Follow the Coalition:
Drone-Free LAPD/No Drones, LA Campaign Meeting: Join us, Tuesday, January 6th for the first campaign meeting of the New Year to stop LAPD’s drone program! We’ll be meeting at 6:30pm at LACAN: 838 E. 6th Street, Los Angeles. X-street: Gladys.
Coordination and Working Group Meetings: Join us, Monday, January 12th, at 6:00pm for our monthly Coordination and Working Group meetings. Coordination meets from 6-7, and the working groups (Outreach, Research, Communications, and Culture) will be meeting from 7-8 to go over our plans for the year and upcoming projects.
“Securing Impunity: Surveillance, Militarization and Extensive Information Gathering”
A report on LAPD’s response to the first week of non-indictment protests
Anticipating protests in the wake of non-indictments of White police who took Black lives, LAPD declared a “tactical alert” for the better part of the week in between the Ferguson and New York verdicts. This report focuses on the first week since the Darren Wilson verdict; while the formal alerts have since subsided, many high-tech tactical vehicles have continued to be deployed into December; in yet another case of “mission creep,” escalation may have become the new normal. Read Full Report Here….
“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Another tragedy occurred last week. A troubled man attempted to murder his partner, and then killed two New York City cops in their car. This comes after a fall filled with upheaval, unrest, and mass protests in the wake of the extrajudicial murders by law enforcement of unarmed black men like Mike Brown, Ezell Ford and Eric Garner.
The Mayor of New York City, Bill De Blasio issued a call to refrain from protest until the bodies of the two officers are laid to rest. This call went unheeded, and rightly so.
What’s been much more disrespectful has been the opportunism and reaction to this event. While Police Union leaders have been frothing at the mouth and running a slow motion coup at the mayor’s office, no attention was paid to the woman who was originally shot by this troubled individual. To pundits who have been doing their best to tie the tidal wave of protest in the last few months to last Saturday’s events, as if demands for justice somehow amount to calling for police assassinations, does the life of another victim of gender violence matter? Apparently Not!
But context, and fact, are unimportant to the institutions which maintain and expand white supremacy. Only white supremacy has the audacity to demand apologies from protesters for the death of two officers whose murders had nothing to do with demands for justice, mass protests and civil disobedience. It should be noted, that there was not a single apology from the NYPD or its officers for strangling an unarmed man to death in broad daylight because he may have been selling loosies.
Lets remember Malcolm X’s admonition to be careful when we take in a media designed to manipulate the truth to reinforce the current social order.
In the Media:
Black Cop Accuses Protesters of Racism…Read More…
People arrested for posting threats…Read More…
Will We Sleep Or Will We Fight!??!