Breast cancer survivor handcuffed and thrown in jail over a mistaken $280 medical bill as ‘debtor’s prisons’ return to the U.S
How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn’t pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe.
“She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”
Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.A 2010 report by the American Civil Liberties Union that focused on only five states — Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Washington — found that people were being jailed at “increasingly alarming rates” over legal debts. Cases ranged from a woman who was arrested four separate times for failing to pay $251 in fines and court costs related to a fourth-degree misdemeanor conviction, to a mentally ill juvenile jailed by a judge over a previous conviction for stealing school supplies.
The Return of Debtors’ Prisons: THOUSANDS of Americans Jailed For Not Paying Bills (via ThinkProgress.org)
(via so-treu)
They ordered his case to go back before the police commissioner for resentencing — but said that even if Ray Kelly still decides he should be terminated, Vecchio “should be permitted to apply for a vested interest retirement.” They said that despite his “unseemly” behavior, Vecchio had an “otherwise exemplary career” that garnered him 12 medals for excellent police duty, and that his “innocent family” would suffer without the retirement benefits.
(via karnythia)
Whenever I see blog posts talking about how much women/nonwhite people are oppressed in America I laugh.
You are not oppressed, not really. Sure, not everything is perfectly equal, but we’re a lot better than 50-100 years ago, and I think that a lot of Tumblr Justice fucktards should put that in perspective.
So, I’d like you imagine an oppressive totalitarian state. You know, evil empire, stormtroopers, etc. Hitler by way of Kafka kind of thing.
Imagine in this state, there are a brutal secret police force empowered by the regime to basically do what the fuck ever they want. They can torture. They can murder. They can rape. They can stop and detain people at any time for any or no reason. They can suspend the basic protection of law. If they assault or kill someone during these stops, they are not answerable to the law as an ordinary citizen is.
This totalitarian police force will shoot unarmed school children in the back. They will unleash noxious chemical agents in the halls of a school. They will cover up the murder of a child by a political ally and informer. They will chase a child into his house and shoot him in front of his family. They will assault a twelve-year-old girl and then come to her school to arrest her later because she fought back. They will break into a house and shoot a little girl as she lies napping in her living room. They will shoot someone twenty-eight times and then charge them with attempted murder. They will shoot unarmed bystanders and then justify it by saying that someone in the crowd had a gun, whether it was true or not. They’ll torture and kill a chronically ill military veteran who annoys them by accidentally calling for help in the middle of the night, they’ll do it laughing and shouting insults.
They will go so far as to hog tie a man and torture him to death in front of his children, drowning him with a garden hose in response to his plea for water.
They fabricate evidence, fabricate crimes, cover-up their own crimes and those of their friends and supporters. Rarely are they forced to answer for their atrocities. Instead, the worst among them are praised for being “tough” and “getting the job done.” Their job, of course, is not to serve nor protect the citizens of this hypothetical state, but to keep them in line… to keep them scared, to keep them quiet, to keep them in their place.
Would you agree that the people living under this purely hypothetical regime are oppressed? I mean, that to me all sounds like textbook oppression. If anything, it sounds a bit over-the-top, right?
But of course, it’s not hypothetical. I’m talking about the United States of America. None of the examples I gave above are hypothetical. Most of them happened in the last 40 days. They all happened to people of color, most of them Black.
What do you want to call that, if not oppression?
what is this?
AE pwning silly heauxs again?
YES
YES IT IS
IT’S SUPER:AE AND HER COMIC IS COMING SOON TO A COMIC STORE NEAR U
commentary is giving me chills
(via bad-dominicana)
so, this sick womyn of color was arrested for trespassing at a hospital that refused to treat her. she died of blood clots minutes after arriving in her jail cell.
it is like such a trip to know that our lives have literally no value. to have it reiterated every day like this. wow. good night, tumblr.
NYPD Officers Shoot and Kill Three Black Men in One Week
Ramarley Graham, 18, was shot and killed by a NYPD officer in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon after running into his home as undercover officers pursued him. He’s the third person the NYPD have killed in a week. According to the police spokesperson, he was unarmed.
Paul J. Browne, the New York Police Department’s chief spokesman, said there was “no evidence that he was armed” when the officer, a member of a narcotics unit, shot him once in the upper left chest, the New York Times reports.
The Graham shooting is the third time in a week that a member of the NYPD had killed a suspect. On Jan. 26, an off-duty police lieutenant shot a 22-year-old carjacking suspect in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. And on Sunday, an off-duty detective shot a 17-year-old in Bushwick, Brooklyn, during a mugging, authorities said.
In Graham’s case, police found a small bag of marijuana in the toilet at the home he entered after the pursuit, the NY Times reports. “It’s likely the story will thicken and the NYPD will argue the cop acted in self defense, but right now it looks like the cops killed a kid trying to get rid of a little pot,” said Seth Freed Wessler, Colorlines.com’s investigation reporter.
“Despite directives from the NYPD Commissioner to stop arresting people for simple possession of marijuana, the NYPD actually conducted more marijuana arrests in 2011 than in the previous year,” Wessler said.
In New York City, marijuana arrests strike people of color the hardest. Last year the NYPD made a near-record number of low-level marijuana arrests, making 2011 the second-most prolific period for marijuana arrests in NYC history. Close to 87 percent of those arrested for marijuana were black or Latino, while only 10 percent were white.
“The daily practice of harassing black and Latino kids with stop and frisk policing and then arresting them for simple possession of pot would be bad enough even if it did not lead to shootings. In this case in the Bronx, it looks like the day-to-day drug war left this 18-year-old kid dead,” Wessler said.
In 2011 the NYPD stopped 684,330 New Yorkers, of them 603,286 were totally innocent 402,308 were black and 176,165 were latino. The Black and Latino numbers alone account for 85% of all NYC stops. The numbers speak for themselves.
Cops catching Blacks and Latinos in compromising situations and bad things happen. The saddest part is that our communities stand by and allow these things to happen. No letters written, no rallies, no protests, just tears and bloodshed.
we have got to do better. i (we) am (are) accountable.
A year ago this month, Jordan Miles, an 18-year-old music student at Pittsburgh’s Creative and Performing Arts High School, was walking to his grandmother’s home in the city’s Homewood neighborhood when three undercover police officers in an unmarked white car decided he looked “suspicious.” Officers Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte, and David Sisak, all white, would later say in police reports that Miles, who is black, seemed to be “sneaking around” and had a bulky object protruding from his coat that appeared to be a gun. It turned out to be a bottle of Mountain Dew—which, curiously, was never taken into evidence…
The three officers severely beat the unarmed viola player, who is five feet, five inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. They hit him with multiple punches to the face and a knee to the head. They also tore off a large clump of his hair… . Once he was out of the hospital, Miles, an honors student with no prior criminal record, was arrested and charged with loitering, aggravated assault, and resisting arrest. The police claimed that earlier in the evening they had spoken with Monica Wooding, who lives in the neighborhood, and were responding to her complaint that Miles was loitering on her property without her permission. But Wooding later testified that she made no such complaint. In fact, she testified that she has known Miles, a friend of her son, for years…
Under its charter, Pittsburgh’s Citizen Police Review Board is not allowed to look into the incident until all criminal investigations are completed. So while it took just a few hours to falsely charge Jordan Miles with assaulting three police officers, more than a year later federal and local officials still can’t decide whether the officers who beat him should be charged, removed from the force, or, as the local police union recommends, praised for their heroism.
—A Beating In Pittsburgh (1/24/2011)
You want a verdict? Fuck this whole goddamned system.
(via humanformat)
(via karnythia)
Breaking: NYPD fatally shoots 18 year old in the bathroom of his home in front of 6-year-old brother.
Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said the shooting happened following a struggle with the suspect. He said an officer from the Special Narcotics Unit fired one time, striking 18-year-old Rahmarley Graham in the chest.
The shooting happened around 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon in the bathroom of the apartment house where Graham lived with his mother and grandmother.
Graham was rushed to Montefiore Hospital and pronounced dead. The suspect’s mother, Constance Malcolm, claims police chased her son because he had marijuana on him and that he was unarmed.
The suspect’s mother also said that the teen’s grandmother and 6-year-old brother were inside the house at the time of the shooting.
“In the bathroom they shot him. My 6-year-old son was there and saw everything,” Malcolm said. “I’m going to get justice.”
The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Unit is investigating the details.
Update: The NYPD has admitted that there was no struggle and the police were undercover and in plain clothes.
It’s not clear whether the officers identified themselves before pursuing Rahmarley Graham.
This marks the third young black man killed by the NYPD in last week.
(via karnythia)
more literature from occupy oakland
Dear Oakland
some observations on the occupation movement and its implementation in oscar grant plaza by some of those involved
Occupation is nothing new. The land we stand on is already occupied territory. The United States was founded upon the extermination or indigenous peoples and the colonization of their land, not to mention centuries of slavery and exploitation. Oakland itself has been constructed on stolen Ohlone land. This process of colonization continues today through gentrification, aiming to further displace communities of color from their own neighborhoods.
For a counter-occupation to be meaningful, it has to take this history into account. Furthermore, it should embrace the history of resistance in Oakland extending from the 1946 general strike, the Black Panther Party, the militancy of the ILWU, student occupations, and the current struggles against foreclosure and austerity.
The 99% is not one social body, but many. Certain occupations in other parts of the country have presented a narrative in which the “99%” is characterized as a homogenous mass. The faces intended to represent “ordinary people” are often the same predominantly white, law-abiding middle-class citizens we’re used to seeing on television programs - even though such people make up a minority of the general population. It’s a mistake to whitewash over our diversity. Not everyone is juts now waking up to the injustices of capitalism; many have been targeted by the power structure for generations. Middle-class workers who are just now losing their social standing can learn a lot from those who have been on the receiving end of injustice for much longer.
Making demands towards maintaining class privilege - no matter your social standing - will not be able to solve the current crisis. The idea of redistributing wealth must not only be directed towards the “1%” but to all of us as well.
The problem isn’t just a few “bad apples.” The crisis is not the result of the selfishness of a few investment bankers; it is the inevitable consequence of an economic system that rewards cutthroat competition at every level of society. Capitalism is not a static way of life but a dynamic process that consumes everything, transforming the living, breathing world into objects and profit. Now that the economy has consumed every aspect of life, the system is collapsing, leaving even some of its former beneficiaries out in the cold. The answer is not to revert to some earlier stage of capitalism, such as the economic boom of the post-war years; not only is that impossible, those earlier stages didn’t benefit the “99%” either. To get out of this mess, we’ll have to rediscover other ways of relating to each other and the world around us.
Police can’t be trusted. They may be “workers,” but their job is to protect the interests if the ruling class.As long as they remain employed as police, we can’t count on them, however friendly they might act. Any confusion over where their allegiances lie will dissolve as soon as we pose a real threat to the imbalances of wealth and power our society is based on. These things have been self-evident for those of us who have lived without the privileges that wealth and the “right” skin color can afford. In order for the occupation movement to be relevant in Oakland it must take a position against cooperation with the police.
Don’t assume those who break the low or confront the police are “outside agitators.” A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; for some people self-defense is a necessary part of their everyday life. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, resistance is crucial.
Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow trying to instigate a violent situation is not only illogical - it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. We all experience the effects of power differently under capitalism, and the ways in which we struggle against it will reflect that. The goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to discover how different approaches can be mutually beneficial.
No government - that is to say, no centralized power - will ever willingly put the needs of the common people before the needs of the powerful. The center of gravity in this movement has to be our freedom and autonomy, and the solidarity that can sustain them - not the desire for an “accountable” government. That means the important thing is not to make demands upon out rulers, but to build up the power necessary to realize those demands ourselves. we shouldn’t invest in new leaders with new types of authority, we should find ways to defend and extend our own freedom, while abolishing the inequalities that have been forced on us.
The occupations will thrive on the actions we take. We’re not just here to “speak truth to power” - when we only speak, the powerful turn a deaf ear to us. Let’s make space for autonomous initiatives and organize direct action that confronts the source of social inequalities and injustices. An occupation of public space is not an effective political act in and of itself, it must move beyond this to become a staging grounds for actions that disrupt business as usual, and it’s up to all of us to take the initiative to see this through.
Occupy. Block. Strike. Take Over.
See you on the streets!
-The Oakland Commune
The Systematic Murder of Black Children
During a twenty three month period between 1979 and 1981 over 30 Black children were killed in Atlanta, terrorizing the Afro-American population. In July, 1980, after 14 children had been murdered, the mothers of some of the victims formed the Committee to Stop the Children’s Murders. They pointed out that a systematic campaign of murder was taking place and denounced the Atlanta police for failing to seriously investigate any of the killings. At first the police denied that there was any connection between the killings. The murders continued, with one child disappearing about every twenty-five days. People who lived in and around the Techwood housing project and the other poor Afro-American neighborhoods where the victims were kidnapped generally assumed that the klan or a similar racist organization was responsible.
Atlanta city officials created a highly publicized commission to investigate the murders. It is now clear that the main purpose of this commission was to cover up the fact that klansmen were carrying out these murders. Atlanta police commissioner Lee Patrick Brown told the people: “We can’t say the murders here are racially motivated because we don’t know the motivation.” The FBI, claiming to have used “scientific methods” to draw up a “psychological profile” of the killer, declared that he was a Black man from a broken family. The commission even paid for a “psychic” to come to Atlanta. She claimed that she could “see” the killer and backed up the FBI’s assertion that he was Afro-American.
Special attention was given to dispelling the idea that the klan was involved. The FBI declared that there was no indication of a “group effort” in the murders. In June, 1981, Georgia Governor Busbee and Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) officials announced with great fanfare that they had thoroughly investigated the activity of the klan in Georgia and had concluded that it did not present a serious threat to the people of Georgia. Dr. Joseph Lowrey, the traitorous liar who heads the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was called upon to support this idea, telling the people that he did not believe the klan had anything to do with the murders.
It has now been confirmed that police and government officials not only knew that the klan was committing the murders but, in fact, knew the specific individuals responsible.
The Evidence Against the Klan
The evidence that exposes the klan’s responsibility for the murders is contained in police documents. The most illuminating of these were enclosed in a package “anonymously” sent to Wayne Williams’ lawyers.
The evidence centers around the Sanders family. Members of this family belong to the National States Rights Party / New Order of the Ku Klux Klan (NSRP), which is headquartered in Marrieta, an Atlanta suburb. Don Sanders is National Secretary of the NSRP and his father, Carleton, and five of his brothers, Charles, Terry, Ricky, Jerry and James, are members of the organization. The NSRP, headed by J.B. Stoner and Ed Fields, is one of the most rabid racist and fascist organizations in this country.
Members of the Sanders family have long criminal records including convictions for child molestation, murder, burglary, assault and battery, wife beating, statutory rape, armed robbery and narcotics charges. They are long time drug dealers.
The police documents include statements of police agents closely associated with the Sanders family. One of these operatives reported that members of the family told him that the klan was going to execute one Black boy a month, and after killing 20 children they were going to start killing Black women. This informant reported that Charles Sanders had pointed out to him a 14-year-old Black youth named Lubie Geter and said “See that little Black …? I’m going to get him I’m going to kill him I’m going to choke the Black … to death.” Several weeks later Geter was found strangled to death.
There is other evidence linking the Sanders family to Lubie Geter’s murder. Geter was last seen in a shopping center near where the Sanders family lives. An eyewitness saw Geter get into a car with a tall white man with a jagged scar on his neck on the day he disappeared. Carleton Sanders is tall and has a jagged scar on his neck. Another witness saw Geter on the same day in a blue Ford with two white men. Charles Sanders drove a blue Ford. Hairs of a Siberian husky dog were found on Geter’s body. Charles Sanders owned a Siberian husky.
Another victim, 11-year-old Earl Lee Terrell, was with Lubie Geter when Geter incurred Charles Sanders’ wrath by accidentally running into his parked car with a go-cart. Terrell disappeared near the same shopping center where Geter was abducted. Besides Terrell, four other victims were friends of Lubie Geter’s.
Twelve-year-old Charles Stephens, the 15th victim, was found murdered in a trailer park frequented by members of the Sanders family. On his body caucasian head hairs were found, along with more Siberian husky hairs. Altogether, husky hairs were found on the bodies of at least fifteen of the murdered children.
Dozens of witnesses reported seeing men dressed as police or security guards or wearing other types of uniforms with many of the young victims the last time they were seen alive. The Sanders family kept a stockpile of police and other uniforms.
Another informant told police that “Don Sanders had direct knowledge of who was responsible for the killings.” On April 1, 1981 the following telephone conversation between Don and Terry Sanders was recorded by a police wiretap:
Don: “…I might get out and ride around a little bit, and I might come by there.”
Terry: “Go find you another little kid, another little kid?”
Don: “Yeah, scope out some places. We’ll see you later.”
FBI report concerning brown Caucasian hairs found at a murder scene.
FBI report containing the Theory, Motive, Method, Group Composition & Supporting Evidence of the Murders
White male suspect in Atlanta Child Killings.
The man convicted, Wayne Williams
Known child victims
Name - Age - Date of disappearance
Edward Smith - 14 - July 21, 1979
Alfred Evans - 13 - July 25, 1979
Milton Harvey - 14 - September 4, 1979
Yusef Bell - 9 - October 21, 1979
Angel Lenair - 12 - March 4, 1980
Jeffery Mathis - 10 - March 11, 1980
Eric Middlebrooks - 14 - May 18, 1980
Chris Richardson - 12 - June 9, 1980
Latonya Wilson - 7 - June 22, 1980
Aaron Wyche - 10 - June 23, 1980
Anthony Carter - 9 - July 6, 1980
Earl Terell - 11 - July 30, 1980
Clifford Jones - 13 - August 20, 1980
Darren Glass - 10 - September 14, 1980
Charles Stephens - 12 - October 9, 1980
Aaron Jackson - 9 - November 1, 1980
Patrick Rogers - 16 - November 10, 1980
Lubie Geter - 14 - January 3, 1981
Terry Pue - 15 - January 22, 1981
Patrick Baltazar - 11 - February 6, 1981
Curtis Walker - 15 - February 19, 1981
Joseph Bell - 15 - March 2, 1981
Timothy Hill - 13 - March 13, 1981
The C.O.W.S.: The Atlanta Child Murders & Chet Dettlinger Part 1
amerikkka the great.
(via darkjez)
A Protester’s Account of the Occupy Wall Street Brooklyn Bridge March
I figured I should write down what happened today, before I forget or before too many stories get muddled together.
My friend, my partner, and I arrived at Zucotti Park around 3 for the march, which began quickly, after everyone shared various rules. (No violence, write the phone number for legal council on yr arm, etc, etc)
We marched through lower Manhattan, and no route was specified, but we were told to not pass the head of the crowd, which was carrying a banner. Cops stood by and kept us on the sidewalk.
Then I noticed we were approaching the Brooklyn Bridge.
Cops were ushering people onto the bridge, but as I noticed we were walking into the roadway, I started to get scared. We climbed over the fence onto the pedestrian bridge. The first half of the crowd continued on the road, while the second half continued on the pedestrian bridge. Cops were flanking both sides of the entrance to the bridge and there was no way to turn back. As we walked up the elevated pedestrian bridge, we heard cops call for backup and they drove 2 police vans backwards up the bridge to where the protesters were. They stopped traffic and then brought vans in from the other side as well and trapped the protesters.
We watched from above as people began climbing the cords and metal of the bridge to escape the cops. People on the pedestrian bridge were trying to pull people up out of the roadway.
We continued forward into Brooklyn as the cops brought a net onto the bridge from the Manhattan side.
By the time we gathered into the park in Brooklyn, only a few hundred of us were left.
Cops began surrounding the park, and we all disbanded.
One of my friends was in the area where cops had people corralled. According to her Facebook updates and tweets, and other updates from trapped protesters, a child was arrested, and busses were brought in to arrest every single person. All of the men were taken first, and then all of the women.
They were told they were being arrested for disorderly conduct.
The police led them there and trapped them.
Please reblog this. People need to know what happened, and cops need to be held accountable for their actions.
(via karnythia)
You can give a man the death penalty for killing a cop with no evidence, but give a cop 2 years for killing a man with video footage of the murder.
(via karnythia)
A 14-year-old boy got into a fight at a school bus stop and the school district’s police officer responded by shooting him to death
SAN ANTONIO (CN) - A 14-year-old boy got into a fight at a school bus stop and the school district’s police officer responded by shooting him to death, the boy’s mother says. She says the cop had been reprimanded 16 times in the previous 4 years, suspended without pay 5 times, and “recommended for termination for insubordination,” but the school kept him on the force “without remedial training.”
Denys Lopez Moreno sued the Northside Independent School District, of San Antonio, the district’s Chief of Police John Page and the alleged shooter, Daniel Alvarado, in Federal Court.
Lopez says her son, Derek, got into a fight with another boy at a school bus stop and punched the other boy once, in November 2010.
“Defendant, Alvarado, having responded to a call regarding a bus with a flat tire, witnessed Derek strike the other boy. He ordered Derek to ‘freeze.’ Derek hesitated and then ran from defendant Alvarado,” according to the complaint.
“In his patrol car, Alvarado began chasing Derek in the neighborhood across the street from the high school. Alvarado lost sight of the boy in the neighborhood and returned to the location of the school boy fight. At that time, he called dispatch. Dispatch recordings reflect that his supervisor directed Alvarado to stay with the other boy and to ‘not do any big search over there.’“Ignoring his supervisor’s orders to ‘stay with the victim and get the information from him,’ Alvarado placed the second boy into the patrol car and sped into the neighborhood to search for Derek.”
Lopez says her son jumped over a fence and hid in a shed in the back yard of a house. The homeowner saw him, called 911, and alerted a neighbor, who pointed Alvarado in Derek’s direction. Lopez says her son never left the shed, never approached the house or threatened the homeowner or her daughters, and posed no threat to anyone.
Nonetheless, she says: “In violation of NISD police department procedures, Alvarado drew his weapon immediately after exiting the patrol car. With his gun drawn, he rushed through the gate and into the back yard. Within seconds from arriving at the residence, Alvarado shot and killed the unarmed boy hiding in the shed.”
Emphasis added
What the fuck?
…
BART spokesperson Linton Johnson defending the decision to block cell phone service in subway stations. (via drzzl)
There is a thin line between protection and domination. -Allcity
(via newmodelminority)
(via so-treu)
wassup muthafuckas?my name is tracie and i'm a radical queer black feminist polyglamorous pansexual merqueer. i blog about self-love and mermaids and growing and linkin park and black womyn and love. pronouns: she/he/they/mer
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blunt and nap and then im finally gonna write. the articles jerome provided are really helpful and...
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thirst.
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cupcakesnotbombs asked: i follow you because you are crazy awesome. <3
wait that’s why i follow you <3333333
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ngl, sometimes i see a minimized avi and i’m like “idk if that’s a stud or a really pretty man...
