Please comment any resources, mutual aid groups, etc. And ill add.

"May I add to your resource list a really great website: http://aworldwithoutpolice.org/

And also recommend Assata the autobiography by Assata Shakur. Really shows the pigs for what they are."

Yes, we mean literally abolish the police by Mariame Kaba

##Reading Recommendations

Alexander, M - 'The New Jim Crow' (2010)

Davis, A - 'Are Prisons Obsolete' (2003)

Jackson, G. - 'Blood in My Eye' (1972)

Vitale A.S - 'The End of Policing' (2017)

##How to Join

Go to Perusall.com

Create an Account

Click on Enroll in a Course

Enter this code: HAYACA-PVMCJ

Questions you should regularly ask yourself when outraged about injustice:

What resources exist so I can better educate myself?

Who's already doing work around this injustice?

Do I have the capacity to offer concrete support & help to them?

How can I be constructive?

“In The Spirit of Abolition” - Jailhouse Lawyers Speak Calls For Shut ‘Em Down Demonstrations

“Solidarity Doesn’t Mean Making Statements” - Laura Whitehorn On The Material Practice Of Anti-Racism

Also included are some very good theory recommendations:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/angela-y-davis-are-prisons-obsolete

http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/

https://twitter.com/prisonculture

https://archive.is/XUJu8

https://abolitionistfutures.com/full-reading-list

http://www.deanspade.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Building-an-Abolitionist-Trans-Queer-Movement-With-Everything-Weve-Got.pdf

  • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    This poor woman is going to carry the guilt of not helping George Floyd for the rest of her life when doing so could have cost her a felony charge.

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      Yeah I was just thinking that. This is never going away for her. She's a victim too.

      • SerLava [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Well, I think she couldn't have helped. They had enough pigs on scene to hurt her and keep killing Flloyd.

    • NeverGoOutside [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      We all carry the guilt of not doing everything we could to make sure people don’t die from not having healthcare, aren’t forced into homelessness or exploitation, don’t die at the hands of police, etc...

    • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I’m currently seething over the future liberal arguments that will be trotted out when he inevitably gets let off, or gets a slap on the wrist.

      Bad apples, jury found him innocent, we need the police yada yada

        • spectre [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          I remember someone on the sub was saying that we need to abolish police and Target/Amazon need to pay for their own security. I usually leave the yelling at bad takes to other users, but I had no choice but to step in hard on that one lol.

            • spectre [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              As usual, when liberal dorks appropriate left terminology and make it fucking hard to talk about "police abolition" in a way that actually makes sense. As much as I can't stand cops and all that, you can't just press the "abolish police" button in 2021 without doing the political groundwork to build other ways of doing the things that police do.

              It's actually good when someone investigates murders and rapes. Let's set up an agency to do that. It's also good to do wellness checks and provide emergency counseling to people who are in a mental health crisis. Police are obviously inadequately trained for this, and we will need a separate agency to do this as well.

              It's bad to damage the personal property of other workers, to beat your wife and kids, and to smuggle drugs. Let's give people opportunities to work jobs that don't alienate them from their labor and earn a decent living. Let's decriminalize drug posession and sales, and legalize some of the less harmful ones.

              Once we make headway on these things, we can start working on disbanding police altogether. It starts with disbanding the capitalist mode of production that they are designed to enforce.

    • Kanna [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      The fact that he was even allowed to walk away after what he did is the most depressing thing. That should have been the last decision he made.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    When I was following the George Zimmerman trial, I fully expected him to be convicted.

    I've learned a lot since then.

    • Elon_Musk [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Really? I watched the vast majority of that trial live and thought the prosecution failed hard.

      • BeamBrain [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I hadn't yet had my youthful naivety and faith in the system ground to dust.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Lmao "Has anyone ever told you as a firefighter you're fighting the fire wrong" fuck offfffffffffffffffffff.

  • QuillQuote [they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    Reminder: When he gets found not guilty it’s on all of us to tell the people in our lives what that means and why it happened, to set the narrative. Because if we don’t the only thing that will is CNN/FOX

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Right? Judge clearly wants the defence to win.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      What was it she tried to add? I had to step away.

      • Rojo27 [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        The defense was questioning her description of Floyd as "small and slim" during an interview with the cops. She said that with 3 grown men on him she had mistakenly perceived him to be small. She paused for a bit and then went to add more to that answer, but the defense cut her off to say that he wasn't asking another question and the judge went and scolded her for arguing with the court.

        • spectre [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Yeah that's how these things go a lot of the time. I'd just answer how I want and take the CoC charge

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Very briefly I've seen it on CNN, from what I could gather the defense seemed more interested in attacking the character of the witnesses instead of defending Chauvin as a good cop. I'd guess it really doesn't matter because we all know Chauvin is going to walk or get a slap on the wrist.

    • spectre [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      A bit odd strategically, since the video tells a lot of the story on its own. Maybe they just haven't gotten to that part of their case yet.

      • grilldaddy [she/her]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yeah I think this strategy will backfire. They keep trying to paint the scene as an angry mob in a dangerous area of the city but a bunch of the witnesses are children and teenagers and every person who saw it from every angle had the exact same read on the situation. You can't watch those videos and see "angry mob" instead of "concerned citizens". The "mob" of people were yelling things like "check his pulse!" and "do CPR!"... this strategy is just not going to land.

        • spectre [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Yes and at first, they were telling Floyd to stop fighting and get in the car for his own good until it was clear that he was unresponsive and the cops just sat there.

        • Creakybulks [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Heres a hint: a lot of black people live in that area of minneapolis.

        • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          You can’t watch those videos and see “angry mob” instead of “concerned citizens”

          It doesn't matter whether we can't, it matters whether the jury can, the jury that had everyone aware of BLM weeded out of it.

  • stigsbandit34z [they/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    literal nuremberg defense https://news.yahoo.com/derek-chauvin-legal-team-says-112404611.html

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      I keep thinking about this, because they're right. Cops are trained to see everyone as either a cop, a civvie, or a bad guy. If they're trying to get you to do something and you're not 110% compliant, you're a bad guy, and they're not trained to care about the safety of bad guys.

      Failing to convict would of course be open endorsement of extrajudicial execution of black people by the state, but even if they somehow send him to prison, they're not going to do anything about the fact that cops are always the powerful doing violence to the powerless, and that more cops means more violence.

    • hauntedjetty [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      "your honor, our client is too much of a dipshit psychopath to consider any action outside of his training"

      • Multihedra [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I’m reminded of this quote:

        Simple pig types can only learn to function by rote and in cycles. Procedure must be drilled into them and only seldom if ever changed. It is quite easy for a pig to perform a particular function the same way, time after time, once he has learned the function; it is not so easy to vary, especially when there are great numbers of the same types of individuals involved. What would be the result if each pig were given a different job each day in a different area or if he had to vary his code every week or think for himself just one eight-hour shift? Chaos. If it weren’t for the sergeant or lieutenant and a routine, when the average pig ran out of gas, his car would have to be pushed out of the street by the citizenry; when his bullets ran out he would have only a club until he could check with the captain.

        • George Jackson, Blood in My Eye
  • thisismyrealname [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    never seen the video until now. derek chauvin should get the fucking barbara pit treatment, the courts are too merciful for a pig fuck like that

    • Glass [he/him,they/them]
      ·
      4 years ago

      We've all heard of consecutive life sentences, but hear me out: consecutive death sentences.

  • spectre [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 years ago

    I watched parts of the video last year, but seeing it now it's obvious that:

    • Cops have Floyd on the ground, and bystanders start gathering to watch/film.
    • Floyd says he can't breathe and bystanders are saying "you can't win bro, just chill and get in the car"
    • After about a minute, he's non-verbal (unconscious, presumably), and the bystanders point this out to the cops that he's not fighting or talking shit (obv)
    • Dipshit cop just sits there as the crowd escalates in intensity, since Floyd hasn't moved in over a minute, apparently this goes on for a few more minutes. Other 3 cops just watch.
        • spectre [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          It's also a significant reason why cops get off so often, since prosecutors are usually on their same side and have to work with cops fairly regularly. Might not even be fully intentional, but slacking off just a bit gives plenty of room for a "not guilty" to squeeze in.

          Even in this case I can see this headed toward manslaughter or even acquittal with "Chauvin's training failed him and George Floyd, not guilty of murder" which might even be somewhat true (to a certain extent), but then nothing happens after that to actually fix the issue.

    • Awoo [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      4 years ago

      He's framing it as "if you were in a situation would you follow your training or not?", he's made her say that she would not be distracted from her training no matter what. He's using that to argue that the officer simply followed his training to the letter in a stressful situation, ignoring this fire fighter woman was simply exactly what she would have done in a similar situation at her own job.

        • Awoo [she/her]
          ·
          4 years ago

          It's interesting how he led her. The line of questioning is a lose lose for the witness. If she says "yes I would be distracted" then she gives the defence the ability to argue in favoure of the confusion of the situation and she's lent her weight to that. Whereas if she defends that she would follow her training to the letter no matter what distractions were coming from the sidelines she is lending her weight to the argument that Chauvin just did exactly what she would do -- follow the training to the letter.

          At least that's what I see here from that line of questioning.

          • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 years ago

            Right, I get it now, but the injury was caused by both the training and the failure to re-assess behavior during and in the midst of a situation. The prosecution should really be laying the groundwork for analyzing police training. Does it say in the handbook, you should sit on someone's neck for 9 mins? No. If a situation is getting testy, how many cops are supposed to be on the scene? Why were reinforcements not called? Does the handbook say nothing on the checking of the perp's health? The answer is probably NO to the last one. So he is failing to follow his training where it is most convenient, the killing of a black person.

            • Awoo [she/her]
              ·
              4 years ago

              They're going to argue that even if the training is wrong that the officer is not responsible for the death. They're going to argue that he was both following the training and under a deeply stressful situation.

              This will be how they play every single witness, providing the same no-win lose lose line of questioning and loading up both sides of their argument with witnesses. All witnesses will be forced into supporting either one side of their argument or the other. Jury is going to be a mess.

              • marxisthayaca [he/him,they/them]
                ·
                4 years ago

                I actually doubt that the training is wrong. Because the entire veneer of accountability by cops to civies is that they are trained professionals and have procedures to handle these situations. So unless the defense is really ready to argue "hey the cops manual says you should murder someone if they are initially noncooperative", then the prosecutor can argue, what kind of person joins the force, murderers, do.

                I'm getting frustrated, this is just heartbreaking.

                • Awoo [she/her]
                  ·
                  4 years ago

                  Yeah the training almost certainly doesn't say to do that. But the combination of "following the training" and "getting it wrong in a stressful situation" is what will create the mess in the jury.

                  You don't need to prove jackshit as a defender of the cops in this scenario you just need to undermine the responsibility of this particular cop in the eyes of the jury. That is enough to prevent prosecution.

    • NeverGoOutside [any]
      ·
      4 years ago

      These are the reasons gulags were created and must be brought back.