From Jerry Resists:

Jerry was taken into custody of US marshals today at 4:18 PM. Throughout his hearing, he did not answer any questions; he remained silent the entire time.

About sixty people showed in support of Jerry. The court room was packed, and he knew as he was taken by the marshals that we support and love him. The crowd yelled out their support for him as he was escorted out of the room.

Jerry asked that we release this statement to his supporters after his incarceration:

By the time you read this, I will be in the custody of the United States government for continuing my refusal to cooperate with a federal grand jury. This is the right thing to do.

I continue to believe that the government is using this federal grand jury in an abusive manner to force me to divulge information about my political associations and social networks.

If we mean what we say when we talk about radical politics, then we do not participate in witch hunts, inquisitions, or the assembly of black lists. As an individual, I will not lend legitimacy to government brutality and intimidation; I will not be used. As an anarchist, I will summon the courage to be stronger than the forces of the State’s all-too-real repression; I will not break.

Your show of truly powerful support has done nothing but strengthen my resolve in refusing to cooperate. We must not let ourselves be isolated by the government’s heavy-handed tactics. We must not give the state that last inch it tries to break in every one of us.

With Love, with Dignity, in Solidarity

Jerry Koch

If you haven’t already, please sign up for a recurring donation so that we can ensure that Jerry has immediate access to his commissary and will be able to be in touch with his loved ones. You can sign up and make donations at Jerry’s support site at jerryresists.net

Her new address is as follows:
Rebecca Rubin #2013001108
Columbia County Jail
901 Port Ave.
St. Helens, OR 97051

Tuesday, June 11th @ Internationalist Books @ 7pm

405 W Franklin St. in Chapel Hill

A Letter Writing night to long term anarchist prisoners.
All supplies provided. Including Snacks!!!

More Information about June 11th:

The state stole Eric McDavid and Marie Mason from us in 2006 and 2008 respectively. In the years since their arrests, repression has come to feel less like a specific event and more like an inescapable, ongoing nightmare. Sentenced to 22 years and 20 years, respectively, Marie and Eric remain in cages to this day, and know this nightmare more intimately than most.

Lately, we hear lots of talk about the end times, and total environmental collapse seems imminent. But what do these forces mean to those inside prison cells? And what do they mean for us on the outside? We are trying to save both each other and some shred of wildness on this earth. Our task is difficult, and sometimes seems impossible, because the harder we fight, the more repression we face. Every day we lose more species, more land, more friends… and this process shows no signs of slowing. How do we survive and continue to struggle in the face of this reality?

If winning was our only goal, it would be easy to quit. But although we may fight to win, we also fight because, in this situation, to fight means to live. From the outside it’s easy to equate a prison sentence with the end of everything… but Marie and Eric are still fighting. With both our love for them and our hatred for their jailers intact, we fight alongside them.

That means not only continuing our struggles on the outside, but also engaging with the imprisoned in ways that keep them connected to their friends and communities on the outside. The state has kidnapped our friends, and we must ensure that the state is not successful in its attempts to isolate and destroy them. Our struggle can only continue if we struggle together.

June 11th is a means to that end. June 11th is about remembering– not in the way that we remember a fact or history, but an active remembering: a re-membering, a putting back together. It is often easier for us to raise money and generate material support for people who have just been arrested than for people who have been locked away with many years in prison ahead. This day is a time for us to concentrate our energy, resources and love on those people, who cannot be forgotten.

June 11th has also become a staging ground for building our international ties of solidarity. The last two years have seen an incredible show of support from people outside of the US for Eric and Marie, and some efforts within the US to show solidarity to long-term anarchist prisoners in other places. This year, we hope to have more translations, more cross-referencing of struggle, and a further broadening of solidarity that does not take away, but adds. We refuse to recognize their borders; we aim to make that refusal more tangible.

From Source Watch

On May 20, 2013, DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy 
released the results of a year-long investigation: “Dissent or Terror:
 How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With 
Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.”

 The report, a distillation of thousands of pages of records obtained
 from counter terrorism/law enforcement agencies, details how
 state/regional “fusion center” personnel monitored the Occupy Wall
 Street movement over the course of 2011 and 2012.

The report also examines how fusion centers and other counter terrorism entities that 
have emerged since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have
 worked to benefit numerous corporations engaged in public-private
 intelligence sharing partnerships. 

While the report examines many instances of fusion center monitoring
 of Occupy activists nationwide, the bulk of the report 
details how counter terrorism personnel engaged in the Arizona Counter
 Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC, commonly known as the “Arizona fusion center”) monitored and otherwise surveilled citizens active in
 Occupy Phoenix, and how this surveillance benefited a number of 
corporations and banks that were subjects of Occupy Phoenix protest 
activity.

While small glimpses into the governmental monitoring of the Occupy Wall Street movement have emerged in the past, there has not been any reporting — until now — that details the breadth and depth with which the nation’s post-September 11, 2001 counter terrorism apparatus has been applied to politically engaged citizens exercising their Constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights.

REPORT Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s ‘Counter Terrorism’ Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street

REPORT APPENDIX open records materials cited in report.

PRESS RELEASE “New Report Details How Counter Terrorism Apparatus Was Used to Monitor Occupy Movement Nationwide”

SOURCE MATERIALS almost 10,000 pages of open records materials are archived on DBA Press.

PRWATCH ARTICLE “Dissent or Terror: How Arizona’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate Interests, Turned on Occupy Phoenix”

Key Findings

Key findings of this report include:

• How law enforcement agencies active in the Arizona fusion
 center dispatched an undercover officer to infiltrate activist groups
 organizing both protests of the American Legislative Exchange Council 
(ALEC) and the launch of Occupy Phoenix and how the work of this 
undercover officer benefited ALEC and the private corporations that
 were the subjects of these demonstrations.

• How fusion centers, funded in large part by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, expended countless hours and tax dollars in the monitoring of 
Occupy Wall Street and other activist groups.

• How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has financed
 social media “data mining” programs at local law enforcement agencies engaged in fusion centers.

• How counter terrorism government employees applied facial
 recognition technology, drawing from a state database of driver’s
 license photos, to photographs found on Facebook in the effort to 
profile citizens believed to be associated with activist groups.

• How corporations have become part of the homeland security “information sharing environment” with law enforcement/intelligence agencies through various public-private intelligence sharing partnerships. The report examines multiple instances in which the counter terrorism/homeland security apparatus was used to gather intelligence relating to activists for the benefit of corporate interests that were the subject of protests.

• How private groups and individuals, such as Charles Koch, 
Chase Koch (Charles’ son and a Koch Industries executive), Koch 
Industries, and the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council 
have hired off-duty police officers — sometimes still armed and in
 police uniforms — to perform the private security functions of keeping
 undesirables (reporters and activists) at bay.

• How counter terrorism personnel monitored the protest
 activities of citizens opposed to the indefinite detention language
 contained in National Defense Authorization Act of 2012.

• How the FBI applied “Operation Tripwire,” an initiative
 originally intended to apprehend domestic terrorists through the use
 of private sector informants, in their monitoring of Occupy Wall 
Street groups. [Note: this issue was reported on exclusively by DBA/CMD in December, 2012.]

Mutulu Shakur had a stroke at the end of February and is having trouble obtaining the follow-up medical care that he needs. Please call the warden at Victorville and ask that Mutulu receive the medical care that he needs.

5/19/2013
People out here I want some contacts, I have not received any consultation on the concerns deriving from the stroke. I understand folks have been contacting the region and central office from medical follow- up which is a required recommendation for after-care. I have a three month widow to medically and therapeutically to solve the residue of the stroke.
Thank you for all you do, I love mother earth too.
Stiff Resistance,
Dr. Mutulu Shakur.
PLEASE CALL THE WARDEN’S OFFICE AT THE VICTORVILLE COMPLEX AND REQUEST THAT DR. MUTULU SHAKUR BE GIVEN THE PHYSICAL THERPY TO DEAL WITH THE PHYSICAL PROBLEMS FROM HIS STROKE. Phone 760-530-5000 Fax 760530-5103

GREETINGS TO ALL, 3/31/2013
I HAD A STROKE ON FEB16TH, I WAS IN THE HOLE BECAUSE THEY HAD A LOCKDOWN IN THE PRISON FOR AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE. ON THE 15TH TO THE 16TH MY STROKE OCCURRED. I WAS TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL FOR 4 DAYS TO DIAGNOSE THE EFFECTS OF THE STROKE.
I WAS LET OUT THE HOSPITAL ON THAT THURSDAY OF THE FOLLOWING WEEK AND PUT BACK IN THE HOLE AND STAYED TO THIS THURSDAY THE 28TH, MY EMAIL WAS NOT FUNCTIONAL FOR 24 HOURS. IM LETTING YOU ALL KNOW THAT I AM BACK IN GENERAL POPULATION, AND ANY VISITS WILL BE WITH THE GENERAL VISITING AREA. IF WANT TO YOU CAN NOW EMAIL ME EVEN THOUGH IM NOT FOCUSED ON HOW I SHOULD BE, BUT I WILL STILL LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU EVEN IF YOU DONT HEAR FROM ME. MY VOICE IS A LIL STRANGE, MY EYES SIGHT IS A PROBLEM AND I WALK WITH A JIVE LIMP, BUT ALL IN ALL IM AN ALLIGATOR I CAN GO IN MUD AND WATER, AND IF I WASNT IN GOOD SHAPE I WOULD BE IN WORST CONDITION. DONT LOOK FUNNY AT ME BECAUSE I LOOK CROSS EYED BUT I WILL DEAL WITH ALL THE RESIDUE OF THE STROKE AS TIME GOES ON. I THANK YOU ALL fOR ALL YOUR CONCERN.
ANY WAYS I LOVE YOU ALL AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT. ITS NOT HOW YOU FALL DOWN BUT HOW YOU GET UP.
STIFF RESISTANCE

DR. MUTULU SHAKUR

The crowd initially marched up to the fence bordering the dorm buildings of the minimum custody RCCW. We were greeted by women waving and banging on their cell windows, before being pushed back by newly arriving police and panicking guards. We then proceeded to march to and around most of NCCIW, a huge medium custody facility that houses most of North Carolina’s female prison population. NCCIW has been subject to increased scrutiny in the media lately, as joint lawsuits have been filed by women against rapist guards. The facility was the site of a major riot in June 1975, when for five days women prisoners fought guards with broken concrete, metal poles, and landscaping tools.

On numerous occasions we tried to get on to the prison property to be in better view of the prisoners. Though we were prevented from doing so by guards, and had few plans for direct confrontation, we did manage to make contact with several women waving from their cells. Earlier correspondence with several women prisoners involved in radical study groups had already insured that prisoners would be aware of the demo. Handbills were also given out to curious onlookers in the yards and sidewalks of the heavily policed, working-class neighborhood that surrounds the two facilities, and the ACAB banner got special love from drivers and pedestrians alike.

All in all the demo seems to have been a success. The crowd was broader and more age-diverse than previous demos; feeling relatively low-risk and high reward, such demos have been a good place to invite new friends and potential comrades to meet up for the first time. Several conversations with neighbors reinforced the fact that these prisons were surrounded on three sides by a population that detests the constant police presence. In retrospect, given the interest and support received from the area, far more outreach could have been done ahead of time in the immediately adjacent neighborhood, and we hope to do more in the future.

For mainstream coverage of the event, check out: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/05/12/2888689/group-bangs-the-drums-for-imprisoned.html

Pics or it didn’t happen:

So, hopefully Dane won’t get mad that we told y’all but it is his birthday next Sunday. Yes, on 5/19 Dane will be turning 26.  Since we have no idea when he will be transferred into Canadian custody you can send birthday wishes to Florence, AZ.

CADC Dane Rossman

#88252308

PO Box 6300

(please note CCA does not accept cakes in the mail, especially ones with files in them…)

Any ol’ story or note will do, it doesn’t have to be long- just so he knows how much we love him, and that we haven’t forgotten. He did mention the last time I visited that he kind of wishes he never let on he likes “bad jokes.” (What in world have you been sending him?)

Let’s try to come up with some actually funny ones yeah?

Thanks for your continued support…

By MICHAEL BIESECKER

RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal lawsuit on behalf of eight inmates at North Carolina’s Central Prison alleges correctional officers used “blind spots” out of view of security cameras to beat handcuffed and shackled inmates.

An amended complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court by lawyers at North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services says the beatings occurred in Unit One, a cell block known as “The Hole” where inmates are kept in solitary confinement for disciplinary reasons.

The inmates’ abuse claims are supported by medical records documenting blunt-force injuries that occurred while they were segregated from other prisoners, including broken bones, concussions and an inmate who is still unable to walk months after his hip was shattered.

N.C. Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Pam Walker said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit names as defendants 21 correctional officers accused of participating in the abuse, as well as two wardens at the maximum security prison in Raleigh. The lawsuit alleges that former prison administrator Gerald J. Branker and current administrator Kenneth Lassister knew about the problems.

Branker’s retirement was announced in 2011 after The Associated Press obtained a copy of a scathing internal review that found inmates with serious mental disorders were often kept in isolation for weeks, sometimes nude, in roach-infested cells smeared with human waste.

The new complaint said the problems at Central have grown even worse under Lassiter, detailing multiple cases of correctional officers using “unnecessary, excessive, malicious and sadistic force” the inmates’ lawyers believe violated Constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.

“We are hopeful that the litigation will be resolved quickly and that Central Prison will take concrete measures to improve safety for their inmates,” said Elizabeth Simpson, one of the lawyers for the inmates.

Inmates in Unit One are only let out of their 80-square-foot concrete cells for one hour a day, five days a week, to stretch their legs in an outdoor “recreation cage” if weather permits. They are also allotted three 10-miunute showers a week.

Whenever they leave their cells, the inmates are placed in “full restraints” — wrists handcuffed and connected to a chain around the waist, ankles shacked.

One violent beating was Dec. 3, 2012, and left inmate Jerome Peters in a wheelchair, according to the lawsuit.

Peters, 48, was handcuffed and escorted by two correctional officers from his cell to an outdoor recreation area when the lawsuit said one of the guards punched him in the face while the other grabbed a leg and pulled him the ground. The lawsuit said a third correctional officer then helped the other two kick, stomp and punch Peters.

When they were finished, the lawsuit said the officers put shackles on Peters’ ankles and ordered him to walk. He couldn’t, the suit said, because his pelvic bone was broken.

A lieutenant later took Peters to see a nurse. Though the inmate insisted his leg was broken, the lawsuit said Peters was given only Tylenol and taken back to his cell.

Later in the day, one of the officers reported to have beaten Peters returned to his cell to deliver lunch. When the officer opened the slot in the inmate’s door to deliver his tray, the officer also blasted pepper spray into the cell, according to the lawsuit.

After Peters refused an order to stick his hands, one of which was broken, through the slot to be handcuffed, the lawsuit said an “extraction team” of officers was sent in to forcibly remove him.

Peters was taken to an emergency room and diagnosed with a broken right hip, and fractured bones in his hand and face. He also had blurred vision and numerous cuts and bruises, according to the lawsuit. He underwent surgery, but more than five months later is still unable to walk.

Prison records showed Peters, who is serving a 14-year sentence for burglary, was cited on the same day the lawsuit said he was injured for infractions that include disobeying an order and assaulting staff.

Also included in the complaint is an account of an Aug. 12, 2012, incident in which inmate Billy Riddle’s ribs were broken.

According to the lawsuit, Riddle was removed from his cell so that officers could search it. While he was waiting in handcuffs, the lawsuit alleged a correctional officer punched him in the face. Two officers then took Riddle to a secluded area of holding cells inmates call “The Desert” because they are not covered by video cameras.

There, three officers are said to have punched and kicked Riddle in the chest and torso. Riddle was then locked back in his cell, where his pleas for medical attention were ignored, according to the lawsuit.

It took 11 days before prison staff took Riddle to see a physician assistant, who ordered an X-ray. He was diagnosed with multiple rib fractures.

Riddle, who is serving a 13-year sentence for assault with a deadly weapon, is now listed as being in solitary confinement at another state prison in Butner.

On December 6, 2011, the lawsuit said inmate Chardan Whitehead got in an altercation with a guard. One sprayed him in the face with pepper spray and two officers took him to “The Desert.”

There, the lawsuit said three officers beat the restrained inmate unconscious. He was later taken to a hospital and diagnosed with a concussion and received several sutures to sew up cuts on his head and face. He was also blind in his left eye for several weeks.

Depositions of prison staff said there was no policy regarding the investigation of inmate abuse complaints and video tapes that might contain evidence were routinely erased.

Walker, the spokeswoman for the prison system, said information was not immediately available on whether any of the officers named in the lawsuit had been investigated or disciplined.

We just received news from King J. (Jorge Cornell) that their (J., Peaceful, and Ernesto’s) motion for re-trial was denied by Judge Beaty, who released a twelve page response to the defendants’ request. J. was told by his lawyer that it is entirely possible that the sentencing hearing may not even get scheduled until August. We got to see J. today at Orange County Jail where they have all been for about a month. J was in good spirits and is ready to move forward with his first appeal as soon as possible. He did, however, describe how frustrating it is that they have all been stuck in county jails, getting moved around, while the government dragged its feet in response to the motion filed days after their verdict in late November.

In other updates, Jason Yates (King Squirl) has decided to take a non-cooperating plea for the first count of conspiracy to commit racketeering. Squirl maintained his support for the other Kings who went to trial and expressed that he would have stuck it out through trial if he had not been severed from this case. His decision to plea was a personal one as it related best to his situation, and though we don’t have all the details of the plea in our hands yet, we have every reason to believe he has been honest with us in his decision and has remained un-cooperative with the feds, who have harassed him non-stop since he was severed from the original trial due to incompetent legal counsel (his state-appointed attorney never visited him in the year from the time the indictment was released in the fall of 2011 to the pre-trial hearings in the fall of 2012).

King Paul, Dice, and Spanky are all finished previous time in other facilities and have expressed their gratitude to the continual support from the outside. King Dice is finishing his state time from previous legal issues at Marion Correctional Institute, which is well known as a miserable and corrupt institution. A prisoner at Marion recently wrote into Chapel Hill Prison Books on the intricacies of the racist antagonisms that guards perpetuate amongst prisoners as well as the general intolerable conditions, check that piece out here.

Members of the ALKQN Support crew are still in California with Queen Smiley’s family. The support from folks all over the country has been incredible and has sincerely helped the family through this process of grieving and re-organizing their lives without their mother. Mother’s Day is coming up this Sunday and we know that if Smiley were with us today she would be joining us at the Mother’s Day demonstration outside of the women’s prisons in Raleigh. For more details check out the call-out here.

Remember to write to the Kings!

Jorge Cornell (J.), Ernesto Wilson, Russell Kilfoil (Peaceful):

Orange County Jail, 125 Court St., Hillsborough, NC 27278