by Tony Couto

In the immediate aftermath of the July 16 shootings on Danzig St. in Scarborough, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford took the airwaves on AM640 and in his predictably racist and idiotic style pledged “to find out how our immigration laws work” so he could expel those convicted of gun crimes in Toronto: “I don’t care if you’re an immigrant or not, if you get caught with a gun, I want to find out the legalities of are you allowed to stay here or are you not… I’m sure it falls under some sort of immigration law.”

Ford’s remarks would have been laughable were they not echoing the disturbing trend of the Federal government to link crime (speciously) to immigration.  Take for instance Federal Bill C-43, what is being called the “Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act”.  If passed, this legislation would allow for the deportation of any non-citizen who has received a sentence of six months or more for any crime carrying a ten-year maximum sentence, beefing up the Conservatives’ anti-immigrant and anti-refugee arsenal of laws.

Ford the anti-tax crusader also seized upon the Danzig incident as an opportunity to express his opposition to social programming: “I don’t believe in these programs – I call them hug-a-thug programs.”  So, the users of community arts and sports programs in Toronto’s designated “priority neighbourhoods” are all thugs?  Ford continued, “[these programs] haven’t been very productive in the past” – arguing through assertion not reason –“and I don’t know why they are continuing with them.”  Ford routinely uses the popular appeal of his anti-tax cause – a major factor that got him elected – to attack social spending and attack unions. But when it comes to police spending, however, Ford’s City Hall has no problems throwing billions into the law-and-order abyss.

The official police budget for 2012 was previously projected at $936 million; but as Ford began demanding of Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty extra funding for police as advisor close to Ford revealed that that Toronto is already spending closer to $1.2 billion on policing. On July 23, McGuinty technically declined Ford’s request for $5-10 million to fund new officers, but he did the next best thing for the pro-cop agenda by pledging to permanently fund the so-called Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS) to the tune of $5 million a year.  McGuinty made himself more palatable to the public than Ford by paying some lip service to social programming and taking a more “balanced approach” to gun violence. But McGuinty’s announcement for the fast tracking of $500,000 through the so-called Safer and Vital Communities Program is not a counter-balance to the more-cops approach: it’s a extension of it.

To receive grants through this program, organizations and agencies must be willing to work with the police.  This funding criterion will exclude all those organizations that acknowledge police brutality and profiling/carding in the “priority neighbourhoods” as a serious problem and are unwilling to collaborate with the police as a condition for the provision of social services.

While in Toronto for his July 24 meeting with Mayor Rob Ford at the ‘Gun Summit’, in addition to talking up Bill C-43, Harper defended his general ‘law and order’ agenda: defending elements of his Omnibus Crime Bill that judges have deemed unconstitutional or in violation of the Charter; and promoting a private member’s bill, C-394 (Criminal Organization Recruitment), recently introduced by Conservative MP Parm Gill of Brampton-Springdale. Gill recently said of the proposed legislation that “Criminal organizations today are targeting youth under the age of 12 and as young as 8 years-old to participate in criminal activity… There is a dire need to protect our communities from those who prey on innocent and vulnerable individuals.”  What’s objectionable to this bill is not only the provision of the police and the courts with yet another law to criminalize youth; but its emphasis on petty criminal enterprises (would anything but a petty criminal enterprise recruit an 8 year-old?) when there exist much bigger players behind the guns and drugs game.

In a joint public statement from Toronto-based Filipino and Latino community organizations concerning events in the wake of the Danzig shootings, Pablo Vivanco of Barrio Nuevo raised this exact point: “We also need to start asking where these guns are coming from, who is bringing them into this City and why.  These youth are not making or smuggling guns, so we need to acknowledge that there are bigger things at play and target the real players in this morbid game.”  In this whole debate on gun crime, the giant elephant in the middle of the room that the media, police, and politicians are refusing to acknowledge is the role played by larger criminal syndicates – nothing short of a conspiracy of silence.

The influence of organized crime in Canada has been hitting the headlines in Quebec in recent months with a public inquiry exploring the links between the construction industry, the mafia, and Quebec’s political parties.  The assassination of a series of major mob figures in Montreal has also in forced the issue of organized crime back into the mainstream.  But are illegal donations to political parties and unfair public contracts the worst of it for the mob these days?

Then there’s the vast network built up by the Hell’s Angels over the last decade.  It’s no secret that the Hell’s Angels – on the surface an all-white biker club – fronts for a large criminal network embedded within and around it.

Considering the very existence of large criminal enterprises like these, it isn’t a quantum leap to the arrive at the conclusion that there must be greater forces behind the guns and drugs flooding into and fracturing working-class communities in cities like Toronto.  Yet it’s in our communities where the policing and criminalization is concentrated and where the violent scramble for market share plagues youth gang culture.

That impoverished racialized communities end up experiencing the bulk of the violence should come as no surprise when we analyze the socio-economic reality we’re left with: a shrinking pool of jobs for youth and their parents; rising tuition fees of post-secondary education (not to mention the alienating experience of racist curricula and administrators in high schools); rising costs of living; cuts to social programming; and the broad criminalization, profiling, and discrimination of racialized youth that push many out of the job market to begin with. Now throw into this mix of desperate circumstances the prospect of making a quick buck in the petty drug trade made possible by larger criminal syndicates reaching down into “priority neighbourhoods” for candidates to move their product, and what you get is a violent scramble for market share and domination. The big gangsters are getting paid behind the scenes regardless of the violence happening on the ground; and this violence gives the cops a cause for crusade, the politicians an election issue, and big capitalists a sense of security that the armed apparatus of the state is getting stronger and stronger at a time when the masses of people are getting poorer and more desperate.

The tragic shootings on Danzig St. on July 16 should definitely have us asking questions about violence in our communities and searching for solutions. But these questions, and the answers that must follow, are not the ones being posed by Rob Ford, Dalton McGuinty, Bill Blair, and Stephen Harper, these enemies of the people who are exploiting the Danzig tragedy to beef up police forces; peddle their racist, anti-immigrant, anti-people, and anti-social policies.  These policies are not solutions to gun violence and crime: they’re desperate measures to stabilize a decaying capitalist society by dividing and containing the people.

The question that remains is how much the law enforcement agencies and politicians actually know about the relationship of larger criminal enterprises to the guns and drugs in our communities.  Just for the record, that’s not an appeal to power: it’s an indicment of it.

Open letter from Jane Finch Action Against Poverty (JFAAP) to the Toronto Police Services Board

July 24, 2012

Attention: Toronto Police Services Board
40 College Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5G 2J3

Chair and Board Members;

We want to bring to your attention some very destructive activities by Superintendent Dave McLeod of 31 Division. On Friday, June 8th 2012, the Jane Finch Crisis Support Network convened a meeting of its members at Black Creek Community Health Center, Yorkgate Mall. This is a network of agencies and engaged residents who work together around issues of safety in our community. This was a regular monthly meeting.

Superintendent David McLeod of 31 Division arrived at this meeting. He had not been expressly invited; however, it was assumed that he had been passed on the invitation from a member of the police from a meeting held the previous week. The agenda was set and there were multiple opportunities and offers to people present to add items to the agenda. Superintendent McLeod did not add anything to the agenda.

What followed was a traumatic event for all those present. Superintendent McLeod hijacked the meeting with his own agenda item. He repeatedly verbally attacked the meeting’s chair, Sabrina (Butterfly) Gopaul, calling a quote from her in an interview with the Boss Magazine, “borderline criminal” behaviour.  Ms. Gopaul had stated in this interview that what she was most passionate about making happen in the Jane-Finch community was “a community led resistance against the police and working towards global comradeship against the austerity knife.”

Superintendent David McLeod was severe, unrelenting, and intimidating in his manner. Members of the network at the meeting stated on several occasions that this was inappropriate, that this was not the space or time to have this discussion, and that he should stop pursuing this topic, but he continued.

When members stated that she had a Charter Right to freedom of speech, he responded that as a community leader, she did not have that right. He then attempted to tell the group how to do their work, that they should not support Butterfly or this position on the police. In spite of the group’s opposition to his position, he continued to repeat himself.

In spite of his inappropriate behaviour, the other members remained calm, attempted to redirect the conversation, and tried to handle the matter professionally. This did not stop the superintendent, but it did stop any productive discussion. Many members left the meeting when the Superintendent refused to back down. He denied that he was being intimidating even after members had left the room and several others were crying.

Eventually the meeting was adjourned as the chair had no choice but to leave, the network was unable to do any of its work, and everyone there expressed that they felt intimated and bullied.

The actions of Superintendent McLeod at this meeting and at least one other community meeting has shown clearly that he has no understanding of the damage that he is doing in the community. He clearly does not understand the legal principles involved in the Charter of Rights. He demonstrated the lack of skills and professionalism in dealing with the community and he misused the authority and privileges that our city has given him that allow him to have a badge and carry a gun in our neighbourhood.

We believe that your officer, Dave McLeod, is improperly employed in the position of Superintendent of 31 Division or any other similar positions and demand to see him removed from that position as soon as possible.

Background: Ms. Gopaul and many others have seen numerous problems with the police service in our community. We have seen a number of cases where there have been no consequences for officers who abuse their authority on the streets, in their cars and in the station. The result of this has been emotional scaring, lack of trust and resentment towards the police and, in some cases, like Junior Manon,

death. We see our youth afraid to walk the streets of our communities
because of the racial profiling activities of your officers.

Thank you for taking all these serious concern and our demand into
your prompt consideration. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Jane-Finch Action Against Poverty (JFAAP)

janefinchactionagainstpoverty@gmail.com
Jfaap.wordpress.com
416-760-2677

Review by Noaman G. Ali / Photos by Steve da Silva

Rating: 4/4

Last week I sat in a meeting called by a councillor in one of Toronto’s “priority neighbourhoods,” populated by immigrants and working-class folks.

He talked about how the police run drop-in programs for youth so that they can get to know them, and keep an eye on them, so that they can easily question youth about other youth who they are running with and get them to snitch.  When these youth grow up and maybe get into trouble, police will know who they are beforehand. The youths will be “known to police.”

“Known to police” is a phrase that gets tacked onto mainstream media reports about a lot of crime and violence. “Known to police” is supposed to mean that the persons involved were already suspicious, shady, irresponsible to begin with. Isn’t this what they said about Ahmed Hassan after he was shot dead at the Eaton Center on June 2, or Nixon Nirmalendran, who died of his wounds over a week later?  Maligned, not mourned.  What the media didn’t tell us was that one of the main reasons Nixon was known to police was for witnessing Alwy Al-Nadhir’s murder at the hands of police on the night of October 31, 2007.

For those of us who don’t live the daily reality of police terror in this city, Jane and Finch’s resident people’s theatre troupe, Nomanzland, offers us a glimpse into what it’s like to be “known to police”:

It’s about neighbourhoods that are systematically ignored, neglected and oppressed. It’s about youths who have no job options, even when they get university degrees, because of their race and class status in a system where there’s a lack of jobs overall. It’s about families trying to make ends meet and build community in difficult conditions. It’s about politicians and developers trying to make a quick buck off of the land on which poor people live through “revitalization.”

And it’s about treating children and youths as criminals or potential criminals — about dealing with problems through racist and oppressive policing rather than through building communities and providing opportunities to the people there.

‘Known to Police’ doesn’t try to hide any of the problems of the hood. It lays them out for us to see — it revolves around two beefing youth, Dante and Kelvin, who are involved in criminal activities. But it also shows us the lived realities of the peoples involved, and that the problems aren’t with individuals but with the system that they live in.

We meet a group of women who are organizing against politicians’ and developers’ attempts at “revitalizing” — that is, gentrifying — the neighbourhood. We meet an OG revolutionary who resolves the beefing and seeks to unify the hood to build a revolutionary movement. We meet mothers who are single-handedly raising their families and keeping their kids on the right track. We meet people who tried to escape the violence of their homelands (caused by Canada and other Western powers’ imperialism) only to find themselves facing violence in the hood.

We see the cops killing yet another youth in the hood, and getting away with it – a likely reference to Junior Manon’s murder on York University campus on May 5, 2010.  We also meet an undercover cop entrapping youth in a web of violence by selling them the same guns that they’re banging out on each other.

All of this is put in the context of world revolution — the uprisings of working people in Egypt and Tunisia are our backdrop. Rhymes, raps and songs are dropped throughout the play — all of them written by the actors themselves. And the acting is amazing, it’s easy to forget that we’re watching a play. (No doubt, because so many of them are from the neighbourhood.)

The play was raw enough to provoke an older, white audience member to ask which parts of the play are based on actual events? “All of it. All of it” – answer a number of cast members, almost in sync.

In the end, the youth of Nomanzland tell us that there are no easy solutions to the problems — and that we certainly can’t rely on politicians of any party. Instead, just like the peoples of the Arab uprisings, communities have to organize to build self-reliant organizations and build their own power to take on the cops, the politicians and developers.

They tell us that we need a proper revolution.

Known to Police was performed at the Young People’s Theatre, June 15-17. Hit up Nomanzland and get them to perform the play in your hood.

Prof. JOSE MARIA SISON
Chairperson, ILPS International Coordinating Committee

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS)  condemns the racist murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, on 27 February! The hearts of our members in 43 countries are with his family in their time of loss. We condemn the Sanford police for letting his killer walk free! We stand with the tens of thousands around the United States who are taking to the streets to demand justice.

The police-sanctioned vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin cannot be separated from the daily, systematic and massive state violence – police harassment, false arrest, mass incarceration and murder – inflicted on Black, Latino, Native, Asian and all people of color in the United States, especially youth! Racist police and state violence in the United States constitutes a crime against humanity.

Neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin to death in cold blood. He said he thought Martin looked “suspicious” because he wore a hooded sweatshirt. The unarmed young Black man was begging for his life. Yet police let Zimmerman walk free and acted as though Trayvon Martin, who carried only a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles candy, was the criminal. Read more…

The Toronto Police Service has really started the year off with a bang. Several to be exact.

On January 6th in the Crossroads Power Plaza at Weston Rd. & Hwy 401 police responded to a call about a man with a knife just after Noon. A dozen police cars surrounded him, officers armed with both handguns and shotguns shouting demands and pointing their weapons. Civilian responses vary some saying that he would occasionally produce a knife from his jacket and wave it around, clearly mentally off, others who don’t remember seeing any weapon, “his hands were at his sides.” However the man, who witnesses also all agree looked homeless, was confirmed to have not harmed or attacked anyone. And yet, after apparently refusing to drop his weapon, he was shot at least three times. The victim managed to recover from life threatening injuries in hospital, has not had his identity published as of yet, and the SIU is investigating. However owners and customers in the plaza at the time of the violence note they were told by police to leave immediately afterwards, instead of waiting to be questioned as witnesses, or asked to fill out reports by the SIU.

Then on February 3rd at 10:15 am, as the inquest into the police beating-death of Junior Manon was taking place at the coroner’s court at Yonge and Grovsner, Toronto Police officers summarily executed another young black man in chilling circumstances. Clad only in a hospital gown and socks Michael Eligon, 29 year-old father of one, was shot several times on Milverton Blvd. near Coxwell and Danforth only a few minutes after he had fled Toronto East General, (where he was being held over four days for observation, for an undisclosed mental condition). His foster-sister was on her way to pick him up, having spoken to Michael on the phone just two hours prior, when she ran into a web of police tape and the tragic news of Eligon’s death. He left the hospital around 10AM holding a pair of scissors, and soon stumbled into a Convenience Store with a blank expression. The clerk who tried to shoo him away was nicked by the scissors and proceeded to call police. A renovator called cops again when Eligon made his way into a backyard, but is now ashamed and disgusted of his role in what he saw happen next. “More than anything he was afraid…he looked scared…he seemed like he wanted to hide.” Soon, according to the renovator, Eligon was surrounded by dozens of cops on foot and in vehicles, cutting off the intersection and drawing their weapons. Rather than calm the victim down the witness recalls officers shouting and rushing Michael, causing him to panic further. And when he didn’t drop his scissors, and either made a move to flee or was pushed from behind, an officer shot him three times in the chest and shoulder. Several other officers proceeded to stomp, kick and pin his dying body to the ground.

“You guys just took a life, and now I feel crap because I was the one who called you over to help me so we can kind of sedate him somehow. That wasn’t the kind of sedate that I expected… They were kicking him, stomping him. There was no need for that.”

And then February 20th, less than three weeks later near Dupont and Lansdowne, 48-year old Frank Anthony Berry met his end at the end of a cop’s barrel. He was supposedly masked, trying to break into a car and holding a knife- but also attempting to flee officers into neighbouring backyards when he was shot (initial reports confirm multiple gunshots, TPS won’t say how many).

As municipal workers face a butchering of their jobs and benefits….as another round of cuts is forced down our throats by the province…we get another view of what austerity will mean for the poorest people in this city: The state’s security force, bolstered by higher salaries, increased funding, and a draconian Crime Bill- That’s decided to go on a killing spree.

by Ashley M.

“They trespass our bodies, like they trespass our land… we fail them…This war is at home… Under treaties of silence.”              —Ryan Red Corn

According to research conducted by the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NAWC), over 600 indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing in the last 30 years and the government of Canada has been actively complicit in this violence.


On February 14, 2012, I joined the many people gathered in front of police headquarters to remember lives lost.  No More Silence, The Native Youth Sexual Health Network, The Native Women’s Resource Centre and other Indigenous and feminist organizations were part of the Toronto organizing committee of the 7th Annual February 14 No More Silence National Day of Action.


The Toronto demonstration was just one the many held nationally on this day; part of the ongoing independent efforts nationally to raise awareness and actively mobilize communities to end violence against Indigenous women.


Through music, stories, poetry and spoken word, men, women and children, allies, friends and family gathered to remember all those who have lost their lives because of indifference. Community members showed support for the family members of those who have lost their mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and friends whereas the government has chosen not to.


Audrey Huntley writes in a New Socialist article that “No More Silence has always understood the disappearances in the context of ongoing genocidal policies.”


Genocidal tactics like the residential school system that aimed to apprehend children from their own communities and assimilate them into ‘society’.


“Justice Murray Sinclair says the United Nations defines genocide to include the removal of children based on race, then placing them with another race to indoctrinate them… for the purpose of racial indoctrination was—and is—an act of genocide and it occurs all around the world,” citing an article excerpt by Chinta Puxley.


For Krysta Williams, one of the organizers part of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network, the rally is important because, “It’s about remembering because so much of colonization is about forgetting—who we are, whose land you’re on, our languages, etc. I would also say that this doesn’t ‘impact’ our work so much as it informs it. What we do in community, at the grassroots is what informs and drives the rest of the work.”


She reflects on the words of Wanda Whitebird (who conducted the ceremony this year and for the last 7 years, “We made a promise to the women who have passed on that we would do this every year.”


The demonstration was followed by a community feast and open mic at the 519 Church Street Community Centre. The open mic allowed people to speak about their struggles, triumphs and pain of dealing with the loss of their loved ones coupled with the painful indifference of lawmakers but emphasizing the need to continue the fight for justice.


A beautiful video poem was screened called, “To the Indigenous Woman”. The powerful film was made by the 1491s, and was written and performed by Ryan Red Corn.

“The film really highlights everyone’s complicity in violence, and from the perspective of someone who, in the film, has committed violence” said Krysta. The film was created to raise awareness to end the epidemic of violence against Native Women in the U.S. for the Indian Law  Resource Center legal campaign,  www.indianlaw.org.


The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) was created in 1979 by the UN General Assembly and is often seen as an international human rights policy foundation just for women.


When asked what the February 14th Committee’s future plans were, Krysta said, “We’re currently taking our lead from women in the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver who are wanting to pressure the Canadian federal government  in making sure they agree to the inquiry. There’s been some confusion around how the optional protocol works (which Canada signed and ratified in 2002) and whether CEDAW has officially made a decision to investigate Canada.”


The ultimate goal: raise their voices and continue to push for an investigation that there are indeed violations of CEDAW and that this violence in unacceptable.


The memorial will carry on until this inquiry begins, until the violence stops, action is taken and will continue to be organized to remember those that are not forgotten.


The murders and disappearances of Indigenous women for over 30 years, and the government’s inaction, makes us ask: how is that possible in a supposed ‘democratic, developed, progressive’ country like Canada with policies that shun violence against women on paper?
It begs the question, what kind of women are the priority?


Are we not all protected by the laws that grant us ‘freedom’ from violence? What’s so different in the case of Indigenous women? It is clear to me that the state is sending the message that Indigenous women don’t matter by actively ignoring the issue, thus promoting indifference to all settlers.


It’s important to understand the colonial genocidal remnants of the justice system. As settlers on this land, it’s important for us to understand our role in seeking justice for all by looking past what has been taught to us (such as being grateful for being ‘accepted’ into Canada) and look back on what really happened after colonization.


Understanding that these policies that have been put in place have affected settlers who have come here and are continually exploited by the state is important as well.


“Reflecting back on organizing such an important vigil, is there anything that you want to say to our readers?”, I asked.


She replied, “Come out next year! Oh and settlers, remember whose land you’re on!”

by Kabir Joshi-Vijayan

On the evening of May 5th 2010, 18-year old Junior Alejandro Manon was driving with a friend near Keele & Steeles when he was pulled over for expired plates. On probation and not allowed behind the wheel of a car, Junior fled impending arrest.

Thirteen minutes later his bruised, broken and bloodied body lay slumped without vital signs at the feet of seven officers.
A Coroner’s Inquest into the case was launched on January 16th, mandatory with any death-in-police-custody case—but admittedly an impotent and toothless charade that, as declared by cop and coroner’s counsels alike, is “fact finding, not fault finding.”

In other words, no matter how clear it becomes that an unarmed teen was violently murdered, his executioners will face neither charges nor condemnation. That ship sailed when the Special Investigations Unit (the provincial body that decides whether to lay charges when cops beat, shoot, run over or otherwise kill/seriously injure a suspect or bystander) completed its friendly inspection, and found no wrongdoing had occurred.

That’s the same verdict they’ve given in 98% of all cases.

Junior, they concluded, died from “positional asphyxia”- his chest was under too much pressure during his lawful arrest and he suffocated. Those ‘findings’ are the basis for the ongoing proceedings, held in the Coroner’s Office at 15 Grosvenor Street, where the jury is tasked with simply filling in the ‘who, when, where, how and by what means the death occurred’.
Permitted to make a few recommendations to prevent a future incident—tweak a Use-of-Force manual, add a training session. Reminded again and again to ignore that every testimony, exhibit and cross examination screams state murder and cover-up:

Constable Michael Adams and Sergeant Stuart Blower constructed a version of events seen only by each other. One where a snarling Junior “grinding his teeth and a crazy look in his eyes” shoves Adams across Steeles Avenue, before bolting toward a conveniently planted escape car, and when caught up to with swings “powerful blows” at the terrified officers, wrestling them to the ground while trying to bite them.

Officers who called for back-up as they were nearly overwhelmed by Junior’s strength, upon whose arrival they are shocked to find him without vital signs.

Every independent  witness who has testified so far; from a TTC bus driver, to a York  University security guard/retired OPP officer, to a couple passing in their car did not see the shove or the “powerful blows” thrown by Manon and instead, a “scared and winded” youth tackled and pushed face-down by the weight of the two cops.

The couple in their car closest to the scene saw Blower place Junior in a chokehold while Adams struck him, not just with his fists, but delivered “quick, successive and numerous” blows with the end of his radio.

They heard Junior plead,“Stop, I’m not resisting!” as the officers punched him several times in his ribs.

And the woman was terrified of intervening because of how the cops would react to her black husband.

Junior’s childhood friend Kevin Fauder witnessed furthest into the incident, seeing not just Blower and Adams attack but eventually four cops “hitting him. It looked like one powered a knee into his back.” Fauder, 17 at the time, also believes he and Manon were targeted by the cops in question, who recognized them from previous encounters, and did not simply pull them over coincidentally.

Even other police testimony disproves assertions stubbornly maintained by the two implicated cops. Three cops and a supervising officer who were called in after the foot pursuit and struggle stated to the SIU, and restated in court, that Junior was restrained face-down when they arrived, with blood in his mouth.

Both Blower and Adams claim they left Manon “on his side.”

It’s clear that many questions—including some asked by family lawyer Julian Falconer—will go unanswered at this inquest:

Why are the fractures wounds and bruises to Junior’s face, head, and ribs unexplained in the SIUs report and autopsy?

Why are not just the two, but the seven cops involved, free men/women (never mind still on the force), when the eyewitness testimony are grounds for murder charges?

Why was Constable Adams allowed to meet with four police officials and his lawyer before compiling notes on the incident (demonstrating the SIUs corrupted “investigation” procedures)?

Instead the Coroner’s court is more interested in further vindicating the duo already immune-from-prosecution.
While there is no possibility of professional or legal repercussions, police lawyers (that the pair share) have become concerned that even if the beating is successfully ignored, Blower and Adams could be still seen as responsible for the “positional asphyxia” since they clearly sat on Junior while he was face-down.

So they have decided to summon US pathologist Dr. Elliot Spitz, who un-coincidently enough has a long history of helping cover up murders (he was the defense witness at Casey Anthony’s trial, testified at OJ Simpson’s civil suit and was part of the Warren Commission on JFK’s assassination). His explanation for the death of a healthy 18 year old, seen by his family for the last time in a bloodied, broken and breathless state being loaded into an ambulance: a heart attack.

The trial continues…and so must the struggle that will clearly not be won in a courtroom.

A critical take on the Conservative ‘tough-on-crime’ agenda

by Natasha Brien & Sasha Carty – BASICS Issue #27 (Dec 2011 / Jan 2012)

Now that the Conservatives have their majority government, they will be forging ahead with the so-called ‘tough-on-crime’ agenda they’ve been pushing for five years. One of the first changes came earlier this year with the repeal of accelerated parole (previously available to first-time, non-violent, federal prisoners after serving 1/6^th of their sentences). The basis for eliminating this law was the case of Mr. Earl Jones and Mr. Leon Kordzian – two men convicted of extorting large amounts of money from primarily affluent people.

What is striking is that the repeal of accelerated parole was applied retroactively. Unless prisoners had an acceptance letter in hand or were already out in the community, they were immediately denied accelerated parole, creating a backlog in the system. This was clearly one strategic move to ensure more bodies remain within Canadian prisons.

Building upon this is the omnibus crime bill, which Harper publically promised to pass within 100 sitting days of being re-elected. Many people have jumped on board with the bills, blinded by the fallacy that tougher laws and longer sentences will ultimately reduce the crime rate (a rate that has been decreasing prior to harsher crime bills) and in return create a safer society. Read more…

By Sara Falconer

Beginning July 1, several prisoners at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) began an indefinite hunger strike to protest and expose the brutal conditions in the solitary confinement unit, known also as the SHU (Security Housing Unit). First-hand reports came in indicating that there are aver 6000  participants, in at least 11 different prisons across California.

Although the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) originally claimed that fewer than two dozen prisoners were part of the strike, on June 5 a spokesperson reluctantly admitted, “There are inmates in at least a third of our prisons who are refusing state-issued meals.”

The Bay Area-based group Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity learned that prison officials had attempted to head off the strike by promoting a Fourth of July menu that included strawberry shortcake and ice cream. The wife of one SHU prisoner said her husband had never had ice cream there and “has never seen a strawberry.”

There are 3,500 prisoners in SHUs across the California. Although they are supposedly sent to security units for participating in “gang” behaviour or misconduct, it’s often a punishment used against any prisoners who dare to organize with others or to engage in civil disobedience. Prisoners are held in extreme isolation in windowless, soundproof, 6 by 10 foot cells, 23 hours a day, for years at a time. Human rights organizations have condemned torturous conditions, which often lead to mental illness.

“It’s been a difficult and uphill battle, a lot of brow-beating and direct debate, but as it stands all are participating on a limited basis,” writes hunger striker Chad Landrum from PBSP.

“Some, including myself, are going ‘indefinitely’… victory or death!” Landrum, who is known to friends as “Ghost,” has end-stage liver disease, was hospitalized almost immediately – which also means that he was isolated. “If the demands have been met in whole, [or] negotiated part,  I will not take the cops’ word, for the pigs have proven their word to be hollow,” he explains.” I will need the word of you or your outside support.”

One of the strategies used for the strike the CDCR used was to announce that the strike was over in an attempt to confuse the already strained lines of communication between striking prisoners.  This was minimally successful because or the well organised and co-ordinated nature of the strike and the outside solidarity group.

At a well-attended rally in Oakland on July 2, supporters chanted, “Pelican Bay brothers: we hear you, we’re with you!,” according to Revolution newspaper.

“I stand here with a mixture of excitement and horror.,” said Laura Magnani of the American Friends Service Committee. “Horror at the conditions faced by 1,200 prisoners at Pelican Bay and over 3,500 prisoners insecurity housing units throughout California. Excitement that the prisoners have successfully organized across racial groups to take this action. This is a tremendously courageous action—to go on hunger strike, when people are virtually on starvation diets to begin with—to deprive themselves of food indefinitly. And it is extremely important that we be here to support them and show our solidarity.”

Unprecedented support is being shown around from around the world, with actions planned in dozens of cities including Toronto, Montreal, Kitchener, and Vancouver. Toronto Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) held a letter-writing night on July 1 and sent letters to the authorities as well as messages of solidarity to several of the hunger strikers. On July 9 we observed a 24-hour fast, and we are encouraging others, wherever they are, to participate to the extent that they are able. In Montreal, actions include a picket line in front of the American Consulate as well as letter-writing. Messages are also expected from as far as Ireland and the Basque regions.  Most recently more than 150 religious communities of Roman Catholic nuns mailed in letters of support of the prisoners’ requests to the governor of California.

Finally on July 20th, after 4 grueling weeks, the leaders of the hunger strike at Pelican Bay confirmed that the strike was over.  They confirmed that the CDCR has agreed to make immediate concessions as an act of good faith to address the longer term 5 core demands of the hunger strikers.  This is why support is still needed: to keep the pressure on CDCR, who have made it clear that the demands of the prisoners will be adressed and implemented in a timely fashion.  The leaders of Pelican Bay released a statement saying that the strike will resume if the CDCR does not fulfill it’s end of the agreement.  This is in light of the new California legislation that requires prisons to eliminate overcrowding.

Todd Ashker, one of the hunger strike leaders, writes:

“It’s very important that our supporters know where we stand, and that CDCR knows that we’re not going to go for any B.S. We…mean what we said regarding an indefinite hunger strike peaceful protest until our demands are met. I repeat–we’re simply giving CDCR a brief grace period in response to their request for the opportunity to get [it] right in a timely fashion! We’ll see where things stand soon enough!”

There are still hunger strikes going on in  Corcoran and Tehachapi Prisons, protesting their own horrific living conditions.

Landrum and thousands of other prisoners carried on their slow, painful act of resistance, waiting for their demands to be met at any cost. “Hopefully the situation doesn’t deteriorate,” he writes.” I end this letter with the words of Ulrike Meinhof [of Germany’s Red Army Faction], ‘Protest is when I say I don’t like this or that. Resistance is when I see to it that things I don’t like do not occur.’”

http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/