Reforming The Police Has To Include Keeping Racists And Bullies Off The Force-- And Firing The Ones Who Are There Now

Last week, the NYC police union endorsed 3 contemptible candidates for Congress-- "ex"- Republican Michelle Caruso-Cabrera against AOC, anti-Choice/anti-LGBTQ fanatic Rubén Díaz, Sr. against Tomas Ramos and conservative IDC-er David Carlucci against Mondaire Jones. This exactly aligns the police union-- once again-- with the Wall Street banksters. The police union are a bunch of scumbags coast to coast. In fact, there have been increasing demands that the AFL-CIO kick them out of the umbrella union. In Seattle, that's already moving along.

"AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka," wrote Candice Bernd, "has refused to expel the International Union of Police Associations and other law enforcement unions from the U.S.’s largest labor federation. Trumka told Bloomberg Friday that he won’t cut ties with police unions because 'police officers and everyone who works for a living has the right to collective bargaining' and that the 'best way to use our influence on the issue of police misconduct is to engage with our police affiliates rather than isolate them.' He told labor leaders and reporters Wednesday that 'the answer is not to disengage and condemn' police unions, while imploring labor organizers to fight racism. Trumka has praised the Minnesota Federation of Labor’s ousting of the openly racist Minneapolis Police Officers Federation President Bob Kroll. He also said the labor movement must play a leading role in the racial justice movement 'because protesting racial brutality, whether at the hands of a police officer, or a neighbor, or an employer, is not only the right cause. It’s a responsibility.'"

"I Can't Breathe" by Nancy Ohanian

Protesters set the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the AFL-CIO, aflame Sunday night, smashing in its windows and graffitiing its gold 16th Street entrance with 'Black Lives Matter.' While the motivations for the arson remain unclear, the action has put the federation’s partnership and affiliation with police under further scrutiny.

...U.S. police departments remain one of the heaviest unionized sectors in the country, representing hundreds of thousands of cops at the state, federal and local levels. The national largest police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has more than 340,000 members. Former Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd last month, was a union member.

By continuing to affiliate with police unions, Trumka and other labor leaders are betraying the demands of protesters and some of the federation’s own affiliates, including the United Auto Workers Local 2865, who want the organization to take a stand and let go of hundreds of thousands of unionized officers. Trumka’s reticence comes as the 2018 Janus vs. AFSCME Supreme Court decision continues to erode some public-sector union rolls.

Still, racial justice activists say now is exactly the moment to “disengage,” and that the federation has done so before, pointing to the AFL-CIO’s disaffiliation with the Teamsters and other unions.

...[A]ctivists have pointed out that police unions don’t show up regularly in solidarity for the broader labor movement; instead they actively repress working people by routinely beating and murdering them in the streets. Police officers have long been used to break strikes and kill striking workers, as they have done during historic labor uprisings such as the 1897 Lattimer Massacre, the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain and the 1937 Little Steel Strike in Chicago.

Police unions largely work to protect their own. The contracts they bargain keep racist officers who have killed and abused immune from accountability. They maintain policing’s structural system of white supremacy while maintaining wages and benefits that often exceed those of public servants like emergency medical technicians and child care workers.

To be sure, Trumka has called out police-perpetrated violence in the past. After the Ferguson uprising of 2014, Trumka noted that Darren Wilson and Michael Brown’s mother were both union members, saying, “Our brother killed our sister’s son,” last September. “We do not have to wait for the judgment of prosecutors or courts to tell us how terrible this is.” During his tenure as president of the United Mineworkers of America, he criticized police for brutalizing a striking miner during the 1989 Pittston Coal Strike.

Still, amid the historic uprisings of the past two weeks, simple criticisms and affirmations of anti-racism without bold action sound like mere lip service to many in the streets.

If the [Seattle] MLK Labor council votes to disaffiliate the Seattle Police Officers Guild on June 17, it would be the first significant expulsion of a police union from an organized labor council anywhere in the country.

That said, I have very mixed feelings about defunding police departments, likely to be a major losing issue for Democrats. In fact, I think police officers should be paid more-- with grants from the federal government. Why more? Simple: bigger salaries would attract better officers, as in not racists and bullies. These are the average annual salaries for police officers in the 10 states that pay them the least, states where the police departments and the KKK have horrifyingly similar membership:

• Mississippi- $36,290
• Arkansas- $40,570
• Louisiana- $42,470
• South Carolina- $43,520
• West Virginia- $44,450
• Georgia- $44,700
• Tennessee- $45,370
• Alabama- $46,510
• Kentucky- $46,720
• North Carolina- $47,340

Higher pay for police officers (as well as for public school teachers) will be worth the money and, in the case of the police, come with strict enforcement of rules against predatory behavior against civilians. Jail time for "bad apples" must become standard, the way it is for other criminals.

Yesterday, The Atlantic issued a podcast, Would Defunding Police Make Us Safer?, that included Alex Vitale, author of The End of Policing. Vitale explained that the central argument of his book is that "policing is an inherently problematic tool for the state. Policing is a tool of violence that has historically been used to facilitate gross inequalities and systems of exploitation like slavery, colonialism, the breaking of unions, and the suppression of workers’ rights movements. And so then to say that that tool is best suited to solve a broad range of community problems is misguided. And further, [the idea] that we can fix that problem with a series of superficial procedural reforms really misunderstands the nature of that institution and the missions that our elected officials have given to it... Racism is baked into the institutional mission set by our political leaders, including President Obama. So this reform cannot possibly give us any relief. Neither can having police-community encounter sessions, which they did in Minneapolis. Or instituting accountability mechanisms that were largely procedural in nature: body cameras, new use-of-force policies, de-escalation training. There’s absolutely no empirical evidence that this makes any more than a superficial difference in the way policing is conducted."

He explained that in NYC, for example, the police budget is $6 billion-- more than the Department of Health, the Department of Homeless Services, the Department of Youth Services, and the Department of Employment Services combined. NYC is attempting to cut the Education Department by over $600 million. But the proposal for the police department is a cut of $23 million.

There’s kind of a continuum for understanding what “defund the police” means, and it doesn’t really mean that tomorrow the police budget is zero. There are actually dozens of campaigns that were underway before the events in Minneapolis that were calling for defunding policing, but [they] took the form of things like we want to halt new hiring, we want to get a handle on overtime, and we want to close down certain problematic programs, like the gang unit, and shift those resources into community needs.

So this is not about: Tomorrow, there are no police. There are folks, though, for whom defund the police is also about thinking about a bigger vision of a kind of world where we don’t rely so heavily on policing and prisons, and that comes out of the prison- and police-abolition movement that’s emerged over the last 20 or so years.

...[J]ust defunding the police by itself is almost never what people are calling for. What they’re calling for is a redistribution of resources, because communities do have problems. They have problems of violence. They have problems of disorder. They need help, but they don’t need help from the police in many of these cases. So it’s got to be about redistribution, not just defunding. It needs to be targeted and specific.

Police unions are a separate problem, one that was well-examined by a team of NY Times writers Saturday in a piece called How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts. "Over the past five years, as demands for reform have mounted in the aftermath of police violence in cities like Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and now Minneapolis," they wrote, "police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change. The greater the political pressure for reform, the more defiant the unions often are in resisting it-- with few city officials, including liberal leaders, able to overcome their opposition. They aggressively protect the rights of members accused of misconduct, often in arbitration hearings that they have battled to keep behind closed doors. And they have also been remarkably effective at fending off broader change, using their political clout and influence to derail efforts to increase accountability. While rates of union membership have dropped by half nationally since the early 1980s, to 10 percent, higher membership rates among police unions give them resources they can spend on campaigns and litigation to block reform. A single New York City police union has spent more than $1 million on state and local races since 2014."

With the police union backing Carlucci and Díaz, Sr. against progressive reformers Mondaire Jones and Tomas Ramos and with the union backing Caruso-Cabrera against AOC, it's more important than ever to contribute to Jones and Ramos (here) and to AOC here. Back to The Times:

It remains to be seen how the unions will respond to reform initiatives by cities and states since Mr. Floyd’s death, including a new ban on chokeholds in Minneapolis. But in recent days, unions have continued to show solidarity with officers accused of abusive behavior.

The president of a police union in Buffalo said the union stood “100 percent” behind two officers who were suspended on Thursday after appearing to push an older man who fell and suffered head injuries. The union president said the officers “were simply following orders.”

All 57 officers on the Emergency Response Team, a special squad formed to respond to riots, had resigned from their posts on the team in support of the suspended officers, according to The Buffalo News.

Unions can be so effective at defending their members that cops with a pattern of abuse can be left untouched, with fatal consequences. In Chicago, after the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke, it emerged that Mr. Van Dyke had been the subject of multiple complaints already. But a “code of silence” about misconduct was effectively “baked into” the labor agreements between police unions and the city, according to a report conducted by task force.

...When liberal politicians do try to advance reform proposals, union officials have resorted to highly provocative rhetoric and hard-boiled campaign tactics to lash out at them. This past week, the head of the sergeants’ union in New York posted a police report on Twitter revealing personal information about the daughter of Mr. de Blasio, who had been arrested during a protest.

...At times, the strident leadership appears to beget still more strident leadership. In 2017, Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police elected a new president who denounced a federal Justice Department investigation prompted by the shooting of Mr. McDonald as “politically motivated” and pledged to fight the “anti-police movement.” That president was ousted this year by a candidate who had derided the ensuing consent decree as “nonsense” and criticized his predecessor for failing to stand up to City Hall.

While statistics compiled by the group Campaign Zero show that police killings and shootings in Chicago have fallen following a set of reforms enacted after a federal investigation, advocates worry that the union will undermine them in contract negotiations. Police unions have traditionally used their bargaining agreements to create obstacles to disciplining officers. One paper by researchers at the University of Chicago found that incidents of violent misconduct in Florida sheriff’s offices increased by about 40 percent after deputies gained collective bargaining rights.

“By continuing to elect people who stand for those values, it more deeply entrenches the break between the community and the police,” said Karen Sheley, director of the Police Practices Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. “It makes it far more difficult for reform efforts to go forward.”

An Arrest in Richmond: "You Guys are Guinea Pigs. We Had to Send a Message."

Demonstrators gather after curfew during a protest in New York City on June 2, 2020. Brendan McDermid / Reuters

by Thomas Neuburger

All of us were basically on our way home. They took us to a large garage with at least 100 other people they arrested that night. I say arrested, but I’m not actually sure. No one was given a reason why they were stopped. ... No one in the entire garage had been caught doing anything besides being out after curfew. Almost everyone had just been on their way home.

These protests are about much more than just George Floyd, [they are] about a corrupt and broken system that devalues life and craves power.

The following, by a twitter user named @nomoniker_, tells one story of thousands that occurred in the past few days, but it deserves a wider telling, not just because of the matter it contains, but because it's typical of so many others, and because it shows the state of policing in almost all of the nation.

These events happened publicly, one small saga in a mass outpouring that provoked a lot of news coverage. Yet despite the public nature of police actions, they didn't have to think twice about doing them — they broke no new ground, in other words.

Note the arrest which is not an arrest: The writer was pulled over, cuffed and held on no probable cause, then taken to a garage for no stated reason where at least 100 others like them were being held. It took a day to sort everything out, with no charges filed. (The account is lightly edited for clarity.)

Hi everybody. I was arrested at the protests in Richmond last night (or rather after). I wanted to share my experience + shed some light on what the police are doing.

Last night around 1230/1 [12:30-1:00] I stepped onto my back porch and saw two people running and looking quite frightened. I invited them in and they stayed at our place for a little while to rest and hide out. They were both teenagers, and both black.

After they were feeling better we decided to go to their car which was a short drive from where I live. I drove them to their car, seeing some cops but not realizing how prevalent the their presence was at this point (at least in Jackson Ward).

On my way home, about a minute later, cops pulled up behind me and told me to get out of the car and put my hands on the vehicle.

There were at least 5 cops and one national guard, I think. The NG guy asked me if I was from Richmond (he thought I came from out of town I think) and then accused me of tearing up my own city.

Me and another person they arrested were cuffed and put on the curb before being taken into the police van (paddy wagon?). [In] the car I called the Richmond Bail Fund (an amazing organization!) and all 7 of us in the van gave them our info/explained that we were being held.

All of us were basically on our way home. They took us to a large garage with at least 100 other people they arrested that night. I say arrested, but I’m not actually sure. Talking to others, no one was given a reason why they were stopped, no one was read Miranda rights, etc.

This garage is where I and many others spent the next 10 hours. A lot of people had been there even earlier. Unfortunately I also saw the two guys who stayed at my house, who had been arrested around the same time as me. They had been swarmed by a group of cars and had assault rifles shoved in their faces. From what I gathered having an AR-15 pointed at your face in your drivers seat was a common experience to a lot of people last night.

Some things [that] I remember in the garage, where we were kept for 10 hours with vague explanations that we were being processed and things were going as fast as possible (cops were mostly just standing around): ZERO social distancing. We were constantly grouped together. A lot of the cops did not wear masks.

A cop brought out water bottles, [and] when we asked how we were going to drink them she laughed and said, “You can figure something out!”

One officer took a pic on his own phone of the crowd.

One said outright, “You guys are guinea pigs. We had to arrest a lot of people to send a message about yesterday.”

One woman had a seizure and fell down, not getting up. They brought an ambulance but not exactly quickly.

Several cops, especially later on, couldn’t believe that we were arrested from our cars just while driving. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One cop said Richmond didn’t have killings like George Floyd’s. I said yes in fact we do and mentioned Marcus David-Peters. He didn’t know who I was talking about until I described it in more detail, and then he exclaimed, “Oh! The naked guy!”

People had all their phones taken away [and] were not able to contact their families. I thought I was close to being let go at around 5 because one cop let me get my things, but then he basically left and someone else took his spot. That happened a lot. 

I was able to send some messages, but it didn’t help at all. They didn’t let lawyers or anyone through, they kept people in this garage without contact from at least 9pm through the entire night.

Around 530/6 [5:30-6:00 am], I think, me and a few others were being told we were close to being processed.

Instead they put us on a bus parked in the garage, where I was until 10:30 when I was finally actually released. Some people had been in that bus since 9 the night before and were clearly distressed + had not been given much water, or food, and had not been told what was going on. Again, no one in the entire garage had been caught doing anything besides being out after curfew, almost everyone had just been on their way home.

I was let out at 10:30, not told where I was, with a dead phone. Thankfully @RVABailFund are a bunch of absolute sweethearts who help with the legal aspects, offered to cover tow truck costs, gave me a ride home, and in general offered a much needed pick me up after it all.

If you read this and have any sympathy for all the people detained last night, please donate to them or a similar organization in your area.

Last night in general felt very dreamlike and absurd, but I’m ok. Mostly, I’m just mad and determined that the police face accountability for their actions. They act like an invading force in this country and murder people with impunity.

These protests are about much more than just George Floyd, it’s about a corrupt and broken system that devalues life and craves power. But, as much as they wanted to send the message to us “we’re in control and you are not”, really the shitshow of last night sent the message that they are disorganized, often incompetent, and that they’ve created a situation that they don’t know how to handle. They are hoping to bully us into submission.

If you feel at all about what’s going on this week across America, please show up to a protest and make your voice heard. And be careful.

Peace y’all,
Jordan

To repeat: "These protests are about much more than just George Floyd, [they are] about a corrupt and broken system that devalues life and craves power."

If these protests are just about George Floyd and the uncounted African Americans killed by police — and that alone — the effort will not have been wasted.

But they could be, and should be, about so much more.
  

Do U.S. Police Have a License to Murder?

Protesters opposed to murder by cop (source; click to enlarge)

by Gaius Publius

The real answer to the headline question requires a look at literally hundreds of cases of unjustified, unpunished police shootings, just a few of which have been in our faces and on our TV screens lately. All of the deaths have been violent, and all have been followed by calls for non-violence ... until the next violent police shooting. Interestingly asymmetrical.

But the case of Tulsa resident Terence Crutcher is the clearest yet, as you'll see below. Do cops in the U.S. have a license to murder, so long as the victim fits the right demographic "type"? 

A Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer shot a black man point-blank as he lay on the ground, tasered. It was caught on camera. The police lied about what had occurred, in an obvious attempt to justify their actions. The camera showed they lied. This is as clear as it gets.

The question — In the U.S., can an on-duty cop be tried for straight-up murder if the victim is black?

We're about to find out. Shaun King, writing in the NY Daily News (emphasis mine):

Arrest the Tulsa officer who killed Terence Crutcher

Tulsa Police Officer Betty Shelby should be arrested today for killing Terence Crutcher. She should've been arrested immediately. On this past Friday evening, she shot and killed a good man. Having just left night classes at Tulsa Community College, Terence Crutcher's SUV broke down in the middle of the road. That's normal. That happens. It's a nuisance, but we've all experienced it at one time or another.

Except for Terence Crutcher, car trouble got him killed. This epitomizes the black experience in America. Something that should have been routine and safe, turned out to be fatal. As it turns out, Officers Betty Shelby and Tyler Turnbough were actually being dispatched for another call when they came across Crutcher's broken down SUV. Thankfully, several cameras filmed the entire incident and eyewitnesses have come forward as well.

The officers say Crutcher approached them — and failed to obey the cops' commands.

As Crutcher reached into his SUV, Turnbough fired his Taser, and shortly after, Shelby shot and killed the man, authorities say.

The last two paragraphs above present the police story — "officers say" and "authorities say." It's almost never true in cases like these — questionable police shootings — that "officers" or "authorities" tell the truth. (One common lie is about how dangerous it is to be a cop, thus the need for the shootings, just in case. Truck drivers, taxi drivers and chauffeurs have more dangerous jobs. Should they get to murder people too?)

Here's what was caught on camera:

But one eyewitness who spoke to Fox 23 in Tulsa communicated that everything about what the police have said happened is inaccurate. She said that Crutcher had his hands in the air and was walking very slowly and carefully, fully aware that being in the presence of police was dangerous, when he was shot and killed. Crutcher's relatives say he was unarmed.

This is never enough, though. For police to be held accountable, the evidence must be outrageously overwhelming. It appears it is in this case.

At 1:30 p.m. Monday, the Tulsa Police Department is going to release audio and video footage from the shooting. Fully aware of just how bad it is, they showed the footage on Sunday to Crutcher's family, their pastor, their attorney, and several local leaders. What they saw infuriated each and every one of them.

"His hands were in the air from all views," Pastor Rodney Goss told the Tulsa World.

And they didn't even act like it mattered:

What disturbed Goss the most, though, is something that we've seen many, many times in shootings like this. After they shot Terence Crutcher, Goss said the police acted like they could care less. They provided no first aid or comfort. According to Goss, several minutes went by before they even really took a look to check on him.

Read King for the final straw, the "one bad dude" comment. You'll also hear that comment coming from the helicopter cops in the second video below. Note how they also assume, from 500 feet, that he was "on something" as he stands by the car ... because, you know, black people. (Yes, I'm saying those cops are racists, straight-up.)

Damning Video, Two Views

And now two views of the murder. For the first, notice the police time stamp at the top right. At 19:44:13 he's tasered to the ground. Six seconds later they shoot him.

The helicopter view has a slightly different time stamp. You can see him tasered at 19:44:45, see that he's essentially motionless on the ground, then shot where he lay.

Straight-up murder if you ask me. If private-citizen-you had shot him, prone and helpless on the ground, and this video was available, you'd be in jail today, even if your name was George Zimmerman.

Do Cops Have a License to Murder in the U.S.?

This is a real question. Are we so authoritarian — and so frightened — that we want our police to kill at will, so long as the victim is from the approved target pool?

If so, let's just say so. If on-duty cops can shoot anyone they feel like, let's admit it and then let's take the consequences, which will not be pretty, by the way. (What do cops do to people who start killing them?)

Cops who shoot unarmed, unthreatening people are murderers. People who enable these murders are complicit. Watch to see what happens. If straight-up police murder isn't a crime, the criminals are everyone who doesn't force a change. Force a change. At least as I see it.

GP
  

Police Problems

As we said yesterday at GOP Crackpot Candidate of the Week, Georgia state Senator Mike Crane had been favored to win the GA-03 congressional seat Lynn Westmoreland was retiring from... until he started advocating shooting policemen. Seems crazy, right? But state Senator Crane, a far right psychopath and loony ideologue who was heavily supported by the NRA, Gun Owners of America, the Tea Party, Freedom Works, Club for Growth, Ted Cruz and House Freedom Caucus chairman Jim Jordan, might not think people of color should defend themselves against police brutality but announced that even if a policeman comes onto his property with a warrant, he can be legitimately shot. The state's police organizations reacted badly and Crane lost 19,490 (46%) to 22,813 (54%).

Must have been embarrassing for Poor Ted Cruz who said "I’m proud to join thousands of Georgia conservatives in standing up for conservative principles supporting Mike Crane for Congress…I can think of no better way to send the Washington establishment a message than by supporting Mike Crane for Congress…I’m asking all Georgians-- especially voters in the Third Congressional District-- to stand with me in supporting Mike Crane."

Southeast of Georgia's third district, in central Florida's Orlando area, progressive Democrat Bob Poe is facing off against the handpicked establishment candidate, Val Demings, in a 4-way primary. The same corrupt Democratic establishment cheats who undermined and sabotaged Bernie's campaign are fully committed to the incompetent and undeserving Demings. The video up top was released as an ad by the Poe campaign last night. (Please help him get it up on television.)

This morning Poe told us that "Our district's residents deserve a really great relationship with our hardworking law enforcement officers. We have to work towards rebuilding trust, especially between police and communities of color, who unfortunately were arrested at disproportionately high rates under my opponent. It all starts with leadership and judgment. From there, we can work on additional training, body cameras, and community policing, all steps that I've called for. I believe we can have better understanding and more trust between police and our community, if we have the right leadership to get it done."

Pelosi dragged Deming up on the stage of the convention yesterday while a bunch of congresswomen who we're babbling the mantra "when women win, America wins." Whether you agree with that or not, it's worth noting that when Professor Mary Ellen Balchunis won her primary against a corrupt conservative Democrat the DCCC was pushing-- won 74-26%-- Pelosi turned her back on her and refused to acknowledge Mary Ellen as the legitimate Democratic candidate for a crucial-- even critical-- swing district in the Philly suburbs. It would have been easy for Pelosi to have had Mary Ellen up on the stage but she opted for the unqualified, easily corruptible Demings, the kind of nothing candidate the Democratic Party wants to fill party ranks with. Candidates like Bob Poe and Mary Ellen Balchunis are too independent-minded for hacks like what Pelosi has morphed into over the tragic last decade of her decline.

GOP Crackpot Candidate of the Week-- Two Violent Nuts, One In Florida And One In Georgia

The first week of our new feature and I can't even choose between the two finalists, a pair of extremist House candidates from the Southeast. The guy in the video up top, Rick Kozell, is running to replace fake Democrat Patrick Murphy on Florida's Treasure Coast. We thought the DCCC found the perfect clone of Murphy for the job, crooked multimillionaire-- and not a Democrat-- Randy Perkins. He's already self-funded $3,017,688. He has a primary battle against Jonathan Chane, but feels confident he can buy the nomination and, needless to say, the DCCC is helping him do just that. There must be half a dozen Republicans running in the red-leaning district (R+3) where Romney beat Obama 52-48%. Perennial candidate Carl Domino, an ex-state Rep., is probably best known, but his reputation took a major hit when as weak a candidate as Patrick Murphy kicked his ass in 2014-- 60-40%-- in a strong Republican year. Mark Freeman, a rich doctor, has self-funded $1,207,756 into his campaign-- most of which has already been spent-- and the other Republicans with considerable cash-on-hand for the August 30 primary are Rebecca Negron ($635,739), Kozell ($360,327), Brian Mast ($332,441) and Domino ($232,105).

As you can probably guess from the video, Kozell is the most extreme of the FL-18 candidates. But we found someone even more extreme up in Georgia, where there's a runoff election today to fill the seat of retiring nincompoop Lynn Westmoreland in GA-03, a deep red swath of territory southwest of Atlanta from the suburbs of Fayette, Coweta and Henry counties all the way down to Columbus. The Republican primary yielded up two right-wing maniacs-- state Senator Mike Crane and dentist and former West Point Mayor Drew Ferguson. Crane was ahead in the primary, 15,343 (26.9%) to 15,277 (26.8%), just 66 votes. I would have bet on Crane today but then he stepped in it big time. Formerly best known as a "religious liberty" bigot-- something they love in backward districts like GA-03-- he's now best known for advocating shooting policemen. No, really, he did. The idiot actually managed to wind up far to the left of #BlackLivesMatter by raising the old GOP trope about how your home is your castle and that if a cop comes on your property-- even with a search warrant-- you can shoot him. And he said he would and told his supporters they should too! State Senator Crane apparently doesn't think white people need to respect the police, only blacks.



As of 2 weeks ago Ferguson had raised $782,044 and Crane has raised $417,072. Both went into the final 2 weeks with approximately the same amount in their campaign war chests, just under $200,000. Club for Growth has spent $813,981 for Crane. (The ad just above is what they've been running to smear Ferguson, a right-wing nut but not as much of a right-wing nut as Crane.) The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Ending Spending Action Fund and the American Dental Association spent, respectively, $650,150, $493,049 and $170,359 bolstering Ferguson and attacking Crane.

This weekend, a clueless and still-dazed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was in Atlanta campaigning for Crane, proof if anyone needed it that Crane was the more extreme of the two candidates. Wait 'til someone tells Trump that Cruz was campaign for the cop-killer! This ad from Drew Ferguson should end Crane's political career permanently-- unless Georgia Republicans are even crazier than I thought they were! Yes-- and of course Crane is being heavily backed by the NRA and the Tea Party.

Pressure Remains On SFPD and Mayor To Clean Up Their Acts Post-Suhr-- Medical Professionals Join Fight For Reforms

UCSF Do No Harm Coalition at City Hall in San Francisco

-by Denise Sullivan

Following last Thursday's SFPD shooting of Jessica Williams in San Francisco's Bayview District, the campaign to Fire Chief Suhr succeeded when Mayor Ed Lee called for his resignation by day's end, while the push to reclaim the City by the Frisco 5 and their growing community of supporters, including medical professionals, remains in full force.

"The guy is no longer the chief and it's our victory, your victory," said the Frisco 5's Maria Cristina Gutierrez. "It took the sacrifice," she said of SFPD's latest victim, "But if we had not done what we did, it would've been business as usual." Gutierrez and three of the four hunger strikers, in partnership with Dr. Rupa Marya, assembled on Monday night at UCSF Hospital in San Francisco where the doctor presented her research on police violence. Dr. Marya who served as the Frisco Five's physician during its hunger strike and is part of the Division of Hospitalist Medicine at the school, has also been researching the toll gentrification and over-policing over a 30 year period has taken on Black and Brown lives in the Bay Area. Addressing a crowd of healthcare workers and community members, she deems police violence to be a public health crisis.

"Racism is influencing the killings and so is police impunity," said Dr. Marya, who has formed the UCSF Do No Harm Coalition of healthcare workers committed to ending police violence. "Police killings need to be counted and reported."

Dr. Marya sees no contradiction in the "political" issue of police brutality and the "science" of medicine. As a doctor, saving lives is her business. She believes in the idea of doctor and patient advocacy and demonstrates an extraordinary compassion and integrity in her work. Noticing the gap in the way communities of color are served by the healthcare systems, she became more motivated to get involved in the movement for medical justice while studying the case of Alex Nieto, shot 59 times by police in his neighborhood. Described as "a foreigner" by the 911 caller who perceived him as a threat, "He was a San Franciscan," said Dr. Marya, who is California-born and was raised by her parents in India and South of France.

Beyond mortality issues, Dr. Marya asserts police violence has an impact on the well being of the community, especially loved ones left behind; the violence and impunity may also lead to civil unrest and the immediate and longterm traumatic effects that go with it (she pointed to Baltimore, where a CVS pharmacy was destroyed and the people who needed medication went without, while others who didn't need it became vulnerable to a free flow of opioids on their streets). The takeaway? Police violence does harm to the body politic, and in case there is any further doubt about it, Dr. Marya noted the shooting in Bayview last week occurred as she was preparing slides for her talk. Here in San Francisco, though African Americans account for anywhere from just three to six percent of the overall population, they are five times more likely to be shot by police than whites.

"A movement is going to require everyone sit at the table," said SFPD Sergeant Yulanda Williams who was also a panelist in attendance at UCSF. An African American and longtime member of Officers for Justice, Williams admits her department suffers from "endemic" racism ("They don't like to say systemic," she says) though one thing she's certain of is issuing the force tasers is not a likely solution for reducing harm. "I have no more room on my gun belt and am not looking for any more toys," she said.

Williams vouched for now acting chief Toney Chaplain who she's known since the police academy and believes he will hold officers accountable---"I'll make sure that happens," she said---but she also admits reform is easier said than done. "You have a department that supports nepotism, cronyism and legacy police officers," she said, and "a union that constantly disrespects people."

The Frisco 5 also believes accountability to be the top priority. It also wishes to have a say in the search for a new chief, among other demands. "We need to see the officers who did the shooting charged," said Frisco 5's Edwin Lindo. "Ed Lee is next."

Preparations to recall the Mayor have been underway for some time (various straw polls indicate there's the will and even a candidate), and while no such action can take place until November, the coalitions for police and ultimately city government reform continue to gather funds, signatures, and steam for the long road ahead. If this show of support from the medical community is sign of what's in store, perhaps more institutional bodies will get ready to sign on in the fight to save San Francisco from itself. Asked if there are other hospitals and healthcare workers initiating these kinds of radical shifts in the way police violence is perceived, Dr. Marya answered. "So…This is a revolution and it's starting now."

Oh yes, and while we're here: Dr. Marya is also a professional musician who fronts Rupa and the April Fishes (look for the cameo by musician/activist Boots Riley in this clip).




Denise Sullivan writes about music and gentrification issues from San Francisco for DWT. Her most recent book is Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop.

Four SF Supervisors Back the Frisco 5 Cause to Fire The Chief

Left to right:  Edwin Lindo, Ike Pinkston, Ilyich "Equipto" Sato and Sellassie Blackwell

by Denise Sullivan

Five days after ending their hunger strike, on Thursday morning the Frisco 5 minus Maria Cristina Gutierrez, returned to the Mission Police Station at the corner of Valencia and 17th Streets in San Francisco to report back on their health and their intentions to build a movement for police reform, their one demand the same as it ever was: Fire SFPD Chief Greg Suhr. Against a backdrop of almost daily revelations regarding the toxicity of the department, and one day after four members of the Board of Supervisors, led by State Senate candidate Jane Kim called for a national search to replace the chief, the Frisco 5 (Gutierrez, Edwin Lindo, Ike Pinkston, and two hip hop artists, Ilyich "Equipto" Sato and Sellassie Blackwell) remain steadfast in their resolve to keep the pressure on Mayor Ed Lee until the day Suhr is fired.

"People are tired and fed up. We're not blind," said Equipto of the political maneuvering behind closed doors at City Hall. In previous discussions with the Frisco 5 and other community organizations, the Supervisors maintained they had no stake in police matters, that it in fact would be a breach of law to intervene. However following this week's Board meeting at which Mayor Lee was in attendance and Frisco 5 supporters voiced loudly their demand to "Fire Chief Suhr," the Supervisors began to wake up: They began by challenging the Mayor's position on maintaining an expensive, heavy law enforcement presence at City Hall following last week's shutdown of the building by citizens.

"Thirty-three people were arrested; they are using violent tactics on us," said Frisco 5's Edwin Lindo at Thursday's press conference. He and the community that supports police reform have a particular distaste for this week's solution proposed by Lee: He's suggesting $17.5 million be invested in retraining, the creation of community programs, and the building of a supposedly less-lethal arsenal of tasers and net-guns; detractors say the money could otherwise be allocated to help displaced, homeless, and other persons in need as a result of the Lee administration's poor civic leadership.

Whether it was the community groundswell, the absurdity of Lee's proposal, the outcome of the blue ribbon panel that found the department lacks transparency and accountability, or the weight of their own conscience, by Wednesday, Supervisor Kim was followed by her fellow Supervisors David Campos, John Avalos, and Eric Mar in the call for police reform from the top down. Equipto said his mother, Maria Cristina Gutierrez, who could not attend the news conference due to a decline in her health following the hunger strike was particularly disappointed in how slow-acting the Supervisors were in understanding their role in challenging police misconduct; her health was the consequence and indeed the health of all the hunger strikers was compromised. As Ike Pinkston put it, "The mayor doesn't give a rat's ass. It's obvious."

"Ed Lee should be packing his office right now," said Edwin Lindo, who also offered congratulations to the student hunger strikers at SF State who fought to retain their ethnic studies program and won, ending their nine-day hunger strike and earning nearly half a million dollars for their department this week.

"Everyone said, 'You can't do this,'" said Sellassie of the Frisco 5's intent to launch a hunger strike on April 21. ""We did…I think Chief Suhr's days are over."


Denise Sullivan is the author of Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop. She writes from San Francisco on gentrification and the arts.

Push To Fire Chief of SFPD Continues As Hunger Strike Enters Day 15

Three of the Frisco5, Ike Pinkston, Maria Cristina Gutierrez and Edwin Lindo as they approach San Francisco's City Hall flanked by supporters

- by Denise Sullivan

"We won," said Maria Cristina Gutierrez, from the steps of San Francisco's city hall on Tuesday afternoon. Gutierrez, her fellow hunger strikers, the Frisco 5 (Ilyich "Equipto" Sato, Sellassie Blackwell, Ike Pinkston, and Edwin Lindo) and nearly one thousand fellow San Franciscans embarked on a march to Mayor Ed Lee's office to demand the firing of police Chief Greg Suhr, leader of a department rife with racism and responsible for the executions of four San Franciscans in two years. Though the mayor, who had been made aware of the march, was at a meeting across town, the Frisco 5 and their followers proceeded to the Board of Supervisors meeting where they used public comment to demand their elected officials stand with them and resolve to fire the chief.

"This is the beginning of the struggle on so many fronts," asserted Gutierrez at the end of a long day of protest and nearly the end of the second week of starvation in the name of ending police violence and the long arm of over-gentrification. Citing the efforts by Gandhi and Cesar Chavez, Gutierrez says she was moved to hunger strike following the death of Luis Gongora, an immigrant from Yucatan who recently lost his housing and was living homeless on Shotwell Street until he was shot 11 times for allegedly brandishing a knife. Witness accounts of the killing varied widely though one certainty is that once again, it doesn't look good for SFPD who in a two-year period killed four men. Alex Nieto in March of 2014 was shot 59 times when police mistook his taser (he was employed as a security guard) for a gun.  Not quite one year later, Guatemalan immigrant Amilcar Perez-Lopez was shot six times in the back. Mario Woods was shot 20 times in December and the incident was caught on video in its entirety. The April 7 shooting of Góngora was the event that prompted Gutierrez to say, "No more," taking matters into her own hands.

A native of Colombia and a San Francisco resident for over 40 years, Gutierrez is the executive director of the Compañeros del Barrio pre-school in the Mission District. When it was announced she would wage a hunger strike, her son, Equipto, a teacher at the school, vowed to join her. Last year, Equipto a hip hop recording artist, became involved in the cause to oust Mayor Lee somewhat accidentally when a run-in caught on video caused him to declare the mayor "a disgrace to Asian people." On Tuesday, Equipto's father Art Sato, known to the Bay Area as a jazz DJ on Pacifica radio station KPFA, stood on the steps of City Hall, and extolled a bit on Equipto's political education. Born in a concentration camp during World War II, Sato also referred to Lee's term as a "disgrace," and the SFPD texting scandal involving Asian officers, while underscoring the importance of Asians becoming involved in the fight for racial justice. He noted that Asians 4 Black Lives were holding things down at 17th and Valencia in the protesters absence. Sato who said he is normally a very reserved and private person added, "This strike has taught me a lot. To be a little less private, and to express my pride for my son."

Also in attendance were Refugio and Elvira Nieto, parents of Alex Nieto, who just weeks after a judgment clearing the officers who killed their son, are still on the frontlines for justice. Gwendolyn Woods, mother of Mario Woods, was there; she awaits the results of the Department of Justice's probe into her son's death at the hands of SFPD, while the officers who shot Woods immediately returned to their jobs. Overseeing the proceedings on the steps of City Hall comedian and activist Yayne Abeba passed the mic to singers and activists, including poet Tony Robles who read his piece, "It Took A Hunger Strike." Speaker Larry Dorsey poked holes in the idea of the Bay Area as a progressive bastion. "San Francisco is so racist, it thinks that racism doesn't exist," he said.

"People say San Francisco isn't Ferguson, it's not Baltimore. It's not. It's worse," hunger striker Edwin Lindo told AJ+ last week. The police violence that sparked uprisings in those cities were based on years of police abuse culminating in the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray but here in San Francisco, the high profile cases of the last two years, are fairly damning evidence that time for police reform is long overdue. Lindo who intends to run for the District 9 seat on the Board to be vacated by David Campos in the fall told me it was the book The Radical King by Dr. Cornel West that inspired him to join the hunger strikers. Ike Pinkston, who works at the school with Gutierrez, is also a friend of Equipto's as is hip hop artist Sellassie. All of the Frisco 5 have been aided by close friends, family, and community members during their fight, which at this point in addition to seeing the firing of Chief Suhr is about staying alive. Volunteer student medics from UCSF, have been attending to the hunger strikers though were not at liberty to disclose information about their health. However one of the medics assured me that though everyone is concerned about the well-being of the protesters, they are being closely monitored and hydration is of top concern. For nearly two weeks now, the strikers have subsisted on a liquid diet of water, coconut water, broth, and ginger tea. (By Wednesday afternoon, Bay Area journalist Davey D broke the news that Blackwell had been taken to UCSF medical center; he has since returned to the occupation at SFPD's Mission Station).

"I don't want to die. I want to go home, eat some good food… " said Gutierrez, pausing at the thought of food. "We have to be willing to give our lives to this, for our children," she said. Inspired by the sight of so many Black and Brown faces working in solidarity, she said she would proudly wear her new nickname "Mama" of the movement for police reform. "They will never divide us again."

DJ Art Sato, father of hunger striker Ilyich "Equipto" Sato, speaks in defense of his son and Asians 4 Black Lives and against Mayor Ed Lee

Update

As of Friday afternoon, the Frisco 5 were hospitalized so their weakened conditions could be more closely monitored.

By evening a group of citizens dubbed the Frisco 500 had occupied City Hall, chanting their one demand, to fire Chief Suhr. By 10 PM, the sheriff's department and riot police began to forcibly clear journalists and protesters from the building, resulting in arrests and injuries in the double digits. Organizers of the movement to end police violence have called for a general strike in the City of San Francisco on Monday, May 9.


Denise Sullivan is the author of Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop. She writes from San Francisco on gentrification and the arts.

For the Love of MLK: Tolerance In Short Supply In City By The Bay

photo by Steve Rhodes

-by Denise Sullivan

With so much activism, advocacy, and service taking place in the name of MLK from coast to coast on the third Monday of January, it's easy to forget we largely have a musician to thank for making the dream of a federal holiday in Dr. King's name a reality.

This year was the 30th anniversary of making it official and the effort to #ReclaimMLKDay was not just a hashtag campaign but a full court press toward reinvigorating the civil rights movement. Ignited by the escalation of police murders of black men and women, whether it's the right to water in Flint, better representation for people of color in Hollywood, or protection from police terrorism across the nation, Black activists and their allies took to the streets in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Chicago, staking a claim for racial and economic justice. Here in the Bay Area, organizers and participants were successful on a number of levels at shutting things down.

On Sunday, an early morning protest at the homes of Mayor Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr was designed to keep the pressure on the demand for justice in the police shootings of Alex Nieto, Amilcar Perez-Lopez in the Mission and most recently the slaying of Mario Woods in the Bayview district which went video viral on December 2. Strangely, the case has not received much national press, but that is about to change as on Monday, civil rights attorney John L. Burris held a press conference to announce he would be calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the SFPD's racially biased "pattern and practice" of law enforcement.

In in addition to the cold-blooded killing, this third in a series of police murders in San Francisco has been left to be investigated by the force itself, further fueling public outcry. On Monday, The Justice For Mario Woods coalition successfully disrupted Lee from addressing a crowd that had assembled for the Interfaith Council's annual MLK Day commemoration at Yerba Buena Center For the Arts. Given the increase in police violence here and in light of the City's abandonment of its working poor, homeless, senior, disabled, and average citizens trying to make ends meet, Lee was a poor choice to lead a faith-based gathering. "We're here to reclaim San Francisco," one of the protestors shouted, thereby mercifully pre-empting any further remarks from the mayor and hastening his exit. Among the protestors was hip hop musician Equipto who made headlines last year for calling out Lee as a "disgrace to Asian people." The rapper and local pre-school instructor continues to devote an increasing amount of energy to the fight to reclaim the City for San Franciscans (Wednesday evening, the Justice for Mario Woods coalition had another chance to confront the cops and call for answers).

Oakland protest calling for end to police violence

photo by Steve Rhodes

Protestors also succeeded with an action to stop traffic on the Bay Bridge on Monday afternoon. Working as an adjunct to Black Lives Matter and the Anti-Police Terror Project, the group Black.Seed used the bridge sit-in to call for the resignation or firing of Chief Suhr as well as that of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff and Police Chief Sean Whent while issuing a general call for Black Health Matters. Though the group was arrested and released that evening, they took heat on social media for inconveniencing fellow drivers with their civil disobedience. Yet it must be said: These young men and women of color, some of whom identify as queer, have their peace disturbed pretty much every day, living Black lives by the Bay.

Meanwhile, the fight against displacement, foreclosures and evictions continues in the African American community, now officially down to 3 percent and closer to 2 percent of the overall population in the City and County of San Francisco. Few know the reality of displacement better then Pastor Yul Dorn of Emmanuel Church of God in Christ and chaplain at the San Francisco Sherif's Department: He's counseled many displaced persons on the job site. Yet on January 15, the pastor was unironically evicted from his home and arrested, alongside protesters, by the Sherif's department.

San Franciscans should be prepared and/or be ready to participate in further actions highlighting displacement, income disparity, racial injustice, and police terrorism in general, and specifically as it pertains to the Super Bowl here on February 7. This completely tone-deaf booking of a major spectacle like the Super Bowl by a city already under siege by jerk-offs, done in a deal struck behind-closed-doors is particularly egregious. For chasing out homeless encampments and inconveniencing thousands of working San Franciscans (who, for what it's worth can't afford a ticket to the game), the City shall expect in return plenty of public intoxication, urination, illegal gambling, human trafficking and domestic violence---the kinds of activities known to accompany massive sporting events around the world--and very little in the way of revenues trickling down to average citizens. But hey, welcome to San Francisco 2016 and the Year of the Monkey anyway. Here's to hoping things get better from here.

Altar on the Bay Bridge to people killed by San Francisco and Oakland Police. Members of Black.Seed blocked the span in the effort to ReclaimMLK.

-photo by Steve Rhodes

Denise Sullivan writes on arts and culture and gentrification issues for Down With Tyranny.

Rahm Emanuel Should Resign Immediately-- He Should Also Be Tried

First time I denounced Rahm Emanuel to a group of politically-active progressive bloggers (circa 2005), I was called out for being a "Republican Party plant." Lot of water under the bridge since then and today even the most obtuse Democrats have come to understand what Rahm Emanuel actually is and the incalculable damage he's done to the Democratic Party, as head of the DCCC-- with a still-operational recruitment strategy that makes it impossible for Democrats to ever win back the House-- and as Wall Street's man in Congress, as Obama's miserably failed Chief of Staff, as Chicago's incredibly Machiavellian and ineffective mayor and now as a principal in the year-long cover-up of the murder of 17 year old Laquan McDonald.

Starting with Black Lives Matter Chicago, SEIU Healthcare Illinois, Color of Change, and DFA, more and more groups have piled on demanding Rahm-- and equally corrupt State's Attorney Anita Alvarez-- resign and face the music. He's been the worst mayor anyone in Chicago can remember-- and that is saying a lot-- and his first term exacerbated every problem the city faces. Even the most disgusting of Beltway media hacks, Ron Fournier-- obviously for his own partisan agenda-- has called out Emanuel's perfidy: The Fish Rots From The Head In Chicago. "For the in­teg­rity of the party that rep­res­ents a vast ma­jor­ity of black voters," he begins, "Demo­crat­ic lead­ers every­where need to send the Chica­go may­or a mes­sage: You’re dead to us." Bernie Sanders already had. When Hillary was still crowing about her "confidence" in Rahm, Bernie called for any elected official implicated in the withholding of evidence to step down. No one had to guess twice who he was talking about.

A long­time lieu­ten­ant for the Clin­ton fam­ily and former chief of staff in the Obama White House, Emanuel nev­er hes­it­ated to muscle weak or dis­loy­al Demo­crats out of power. It’s time to flip the script on the en­for­cer nick­named “Rahmbo.”

Emanuel once sent a poll­ster who was late de­liv­er­ing a sur­vey res­ult a dead fish in a box. The night Bill Clin­ton won the 1992 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion, his aides were cel­eb­rat­ing around a pic­nic table when Emanuel picked up a knife and shouted the names of politi­cians who had “fucked us.” After each name, Emanuel de­clared, “Dead man!”

I’ve got noth­ing against Emanuel. I’ve known him since 1992 and be­nefited from his stra­tegic leaks in the Clin­ton White House. And I know this: Emanuel epi­tom­izes a brand of polit­ics that puts loy­alty and elect­or­al suc­cess above all else. He was edu­cated in the school of Clin­ton, where the ends jus­ti­fy the means, and ruled the Obama White House when it ca­pit­u­lated to the cul­ture of Wash­ing­ton that his boss had vowed to fight.

And then off he went to Chica­go, a his­tor­ic­ally cor­rupt city with a po­lice de­part­ment known for hid­ing mis­con­duct and bru­tal­ity.

On Oct. 20, 2014, po­lice of­ficer Jason Van Dyke fired 16 times at 17-year-old Laquan Mc­Don­ald, killing him. The next day, a po­lice de­part­ment state­ment claimed the teen­ager was shot while ap­proach­ing po­lice of­ficers. That was a lie.

A dash-cam video that au­thor­it­ies had ac­cess to with­in hours of the shoot­ing shows Mc­Don­ald hold­ing a knife and veer­ing away from of­ficers when he was shot. Why did the po­lice de­part­ment claim oth­er­wise? Why wasn’t the video re­leased to the pub­lic? Why didn’t the city in­vest­ig­ate the fact that 86 minutes of oth­er video sur­veil­lance foot­age of the crime scene was sus­pi­ciously miss­ing?

The most lo­gic­al con­clu­sion is that po­lice wanted to duck ac­count­ab­il­ity and Emanuel wanted to avoid los­ing his Feb. 24, 2015 reelec­tion amid na­tion­al un­rest over a po­lice shoot­ing in Fer­guson, Mis­souri.

The may­or nar­rowly won a second term after an April 7 run­off. Eight days later, the city made pub­lic a pree­mpt­ive $5 mil­lion set­tle­ment with the Mc­Don­ald fam­ily, an agree­ment reached quietly weeks pri­or. Emanuel’s team made sure to in­clude a clause that kept the video con­fid­en­tial.

Fight­ing a freel­ance journ­al­ist’s law­suit seek­ing the video, Emanuel ar­gued that re­leas­ing it might taint a fed­er­al in­vest­ig­a­tion. That was a lie. The Justice De­part­ment has said it did not ask the city to with­hold the video.

“That makes this whole epis­ode look like an at­tempt by the city, the po­lice and pro­sec­utors to keep the video un­der wraps, know­ing the polit­ic­al prob­lems it would most likely cre­ate,” reads a New York Times ed­it­or­i­al that ac­cused Emanuel of “will­ful ig­nor­ance” in “the cov­er-up.”

More than a year after the shoot­ing, a county judge ordered the city to re­lease the video. Only then was the of­ficer charged with Mc­Don­ald’s murder.

Before the tape was released at least five cops gave false statements to investigators about what happened when Laquan McDonald was gunned down by another officer. Emanuel then tried foisting the blame off on the police commissioner, who he unceremoniously fired. There is no way to recall a Chicago mayor. Neither Emanuel nor the oafish Alvarez can be trusted to be part of the much-needed reform of the Chicago Police Department nor of ensuring the safety of Chicago's residents. A just released poll indicates that more than half the city thinks Emanuel should resign. And so does DownWithTyranny.

Five Shot at Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest; Police Search for White Suspects

Rachel Maddow with the context for the shooting discussed below, plus updates

by Gaius Publius

Short and the opposite of sweet, but with two points to make. First is a news point, per the headline. Five people were shot at a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest in Minneapolis. Police are looking for several white suspects, likely white supremacists.

The story via Adam Johnson at Alternet:

5 Shot at Minneapolis Black Lives Matter Protest; Police Search for White Suspects

Multiple witnesses say white supremacists attacked the peaceful protest.

Five protesters were shot Monday night outside the Minneapolis Police Department’s 4th Precinct, allegedly by three white males who witnesses described as white supremacists. The protesters had been peacefully demonstrating against the recent shooting of 24-year-old Jamar Clark by Minneapolis police. Clark was allegedly shot and killed while in police detention on November 15.

White supremacists were spotted stalking the protesters late Friday night and even posted a taunting video on Facebook of themselves wielding handguns and making veiled threats.

The shooting took place, according to the Washington Post, around 10:40pm Central Time. None of the victims are said to have life-threatening injuries according to Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder, although one was reportedly shot in the stomach and rushed to surgery.

More from the StarTribune report:

Miski Noor, a media contact for Black Lives Matter, said “a group of white supremacists showed up at the protest, as they have done most nights.”

One of the three men wore a mask, said Dana Jaehnert, who had been at the protest site since early evening.

When about a dozen protesters attempted to herd the group away from the area, Noor said, they “opened fire on about six protesters,” hitting five of them. Jaehnert said she heard four gunshots.

The shootings occurred at 10:45 p.m. on Morgan Avenue N. about a block north of the precinct station.

The attackers fled. ...

Seems the police used mace after the shootings — against the demonstrators. Alternet again:

Several organizers of the protests alleged that police sprayed demonstrators with mace following the shooting to control the crowd. The police have not responded to the allegations.

So that's the first point — this happened, and it happened in the current Trumpian, beat-up-the-dark-guy context.

The second point is this — imagine the attackers are American citizens of Syrian origin and Muslim faith. Now imagine the wounded are anyone at all, at a gathering in Minneapolis. Would that be called an act of terrorism? If so, how is this not an act of terrorism? 

Not that we don't know the answer ... but still, I want to watch the mainstream twist out the explanation.

GP