Bail Fund for Eric against Police Kidnapping

Dear friends - our fundraiser on YouCaring was deleted; they don’t allow legal support fundraisers - so we created this one. So far we have raised $542.81 - so much love and gratitude to those of you who donated, and thank you for your messages of support. We have $3,000 more to go; but if it happens that we raise more than this, we will donate the remainder to the Bay Area Anti-Repression Crew. Here’s the original fundraiser description:
On New Year’s Eve, our comrade and friend Eric Garcia was brutally and arbitrarily arrested by police and held on false charges. This campaign seeks to reimburse Eric’s bond cosigner for bailing him out of jail. A more detailed description of the incident can be found below.
Eric and his friends attended an NYE noise demo in downtown Oakland, which they left after the demonstration was attacked by the police. Eric was standing with his friends on the sidewalk outside Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe on Telegraph Avenue, a full two blocks from the remaining marchers, among an assortment of cafe patrons and nighttime revelers, when police officers parked on Telegraph jumped out of their vehicles and charged at the small sidewalk gathering. The police snatched Eric from the crowd and violently arrested him, amid shouts of protest against police brutality. Fortunately, multiple people immediately began cop watching, recording the arrest on their phones, but this didn’t stop the police from hauling Eric off to the station and jailing him on completely unfounded felony charges.
Eric’s bail was set at $35,000. Since it was New Year’s Eve, the following day was a holiday, and following the holiday was the start of the weekend, Eric would have been held in jail for 5 nights until his arraignment on Monday if he hadn’t been bailed out, since court does not proceed on weekends and holidays. At his arraignment, given that there was a complete lack of justification for the arrest, no charges have been filed against Eric. The situation he was put in, through no wrongdoing on his part, amounts to state-sanctioned kidnapping and ransom.
Please give what you can to help Eric and his partner raise the amount of the bond payment that was exacted from them. These are very trying financial times for them both.
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