2011-08-15 Anonymous - "OpBART" photos

Nick Bilton/The New York Times
Riot police stood at the ready on the train platform as protestors began blocking train doors while taunting officers and BART officials.

Nick Bilton/The New York Times
An Anonymous member wearing the group’s signature Guy Fawkes mask answered questions about the protests.

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
Anonymous members also protested on the street outside some San Francisco train stations.

Nick Bilton/The New York Times
After protestors became rowdy, BART police encircled the train platform as they prepared to close down the train station.

An unidentified protester uses his cell phone during a protest at the Civic Center BART station in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 15, 2011. Cellphone service was operating as protesters gathered at the San Francisco subway station during rush-hour several days after transit officials shut wireless service to head off another demonstration. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Tom Comitta holds a phone handset up while protesting at the BART Civic Center sttation in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 15, 2011. Cellphone service was operating as protesters gathered at the San Francisco subway station during rush-hour several days after transit officials shut wireless service to head off another demonstration. Photo: Jeff Chiu / AP

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press
In response to BART officials’ killing cellular service in stations over the weekend during a similar protest, several protestors held cellphones and chanted, “Can you hear me now?”

(Photo: Reuters )
A protester holds up a sign on a Bay Area Rapid Transit train during a demonstration at the Civic Center Station in San Francisco, Aug. 15, 2011.

Jevon Cochran, left, and protesters stand in the door of a BART train at the Civic Center station in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 15, 2011. Photo: Jeff Chiu / AP
(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Obligatory Guy Fawkes mask. Anonymous protested BART on Monday, August 15, 2011 for their policies on disrupting communication in their stations. [Photo: Lauren Crabbe]
ABOVE: Protesters (and media…well, mostly media) rush a car during the Anonymous protest of Civic Center BART Station on August 15, 2011. [Photo: Lauren Crabbe]

Justice for Rahiem Brown

2011-08-12 "Bay Area Residents Demand Disbandment of School Police after the killing of Raheim Brown" by rebecca
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/08/12/18687451.php?show_comments=1#18687530]
Demonstrators marched to Oakland Unified School District's headquarters to call for justice in the police murder of Raheim Brown Jr.
Wednesday, demonstrators packed Oakland Unified School District’s monthly board meeting to demand the board be held liable in the killing of twenty-year-old Raheim Brown by Oakland School Police at Skyline High School in January.
More than one hundred Bay Area residents rallied in front of the OUSD building on 2nd Ave and e10th Street in Oakland to call for the immediate disbandment of the school police and the firing of Officers Barhin Bhatt and Jonathan Bellusa who shot Brown multiple times after claiming he brandished a screw driver. The only civilian witness on the scene, Tamisha Stewart, says Bellusa and Bhatt murdered Brown after calling him racist epithets, that Brown was unarmed and not a threat to the police.
Brown’s mother, Lori Davis, who co-organized Wednesday's rally with the support of Idriss Stelley Foundation, noted that Bellusa was hired by Oakland School Police after he was let go from OPD following concerns stemming from his questionable use of force.
Protesters cited the recent cop killing of Mark Duggan in London last Thursday that sparked a number of rebellions in the city and urged Oakland to rise up and challenge a global system that empowers police to murder civilians with impunity.
A six-year-old Oakland student present at the rally told the board that he didn’t “want to be scared of the police” at school. The board had no comment.
****
August 20th, there will be a demonstration organized by Idriss Stelley Foundation at San Francisco City Hall calling for a Bay Area wide coalition of individuals and networks fighting against police brutality. Organizers hope to create a police accountability taskforce. Speakers will begin at 2:30pm.
Idriss Stelley Foundation was founded by Stelley’s mother, Mesha Irizarry, after Stelley was killed by SFPD in 2001.

2011-08-12 photograph by Rebecca showing Ms. Davis holding autopsy photos of her son after he was killed by Oakland School Police January 22, 2011
2011-08-12 photograph by Rebecca showing Lori Davis speaking to supporters
2011-08-12 photograph by Rebecca showing "Labor, Black & Brown" [LBB] supportes of Justice for Raheim Brown
2011-08-12 photograph by Rebecca showing the march
2011-08-12 photograph by Rebecca co-director of Education not Incarceration, Jeremy Miller
2011-08-12 photograph by Rebecca Jabari from Laney College Black Student Union

2011-08-12 "BART cuts cell phone service to stop protest" by By David Edwards
[http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/bart-cuts-cell-phone-service-to-thwart-protest/]
A planned protest of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) fizzled Thursday after officials reportedly cut cell phone services at some stations.
BART spokesman Linton Johnson told a KTVU reporter, who had noticed the disruption, that the public relations department had suggested that phone service be shut down.
Another BART spokesman, Jim Allison, reportedly admitted that the tactic had been “part of a larger strategy.” [http://sfappeal.com/news/2011/08/bart-cell-service-block-possible-but-not-in-effect-for-tonights-possible-protest.php]
But Allison later claimed that he had been mistaken and phone service was not blocked.
“I haven’t been able to find another incident in which this has happened,” criminologist Casey Jordan told CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux Friday. “I think perhaps it is unprecedented, and yet that’s how these legal issues come to light and get debated. Whether it’s legal or not it hasn’t been tested in the courts. Public safety exceptions to or encroachments on our personal freedoms do happen.”
“A lot of people are wondering, what happened to freedom of speech, assembly without government interference that’s protected by the First Amendment?” Malveaux asked.
“They didn’t try to shut down the protest. They simply turned off the cell service so it couldn’t become viral,” Jordan explained. “It really is just a cost/benefit analysis of where your freedom of speech begins to threaten the public safety.”
The group No Justice, No BART [http://nojusticenobart.blogspot.com/] had called for the protest following a string of killings by BART police.
“We are fighting for justice for Charles Hill, Oscar Grant, Fred Collins, Bruce Seward, Jerrold Hall, Robert Greer, and all victims of BART police violence and murder,” the group said. “We demand that BART disband its murderous, inept, corrupt police department.”
Watch this video from CNN’s Newsroom, broadcast Aug. 12, 2011.


Comment at [http://www.federaljack.com/?p=96262]
August 13, 2011 at 10:01 am
Jim says:
Federal Communications Act of 1934, written well before anyone had so much as heard of a cellphone, makes it illegal for any entity other than the federal government to block radio signal broadcasts
Operation of such ‘jamming technology’ is flatly illegal under Section 333 of the Communications Act
As the FCC previously acknowledged, Congress has been clear in prohibiting the use of jammers in state prisons
The Feds should prosecute them!!!

FREEDOM FROM VIOLENCE AND POLICE STATE TERROR

Time Saturday, August 20 · 2:30pm - 5:00pm
Location In front of SF City Hall, Polk Street side, between Grove & McAllister
Created By La Mesha Irizarry
Please join our facebook group at "Idriss Stelley Foundation"!

On the 34th Birthday of Idriss Stelley, Killed by SFPD on 6-12-01 at the Sony Metreon Complex,
The event is meant to launch a citywide police accountability and transparency COLLECTIVE comprised of socially mindful grassroots entities , social/racial Justice activists, and "progressive "city officials, as well as mayoral candidates, HOLD THEM TO THEIR PROMISES !
Performances, music, spoken word, and speakers.

Justice for Rahiem Brown

2011-08-10 photograph showing protesters marching to the Oakland School Board meeting demanding Justice for Rahiem Brown & armed cops out of the schools.

ISF/OGC activist Jeremy Miller rallying up the crowd at the "Justice for Raheim Brown" protest & march in Oakland 8/10/11.

2011-08-07 "Smart-mouthing police not a crime, jury finds" by Tamara Barak Aparton
[http://sfbayview.com/2011/smart-mouthing-police-not-a-crime-jury-finds/]
Tamara Barak Aparton, communications and policy assistant in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, can be reached at Tamara.Aparton@sfgov.org.
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San Francisco − A young man who responded to a police officer’s harassment with a profane zinger was found not guilty on July 22 of five misdemeanors, San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi announced.
Jurors deliberated over four hours before acquitting San Francisco resident Chris Christopher, 22, of delaying or obstructing an officer with threat of violence, battery on a police officer and three counts of resisting arrest.
Christopher is the second public defender client acquitted this week of resisting arrest after police officers used excessive force. On Wednesday, 35-year-old Benjamin King was found not guilty of felony assault with a deadly weapon on an officer and misdemeanor resisting arrest. More about that case can be found at http://bit.ly/riM2UN.
Christopher, who had no criminal record, was arrested April 9, 2010, at Newhall Street and La Salle Avenue in San Francisco’s Bayview District, said his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Erin Haney.
Christopher had been sitting in a legally parked car with a family friend when his mother spotted the pair and pulled up in her vehicle to chat. A police officer approached Christopher’s mother, who was parked illegally, and asked for her identification. Instead of ticketing her, however, the officer moved on to the legally parked car to question Christopher, who had committed no infraction, Haney said.
The officer asked Christopher his name, but expressed disbelief when the young man answered honestly with “Chris Christopher.” When he asked again, an annoyed Christopher shot back, “What if I tell you it’s Fuck You?”
“It wasn’t respectful, but it was well within Mr. Christopher’s First Amendment rights,” Haney said. “There’s nothing in the penal code about having a smart mouth. In fact, citizens in this nation are encouraged to speak out against government harassment and oppression. The First Amendment protects that right, even when the speech is offensive.”
The officer became angry and a verbal argument ensued, Haney said. Police claimed Christopher reached under the seat and said: “How do you know I don’t have a gun? Cops get shot all the time.” However, witnesses at the nearly two-day trial testified Christopher never threatened the officer.
“Mr. Christopher knows that suggesting he has a gun and reaching for it is a death wish,” Haney said. Additionally, witnesses testified to Mr. Christopher’s reputation for peace-keeping and nonviolence in the community.
When police pushed Christopher’s mother and family friend out of the way, the young man exited the car and yelled at officers to take their hands off his mother. He then complied with police orders to get back into the vehicle.
“Several officers then extracted him from the car by choking him while his mother watched and screamed, ‘That’s my son. Stop it. He can’t breathe,’” Haney said.
Jurors voted not guilty after Haney argued that police had no right to detain Christopher, used excessive force and were not in lawful performance.
“This is your city,” Haney told jurors during her closing argument. “Mr. Christopher has the same rights you have. He has the same rights your son has. If this constitutes lawful performance, when then can Mr. Christopher ever walk out of his house and not be subject to police action? Mr. Christopher does not live in a police state. In the Bayview, you have the same rights as you do in Pacific Heights.”
Adachi said this week’s two acquittals – the other of a Black jaywalker outside the Powell Street BART Station who struck back instinctively after police struck him so hard on the knee with a billy club that it broke and a fragment stuck in his hand – show that San Francisco juries will act to place limits on the authority of police.
“Mr. Christopher was rightfully exonerated in a case that was overcharged and over-exaggerated. While using foul language in conversing with a police officer may not be polite, the jury found that it doesn’t justify five misdemeanor charges,” Adachi said.