Tottenham, Fullerton, San Diego: Recent Actions Against Police

A big day in the world yesterday, with people's frustration with the police coming to a head in various ways. Events unfolded in Fullerton, CA, San Diego, CA, and Tottenham in the UK.

Closest to home, in Fullerton, people responded to the deadly beating of a man by a group of six police officers. The police claim to have been responding to car break-ins in the area. Kelly Thomas, the man murdered by the police, is the son of a Orange County Sheriff himself. His father feels embarassed to ever be affiliated with law enforcement. Yesterday, a group of Kelly Thomas's family and friends held signs outside the Fullerton Police Department, demanding "justice" and an end to police "misconduct."

In the UK, the police killing of Mark Duggan, father of four, prompted a protest march that bloomed into a fullscale riot. The protestor's marched from Mark Duggan's residence to the police station, demanding answers, presumably as to why he was killed. When the police refused to engage in dialogue with the group of 500 angry people, the crowd inserted themselves into the discourse anyway. According to eyewitness reports, the police were "running and hiding" as the crowd expressed their anger. Police cars were burned with petrol bombs (molotovs), stores were looted, and the crowd effectively defended themselves against the police with flaming dumpsters and improvised projectiles. This situation is the wet dream of every anti-police protest, but one that is rarely enacted.When the looting happened at the Mehserle verdict, we heard the complaint from left-anarchists or liberals that looting has nothing to do with demands for "justice." We agree that it doesn't, but we aren't asking for justice. The thin blue line of the police exists to protect property, to keep it in certain hands and out of others. In large part, it is the police that keep us poor. When a situation like the one in Tottenham is created, when shopping malls were, at least temporarily in the hands of excluded, expropriation isn't just rational--it's fun!

In San Diego, the police had the nerve (or the thickheadedness) to call the assassination of a police officer "unprovoked." A black Audi pulled up next to a police car in El Cajon and someone in the Audi shot the lone officer in the head. Later in the day, a police helicopter observed someone getting into a black Audi with what appeared to be shotgun. When police responded to that location, the man produced the shotgun and was shot dead by police.

No act of rage against the police can be considered unprovoked. The structure of the world keeps many of us excluded and the police protect that structure. As resistance expands, the first obstacle everywhere is the police. A liberatory social vision cannot be actualized in a world full of police, whether they wear a uniform or not.

Kelly Thomas, Murdered by Fullerton Police

Mark Duggan, Murdered by Metropolitan Police

Statue from Santa Cruz Mission Destroyed

from KION:

The Chapel of the Holy Cross Church remained closed Sunday morning while church officials begin to pick up the pieces of a priceless statue destroyed.

"It's a priceless piece of artwork that came to us from the mission that was destroyed in the 1857 earthquake," said Betty Pedrazzi, Curator of the Mission Gift Shop and Museum.  "So it's part of our collection that we can't replace."

The Statue of Saint Joseph is now in several pieces on the chapel floor.  It was made around 1791 and normally sits in an archway, several feet off the ground.  Santa Cruz Police said Lee Wilson, 54, climbed on top of the altar, knocked it down and stole a piece of it.  He was later caught by police near Pacific Avenue and Cooper Street.

"I think it's like a stab in the heart because it's a holy object," said Pedrazzi.  "People really have a lot of reverence and respect for it."

So much, in fact, people travel from around the world to see it.  The Colbert family drove all the way from San Diego to visit the mission.  "Tragic for that to happen to a place of worship," said Amy Colbert.  "Any kind of worship. Terrible. It's really sad."

Parishioners told Central Coast News they're stunned Saint Joseph was vandalized but said they're not angry with Lee Wilson, instead, they're praying for him.

"I don't think it was a hostile thing to the church or to the community," said Francis Krebs, Parishioner.  "It was an issue of his mental illness and I don't think he was probably very well in control of what he was doing."

Santa Cruz Police said Wilson admitted to trying to steal the statue.  He's been charged with felony vandalism, grand theft and a probation violation and remains in the Santa Cruz County Jail.

Church officials said they're trying to fix the statue and expect it to cost thousands of dollars.  They said beefing up security at the chapel is under consideration.  They expect to re-open the chapel soon.

The first mission in Santa Cruz was built in 1791. Two years later, indigenous people from the Ano Nuevo area burned it down, presumably motivated by the kidnappings and forced relocations. Resistance to colonialism in Santa Cruz goes back to the very beginning.

19 years later, in 1812, Father Andrés Quintana was beaten to death and his body disfigured by natives angry over his use of a metal-tipped whip in the punishment of mission laborers. The book A Gathering of Voices contains the purported dialogue between Quintana and his assassins.

The padres were also concerned about the continuing catastrophic decline in the number of babies born to their neophyte charges. Often, the Ohlone (and other subjugated peoples) would refuse to procreate, knowing that their children would be born into near-slavery. When a padre at Mission Santa Cruz named Ramon Olbés came to the conclusion that one particular married couple was behaving with excessive sexual inhibition, thereby depriving him of another child to enslave and another soul to offer up to Christ:

At this point the woman resisted the padre's attempted forced inspection; for that impertinence she received fifty lashes, was "shackled, and locked in the nunnery." He then gave her a wooden doll and ordered her to carry it with her, "like a recently born child," wherever she went.

These anecdotes of genocide, torture, and resistance are only broad strokes on a large canvas. Santa Cruz is a town established by way of genocide and the mission is a living testament to that. The Catholic church has offered nothing in the way of apologies for this (which makes sense, they didn't forgive Galileo until 2008). Even if they did, our hearts would still be with the vandal. As has been said: “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”

 

New Cop Shops on the Horizon?

When the flooding happened, seeing fully submerged cop cars brought smiles to our faces. Now, Capitola police are trying to use this as an opportunity to move out of a building that "has not been adequate for the department's needs for a long time." We can expect that the residents of Capitola, with its deep law-and-order tendencies, will generally support rebuilding the police station (it ain't called "Copitola" for nothing). Even in Copitola, the police are always looking for opportunities to increase their power.

Unfortunately, the Capitola pigs aren't the only ones considering an upgrade. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner is looking to spend $44 million out of a $75 million redevelopment budget on a more centrally located Sheriff's Center. The current Sheriff's Center, located in the Ocean Street government complex, is aging and poorly located (for them). The new facility would be in a midcounty location close to Highway 1. The current push for the project is a response to the proposed cuts to redevelopment agencies to balance the state budget. The proposed sheriff's center is a bit of a departure from the usual fare of the redevelopment agency--past projects include parks, parking lots, and sidewalk improvements (and also unfortunate things like graffiti removal).

The massive prioritization of police infrastructure illuminates the larger vision of the Redevelopment Agency. Projects like the Twin Lakes Neighborhood Park and the parking lot at the Hook are, in a sense, community projects: they provide common space, encourage togetherness, and are much preferable to the condos that would probably have been built in those locations otherwise. When the RDA bends backwards to police interests, it shows these projects in a different light. These projects, apparently for everyone, are done for those who play by the rules of this society. The RDA spends half their budget on developing Santa Cruz County and the other half policing it. This is the similar to the logic of the Downtown Association: we want a fun and vibrant downtown, but only so long as business interests are protected. The RDA is building a Santa Cruz for a community of people with money and property, those who will never be considered criminals by this society. For the rest of us--those of us excluded from this community, those who find it disgusting, those who want to destroy it--now is the time to act together.

The police have found openings in recent circumstances to increase their power and consolidate the control that capitalism mandates. These developments are also openings for resistance. Looking forward, we must build the power to prevent these developments. For now, they appear as opportunities to clarify how we feel about the police (hatred) and come together to express our rage. Building connections to others based on a mutual hatred of police (and the prison world that they maintain) is a powerful point of connection, especially when coupled with a libertarian social vision. Most importantly, allowing the police to operate without opposition gives them the impression that they run this town. For now, it seems that they do. And they will, until we do.

stay up,
scr