Hey chapos, pardon if I seem a bit frazzled but i'm a bit frustrated at the moment
In the city I go to college in, a bunch of peaceful protestors were arrested for seemingly no good reason. They were there protesting the Grand Jury decision of letting 3 cops involved in police shootings of unarmed black men walk free. (The shootings of Tony McDade, Mychael Johnson, Wilson Woodward.) The people who were attending were my friends: fellow organizers, leftists, and chapos who wanted to voice their opinion on this shit grand jury decision. Now, 11 of them are in jail after being dragged out of the crowd and being arrested for seemingly no reason. I'm still chatting with friends who were at the scene to piece together a fuller story, but that's what i have as of now.
I've linked a few sources with videos:
https://twitter.com/softcowboyvibes/status/1302368327436652544
https://twitter.com/YungGameboyADV/status/1302375194728845312
https://twitter.com/JasonDelgadoFL/status/1302342488573775872
https://twitter.com/softcowboyvibes/status/1302380996659044353
My college's YDSA chapter partnered with our local direct action committee to set up a bail fund. If you all are feeling generous, please consider donating. Anything helps, and it'd mean a lot if you could help us free our friends.
Anyways, I just needed to vent, really. Police using excessive force to squash peaceful protest fucking sucks but it hurts a lot more when it hits home.
I've had friends nabbed by the pigs before, its fucking scary. I just want you to know that if they were arrested at a protest they're probably with comrades rn which will make the experience a lot more tolerable.
If you can organize a release reception (a few comrades with some weed, cigs, lunch, and a banner) it'll be a boon to you and your pals.
If it's anything, the charges usually don't stick.
This shit sucks. Power to you OP. Glad you're out fundraising for 'em.
Depends on the charge. It can range from a citation like jaywalking to misdemeanors like blocking traffic, criminal mischief, petty vandalism, to felonies like assaulting an officer, rioting, conspiracy to riot.
Most common though is a catch and release with possibly no charges at all.
This is stressful shit but I wanna say GOOD WORK on not being broken up easily. I've been critical lately of american protesters getting easily split up and just abandoning each other to be easy pickings by cops acting this way. Staying grouped up was the right thing to do and less people got seriously hurt as a result as they could not just use unrelenting violence on individual people running away on their own. This looks much more like proper group solidarity.
Good stuff to the people holding onto their comrades during arrests and attempting dearrests too. More of that.
Not as of now, they're just collecting via Paypal/Cashapp. I'll ask them if they can make a gofundme or something to make it more official.
