Tempe Police Homeland Defense Unit detective issues anti-anarchist letter ahead of "Take Back the Commons" event for 4/29/12

Below we have published an interesting email that came our way concerning tomorrow's expropriation of the unused and now vacant and bulldozed land where the Gentle Strength Co-op once stood.  A few things are worth noting. 

First, the cops are trying to divide the community.  They use classic red-baiting and anarchist fear-mongering tactics to attempt to convince locals and business owners to support a police assault on people who think that fallow land should not remain so merely because some Canadian land speculator wants to keep some property unused.  They don't say it, but it is likely that they continue to be threatened by the level of support that local anarchists have developed in Tempe, perhaps most visibly displayed during 2010's anti-SB1070 organizing, neighborhood assemblies, march and protests.  Hundreds came out then, unafraid of the fact that anarchists were organizing.  Second, we can boil down the cops' argument to this: "we don't want to look bad attacking people who want to use unused land (after all, we are the defenders of property first and foremost), so we want to make sure that only people who will look bad on camera -- anarchists -- are present for the police attack".  You know what, cops?  There's an easy way to avoid looking bad attacking people trying to use empty corporate land for community purposes: don't attack them.  I know that's hard for cops to do, being that they are a violent bunch of thugs.  But, who are the defenders of community?  The "anarchists" who want to create a commons or the cops who attack the community in defense of corporate property?

A few other interesting points: this property is controlled and left unused by the same company that owns Zuccotti Park.  Also, cops have been visiting local businesses to get them to oppose the occupation.  Another is that Tempe PD bike cops, which Officer Pittam used to be part of, got training from the Eugene PD after the first Tempe May Day protest, which they deployed the following year in brutal fashion, as is their general tendency.  This was facilitated by the nationalization of local policing that has generally prevailed under the post-9/11 regime.  And the TPD has tried this scare-mongering before.  Note that Pittam himself is now a part of the "Homeland Defense Unit".  What "homeland"?  Unused corporate property homeland?  What they want is for us to leave that property empty until some out of town land-speculating company can finally make a profit.

For the total expropriation of the capitalist class.  Also, Pittam needs an editor.

Hello,

Derek Pittam with the Tempe Police Department asked that I share the following information with you as your neighborhoods are closest in proximity to the area.  Please contact Derek at Derek_pittam@tempe.gov  or I with any questions.
Thanks,
Shauna

I write this to you because as you know my career has led me to have a close relationship with the residents and businesses in and about the downtown Tempe area.  In fact, several years ago, the Maple Ash community honored me with a “Friend of Community” award.  Community members have always known that I am aggressively proactive on issues of crime prevention.  This is no different, and I am very concerned that the planners of this event have not disclosed important information in their quest to gain the support of local residents and businesses.

 


I know the flyer (above) looks and sounds harmless right?  Well anarchists looked like this (photo below) the last time they planned an event surrounding “May Day” in downtown Tempe.


 
Now I know that some may see the photo and then look at the flyer above to find no correlation. One might think that law enforcement is even taking a “cheap shot” because after all this event will be garden building…right?…it’s green…it’s local…it’s hip…it’s taking a vacant brown field and making it beautiful…why would the police be concerned?  Well despite the nice flyers and excellent planning to get local residents and businesses to show support and even commit to participation, the planners of this event forgot to do something… or maybe they did not forget.

At the time of writing this email, no planner for this event has contacted a private property owner or management group of vacant land within the downtown Tempe area to ask permission to conduct such an event.   No planner of this event has contacted the appropriate city staff to inquire about proper permitting or permissions needed to do this event.  That’s a problem and that is why I now have concern as it relates to community members and businesses who would like to participate.
Basically, this activity is known is “guerilla gardening” and is not new. It has picked up steam with the Occupy movement and is usually done by seizing and occupying “privately owned” property.

 Upon public safety learning that no property owner/management company within the downtown Tempe community has approved of this planned activity, subsequently many downtown property responsible persons have signed “Authority to Arrest” letters.  This allows police to arrest for trespassing without the property’s responsible person having to be present.  As a part of our duty to protect the rights and privileges of *all persons*, the Tempe Police Department is prepared to enforce certain laws against those who believe their own personal liberties supersede the liberties of others.

Why do I think the anarchist organizers are planning to knowingly engage in criminal activity?  Well despite pointing out the above obvious issue, there are other indicators.   On 4/23/12, Modern Times Magazine reported the location for this event in an online article.

http://www.moderntimesmagazine.com/page16/Arizona_May_Day_120423/Arizona_May_Day_120423.php

Ironically, police had already been working with the local property management for this specific location outlined in the above article several weeks prior.   The property management confirmed that this planned activity received no permissions from the owners to take place on this property.  In response, property management subsequently posted  “no trespassing” signs on the property after the signing an “Authority to Arrest” letter.  Not long after, this post appeared of the event’s Facebook page:

In response to your no trespassing signs, we say “if it’s vacant, take it!"*

The signs on this lot, as of today, have been knocked down and destroyed by unknown persons.

Not to be overtly accusatory toward the planners of this event as responsible for this criminal damage, but it is coincidental and only raises my concerns that anarchist planners for this event could be anticipating conflict.   After all, staging events that force the police to take enforcement action police is how anarchists hope to erode community support for local police departments.  Anarchists want to place police in a position so they can say in a clever sound bite, “See we told you so… the cops are here to protect the interests of the wealthy!”    In actuality, police would provide the exact same enforcement action to assist any person exercising lawful standing regardless of their of socio-economic status. These are well known anarchist tactics that I am all too familiar with.

In conclusion, researching other “guerilla gardening” actions planned by anarchists in other cities, the goal is to engage in civil disobedience (as seen in Santa Cruz, CA in December of 2011) .  In other words, due to the liability concerns of property owners surrounding these “un-insured” actions, the property owners do not have the chance to be supportive of such an event without certain guarantees from the organizers, therefore with property owner participation exclusion from the event planning, conflict is evitable with police and/or property holder.

Where this tactic meets the goals of the anarchist, it may not be in the best interests  of the local law abiding citizen who thought they were merely showing up for a community building event where a garden or park was being built.

Again, I send this to you Shauna for informational purposes to forward to anyone within the community that you feel may be affected by this planned event.   This way, public safety has expressed its concern with the community and therefore allows each community member or business to make a decision based on “free agency” as to whether they will participate or support such an event.

Derek Pittam #14555
Detective
Homeland Defense Unit
Tempe Police Department

Defend Arizona Workers, Abolish the Police Unions

At times like these -- of austerity and broad attacks on workers, the poor and the excluded -- it must first be pointed out that the state revenue crisis is fake.  In Arizona, the justification for massive cuts and fee increases runs immediately up against the hard fact that while the right wing government is pleading poverty and cutting health and assistance programs for the poor, it is also busy slashing corporate taxes.  Famously, two out of three corporations in the Copper State pay no taxes and recurring proposals for a "flat tax" would shift the tax burden even further onto the poor and working class -- a group that already pays disproportionately more of their income than Arizona's rich.

It's in this context that a new series of anti-union bills have been introduced into the legislature.  Backed by the generally reactionary far right Goldwater Institute, these laws would remove basic rights of free association and self-defense from Arizona workers.  Among the deletions: automatic deductions and collective bargaining rights over pay and benefits.  And, unlike other states, such as Wisconsin, where similar legislation has been introduced, in Arizona police and fire departments are not excluded.  This comes in the context of an ongoing series of attacks on unions in Arizona.

In Arizona only six percent of workers are unionized, and this skews heavily towards public sector workers.  Perhaps not surprisingly, Arizona has one of the lowest percentage of unionized workers in the US, but even that small number is in decline, and last year many workers took the opportunity of the weakening of automatic deduction laws to leave unions that they felt had been poorly representing them, engaging in the classic 'dues strike'.  In Arizona, public sector unions have been increasingly seen by their members as functioning not to defend workers, but rather to manage the imposition of austerity in ways that don't rile up the rank and file.

And, of course, in any labor fight, conflicts with the police are never far off.  That's what makes these bills so interesting,  Given the important role of police as strikebreakers and the enforcers of capital's will, one tends to assume that almost certainly Arizona's right wing ideologues will have to pull a Wisconsin and create exceptions for the police and fire departments.  As we have recently seen in the case of Kyrsten Sinema's liberal candidacy for Congress, even so-called progressives in the state depend on the political support of the racist police unions.

Indeed, Synema recently accepted the endorsement of the worst police union in the state (although choosing is hard), the Professional Law Enforcement Association, famous for its vigorous advocacy for Arizona's anti-immigrant SB1070 law and unconscionable defense of Officer Richard Chrisman, who tortured, shot and killed unarmed Danny Rodriguez as well as his dog in his home on October 5, 2010.  Famously, PLEA President Mark Spencer not only helped bail Chrisman out with union funds, but also held a fund-raiser bbq for his defense.  But such it is with police unions.

Beyond that, if there is to be a fight that breaks out beyond the strict legislative boundaries enforced by the union bureaucracy and leadership, like perhaps a general strike, bosses and government officials will need the police to impose their class objectives.  Police, of course, are not just regular members of the working class.  They are paid to wage a never-ending war on poor people, folks of color in particular, and to maintain capitalist relations of property, wage labor and commodity production.

I've been reading Kristian Williams excellent book, "Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America" and he goes into quite a bit of depth about the history and reactionary tendencies of police unions that set them apart from and against other unions.  What strikes me as particularly relevant in the current situation is his analysis of the different ways that police union demands function versus the demands of other public sector workers.  Setting aside wage and benefit bargaining, the demands and lobbying of most public sector workers tends to involve benefits for the broader working class.  That is, teachers in the past have very often demand smaller class sizes, increased funding for free breakfast and lunch programs, and other social programs concomitant with their role.  For instance, the American Federation of Teachers in recent years joined the boycott of Arizona over SB1070.  These sorts of trends bear out amongst most other public sector unions.

However, this is not true when it comes to the police.  The results of police union bargaining tend much more strongly in the exact opposite direction.  Also, because of the often mutually beneficial relationship between police unions, the police bureaucracy, government and politicians, police negotiations and the lobbying that their organizations engage in tend to lead directly to increased budgets for weapons and equipment, expansion of police and jail facilities and other infrastructure to be used against the poor and marginalized populations.  So, while most public sector bargaining and lobbying can lead to increased services, police bargaining and lobbying leads to more murdered and imprisoned poor people, and the wrecked and ruined lives that go with it.  Beyond that, police union bureaucracy serves to protect cops from the consequences of their policing through its various internal discipline procedures.

So, if the legislature sticks to its ideology of right wing austerity and attacks on workers over the class pragmatism of privileging the police, there may be an opportunity to seriously weaken the police unions in Arizona, striking a blow for the working class and the poor and greatly opening up possibilities for further struggle.  To do this, workers will have to be brave enough to recognize their opposing interests to the police and to say, "Defend Arizona Workers, Abolish the Police Unions".

Lines will have to be drawn, but they won't be new lines.  In all likelihood this will mean contradicting the union bosses who will play, as is their habit, towards the racist, classist law and order line of safety and protection.  If we ever want to break out of this system of never-ending work, in which waged labor dominates our lives and we negotiate pitifully with the bosses for small glimpses of freedom and dignity, this will necessarily mean taking on the final defenders of work, the police.  Public sector workers may find it expedient in the short term to hide behind the boys in blue, but long term, given the fight that is coming, that strategy may come back to haunt them.

A short primer on jail support for #occupyphoenix from my experience (PCWC)

Here's how jail support goes from my experience:

(0) Get some money together.  Have a house party.  Rob a bank.  Organize a car wash.  Whatever.

(1) Get a land line that someone is going to sit at and wait by in case arrests happen.  That's their job. It's not exciting but it's fucking important. It's gotta be a land line in Maricopa county because Sheriff Joe is an asshole and you can't call cell phones from his prisons.  Let everyone at the action know the number to call.  It should be someone you all agree on and that you trust.  Reliable.

(2) Ask people who might get arrested what name they want to use when they call and who they want you to call for bail money, help, support, a ride, someone to cover for them at work tomorrow or whatever.  People might want to use fake names.  That's okay because fuck the cops.  Write that shit down so you get it right.

(3) It's gonna take a few hours for people to process out.  Maybe 24 hours even or more.  That's just how it goes because the pigs want to keep people out of the game while they protect rich people and the status quo.  That's why they sometimes arrest you and don't charge you.  They're pricks.

(4) Call all your fucking friends.  Have your friends call their friends.  Get your asses down to the fucking jail.  Call your friends who are musicians. The cops or idiot lawyers may tell you that if you stay that people in jail can't see friends, families or lawyers.  This is bullshit.  No one sees family or lawyers before their first appearance before the judge.  The asshole judge is not going to ask about guilt or innocence so lawyers don't really fucking matter at that point.  Don't fall for this shit.  Stay outside the jail and wait for your friend.  They will be happy you did.  If you're loud enough they might hear you.  They'll like that.

(5) Your friends are going to call you.  Do what you agreed to do in step 2.  They will really fucking appreciate it.  Being in jail, especially if your friends are alone, injured, or of a marginalized identity, can really suck.  It can be deadly.  They want to talk to you and to know they are getting out.  Help them with all your heart but don't lie.  Never lie about release prospects.  Don't talk about illegal shit.  The cops are listening.

(6) Pack the room where they are being read their charges.  These days because the fucks who run shit are afraid that we will liberate our friends like we used to back in the day, this mostly happens via video.  Your friends who are locked up probably can't see you, but they will be happy to hear you tell them you were there when it counted after they get out.  So be there.

(7) Bail your friends out if you can.  Really fucking important.

(8) Be outside in large numbers when they get out.  They are going to be so stoked to see you.  They might want a beer, too, so buy it for them because jail fucking sucks.  Maybe buy them two.

Others should chime in if I forgot something.  This shit always meant a lot to me.  And I'm a fucking militant, not a lawyer, so there's your disclosure.  Lawyers should advise but not tell you what to do.  Their job is to get your ass out of jail after you do what you do, not to tell you not to do it.

Whose side are you on? Oh, wait, we know!

Photo via Downtown Devil

This doesn't make you angry?

Do you have a free bone in your fucking body?

Could it be any clearer what side the police are on?

People were peaceful, they rejected the radicals, they carried the American flag around, they negotiated with the city, they sang all the old peace songs and the national anthem, too!  Politicians showed up... and yet, look at the result!

And we anarchists did what we were asked to do.  We didn't riot, we didn't overwhelm you with our weird dress and odd ideas.  We didn't speak to the media.  We didn't cover the space with our flags and banners.  We didn't tag everything.  We didn't fight with the Nazis who showed up.

And yet, isn't it obvious?

The cops are our enemies.  They are the defenders of the rich and powerful -- the very people we are opposing!  Look at what they do when we just try to take a little public space for a few hours to have a discussion about what we think this world should look like as opposed to how it is.

They are not part of the 99%.  Look what they do.

Until everyone is free!  We know who locked them up!

Hazy Shade of Criminal: Antisec, Police and the Media, or, "'Fuck the Police' Means 'Fuck the Police'"

This most recent, third (and, I hope not final) attack on DPS by Antisec has revealed that Arizona cops share racist jokes, endorse torture, cover up stalking in their upper ranks, worship American militarism, make light of lethal violence against migrants and regularly massage their public image through the development of PR campaigns with cutesy names like "Cops, Kids, and Christmas".

In addition, the leaked emails serve as a testament to their pathetically crippled senses of humor. In the errant communications, the traditionally far right police organizations find themselves dumbstruck by the fact that their steadfast and reliable support for the Republicans has been paid back in budget cuts and layoffs. And, though cops are not known for their highly developed sense of irony, at least some of those cops then boasting about securing their emails after the first attack must be appreciating a little bit of it now that their electronic boasts of infallibility are public record thanks to these persevering anarchist hackers. Pride before the fall, as they say.

Antisec replaced the front page of several police organizations with its press release and a video for the Public Enemy song "Hazy Shade of Criminal"

Past releases over the last couple weeks via Antisec and its predecessor, Lulzsec, have revealed similar content, including that state cops and Border Patrol were aware of armed US Marines patrolling the border on private contract for ranchers and that the Minutemen had contemplated shutting down a freeway as part of their anti-immigrant crusade. Likewise, captured internal anti-terrorism newsletters highlighted copwatch events and other clearly not terrorism related organizations and actions in their "upcoming events" section, reflecting the mission creep of policing in Arizona and the US by and large under the logic of the war on terrorism. At her always interesting website Censored News, Brenda Norrell has continued to provide excellent coverage of some of the highlights that have emerged. Because of that, I feel no need to go over the specifics of the emails. My interest in the Antisec attacks goes beyond just the details of piggy internet messaging.

Because, as is obvious from the data revealed, cops are pretty much cops. Despite the slack-jawed and gape-mouthed looks of shock and awe on the faces of the plastic TV news anchors, is anyone really surprised that cops are racist? Or that cops are a miltaristic bunch? That they cover up their crimes? Let's hope not. Least of all us at PCWC. In two past articles, "Officer Down: The Phoenix Media and Cop-Killings", and the follow-up piece, "Exhuming the State's Avenging Angels: Revisiting 'Officer Down' in Light of Recent Revelations About the Phoenix PD", I have previously written about the police as an institution and the way it is portrayed in the media.

The role of the police and the kinds of people that are recruited to do police work are so obvious to almost everyone in society that the entire propaganda apparatus of the state and capital gets enlisted in the hasty cover up work whenever the thin veneer of respectability threatens to wear off in the slightest. "Fuck the cops" remains one of the truly universal sentiments in American society that at the same time is completely unspeakable within mainstream "responsible" dialogue. The Mesa Fraternal Order of Police, its website a target for Antisec, has a facebook page with only 314 friends in a city with 440,000 residents. Surely an institution with deep support within the community could do much better than that! Hell, there are over 750 sworn officers in the department alone! Perhaps people remember the Mesa Fraternal Order of Police's staunch defense of its officers in the police murder of 15 year-old Mario Madrigal.

The lonely Mesa FOP has no internet friends!

It is common to hear the refrain, "People become cops because they were picked on in school", but we know that's not true. Cops become cops because they are bullies. Occasionally a well-meaning one may slip through, but they don't last long, and their road is an extremely difficult one marked by job stagnation and lack of promotion. Policing, like any other job but even moreso because of its relationship with power and its own criminality, demands fealty to the thin blue line. Loyalty over all else.

Now, in expressing what may seem like cynicism about the content released through Antisec's attacks on the cop computers, that is not to say that I oppose them. Quite the opposite. Unlike some in the alternative media, who question whether the right target was chosen, preferring an attack on Sheriff Joe and MCSO instead of DPS, or a hit on the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association over the Fraternal Order of Police, I'm quite content with the idea of hackers targeting the police generally, whatever organization. Though some may find it lacking, an attack on DPS has its own merits beyond their particular flaws as a law enforcement institution, and to understand that you neither have to forget that DPS will be enforcing SB1070 along with all other police in the state nor ignore that DPS was the subject not that long ago of a blistering report by the ACLU which pointed out deep and systematic racial disparities in vehicle stops and searches.

These welcome emails reveal among other things internal rivalries and things said behind others' backs. Careers could very well be in jeopardy. And, yes, as Antisec itself points out, the hacks turn the tables on the cops, making them feel the vulnerability we all suffer daily under their constant watch and often violent enforcement regime. Perhaps some cops will stop being cops. And police computers off line, with information and investigations compromised, means more freedom for those of us that suffer police oppression. Some will wring their hands if "criminals" escape prosecution because of these attacks, but not me, and not anyone who has experienced justice as delivered by the cops. We know the real villains, the ones who do the most damage, are the bosses, politicians, generals and cops of this world. Those interested in justice must first oppose the justice system.

It is precisely in the queries from the media and the responsive demands of DPS for increased spending on militarized information systems that we see the failure to understand the fundamental relationship of policed to police. Beefing up cyber-protections for the cops only makes their attacks on us, on the rest of society, more lethal! Note the rise in deaths at the hands of police that has followed the deployment of "less lethal" technologies as a point of comparison. When governments give the police more power, they do not use it less.

Any demand for security must first appreciate that the security of the cops comes at the expense of the security of the rest of us. Remember, more protections for police computers means we know less about what they are really thinking and doing. It means those racist emails don't come out. Consider for example the fact that the Tempe police had and perhaps still has kept tabs on individual anarchists, making notes about political affiliations on police reports drawn off police databases. This is what police security really means, and arguments for increased police powers to protect their information means at the same time power to protect this particular kind of information. Make no mistake about it, we at PCWC, like Antisoc, are anti-police. Their demand for "a world free from police, prisons and politicians altogether" rings true with us.

DPS: Cut backs in the mustache department.

Indeed, this lack of discrimination between police agencies hearkens back to the analysis issued by the Diné, O'odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian bloc in January 2010. And the discussion around the Antisec attacks mirrors precisely that dynamic, of good cops and bad cops, which surrounded the events of that time. The Phoenix PD, even though their arrests result in more deportations than Sheriff Joe's MCSO, were held up as the good guys by leaders in the pro-migrant movement, even to the point of permitting police liasons in organizing meetings for the main liberal event, as they had been at marches before that. Taking this line let the sheriffs off the hook, allowing the PPD to do the day's dirty work, and thus the mainstream organizers were able to push for the further isolation of anti-capitalist and anti-state militants when the police attack came down. In framing their opposition to the MCSO in those terms, the leaders of the movement had become the racist PPD's biggest defenders.

As I pointed out before, this flawed view of police and policing echoes in the writings of movement sympathetic journalists who half-heartedly denounce Antisec's choice of targets. Consider Stephen Lemons' recent post on the subject in his New Times Blog, "The Feathered Bastard", practically lamenting what he sees as the so far squandered opportunity to hit what he considers legit targets, while at the same time offering up his own modified target list. Consider his comments on his most recent article: "[T]here are far worse police organizations in state to pick on than AZ DPS or the FOP. I mean, the FOP is no PLEA (Phoenix Law Enforcement Association), for instance. Everyone in this state knows that PLEA is an outright nativist, anti-Hispanic police union. By contrast, the FOP has a pretty good reputation. Similarly, DPS is no Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, with Hispanic-hunter Joe Arpaio as the jefe."

Offering up his correction, however, Lemons is quick to back off. He provides us this weak-kneed, wink and a nod disclaimer: "Of course, I'm not suggesting anyone hack anyone. Nor can I or would I condone such outrageous criminal activity." But will he read the emails? "Natch." He asks us, finally, "What's the point of going after cops who may just be doing their jobs?" Well, it turns out, that is precisely the point. It is the every day functioning of the police that is the problem, not the aberrations. And individual police do not escape this logic. Indeed, to the rare extent that they are not the state and capital's willing accomplices, they remain prisoners of this logic. They cannot be the "good cop". It is impossible.

But, perhaps, as Lemons suggests, Antisec is not familiar with Arizona politics enough to know the slight differences between our various racist police forces. Not knowing who they are, we naturally have little to go on. However, it's entirely possible that, as they say clearly in their own press release, they don't care. Maybe they are not interested in making distinctions between various kinds of racists and degrees of racism in Arizona police departments and organizations. After all, it took only the release of a handful of emails from just a few FOP members and DPS officers to reveal that laundry list I opened the article with, begging the question of what remains to be found. Does anyone really think that's all there is? If that sort of racism and worship of state and vigilante violence is acceptable enough to share via email with one's cop comrades, in broad daylight so to speak, what is too dangerous for it? What is said only behind the safety of the thin blue line?

Antisec is right not to split hairs when it comes to Arizona's myriad racist police. All of them, together and individually, are enemies of freedom, worshipers of authority and an obstacle to the demands of people for dignity and the ability to organize their own lives as they see fit. As we have seen in the past, the elevation of one cop gang over another does not protect from repression and police attack. So that means opposition to those institutions of repression must necessarily be anti-security, just as it is anti-police.

Videos of the day: From Brixton to Bristol, Rebellion against cops and capital in the UK

Here's some good video out of Bristol, England from last week that I came across over at neurobonkers. This is a crowd sourced collection of video shot on the night that months of community resentment at the opening of a Tesco shop exploded into an open rebellion against the corporate chain and the police. The night began with a heavy police presence entering the St Pauls and Stokes Croft area to remove a protest outside of the Tesco, and to raid Telepathic Heights, a squatted building, occupied across the street from the shop.

From the Bristol Anarchist Federation's write-up on the night's events:

The blocking of road by the police and the news that Telepathic Heights was threatened and that the Tesco protest had been forcibly broken up meant it wasn’t long before a substantial crowd had gathered. The crowd became more and more angry as police refused to give justification for their presence, pushing or hitting anyone who got close to their lines. The increased tension of recent months, which has built up as austerity measures begin to kick in and the community of Stokes Croft and St Pauls feel ever more ignored and marginalised, had found a focal point and personification in the belligerence of the police. All it took was for someone to tip over a glass recycling bin.

While it received a good trashing, it's still business as usual in Bristol, and Tesco, the world's second largest retail profit operation (after Walmart), plans to reopen the shop on the 28th of April. Bristol anarchist Ian Bone also reports that at least two people arrested are facing serious charges from last week's ruckus, and that more arrests of the Tesco resisters are likely.

The anti-police/anti-Tesco battle was the biggest explosion of discontent in riotous form in over 30 years in Bristol, and following on the heals of the 30th anniversary of the massive anti-police riot in Brixton. While last week's riot in Bristol wasn't anywhere near the scale of the anti-police rebellion in Brixton back in '81, both were responses to police provocation, and in Brixton it was Operation Swamp 81 that pushed the community to act. Swamp 81 was a massive stop and search operation, a police tactic in England that relies almost entirely on racial profiling but is justified under an officer's mere "suspicion" that a law has been broken, not all too different from the justification given by Maricopa County sheriff's office deputies during the "crime suppression" immigrant round-ups in Latino neighborhoods across the valley. As intended by police, Swamp 81 made a big impact in a five day span, 950 people were stopped and searched, in the largely black community. As outrage over the police presence peaked, it was the police's treatment of a young man who was mortally wounded, that sparked the massive riots that lasted for two days, seeing 82 arrests, over a hundred buildings damaged, and 279 coppers injured.

I came across the second and third videos at "History is made at Night," an interesting blog focused on the intersection of music, dance, and politics. There was a post dedicated to the different songs dedicated to the Brixton revolt on the 30th anniversary a couple of weeks back. "Insurrection" by Hiatus is a tribute to the UK dub reggae classic "The Great Insurrection" by Linton Kwesi Johnson. I've included both videos because I think they both deserve a viewing.








I'm not posting these to romanticize the riots, clearly Brixton suffered for many more years from grinding poverty and racism from the police. Nor have the police ceased the use of "stop and search" as a tactic, just last year the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission reported that it was still broadly applied to primarily Asian and black residents:

The Commission said its analysis showed that if black people were stopped and searched at the same rate as white people - there would have been around 25,000 searches - instead there were more than 170,000.

Several police forces have increased their use of stop and search against ethnic minorities, with black people being stopped and searched at least six times the rate of white people, the commission said.

Asian people were about twice as likely to be stopped as whites.

London had by far the highest rates of stops with 183 out of 1,000 black people searched.

Similarly, the police have not learned a lesson from the events last week in Bristol, if anything they're likely to increase their presence and patrols. No, the reason I find these ruptures are worth celebrating isn't simply because they are riotous, but rather that those in the streets are acting against the authorities without delegation or representation. This is not always a default position in moments of conflict with the authorities, more often there is a political compromise negotiated by a friendly face, who may come in the form of a "community relations" cop, a professional activist from an organization in the community, or a local politician who allies themselves with the plight of people on the bottom of the ladder.

To look at our situation in the valley, just imagine if, instead of another Circle K opening in a neighborhood, people rallied against the junk food hawking corporate chain by using a number of different tactics to stop it from opening. Or what if the next time Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio calls for another immigrant "crime suppression" sweep, the people take to the streets against the power of the police. For the first time in many of our lives, we would have done more to create the space needed to struggle for a free society than any political hack, from either the Left or the Right, could offer through a compromise with those in power.

Quote of the Day (1/29/11)

Police cower before the rage of people who have had enough.

If only for a little while, the people of Alexandria have liberated their city from the police. Despite the American-made (see, we still do make things here!) tear gas that has showered them for the better part of a day, the working class of the city has found themselves in the surprising position of having defeated the police. Oh, to breathe such fresh air!

From the New York Times:

For one day, in this historic Mediterranean city, the protesters won outright.

Alexandria was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the country on Friday as riot police officers fired tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets and protesters hurled paving stones in more than two hours of pitched battle.

In the end, the police capitulated in the face of too many protests around the city with too many determined demonstrators for them to contain. The police retreated, leaving the city in the hands of protesters for several hours, as police cars, the regional party headquarters and the provincial government office burned.

“There is no government in Alexandria now,” said Muhammad Ahmed Ibrahim, 32. “They are all in hiding.”

After darkness fell, soldiers in tanks and armored personnel carriers were welcomed with cheers in downtown Alexandria, perhaps a sign of Alexandrians’ relief that some semblance of order would be retained after the destruction of a day spent venting pent-up anger.

“The people set fire to the police station in Sharq,” said Abdullah Hassan al-Banna, 30, one of the demonstrators, referring to part of eastern Alexandria. “The people set tires on fire and threw them into the governorate” — the government building. “We pulled down all the posters of Hosni Mubarak,” Egypt’s president.

Late Friday, downtown Alexandria was choked with smoke that blotted out the sunset. Flames licked the sides of a downtown tram station.

One man stood on a police troop carrier holding up a giant Egyptian flag as police officers inside the vehicle smiled and waved their fingers through the grates.

“The people wanted to show their resistance to the regime, but I don’t think they had any idea they would overpower it,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, who observed the street fighting in Alexandria on Friday.

“For the first time in the history of the Mubarak regime, the capacity of the police was completely exhausted,” Mr. Bouckaert said. “The police state broke down today.”

Sitting here, thousands of miles away, seeing the police daily enforce the dictatorship of capital in my own city, yet watching leaderless (or maybe, more accurately, 'widely leadered' or projectual), working class movements sweep away various dictators, large and small, one after the other, I can't help but long for the banner "Tunis, Alexandria, Phoenix" to hang from a liberated space somewhere soon. Sounds like war elephants.

Egyptian badasses disable police vehicles by removing batteries.

Here in the US, a twitter spokesman writing an email response to a reporter's inquiry tried to wrap his little iNoggin around the cut off of the internet in Egypt. Speaking in terms reflecting a limited imagination perhaps even surprising for iExecs, he said, "A world without the Internet [sic] is unimaginable." Without an emoticon indicating irony or laughter, what am I to do with that? Like the pre-internet era is paleolithic? Don't we have a memory of this?

And this in the face of a wide-spread, word of mouth insurrection that despite the removal of the asocial media as a means of communication, still found hundreds of thousands of friends and neighbors pouring out on the streets together, doing battle with the cops and liberating their city from the hateful dictatorship's police.

One woman I heard interviewed on BBC in fact cited the lack of communication as the reason she went into the streets in the morning. No cell phone. No facebook. She had to go into the streets to see what was happening there. Twitter revolution? Not right now.

The word is, folks are going door to door tonight in Egypt, even as we speak, planning the next attack. It's blasphemy before the holy meme of the iRevolution, I know. And yet... what about the poor and working class in control of the Suez Canal. Watch the rich sweat...

Heretic revolutionaries and righteous police violence: Considering the double standard

Phoenix Insurgent

The Phoenix New Times has run a truly awful piece as the cover story in their most recent issue. In the article, entitled "Time Bomb", author Peter Jamison launches a full on, one-sided attack on former Weather Underground radicals, attempting to link them to a bombing of a police station in San Francisco in February 1970. Although it does a pretty shoddy job of making the case (the attack was claimed by another group and all the Weather people interviewed deny it), I don't want to go into the details. For me, that's not the most important thing about the article. Anyone with even a little knowledge of Weather and their exploits, as well as the shenanigans of the police following them, can find ample beef with the tone and many -- conveniently -- left out details.

But what I think is most instructive is the bias displayed in the article: the way that the police are framed as good guys and the double standard applied to revolutionaries versus those who engage in every day and ongoing violence (i.e., the police and the military). In the media, police are treated as saints. When they're killed, the media flocks to cover the "tragedy". In his piece, Jamison replicates this tendency to embrace the ruling class myth of the "peace officer" (a phrase he uses to contrast against the violent WU) when he doesn't bother to answer simple question about the policeman killed in the bombing: was he a good cop?

Now, anarchists of course know that there really is no such thing as a good cop (perhaps bad and less worse is a better rubric!), but for sake of argument, I think it's worth considering the fact that we have no idea whether this dead cop deserved this bomb or not? How can we judge whether he is a worthy martyr if the journalist writing the piece won't give us a look into his record? Did Officer Brian McDonnell have a sterling record? Did he have any complaints against him? Had he ever killed an unarmed man? Was he involved in corruption?

These things are all common amongst police. Surely, we need to know this information about Officer McDonnell before we can accept this writer's characterization of him as "peace officer", not least of all a martyr. But this mistake is a common one. We are just meant to believe that he is undeserving of his fate even though we have no information with which to make a judgment.

And since Jamison references the never carried through bombing of the non-commisioned officers dance party, it's worth noting that it goes likewise with soldiers. We see this today whenever a local boy or girl is brought home in a body bag. The hero-worship begins immediately. The flags come out and the tears are quick to follow. At no point does anyone point out that perhaps the resistance, such that it may be, was in all likelihood quite justified in killing the soldier. And likewise never is it pointed out that she was engaged in enforcing the will of the American political elite on poor people abroad. No, the death of the soldier necessarily eliminates all dialogue with regard to the motivations or character of the dead, not to mention what they did before they were killed.

This seems quite relevant but it is of course forbidden in the mainstream dialogue. A couple years ago I listened to testimony from the second Winter Soldiers hearings. One soldier there said after he came home from his first tour, he got the Arabic equivalent of "fuck you" tattooed on the wrist of what he called his "strangling arm". That way it would be the last thing that poor Iraqi would see. He redeployed not long after that. I also heard of an officer in a unit offering several days leave to the first troop to kill an Iraqi with a knife. So, if those soldiers were killed in Iraq and, when their bodies came home, we had this information in the obit, do you think they would get the same reception?

Likewise with cops. What if McDonnell was the same kind of cop as Officers Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss, the murderers of Amadou Diallo? Or what if they were like Johannes Mehserle, the cop who killed the handcuffed Oscar Grant on that BART platform? Well, if that bomb had gotten them, would we all be lining the streets for their funerals?

To get an idea of how this bias plays out, let's consider a section from the article, but let's play Mad Lib with it. I'll leave key parts blank and let's put in different word combinations to see what we get.

Meanwhile, veteran investigators still fume over the ease with which __(a)__ have assumed the mantle of middle-class respectability. When people talk to Noel about the ___(b)____'s avowed intent not to harm people, he likes to tell the story of a 1971 search of one of the group's principal "safe houses," an apartment on Pine Street in San Francisco's Nob Hill neighborhood. Inside, FBI agents and SFPD inspectors discovered C-4 explosives, voice-activated bomb switches, and concealable shivs made from sharpened knitting needles epoxied into the caps of ballpoint pens.

"'Voice-activated switch' means the bomb goes off when a person comes in and talks," Noel said. "This whole image that these were nice-type people is what makes me upset. It's bullshit. That's not what they were. They were thugs and they were criminals trying to overthrow the __(c)___." During the 2008 election season, Noel even made a brief televised appearance with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News to counter the arguments of ___(d)___ apologists who were saying the group had been essentially nonviolent.

(a) Ayers and Dohrn
(b) Weather Underground
(c) U.S. government
(d) Weather Underground

The answers listed above are the original ones, but try putting in something like (a) "Private First Class Herbert Carter, rifleman, 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division", (b) "US Army", (c) "Vietnamese government", (d) "American military". If you did that, you'd be describing the My Lai massacre. Or maybe, punch in the names of some local abusive cops that you know. The results reveal the bias inherent in the piece quite nicely, I think. Because the actions of the cops or the military serve the interests of the capitalist class, the violence that they engage in goes unremarked on, even to the point that they can be portrayed as non-violent (i.e., "peace officers").

In the case of "Time Bomb", I think that Jamison must be aware of this contradiction, which is probably why he doesn't give us this information. He likewise downplays COINTELPRO, calling it mere "dubious practices". I suppose that's Newspeak for murder, manipulation and surveillance that's against the law.

At the same time, Jamison puts the blame for provoking all this bad behavior not on the cops that did it, but on the broad movement for civil rights including, of course, Weather. One wonders, would Jamison likewise blame the Freedom Riders for the attacks of the Klan? It's a very troublesome logic. That this is obviously ahistorical is evidenced by the fact that COINTELPRO was set up by FBI Director Hoover, a man who made his name in the Red Scare of 1919. So going after the militant and even wishy-washy left wasn't a new tactic to him.

But we anarchists know that the cops weren't provoked. They were just doing what cops do -- protect the status quo. After all, it's not like this was the first or last time that cops have acted in reactionary ways towards movements and the people that compose them. The question that Jamison asks and then answers for us is something like this: how else could Weather consider people of peace like cops and soldiers as legitimate targets unless they were murderous thugs? This is where the elite dialogue leads us, and it's the path faithfully tread by Jamison in his article.

To conclude, I'd like to continue my ongoing series of repostings from the past. Below you can find an article I wrote in 2005 called "Officer Down: The Media and Cop-Killings". In it, I use the killing of a local cop as a tool to analyze the way the media portrays police and the way it reacts to their deaths.

Driving in Tucson today I noticed a giant billboard with the mugshots of seven or eight cops that have been killed on duty in that town looming over the freeway. At the same time, Tucson streets are lined with (regrettably un-defaced) bus stop posters urging us to "thank a cop". For what, I'm not sure, because the saints that peer down from the billboards bear no history and for the most part no one's asking that question. They are the saints of Tucson's capitalist elite. And, as Diogenes said, "In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face."

Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the piece. As for a new article, look for a detailed analysis of the local anti-photo radar camera movement to appear here in the coming days. As always, your feedback is encouraged and welcomed.

OFFICER DOWN:
The Phoenix Media and Cop-Killings

By Phoenix Insurgent

The recent shooting death of Officer David Uribe, shot in the head and neck while making a traffic stop, offers several opportunities for radical analysis. Typical of its easy-going treatment of local police departments, the media fell lock step behind the idea of the police officer as defender of public order and all things good. In fact, where any dissented from the gushing media monotone, they demanded an even more gratuitous lavishing of praise on Uribe and police in general.

Such was the case with John McDonald's melodramatic column in the Arizona Republic. In his sensationally titled article, "The day a cop died, this city lost its soul," McDonald expressed his exasperation at the TV when "two anchors and a weatherman laughed and giggled about the delightful mild temperatures just minutes after detailing the brutal execution of a local veteran cop." One wonders if McDonald even watches local television news, which in fact was dominated by endless coverage of the murder, manhunt and reaction for several days as local talking heads beatified Uribe with all due haste.

A LOSS FOR THE WHOLE COMMUNITY?

The media uniformly treated the Uribe killing as a loss for whole community. Even the killing of an unarmed man by Phoenix PD the very next day could not damper the media's enthusiasm for the story. Remarking on the shooting, Patty Kirkpatrick, a Channel 3 anchor, expressed relief that the conflict had ended in the death of the suspect, rather than a cop. In her mind it was preferable that an unarmed man die than a cop get hurt trying to carry out murder.

On May 12th, Benson's cartoon in the Republic featured a simple sketch of a police badge bearing Uribe's number. Written across a black band of mourning were the words, "thank you." But for what? "When we lose someone like that, we lose part of ourselves," answers the Phoenix Fire Department's chaplain, Rev. Father Carl G. Carlozzi in the Arizona Republic. In a letter to the editor, Patricia Fay of Phoenix explained it this way, "They are my protectors. Someone killed one of my protectors."

THE MEDIA COVERAGE

But there is a real tension between the public image of policing, defended so single-mindedly by the media, and the reality. Introducing channel 12's coverage of the Uribe funeral the following Tuesday, Lin Sue Cooney described the event as "a whole community" saying thank you. Effusive in their coverage of a car-wash fundraiser for the Uribe's family, local media outlets actively campaigned for valley residents to participate. Can the same police force that regularly kills unarmed people of color be the protectors of the community? Can the same police force that uses Tasers to kill, just as the Phoenix Police did on May 4th, 2005, killing a 24 year-old man, be protectors? Are the same police forces that disproportionately target, arrest and incarcerate the poor, and especially people of color, really defenders of the "community?"

But, everyone knows that police don't protect everyone equally and that they specifically target some segments of the community over others. For years the Scottsdale PD enforced what they called a "no-n****r zone," pulling over and harassing black people driving through the city. Incarceration rates for poor people versus rich people are so obvious that they hardly require mentioning. But many whites still continue to deny the just as obvious disparities in white and non-white incarceration rates. To believe that these disparities exist apart or in exception to the overall system of policing makes no sense. They exist because this is the way the system was meant to function.

THE ROLE OF THE POLICE

The police system is designed primarily to defend the rich and toward that end to police poor people and poor people of color in particular. Made up of reporters primarily drawn from middle and upper classes, and owned by very rich people, the media serves that goal as propagandist for the police and defender of its own class interest, and they reflect the racism that all white people learn in their upbringing.

Let's look at the numbers. According the Princeton Review, the average television reporter, after five years on the job, earned $65,000 dollars a year. In the top 25 television markets the median salary as reported by the Missouri School of Journalism stood at $78,000 in 2000. According to the US Census, that rate stood at nearly twice the same figure for male workers in general, a rate which, it should be pointed out, itself remains higher than the median for non-whites and women. That disparity appears even sharper when we consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics count, which put the average annual wage in the U.S. as $36,764 for 2002. Even print reporters, generally paid less than their television comrades, fair better than average Americans. Clearly there is a class divide between many of us consuming the news and the people reporting, not to mention the editors and owners, and the media coverage shows it.

For example, the bulk of the media ignored a story that ran in the Arizona Republic the 11th, the very day Uribe was killed. Jahna Berry reported that a federal jury had awarded Gerardo Ramirez-Diaz $1 million dollars after a Phoenix police officer shot him in the gut without just cause. And just four days before the shooting of Uribe, in a rare display of public criticism, the Arizona Republic came out against the reinstatement of Chandler police officer Dan Lovelace. Lovelace was fired for using excessive force after he shot and killed unarmed Dawn Rae Nelson in her car, from behind, with her 14 month-old son sitting in the seat behind her. That murder occurred on October 11th, 2001, making the Republic's opposition to Lovelace's reinstatement a little late in coming, to say the least, though it does show just how extreme a case it takes for the local media to take a critical position towards local police.

A DANGEROUS JOB?

Much of the coverage Uribe's killing focused on the supposed danger cops face in the carrying out of their duties. Multiple newscasters and residents interviewed regarded the police as "putting themselves on the line" for other people, risking their lives regularly or standing as soldiers on the front lines of American society. But reflecting a rate that has remained pretty consistent, police officers don't even rank in the top ten most dangerous jobs as most recently listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, just a little over a week before Uribe's killing, a farm worker was killed in Arizona when a bale of hay fell on him. Another worker, a roofer, was killed when he fell and drowned in a pool. The first didn't even merit mentioning his name in the brief Arizona Republic article that ran. Both farm worker and roofer do rank within the top ten most dangerous occupations. Interestingly, Latinos represent a large proportion of workers in these fields. Another recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found a rate of five fatalities per 100,000 Hispanic workers in 2002 that was 25 percent higher than for all workers. This wouldn't happen if white workers would stand up with Latino workers against these kinds of abuses. But apparently local media finds the deaths of workers, especially workers of color, as too commonplace to merit coverage, even though that contradicts their attitude towards the job of police officer, who they misreport as in constant jeopardy.

So, in order to understand why the media, the rich and so many white people have fallen all over themselves to praise Uribe and to condemn his murder – while rarely admitting police excesses - we have to delve a little into the history of American police forces. The alleged danger of the job doesn't stand up as a sufficient explanation. Policing in America has two main origins, both of which serve to accomplish the same mission: to protect the wealth of the rich and powerful.

THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLICING

The first origin lies in the violent class struggles of the 19th century. During those times, workers were forced into the emerging factory system that the capitalist class was creating in the cities of the Northeast. In these factories workers had little power and were subjected to long hours. When armed class struggle broke out, the capitalists, outnumbered and not generally wishing to risk their own necks in the fighting, created police forces to wage war on the working class in defense of their factories and wealth. The first real police force in the US was founded in 1845 in New York City, center of the country's emerging industrial economy. As industrialism and modern capitalism spread, other cities followed New York's example.

Private property lies at the heart of capitalist exploitation. The authority of the boss derives precisely because s/he owns the means of production – the workplace, the computers, the machines and thus the profits. Because workers' interests depend on a redistribution of wealth and equality in the workplace, this brings us in inevitable conflict with the boss and his lackeys, the police. It's the same thing with the landlord. The landlord's ability to evict or demand rent couldn't exist without the system of private property and the police to back it up with violence.

The second main origin of American policing centers on the slave patrol system of the South. Charged with protecting white plantation owners, the slave patrols, or "patty rollers" as they were often called, brutally oppressed blacks, both slave and free. It is from the slave patrollers that American policing gets many of its traditions and powers. Patty rollers worked specific "beats" and could demand identification from any black person they encountered. The slave patrols incarcerated and returned, frequently with violence, any black person who could not prove their free status or provide written permission for their travel. Even in the North the police were charged with capturing and returning escaped slaves.

The influence of this racist tradition reverberates today in a variety of ways. An Arizona Daily Star review of Department of Public Safety records revealed that during traffic stops police searched Latinos more than twice as frequently as whites. And police searched blacks almost three times as frequently as whites – despite the fact that searches of whites turned up contraband much more regularly. Beyond racial profiling, which brings them into police contact more frequently in the first place, non-whites also face racist judges, unequal access to competent defense and sentencing guidelines that send them to prison at rates many times that of whites.

In fact, the history of Arizona police forces combines both origins. Back in the day, as now, Arizona was a mining state and Latinos composed a large percentage of the miners. In response to militant organizing by mine workers, the state created the Arizona Rangers. Ostensibly formed to combat cattle rustling, in actuality the government used the force primarily against miners and people of color. This tradition continues to contemporary times, and many of us remember the UMW strike of 1983 when then-Governor Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, called out police and national guardsmen against workers in defense of the Phelps-Dodge Corporation. Police guarded scabs brought in by the company, effectively breaking the strike.

It is critical for working class white people to understand the true origins and purposes of American policing and to be critical of both the aims and causes of media defense of police and police departments. In the end, supporting police power means supporting the rich people that exploit the entire working class, white or not. The American system has given white workers privileges that non-white workers don't get, and many of them directly involve reduced exposure to police violence and policing in general. American history has shown, though, that when even white workers organize against the bosses and politicians, the police are brought in against us as well. It's time for white workers to stand in support of communities of color when they organize against the police of all kinds, including La Migra. We need to recognize that the police are a racist institution that cannot be justified if what we want is a world of equality and justice, and media defense of policing amounts to defense of racism and the rich.