We'd like to pass along information from the Arizona Antifa Defense about the case of Dane Rossman, a Tucson resident facing charges from the anti-nazi demonstration in Phoenix back in 2010. With the wounds from the passing of anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 still fresh, 300 people took to the streets back in November of 2010 to drive the white supremacists and fascists from the National Socialist Movement from the streets of Phoenix.
Fierce clashes played out that day, as anarchists and anti-fascists fought both cop and nazi, as the police used liberal amounts of pepper spray attempting to clear the streets. Only two people were arrested that day by Phoenix police, we believe the police were desperate to walk away from the fight with an arrest or two given the intensity of the conflict. The cops had been hindered in making more arrests since two of their undercover officers were chased out of the anti-NSM meeting place, and three other undercover cops were identified as the demonstration wound down.
Dane was one of the people snatched and arrested that day, he was subsequently charged with 5 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon/dangerous instrument and 1 count of rioting. His defense team gives a good run down of the events since that day:
Within a month of the action and arrest, Dane went to an arraignment only to find that his charges had been “scratched.” This meant that while the charges were not being actively pursued, they could be brought back up at any time within 7 years, with or without notifying Dane. And so it simmered for the next year or so.
On Sunday, November 20th, 2011, Phoenix police pulled over a car full of out of town folks for allegedly running a stop sign. The officer immediately informed one passenger, Dane Rossman, that he recognized Dane from actions against the NSM.
After loudly mentioning “anarchists” over police radio, several more squad cars arrived, along with at least one undercover officer. Dane was immediately arrested on a warrant for charges brought back by a County Grand Jury in September 2011. No attempt to notify Dane that the charges were back seems to have been made. Word could be heard over police radios that “there’s a guy working on things” that would “really appreciate 8x10s of everyone in the car.” All passengers were subsequently searched, photographed, and asked if they identify as anarchists.
Dane was released after posting $7,500 bail and now faces six counts of aggravated assault and one felony riot.
Dane is currently facing multiple felony charges that could result in a prison sentence of up to 20 years, his supporters are busy raising funds for legal defense, their goal is to raise $8,000 for private legal counsel. His defense committee has raised 1/4 of the total funds needed, and that's where you come in. We all know money is tight these days, and there's no shortage of comrades who are locked up or facing time and need our support, which is why we are asking for you to find those few extra dollars and send them down to Tucson. Anarchists in Arizona are still very active in opposing the growth of the far-right by staying in struggle with immigrant and indigenous communities under attack by the state and racist vigilante groups. Here, the fight against colonialism isn't left to the history books, it's a daily battle.
Donations can be made through the supporters' WePay account and through paypal (donate using the ramshackleglory@gmail.com email as the recipient). The Arizona Antifa Defense can be reached through email at AZAntifa@gmail.com.
A few of the anarchists active in the Occupy Phoenix events have put this call out in response to police threats of aggression towards anyone planning on staying in Margaret T. Hance park overnight.
All who find themselves in solidarity are encouraged to come downtown tonight.
Occupy Phoenix is moving from Cesar Chavez plaza to Margaret T.
Hance park, next to the Burton Barr Library in downtown Phoenix. The
move is being made because the Chavez plaza is shut down by the police at 6 PM,
whereas Hance park is open until 11.
People are planning on
occupying the park tonight, which officially closes at 11 PM. However,
the cops have said that there is no way they are going to let anyone
stay past that time, nor allow camping gear, nor would they commit to not cracking down violently when pressed by a participant at the Occupy Phoenix gathering today.
In response to the possible attack by the authorities, participants
are organizing a party at the park to commence after the thousands
arrive from Chavez park to Hance park. There is now an open
call out for all interested to come down to Hance park this evening, and
into the night.
The new movement challenging the destruction
and greed of capitalism must have a space to organize from, which is why
we must protect our movement from state and police repression. The
wealthy and powerful want to crush the grassroots opposition before we
can build our own decentralized power that could potentially change and
transform society.
Come down to defend the occupation in Hance Park this evening, and stay all night!
No more banks, no borders! An end to the era of loan officers, and police officers!
The six people who locked down at the Tucson sector Border Patrol headquarters last May, demanding the end of border militarization amongst many other anti-border demands, are fighting their charges and calling for additional action. While their trial kicks off in Tucson tomorrow, there will be a concert benefiting the Border Patrol 6 (BP6) organized by the comrades from the Border Opposition Action Fund to be held at the Dry River Radical Resource Center tonight featuring bands and speakers.
The BP6 are also asking for people to join them this week at the opening of their trial at 2PM on Wednesday, February 23 at the Tucson City Court, located at 103 E. Alameda St. Tucson, AZ. Their will be a solidarity presence that will be meeting up at the Joel D. Valdez Pima County Public Library (101 North Stone Avenue, Tucson, AZ) at 1:30 PM for a rally and march to the city court. The event organizers are requesting that people interested in attending the rally bring signs and banners, instruments and other noise-makers, and comfortable walking shoes.
In addition to the calls for solidarity at the trial, the BP6 issued a statement earlier this month in which they announced their decision to take their trespassing cases to trial. Along with this information they included a series of demands so vast that they aren't so much demands to be answered by the federal government, but rather giving direction to those struggling against border militarization, as if to say "these are the steps to take for the dissolution of the national territorial boundary along the southwestern United States." Thoroughly anti-colonial, it addresses the necessity of free movement for O'odham people, the original inhabitants of this occupied territory, but it doesn't end there.
Yes, the border wall suffocates the O'odham communities on the other side of the border line, but O'odham people also suffer through the manned checkpoints, the camera eyes of the aerial drones, and the disturbance of cultural practices and sacred sites caused by the Border Patrol and its agents. However, the O'odham do not suffer alone, nor do they resist alone. Hundreds of miles east of the southern Arizona borderlands, there are Lipan Apache grassroots efforts resisting the same imposition of the border wall and subsequent militarization in their own traditional lands.
The authors of the BP6 trial statement didn't have a narrow definition of solidarity in mind when they wrote this document. Instead of calling for a single solidarity rally to correspond with their trial, the BP6 are saying that the best way to show solidarity with them is to take action against the systems of control and domination behind the border apparatus. One of the things I really liked about the call for solidarity is that it links the state's attacks on migrants through legislation and criminalization, the federally granted police powers for cops to terrorize and racially profile communities of color, and the militarization of indigenous lands by the military and federal police agencies as equal parts of the ongoing colonial attack on non-white people in the southwest.
The occupation of the border patrol lobby placed the struggle against borders not as a component of the mainstream immigrant movement and the fight against SB 1070, but rather that the movement in defense of immigrants is situated within the centuries old resistance to colonialism from the indigenous peoples of Arizona. Similarly, as it was pointed out in the DOA statement last year:
We recognize what appears to be an unending historical condition of forced removal here in the Southwestern so-called US. From the murdering of O'odham Peoples and stealing of their lands for the development of what is now known as the metropolitan Phoenix area, to the ongoing forced relocation of more than 14,000 Diné who have been uprooted for the extraction of natural resources just hours north of here, we recognize that this is not a condition that we must accept, it is a system that will continue to attack us unless we act.
Whether we are migrants deported for seeking to organize our own lives (first forced to migrate to a hostile country for work) or working class families foreclosed from our houses, we see the same forces at work. Indeed, in many cases the agents of these injustices are one and the same.
We wish our friends and comrades luck this week as they travel to Tucson to face these charges. Drop all charges against the BP6, free movement for all!
A final update on the Arpaio 5
As another resistance trial begins, the final two cases of the five valley anti-authoritarians and anarchists who were arrested at last year's anti-Arpaio march have finally come to an end. Both Claire and Garyn chose to take their cases to trial, they were tried in a bench trial (no sitting jury, just the judge), and were correct to be confident in their ability to walk away with a "not guilty" decision from the judge. We at PCWC were very happy to hear that our comrades left the courtroom victorious, over a year after their arrests, the state's flimsy case against Claire and Garyn fell apart in under two days of testimony.
As any witness to the police attack at last year's January 16 demonstration can attest, the undercover cops and uniformed snatch squads made arbitrary arrests as they moved through the clouds of pepper spray grabbing who they could. Through the heavy doses of pepper spray it was just as clear that the police had a political motivation in attacking and isolating the militant section of the march, creating a lasting rift between sections of the mainstream movement and those critical of the movement's leadership and strategy.
Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments to come out of the events on January 16 was the manner with which Phoenix New Times columnist Stephen Lemons portrayed the police attack. As I recall, Lemons penned three separate blog entries on the attack, in the first two posts he attempts out the details from a few protesters interviewed and puts some video up, but in the third post he claimed to have seen video footage that conclusively showed an anarchist attack one of the mounted officer who rode into the march. In two of the screen shots posted he specifically noted a demonstrator with a green hoodie who Lemons claimed was attacking the horse. What's interesting is that the video in which Lemons grabbed the screen shot, and claimed to see a person wearing a green hoodie attack the police horse is the very same video that got the person in the green hoodie's case dismissed. It only looks like he's shoving the horse because he was being tackled by a Phoenix cop from behind, something that a single screen shot doesn't show. Where was the screen shot half a second later that showed the Phoenix cop behind him? Why did Lemons want to paint a picture that said anarchists are at fault, whether or not some were acting in self-defense to a coordinated police attack. In addition, where's the follow up article(s) on the not guilty/case dismissal of three of the five arrested?
There's no doubt that Lemons has contributed some valuable reporting on the immigrant movement, and the battles against the rightwing populists of the Phoenix metro area. When the mainstream movement hacks totally ignored the BP6 lockdown and occupation, Lemons wrote glowing praise for those involved, and wrote that he hoped their acts would inspire others. He's written of a number of anarchist actions in solidarity with migrants, or opposing anti-immigrant racists, even though anarchists weren't mentioned by name. We know he likes it when anarchists and anti-racists gave the nazi hell! Hell, he even gave a shoutout on his New Times blog to a fundraising effort we initiated for the BP6.
So rather than enter into a debate with Lemons on the merits of writing an entry on supporting the "good anarchists" whose cases were thrown out, or why the I'd say the "bad anarchists" were never bad, I'd like to draw from an inspiring slogan I was introduced to at the last Beer & Revolution, along with one of my favorite photos from the January 16 DOA contingent. After the years of repression, frame ups, and state attacks from police, our Chilean anarchist comrades have managed to capture in one concise sentence the tension that exists when the actions of a movement in resistance brings imprisonment, and how this resistance is justified to the rest of society. Quite simply:
"We're not innocent, we're not guilty, we're your enemies"
State repression is nothing new to anarchists, it has been a facet of revolutionary and liberatory movements throughout history because, let's face it, systems of power react with hostility to those who desire a reordering of relationships. We saw this earlier this year with the notorious police attack on the DO@ bloc, resulting in a large number of people near the bloc being hit by pepper spray, and five Phoenix anti-authoritarians and anarchists getting arrested and facing a number of serious charges. We also have six other comrades who locked down at the Border Patrol HQ in Tucson and are still facing charges for their act of resistance to the militarization of land and movement along the border, they too need our support.
The further we look back, the longer and longer the list gets of our anarchist and anti-authoritarian comrades who are locked up or facing trial across the country. Some of the most notable examples from the last few years are also the most outrageous examples of the lengths the state will go to disrupt our movements' activities, from the resistance to grand juries on fishing expeditions, to the criminalization of organizing protests, and the distressing pre-crime conviction of Eric McDavid.
Keeping our comrades' spirits high while locked up means that they need support from those on the outside, and I'm glad to help get the word out about two events happening this week that are supporting political prisoners.
Above is a flier for a new political prisoner support event being held tonight in Phoenix, organized by our friends at Stronghold, this event will help those attending network and share information on writing to and supporting political prisoners. This event kicks off at 6:30 at Conspire in central Phoenix.
The second event this week will be held in Tempe as the Phoenix Anarchist Coalition (PAC) is once again sponsoring a 5k Running Down the Walls event this year. PAC has maintained a longtime political prisoner support fund, and has organized a number of events to support and get the word out on our comrades locked up for nearly 10 years. For the last few years PAC has organized a solidarity run/walk/ride with other events organized by the political prisoner support organization, the Anarchist Black Cross Federation (ABCF), all funds raised at this run will be sent to the ABCF for their prisoner support Warchest. It is scheduled for Saturday Oct. 16 at Mitchell Park in Tempe, people will be gathering at 5:30pm. Organizers request that you bring your favorite (preferably vegan) covered dish as there will be a potluck picnic after getting back to the park from the 5k.
PHOENIX CLASS WAR COUNCIL is a fanatical, revolutionary anarchist group pressing the attack against capitalism, the state and all systems of hierarchy and oppression. We fight for a self-determined, projectual life for ourselves and all humanity. We oppose those who hinder working class self-organization. We are libertarian and libertine. We support movements but we don't wait for them. We are in the thick of it.
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