ILWU Local 10 members in San Francisco at a 2010 protest for Oscar Grant, a young black man murdered by public transit police
In These Times: On May Day, Longshore Workers Stop Work to Protest Racist Police Brutality (a history lesson)
offered without comment:
@deray “I’ve finally heard @BarackObama‘s full comments re: the #BaltimoreUprising and he’s beginning to acknowledge systemic inequity.”
@Rebelutionary_Z “The trolls and police apologists are in a frenzy right now…”#BaltimoreUprising
@BellaEiko: #Protests break out after immigration officer kills #Detroit man http://fb.me/43m79vSTf
puff the magic hater @bullhorngirl “Every caged protestor in Baltimore needs to be released NOW”. #FreeThemAll #BaltimoreUprising
KHARY PENEBAKER on Twitter: “Death of #NatashaMcKenna shocked by stun gun in jail is ruled an accident http://t.co/HNlXonXkVo #BaltimoreUprising http://t.co/Y5pFC6rFoa”
Consider the source, and he’s a jerk, but:
Paul Joseph Watson @PrisonPlanet Apr 30″ Mayor ordered Baltimore police to stand down – “Let them loot, it’s only property.” http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/29/fox-report-baltimore-mayor-ordered-police-to-stand-down-and-let-them-loot-video/ …
Alex Blank Millard @Hippoinatutu ”Meanwhile, the officer who killed #AiyanaJones in her bed went back to work yesterday.”
@Rebelutionary_Z “Reports from sources that 50+ military choppers from Morgantown WV flying towards Maryland now.”
@rosaclemente “even if they go to jail, this is not justice, this is holding them accountable, i want police to leave our communities”, #blackspring
Not the thousands they’d hoped for but still, so far:
Some are, indeed:
Paul Joseph Watson @PrisonPlanet #BaltimoreUprising “protesters appear to be confused about the words “charged” and “convicted”. When the acquittals come, expect more riots”.
(h/t: ChéPasa): ‘Updated route of Baltimore Police van proves they were deliberately off course with Freddie Gray’
https://twitter.com/RectorSun/status/594199861576265730
https://twitter.com/cmanduley/status/594175608332095488
hard to read, but the FOP commander wants a special prosecutor (shades of Kari Brandenburg shite:
@ChicagoRADicals “Union demonstrators and their allies are gathered at the Haymarket Monument right now.” #M1Chi radical March 230pm at Union Park.
Bless her heart.
Fred Hampton, Jr., son of Fred Hampton, murdered in cold blood by police also spoke.
Boots! Woot!
BootsRiley takes the stage. #LaborAgainstPoliceTerror #MayDay #Oakland #PortShutdown http://t.co/a8CitAl7A4
‘The man who filmed the Freddie Gray video has been arrested at gunpoint’, (SPLC, via the Independent)
Whoa, nellie, #PhillyisBaltimore sincerely weighed in last night.
Allen Bullock, who TURNED HIMSELF IN for breaking these windows, has a $500,000 bail but the officers don’t! WHAT?https://twitter.com/FOP3/status/594250714098053121
@FOP3 · “Apparently our GoFundMe account has been suspended with no explanation. We are working to find a new site for donations. Thank you!”
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
Thanks for covering this today. Some cities seemed to have multiple marches starting off from the May Day beginning. Chicago’s wound up at Cook County Jail and then started back. Austin seems to be relatively well-attended. Philly’s went well. Not sure what the Baltimore Police Department is up to, but there are crowds near the CVS, at the Baltimore City Hall and possibly some other locations seeking to break the “except for the rich folks” curfew. Employers are closing as early as 7pm to allow time for workers to get home before 10pm. Of course, this also has the effect of cutting the wages of service workers, such as cleaning crews and restaurant workers.
The six officers quickly raised bond and are already out.
The man who filmed the arrest of Freddie Gray is a Copwatch volunteer. He and two Copwatch volunteers from Ferguson were arrested by an overwhelming military operation that included helicopters and a substantial number of officers. He’s now out, but the others were still being held as of the time of Vice’s interview with Moore, the man who videoed the arrest of Freddie Gray. An update said that Copwatch expected the other two to be release this afternoon, but I’ve seen no news of them.
thanks for the updates, thd. i hit the wall last night, and shut down. i need to catch up, but good on durham and austin.
yes, it seems that the day brought out various groups, some marched together, others not; it was rather confusing, especially as often times the cities listed at ferguson response didn’t use the hashtags they’d posted. well, confusing to me, anyway. ;-)
loads more to come today, naturally. but i’ll add a couple things i found this morning.
things got wild in seatlle, but again: there were three themes being represented, and ‘O, those black clad anarchists!’ two sources:
http://rt.com/usa/255041-seattle-police-protests-may-day/
https://twitter.com/laurenfrohne
global may day workers rights (and more) events have been major, and often spectacular.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/MayDay?src=hash
For those who didn’t see it, here is Marilyn Mosby’s announcement of charges against the 6 police thugs involved in Freddie Gray’s death:
http://www.wbaltv.com/news/raw-video-states-attorney-press-conference-officers-charged/3268752
And here’s some interesting reporting and photo album from Oakland’s May Day events last night. “Hundreds” of broken windows. Oh my.
https://ello.co/thomashawk/post/bQYtPWOrrT7b3qnpniOPuQ
Durham NC – 300 people, march from DPD headquarters to Durham County Jail – no arrests
WRAL: Durham activists march in support of Baltimore
i ran into this new female rapper’s video this morning while trying to find out what happened during protests in houston. it’s quite good, with great history and visuals, and quite militant, of course. some words i clipped from the houston paper in explanation:
““Now Genesis Blu, a local female rapper who is starting to gain her own footing, has helped start a movement known as #StillDreamin. The initiative even prompted Mayor Annise Parker to respond by declaring April 24 as ‘”Still Dreamin” Day” in the City of Houston. It may have flown under the radar since it’s about a social cause and not a celebrity, but the message was clear: the city’s youth are not apathetic towards social change, especially if the society they dreamed about as kids has not yet become a reality.
The video is dedicated to Jordan Baker, a Houston man who was killed last December by a HPD officer. Baker was unarmed and the officer was not indicted in his death.”
When I was reading about CopBlock and other activist groups in Texas I also looked for incidents of cops killing unarmed men and could not find any recent examples. The Jordan Baker killing was from over a year ago and this behavior seems to be quite rare in Texas.
27 million people live in Texas and Blacks/Hispanics make up about half of the population, it has high poverty levels, drug crime and all the other social ills related to these conditions. Its majority seem to support wingnuts such an Perry, Cruz and Bush, it also has a strong gun culture and death penalty support.
Texas cops are not known for being liberal so what other factors might account for their being much less likely to gun down unarmed citizens?
it’s a good question, but their overlords may not want it so, and have communicated it. otherwise, po-po’s and their deep state allies in many texas cities were vicious during Occupy days.
i don’t have the the time to even try to remember where they’ve gotten their stats, but this is the state by state measurements, and i know that ché had poked thru the killed by police on facebook page and done some analyses.
http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/states/
The Real News had an informative panel discussion yesterday, May 1, and a brief video today interviewing residents of the inner city in Baltimore that was heartfelt and well done. That reporter was ‘from the hood’ and better at his job than any of the glib snakeoil salesmen featured on mainstream.
Shame on PBS. I looked in at the replay of their nightly news late last night and indeed, as the Real News panel pointed out, their focus was not on the terrible conduct of police clearly demonstrated in this tragedy, but on the woeful loss of minimal amenities caused by ‘folks getting uppity.’
I couldn’t switch that off soon enough.
A piece at rt.com yesterday gave the map of the route taken transporting Freddie Gray, with notations of the stops and what happened at each one. It’s all that’s needed to illustrate barbarism in action.
If Black Lives Matter runs a presidential candidate, lets vote for him or her. And let’s do exit polling at all the precincts with a vengeance. Nothing could be more important than replacing the shoddy pretense of a system we have right now.
Throw all the bums out.
Interesting, isn’t it, that none of the announced/unannounced candidates will address the issue of violent policing as such. So far only Hillary has addressed the issue indirectly — calling for “reform” of policing policies and a “review” of mass incarceration. Surprisingly — or maybe not — Bernie hasn’t had anything to say about it at all preferring to concentrate on other issues.
Maybe all the candidates have to focus group it to death, and when they do, decide it isn’t worth the aggravation to all-important white voters to open that can of worms.
Violent policing and police impunity must — and I believe will — end, but the struggle will take many more twists and turns before it does.
(As for a BLM candidate, looks to me like DeRay may be positioning for a future run, maybe in 2020. Could be…)
The mainstream “news” has had real problem finding the right balance between Uppity Negroes (Running Wild) and Ideal Peace and Harmony. WaPo’s coverage of events in Baltimore has been outrageous and deplorable. Shameful, really. On the other hand, WBAL has had some outstanding coverage, though they tend to promote Peace and Harmony relentlessly, and their investigative reporter, Jayne Miller, has been nothing short of remarkable for her own sense of outrage and justice. She’s not trying to be “balanced,” she’s trying to tell the truth. Oh. That.
ha; if you mean this one with eddie conway, yes: quite from the hood, and the former minister of defense of the black panther party, and a leader of the baltimore chapter. pretty cool of paul jay to make him an editor there, no?
is this like the map RT had? i’d seen che link to it via an emailed comment, and added it up yonder somewhere.
presidents: hmmm, who said it’s one of the positions that seeking it should immediately disqualify one from the job? but srsly, i actually wish our system were more like switzerland’s: the cabinet members rotate in and out as President once a year. (i’ve forgotten if cabinet officials are elected or not), but it’s a direct democracy, which doesn’t always contribute to *good* government, but it’s at least democratic, but not horizontal, of course.
I’ll see if I can find the map, wendye. It showed the complete route to the police station with flagged stops along the way. I have just been looking at more of the Real News coverage, and the following is an excellent video (hope I’m not duplicating). Caution: the second half of the video is in my view total garbage about reluctance to critique Obama, and I suspect was added on to make the whole package palatable – all I could think was yuck. The first segment is excellent.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13773
no duplicating the trrn piece, and it’s largely the same as shaun king’s ‘updated’ map at the bottom. yes: quite intentional. among the egregious lies is the alleged statement by the second thug passenger the van had picked up; i haven’t listened to any of the extant interviews, but clipped statements indicated that he’d never uttered those words that indicated that freddie gray murdered himself in the van: by bolt, plexiglass, etc.
ché: deray sprang quickly to my mind, as well. he’s been quite full of himself lately, and is well represented on every # account. but one would almost think that as he has so much heart for dems, that’s how he’d run.
interesting to hear bernie sanders has made a peep about any of it, and hillary’s non-statements are par for the course. day-um, it’s sad that election season’s already begun. now ya have to see her face on every site ya visit.
oh, and by the way: ruth calvo did post the barbara grothus piece, and i did finally get the diary to boot up. a total of three whole comments, if any of you want to contribute (hint, hint, clue, clue…) ;-) maybe the video you brought featuring the black hole and the familly all speaking, señor pasa?
one more thing: today 28 cities will hold actions, maybe #blacksping, but others as well. IF i can male the time ( a big if on a weekend), i might start a separate thread for them. and thank you and everyone for so many good additions.
Here is the link to the map at RT – scroll down about halfway:
http://rt.com/usa/254913-gray-autopsy-state-attorney/
Video from Chicago’s May Day focusing on the Red and the Black without explaining what it is… quite striking.
http://launch.newsinc.com/?type=VideoPlayer/Single&widgetId=1&trackingGroup=69016&siteSection=latimes_hom_non_sec&videoId=29002846
Then there was the video from Seattle (KIRO I believe), focusing on supposed black bloc violence, in which the police were firing flash-bangs at the marchers, and the reporter was saying the marchers were throwing fireworks at the police. Maybe they were. But I didn’t see it in the video.
From what I’ve seen of the May Day events Mz, both from your excellent reporting and what I’ve been able to scour up here and there, it looks like this year’s May Day has been a mite more… energetic than in previous years.
The notion that broken windows or overturned trash cans are somehow of equal value with the snuffed out lives of young Americans — a notion promoted by the media and their owners — is deeply offensive. Plenty of Our Betters are in clueless denial.
Here’s why I was disgusted with the second half of the video link I posted above:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/05/a-terrific-day-for-us-target-intelligence-in-syria-and-yemen.html#comments
Yemeni lives matter.