Occupy Protesters Help Los Angeles Woman And Disabled Daughter Save Their Home From Bank Of America

Last month, Bank of America foreclosed on a Los Angeles woman and her disabled daughter. Dima Rodriguez had spent thousands of dollars retrofitting her home to accommodate her daughter — who has cerebral palsy — and fell behind on her loan payments. Bank of America gave her a loan modification, and even though Rodriguez had made her trial modification payments for a year, the bank sold her house at auction, right out from under her.

However, Rodriguez and her daughter will get to stay in their home, thanks to some help from Occupy Wall Street protestors:

Desperate, Rodriguez contacted several community groups including Occupy Fights Foreclosures — the battle to save the Rodriguez home began. Suzanne O’Keeffe, with Occupy Fights Forclosures, says the bank didn’t treat the Rodriguez family right. She charged they not only didn’t fill out the proper paperwork to foreclose, they waited too long. […]

Now, [Rodriguez] is determined not to look back. “It’s time to look forward,” Rodriguez said. “Thank God the bank listened.”

As ThinkProgress reported back in December, Bank of America is taking the Occupy movement’s foreclosure prevention actions seriously, warning employees to be prepared should Occupy make an appearance. Occupy protesters have successfully prevented foreclosures across the country, from Rochester to Minneapolis to Los Angeles.

Source

Occupy Wall Street Library Sues City, NYPD For Destroying 2,800 Books

Yesterday, Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Wall Street Librarians filed a federal lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg, the City, and the NYPD for compensatory and punitive damages totaling $47,000 for the roughly 3,600 books that were confiscated—nearly 2,800 of them destroyed— during the raid of Zuccotti Park on November 17. “This is an important and potentially historic lawsuit,” attorney Norman Siegel, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit says. “It not only addresses the seizure and destruction of the books, but it also seeks to show why, how, and who planned the raid on Zuccotti Park.”

Siegel says the information on the planning of the raid should come out in discovery, and adds that the city should have been subject to a court hearing before seizing and destroying the thousands of books that made up the library—including Bloomberg’s own book. “Every other city did it before they raided encampments, but not here. The city violated the civil rights of the librarians. The Bloomberg administration had the power to do what they did, but not the right.”

William Scott, one of the People’s Librarians who lived in Zuccotti Park and helped maintain the collection, said the police only gave one of his fellow librarians Stephen Boyer, 45 minutes to remove 3,600 books. “And police weren’t even letting anyone in and out of the park at the time. So it was an impossible task.”

Scott says that the Sanitation workers were “poorly supervised in their task. At around 1:45 a.m. they began loading books into the sanitation trucks with crushing mechanisms, and continued to throw books and library structures in them until flatbed trucks showed up much later.” The $1,000 in punitive damages indicates that the librarians and the protesters believe that the city went beyond negligence, and had a callous disregard for their property, an assertion supported by the photos of destroyed property in the custody Sanitation Department.

Source (Read The Complaint)

NYPD Loses OWS Trial After Video Evidence Proved They Made False Arrests

Hundreds have been arrested during the Occupy Wall Street protests, but photographer Alexander Arbuckle’s case was the first to go to trial – and after just two days, the Manhattan Criminal Court found him not guilty.

Arbuckle was arrested on New Year’s Day for allegedly blocking traffic during a protest march. He was charged with disorderly conduct, and his arresting officer testified under oath that he, along with the protesters, was standing in the street, despite frequent requests from the police to move to the sidewalk

But things got a little embarrassing for the NYPD officer when the defense presented a video recording of the entire event, made by well-known journalist Tim Pool.

Pool’s footage clearly shows Arbuckle, along with all the other protesters, standing on the sidewalk. In fact, the only people blocking traffic were the police officers themselves.

His lawyers said the video proving that testimony false is what swayed the judge, and the verdict a clear indication that the NYPD was over-policing the protests.

Read More

City of Frankfurt (Germany) Bans ‘Blockupy’

The demonstration authorities of the city of Frankfurt announced in to the press on the afternoon of May 4, 2012, that they are prohibiting all of the actions planned by the Blockupy Frankfurt alliance from May 16-19. The legal notifying party for the more than fifteen actions was directly informed about this decision with regard to only one case – and even this was delayed by one day.

This decision completely prohibits the protests against crisis policies that profoundly affect the lives of millions of people in Europe. The alliance is planning protests during the action days against the austerity policies of European governments and the Troika (ECB, EU Commission and IMF) and had applied to the city for permits for some of these protests as demonstrations, rallies, pickets and demonstrative assemblies, as is legally required for demonstrations.

This ban is an open breach of the constitutional right to demonstrate. We insist that the protest against the crisis politics can take place in the Frankfurt financial district and at the ECB headquarters, as it complies with the existing jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court.

All democrats can only be extremely appalled by this illegitimate and undemocratic action and demand an immediate abandonment of this total ban. What was possible at Tahrir Square in Cairo, at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid or in Zucotti Park in New York must also be possible in Frankfurt am Main!

Source / SIGN THE PETITION!

Make This Go Viral: NYPD randomly assaults protester at May Day march then makes false arrests.

Images From May Day In Seattle

Minnesota Police Reportedly Give Drugs To Occupy Protesters For ‘Impairment Study’ And Become Snitches

Occupy protestors in Minnesota are alleging that police gave drugs to young people as part of an ‘impairment study’ that helps officers identify the symptoms of drug use.

In a video (watch above), activists claim that for three weeks, law enforcement officers have been picking up volunteers to participate in a program called “Drug Recognition Expert.”

The footage shows alleged participants in the scheme, including one who claims, “They [the police] come into downtown… and basically pick up random people, and ask them to do drug evaluations.”

The man adds, “They let you smoke and then they send you back to Occupy [demonstration in Peavy Plaza]. You smoke right in front of them.”

People in the video are seen discussing police officers giving them marijuana to smoke for evaluation purposes. However, one subject also said officers were interested in obtaining subjects already under the influence of harder drugs.

One young man who identified himself as Panda said he got “high as fuck” in front of a couple police officers. He said he was walking down the street downtown when an officer told him he smelled like marijuana.

“I started walking faster… [but then] he asked me if I wanted to smoke more. I stopped in my tracks, said ‘yes,’ and then I smoked with a cop,” Panda said, adding that the weed given to him by officers was “some of the best shit I’ve had in a while.” He said officers bought him a double cheeseburger at McDonald’s on his way back downtown. 

Interviewed hours later after he sobered up, Panda said police offered him a quarter-ounce bag of marijuana if he’d become a police informant and snitch on the activities of fellow Occupy protestors.

Source/Credit

A birds eye view of Union Square, NYC before the march to Wall Street.

Which is it Reuters?

Four lawmakers sued the city Monday over its handling of the Occupy Wall Street protests, saying police conduct is so problematic that the force needs an outside monitor.

The city and police violated demonstrators’ free speech rights, used excessive force, arrested protesters on dubious charges and interfered with journalists’ and council members’ efforts to observe what was going on, the four City Council members and others say in the federal civil rights suit.

“This unlawful conduct has been undertaken with the intention of obstructing, chilling, deterring and retaliating against (the) plaintiffs for engaging in constitutionally protected protest activity,” says the suit, which was filed a day before Occupy and labor activists planned a large May Day march.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended police handling of the protests.

“This police department knows how to control crowds without excessive force. They do allow you to protest, but they don’t let it get out of hand,“ he said after some council members complained about what they called police brutality at a March Occupy demonstration.

While Occupy activists have gone to court before over particular episodes in the movement’s contentious history with the city, the new lawsuit is a nearly 150-page compendium of complaints, amplified by the council members’ participation. A local Democratic Party official, freelance journalists and Occupy activists also are plaintiffs.

Source

Bloomberg Refuses Comment On NYPD’s May Day Training

On Friday a tipster sent Gothamist an email noting that several hundred NYPD officers had been conducting training exercises on Randall’s Island in preparation for May Day’s protests.

While the sources of other journalists confirmed that information, Mayor Bloomberg declined to go into specifics today when asked about the training by the Voice. ”We are prepared for everything we can think of all the time. Our tactics are something that we don’t talk about in advance for obvious reasons.”

Occupy’s wide range of scheduled events, both “official” and covert, promise to spread the department’s resources from Lower Manhattan to Midtown.

The master list of events is huge—there are teach-ins, marches over bridges, a thousand-strong “Guitarmy,” markets, free food, musical performances in Union Square, and a final march into the Financial District.

But the proceedings that will draw the most attention from the police don’t have thoughtful websites or donation options: will people answer the call to shut down bridges into Manhattan? How great is the chance that the MTA will be forced to cut service? Will the anarchist-sponsored Wildcat March be allowed to advance beyond East Houston? And what of the picketing of individual financial institutions in Lower Manhattan?

Source

ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and Occupy Wall Street are joining forces to pump up the volume on a growing nationwide outcry for a “Financial Speculation Tax” (Fi.S.T.) on Wall Street.

To commemorate its 25th anniversary, the AIDS activist group ACT UP will return to its roots and stage a massive demonstration and march on Wall Street — on Wednesday, April 25 — starting at 11 am at City Hall and ending on Wall Street. Hundreds of protestors, including supporters from Housing Works, Health GAP, National Nurses United, OWS Healthcare for the 99% Working Group, Visual AIDS, MIX NYC, Le Petit Versailles, Queerocracy, Queering OWS and other groups will converge for a daylong siege in Lower Manhattan.

The groups are calling on local, state, and federal legislators to “give Wall Street the FiST,” which is needed to fill AIDS funding gaps and — once and for all — provide universal healthcare in the US. It’s time for effective healthcare to be made available to everyone — to the 99%, not just the 1%.

The Fi.S.T. does not target individual investors, and would not affect regular bank transactions. Instead, it would place a small tax — a mere fraction of one percent — on speculative trading by Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds and other large financial institutions. HIV treatment saves lives — by preventing new infections and keeping those already infected from reaching end-stage AIDS. However, of all people worldwide in need of access to HIV treatment, only 44% have it. More than 8 million people do not. In the United States today, 3,840 people who qualify for federal assistance to pay for HIV treatment are on waiting lists — or in other words, are at risk of dying from AIDS.

AIDS treatment — when combined with simple prevention interventions — is the key to breaking the back of the epidemic worldwide. In addition to saving lives, early HIV/AIDS treatment reduces the risk of transmission of HIV by 96%. And so, with sufficient funding for treatment and prevention, we can turn the tide on AIDS. Globally, HIV/AIDS has claimed over 30 million lives.

Both ACT UP and OWS suggest the revenue from a Financial Speculation Tax would be significant — potentially in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The revenue from this tax should be used to fund the end of the AIDS pandemic, i.e. to fill in US budget gaps in the fight against HIV/AIDS at home and abroad. It should be used to provide treatment, services and prevention to thousands of Americans and millions around the world. The groups also say the tax could help pay for universal healthcare in the US.

AIDS is now. END AIDS NOW!

Whistleblowing Wednesday: The BPD Officer Who Choked An Occupy Queer Protester Has Been Identified As Vaden Scantlebury

The following series of photos was taken by Paul Weiskel at the Boston Commons on April 15, 2012.  The photos depict a Boston Police Department patrolman identified as Vaden Scantlebury who grabs a protester by the neck and then becomes angry at the photographer for attempting to take his picture.

The Boston Police are reportedly investigating the incident along with the ACLU.  A video of the incident is also available. His badge number is 4534.

Defend yourself against tear gas (also good for pepper spray).

Paul Robeson HS has organized a mass school walkout in solidarity with the May 1st General Strike.

Join the May 1st High School Student Walkout

Transcript:

Dear New York City,

We, the students of public education, are here to inform you about the injustice that is taking place in our school system:

-  The privatization of our school system
-  The budget cuts
-  Lack of appropriate leadership
-  Malicious closings/phasing out of schools against the communities’ wishes.
-  Cell phone policies
-  Overcrowded classes & abuse of SAFE rooms
-  Over policing of our schools and the criminalization of our youth

We feel that these issues are setting our students up for failure, and we DEMAND a change! We believe that trying to control our schools is just another symptom of the blatant racism in our country similar to the government’s response to the senseless killing of Trayvon Martin. 

Because of this, our first action will be a mass student walkout on May 1st at 12pm to Fort Greene Park. We will be holding teach-ins, teen summits & other peaceful events.

Please add your name to our letter and support us in our struggle for our education. 

Signed,

Student Leadership
Paul Robeson HS