, we also have the capacity to disrupt the community aspects of policing. While there are infinite possibilities for this, here are three interesting departure points for you and your crew. The friendly face of community policing is sugary icing on a cake of shit. It's important to show the entire idea of "policing" as rotten at its core and to fight police attempts to insert themselves into neighborhood dialogue.
First, the local example. On March 13th, about 60 folks got together at Grant St. Park to barbecue "for a world without police." There was a free wall for graffiti, dank grub, and an awesome Know Your Rights workshop [http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/03/13/18674483.php]. By initiating conversations in the places we live, we can clarify our own position and make friends with our neighbors who feel similarly.
Secondly, we can disrupt the police department's attempts to legitimize itself. In Modesto, comrades staged a disruption [http://www.modestoanarcho.org/2010/12/masked-protesters-disrupt-police.html] of a police accreditation meeting. At a time when the MPD was attempting to pat itself on the back, people made sure everyone remembered that the MPD were murderers.
Lastly, comrades in Vancouver, BC, took space back from Community Policing efforts with a concerted vandalism campaign [http://confrontation.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/vandals-threaten-future-of-vancouverpolicing-centre/]. Eventually, the community policing center was forced to relocate. Community police forces can often act as the vanguard of gentrification, making a place more digestible to yuppies. Here is one of many ways that activity directed against the police intersects with other struggles.
Obviously, different forms of resistance are applicable to different contexts. Santa Cruz is the pilot city for a program that has the potential to change the shape of modern policing. With our shoulder to the wheel, let's make it a failure.

2011-07-16 "Man shot by SFPD dies from injuries"
[http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news%2Flocal%2Fsan_francisco&id=8254726]
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A man shot by police in the Bayview District Saturday afternoon has died from his injuries.
The shooting happened near the intersection of Third and Oakdale Streets in San Francisco around 4:40 p.m. Saturday.
Eyewitensses told ABC7 News the suspect, identified only as a 19-year-old man, de-boarded the T-Third Muni train without a ticket. When he was approached by police, the suspect fled and at one poitn was shot at several times by police, according to witnesses.
The suspect was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital. He was pronounced dead shortly after 7:00 p.m.
There's no word on what caused officers to open fire on the suspect. No other injuries were reported.
Portions of Third Street between Oakdale and Palau were briefly closed during the police investigation. Tactical police officers were called out to keep watch over a large crowd of onlookers in the minutes after the shooting.


2011-07-16 "Police shoot individual in Bayview" by Dan Schreiber
[http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/07/police-shoot-individual-bayview]
San Francisco police have shot a person in the Bayview district Saturday afternoon in what may be The City's second transit-related shooting in two weeks.
The shooting occurred about 4:30 p.m. near the Muni stop at Third Street and Oakdale Avenue. KGO (Ch. 7) reported that a man was shot at six to 10 times after getting off a T-Third Street light-rail train. The man did not have a valid fare and was running away from the train when shot to avoid paying a fine.
About three dozen police in riot gear were on the scene, with members of the neighborhood visibly upset. People who gathered at the Muni stop were throwing bottles at police, who had three blocks of Third Street blocked off, from Palou to Newcomb avenues.
The Fire Department was also on the scene and had a ladder going to the rooftop of a nearby building, possibly to search for a discarded weapon, according to police and fire officials.
On July 3, BART police officers shot and killed Charles Hill, who allegedly was drunk and wielding a broken bottle and one or two knives on the platform at the Civic Center station.

2011-07-11 Civil Rights protest at BART in honor of police murder victim Charles Hill

In this image from July 11, a protester denounces the BART police shooting of Charles Hill, pictured. Photo by Luke Thomas, fogcityjournal.com

2011-07-06 "Armed Citizens Confront Nazi Checkpoint" by Sov3rgn Fr33man
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/06/18683997.php]
Armed Bay Area residents confronted a nazi "show me your papers" checkpoint in Livermore, California on 4th of July weekend.
Police Departments use checkpoints to perform warrantless searches and steal vehicles from undocumented drivers. Based on their own statistics, the Livermore PD subjected 1200 drivers to unreasonable searches and only arrested TWO drunk drivers at this checkpoint. That means less than 0.17% of those asked "show me your papers" were drinking! Since 11 vehicles were towed, we can conclude that 82% of the vehicles were stolen from undocumented drivers or people with registration issues.
We all know the real reason they have these checkpoints. The cities and law enforcement agencies make MILLIONS ($40 million across CA in 2009) from these fascist checkpoints.
Organize against checkpoints in your area!
Join Abolish Checkpoints: http://www.facebook.com/AbolishCheckpoints

2011-06-26 "Homelessness in California is now punishable by a year in jail. Free Gary Johnson!" by Steven Argue [steveargue2 [at] yahoo.com] from "Liberation News"
[https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news]
For protesting on the county steps against Santa Cruz laws that make it illegal for the homeless to sleep at night, homeless activists Gary Johnson (no relation to Becky Johnson) and Attorney Ed Frey were sentenced to 6 months in jail on June 10th. Bail was set for Ed Frey, pending appeal, at $50,000. Their only act of civil disobedience was sleeping. This occurred at their three month protest called “Peace Camp 2010”. Revealing the political nature of the draconian sentences, Judge Gallagher told homeless activist Gary Johnson that he “could get some sleep in jail” before they were dragged away in chains for their 6 month sentences. The law they were protesting makes it illegal for the homeless to sleep at night, outside or in a vehicle.
On Friday, June 24, after two weeks in jail, Ed Frey was released on bail pending appeal with his bail of $50,000 dollars reduced to $110. Supporters quickly passed the hat and Ed Frey was released from jail on bail. Gary Johnson still sits in jail.
Also convicted for sleeping at the protest were Arthur Bishoff and Collette Connolly. A fifth protester, Christopher Doyon didn’t show up for the kangaroo court trial and bench warrant was issued. A sixth protester, Eliot Anderson was freed by a hung jury that failed to convict him. A juror said of the case, Anderson should not have to gas his dog to try to get into a shelter to legally sleep.
Many potential jurors were upset by the fact that they were to sit through a two week trial for the “crime” of sleep. One example was an elementary school teacher who said, "When I first came to Santa Cruz, I lived in my van for three years. During that time, I was hassled, arrested, and jailed. There is no way I could be impartial in this case considering the pain these people are suffering." A number of potential jurors said such things, but of course they never made it on to the jury. People who are aware of what is going on generally don’t make it onto juries in the United States. Those less aware people who made it onto the jury were told, in a typical manner, that they weren’t allowed to have their own opinions. In the oft repeated mantra of blind stupidity and injustice in America’s capitalist courts, Judge Gallagher told the jury, "Even if you disagree with the law, you must follow the law."
The four protesters were convicted of state anti-lodging law 647(E) for sleeping at the protest. Arthur Bishoff and Collette Connolly did not show up for the absurdity of sentencing and warrants were issued. Ed Frey and Gary Johnson were offered 400 hours of Community Service and 3 years probation for sleeping. In response, Gary Johnson, homeless, asked, "How can I take probation to obey all laws, when you've defined "sleeping" as lodging to the jury, making it a misdemeanor crime? How can I not sleep for six months during probation?" On basic principle and inability to comply, both Gary Johnson and Attorney Ed Frey turned down probation.
This was reminiscent of an earlier Santa Cruz case where Sandy Loranger did time in jail for feeding the homeless soup. When the judge offered her counseling instead of jail Sandy Loranger replied, "If feeding my fellow people is a crime, I am beyond rehabilitation."
The protest Gary Johnson, Ed Frey, Arthur Bishoff, and Collette Connolly were prosecuted for was peaceful in nature with the only act of civil disobedience being the illegal act of sleep outside. Basic protest facilities were included with Attorney Ed Frey providing the protesters with a needed port-a-potty. This helped provide the homeless with a safe place to sleep for months, despite the city government’s failure to provide such needed relief for its citizens.
The protest also shamed the city government into modifying the city’s law that makes it illegal for the homeless to sleep at night by providing a dismissal of the charges in court if the homeless being charged with sleep can show that they were on the waiting list for the insufficient shelter provided at the Homeless Service Center at the time they were ticketed. Other protests in the 1990s shamed the Santa Cruz City government into reducing the fine for sleeping at night outside or in a vehicle, but the Santa Cruz City Council continued to keep sleep at night for the homeless illegal at that time as well.
During those protests in the 1990s activists were arrested and brutalized by the infamously repressive Santa Cruz Police. Activist B.D. was tackled off his soap box and pepper sprayed by the Santa Cruz Police for giving a speech in favor of the homeless in front of numerous eyewitnesses and a video camera. In 1998 this author was beaten and arrested, spending four days in jail, for exercising my First Amendment right to distribute literature. It was literature in favor of rights for the homeless and opposed to police brutality.
The law for which Gary Johnson and Ed Frey were arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced was Penal Code Section 647(E), for “unlawful lodging”. This is a California state law. It was also recently used in August 2010 by the Santa Barbara Police to ticket Courtney Caswell-Peyton, a Santa Barbara disabled woman who fell asleep in her wheel chair. She showed-up for court worried about the possibility of getting her first conviction for any crime. Facing strong protest in that case, the Santa Barbara DA dismissed the charge in the “interests of justice”. While happy about not being convicted, she left court saying she was still homeless and questioning why she had no place to sleep.
Unlike the Santa Barbara dismissal, Gary Johnson, Ed Frey, Arthur Bishoff, and Collette Connolly were convicted in the notoriously bad Santa Cruz courts. Judge Gallagher is making an example of them for standing-up against the anti-homeless laws of Santa Cruz. The suspected reason cops charged the four with the state law rather than the Santa Cruz anti-sleeping law was a loophole where city laws didn’t apply because the protest was on county property. But, as a cop once told this author, “this is Santa Cruz; we can find a law for anything”. And find a law they did.
In 1983 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an earlier version of Penal Code Section 647(E) was unconstitutional in the case of Kolender v. Lawson. It was an anti-vagrancy law that was brought to the supreme court after it was used by San Diego Police to repeatedly harass a Black man with dread locks who was committing no real crime. As a result of that Supreme Court ruling that version of Penal Code Section 647(E) was repealed by the state legislature in 2008.
Since the overturning of the original 647(E) a new version was passed by the State Legislature which states, “Who lodges in any building, structure, vehicle, or place, whether public or private, without the permission of the owner or person entitled to the possession or in control of it” “are guilty of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor". Lodging is being used as a euphemism for sleeping here. This is the law the four protesters were convicted under.
In May 2011, this anti-homeless law 647 (E) was made even worse with the State Legislature making a second violation punishable of up to a year in jail and $2,000 fine. So now homelessness in the state of California is punishable by up to a year in jail if one is caught doing it twice.
Voting for this worsened anti-homeless law were Democrats and Republicans alike, including local Santa Cruz Democrat and darling of many reformist liberals, Bill Monning. Monning voted for that increased penalty at the same time that the people who actually stand-up for human rights were fighting the constitutionality of the law in court with their freedom on the line.
Here is a full list of those who voted for the worsened anti-homeless law: Achadjian, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall, Beth Gaines, Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Campos, Carter, Charles Calderon, Chesbro, Cook, Davis, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Galgiani, Gatto, Gordon, Grove, Hagman, Halderman, Hall, Harkey, Hayashi, Hill, Huber, Hueso, Huffman, Jeffries, John A. Pérez, Jones, Knight, Lara, Logue, Ma, Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Pan, Perea, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Swanson, V. Manuel Pérez, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski, Williams, and Yamada.
None voted against.
As the California state government, dominated by Democrats, passes anti-working class austerity and extremely harsh anti-homeless legislation, the Democrat holding power in Washington, Obama, wages wars in an increasing number of the world’s countries for the profit of arms manufacturers, oil corporations, and other imperialist capitalists and locks-up suspected whistle blower on U.S. crimes against humanity, Bradley Manning, under intolerable conditions. Bradley Manning is accused of releasing the helicopter footage that shows U.S. troops nonchalantly gunning down civilians including journalists, first aid respondents, and children in cold blood. Instead of charges of murder for those who committed it, it is Bradley Manning who goes to prison under Obama. Likewise, billions that could be used in a saner society for housing, healthcare, and education are squandered on war.
Meanwhile, the local Democrats in power in Santa Cruz send out their county and city cops to silence protests for human rights for the homeless, support legislation against immigrants like the “Secure Communities” program, and threaten to cut the already meager wages of In Home Support Workers, wages needed to provide the care that helps keep the disabled, elderly, and dying in their homes. While Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty supports the city’s anti-homeless laws, police repression, and has signed on with the anti-immigrant “Secure Communities” program, he opposes measures that would help fight homelessness like an increase in the minimum wage and has been part of carrying out austerity that includes the lay-off of workers and cuts in homeless services while at the same time hiring more cops.
[ ... ]
Free Gary Johnson! Overturn the Convictions of Ed Frey, Arthur Bishoff, Collette Connolly! Hands Off Christopher Doyon! End Laws making it Illegal for the Homeless to Sleep at Night! Seize Housing From the Banks for those Who Need Housing! For a Nation Wide Jobs Program Building Housing for All!

2011-06-28 "Gary Johnson is Out on Bail!" from Steven Argue -
Forwarded message from Gary Johnson: "I JUST got out on bail (pending Appeal), from (eventually Minimum) Medium Security Jail in Watsonville (aka The Farm)."

2011-07-02 Update on the Case of Gary Johnson
Gary Johnson was released from jail earlier this week PENDING APPEAL, after over two weeks in jail. Like Attorney Ed Frey, he still faces the continuation of his 6 month in jail sentence for sleeping at the “Peace Camp 2010” protest against anti-sleeping laws.
This week the following motion in solidarity with the case was passed by the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality & State Repression regarding these cases and laws:
“The "Oscar Grant Committee, to Stop Police Brutality and State Repression" considers the Santa Cruz ordinance against "sleeping in public" to be UNJUST . particularly in the light of the ongoing housing crisis spreading across the country, where millions of people have been turned out of their homes do to the ongoing economic depression.
“We demand that all the charges against Homeless Rights Organizer Gary Johnson and others arrested, that occurred as a result of the peaceful non-violent homeless rights protest be dropped and any convictions overturned.
“We offer our solidarity and support to Gary Johnson and his supporters in the struggle for Human Rights and Dignity for the homeless.”
******* Send messages of support for Gary Johnson, Ed Frey, Arthur Bishoff, Collette Connolly, and Christopher Doyon and opposition to these laws to: steveargue2@yahoo.com