0 Occupier faces lynching charges

geekeasy
136 days ago
26

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 2 – Oakland, CA – Deanna Santana, Oakland’s City Manager has been clear that it is no longer her intent to prevent violence or to prevent illegal lodging, but instead that her goal is to now “clear the plaza.” [1] The harassment of protesters reached a point where they are now ticketing occupiers for having a bike in the plaza; the citation simply said “bike”. They are interpreting Oakland Municipal Code 9.16.010 so broadly, that they feel justified in arresting anyone for having anything in the plaza. But they are selectively enforcing these laws, and only citing and arresting occupiers. These police actions constitute deliberate and blatant repression of Occupy Oakland.

On Friday, December 30, Oakland police raid city hall plaza under orders from city hall. They tell everyone to gather their things and leave. But moments later, without warning, the police begin arresting people. A woman is grabbed by police for having a yoga mat under her arm, and taking some food off a table. An officer clearly states that they are arresting people for “having property in the plaza without a permit.” [2]

It’s now illegal to have a yoga mat or a bike in front of city hall?

Shortly after these first three arrests, the police rush back into a group of protesters and forcibly grab Tiffany Tran, a small Asian woman. A policeman says she was arrested for says “instigating that first one … when you cause other people to be arrested, then you get arrested too.” [3]

According to the combined statements of the police on the scene, Tiffany Tran was arrested for instigating other people to have property in the plaza.

All of the arrestees are held in hot van without water or food for 8 hours before they are taken to Santa Rita prison. At the prison, 13 hours after first being arrested Tiffany is charged with the crime of “lynching”.

The anti-lynching California law dates back to 1933, and was created seeking to prevent white vigilante mobs from taking black prisoners away from “peace officers”, such that these racist mobs could hang black prisoners without trial.

But today, the situation has been reversed. The police are no longer “peace officers” trying to protect and serve. The police are now the ones engaged in brutal repression of peaceful citizens. And the same law, and same punishment, which was designed to try to prevent racist mobs from hanging people, is now being used against Tiffany Tran.

In a phone call with her boyfriend, Tiffany reported that the guards are singling her out for abuse because of her connections with Occupy. The guards are hurling constant verbal abuse at her. In two days, she’s barely been fed.

Tiffany will be arraigned Tuesday at 2pm. We call on the district attorney to immediately drop all charges against Tiffany Tran.

District Attorney: (510) 272-6222

We also call on the City Manager and Mayor of Oakland to immediately stop in their repression of peaceful protesters at Occupy Oakland.

City Administrator: (510) 238-3301
Mayor:(510)238-3141

References:

http://twitter.com/creativeavalanc Edouard Charles

WE HAVE YOUR BACK
Windfinder401

I’m real sorry that you majored in an academic discipline that has no associated jobs. It is your own fault that you have no work and have enormous school loans. No one forced you to take either the classes or the debt, you arranged that yourself. Now get a job and stop whining.

rhytonen

Windfinder’s kind is doomed – and they know it.
Billrosethorn

Uh, this article isn’t about jobs or economics, it’s about police brutality and selective enforcement of peaceful protesters. WE are coming together to respond to injustice, one person getting a job won’t stop abuse by police in public space

Pingback: Asian American Occupier faces lynching charges « asians art museum's samurai blog
Pingback: Occu-Links 1/3/12 | OccupyNWA
http://twitter.com/blackalaureate blackalaureate

Why comment on how Tran is a “small asian woman?”

What message are you sending?

Are you saying that there is no way an Asian female could be or would be disruptive or disobedient? Would any misbehavior on her part be more acceptable if she weren’t small and Asian?…if she were a man?…Think about that.

Your article was fine in general, but that part bothered me. Smacks of paternalism.

http://twitter.com/thotpinkleopard Melissa

I think the point is more about journalistic description. It is significant that several police officers took down a small framed by nature woman. If she were a large white man and it took several officers to drag him down I would be horrified all the same, but that kind of force on someone who most likely had little chance of fighting back is significant and all the more disgusting.

http://twitter.com/blackalaureate blackalaureate

“ that kind of force on someone who most likely had little chance of fighting back ”…and what has that to do with tran being “asian?” do small asian women have little chance of fighting, or is it really that small-framed PEOPLE have little chance in fighting back? see the difference?

no, it wasn’t just journalistic description.there was no need to describe her nationality/ethnic background if the point of describing her stature was to point out how ridiculous this charge was, and how absurdly she was being handled by the cops.another thing to note is that the race/ethnicity of the other occupier in this story was not pointed out. in this story, she’s just a woman with a yoga mat.

Anonymous

The Asian part is a description of the person. Giving facts is not a sign of racism.

http://twitter.com/blackalaureate blackalaureate

then why wasn’t the other woman in the article described as a “white, slender woman with a yoga mat?…” why wasn’t her race a part of the “description?”

notice that i didn’t call the author of this article racist nor did i call the article racist, as you implied.

geekeasy

The article speaks about white racists hanging black suspects from trees. Highlighting her race, helped point out the terrible irony of how a law originally written to protect minorities, is now being used the oppress a member of one.

I’ll also add that this story was syndicated to at least one Asian American blog because of her ethnicity. I think anything we can do to better spread stories like these, helping get our people out of jail is a good thing.

Anonymous

Because it shows that police will find the person they think is least able to defend themselves and arrest them.

http://twitter.com/blackalaureate blackalaureate

so the author of this article was inside the officers’ heads and determined that they arrested her because she was a small asian female? no. i don’t think it shows what the police were thinking. the author is showing what he thinks with that comment about size, gender, and ethnicity.

the police can arrest and subdue anyone they want, no matter the size, no matter the gender, and no matter the race. do you really think they are trying to make it easy on themselves by arresting those who *seem* to be “defenseless?” fuck no.

whom they CHOOSE to arrest and subdue is another story.

while the folks in occupy, including the author of this story, are well intentioned, i find that the white participants are so gung-ho in their crusade against oppression that they forget to put their own privilege in check.

Pingback: Occu-Links 1/3/12 | Occupy News
Anonymous

The rank stupidity (not to mention the callous, degenerate inhumanity) of telling people demonstrating because there are no jobs, to “get a job;” defies comment.

It also suggests further idiocy – it assumes they don’t know why there are no jobs, and possibly even that the speaker doesn’t realize, by his reaction, he admits to personifying that reason.

The assumption that everyone else is as stupid as the speaker, is, at the last, the rankest idiocy of all. And he self-defines as the rankest idiot.
Anonymous

Eventually a tactic emerges in one’s mind.
Keep cameraphones out, but have a sturdy string on the chip.
When pigz yank the phone, you yank the string and throw the chip into the crowd.
(Crowd: be aware)
They have tried to hide their behavior and destroy the evidence this way already.

I can’t imagine the MSM’s equipment loss is tolerated in these situations without prejudiced pursual of legal reparations.
Ultimately there need to be enormous and tenacious class actions for all sorts of damages.
Civil rights violations need to be foremost, repetitive and numerous, irrespective of the disposition. #OccupyTheCourts

All those laptops…..tents…books….
Anonymous

OK Someone in government needs to break this OPD thing WIDE open….
The abuse of authority is rampant and unjustifiable.

Under our system of law there should be GRAVE consequences, from the mayor on down to the individual officers. Careers should “roll,”(like heads?) and there should be jail time and financial ruin all the way down -and up. And yes, I say this with full awareness of what happens to an officer -particularly a bad one- in prison.

Right is right –
and this country has a LOT to make up for,
by necessarily -and long avoided- overcompensation to the LEFT.
Even Christ couldn’t forgive abusive greed.
Pingback: Obama Signs NDAA; America Now Lawfully A Dictatorship | The Ladies' Guide to the Apocalypse
http://twitter.com/thotpinkleopard Melissa

Thanks, I own a company. One created myself because after coming out of school with a ton of debt and a degree in the arts I knew that no one was going to hand me anything. While the job crisis has caused a lot of the tensions leading to the movement this is has never been and will never be only about jobs, but the disturbing cultural decisions we have made to create the crisis. However, this article has absolutely nothing to do with them. Occupy is about wanting this country to look at its short history and realize that we have lost almost everything that it is to be American. Free Speech? HA. Right to Assemble? LMAO. Freedom of Religion? I’m out of silly one word answers on this one and I’m only through the First Article of the Bill of Rights.
http://twitter.com/thotpinkleopard Melissa

@Windfinder401 I own a company. One created myself because after coming out of school with a ton of debt and a degree in the arts I knew that no one was going to hand me anything. While the job crisis has caused a lot of the tensions leading to the movement this is has never been and will never be only about jobs, but the disturbing cultural decisions we have made to create the crisis. However, this article has absolutely nothing to do with them. Occupy is about wanting this country to look at its short history and realize that we have lost almost everything that it is to be American. Free Speech? HA. Right to Assemble? LMAO. Freedom of Religion? I’m out of silly one word answers on this one and I’m only through the First Article of the Bill of Rights.
Gloria Lemos

This is not what Democracy looks like. This is what a police state looks like. Have we already become the Police States of Amerika??
cressie

The mayor of oakland should be ashamed of her-self for basically making the police behave that way. I think all the people who were arrested should file a complaint against the city and the police department. It not right she is abusing her position, she needs to be fired right along with the cops who are mistreating the citizens.
Pingback: More on Oakland mass arrests « Mercury Rising 鳯女
http://www.facebook.com/Rocdad Robert O’Connor

OPD needs to be shut down by FBI and start with a new clean slate of personnel…
http://aftergadget.wordpress.com/ Sharon

@twitter-422069328:disqus
I appreciate your comment. You can’t read a headline with the word “lynching” in it and not think of race and racism. It’s incumbent on writers to use our words carefully and to think of the broader social context. When I read the piece and saw that the person arrested for lynching was a POC, I was waiting to see if there would be any discussion about a (white? piece doesn’t say) officer arresting and/or abusing (we know she was the subject of abuse but not who did it, other than that they were cops) a woman of color with a lynching law, but the piece didn’t go in that direction.
Comments on women’s appearance (“small”) and on POC’s status as POC (“Asian”) are commonplace in media, where men’s appearances are not described and white people are not identified as white. These choices are meaningful and point to unexamined sexism and racism.
I am NOT saying I think the writer is a bad person. I’m also not saying this is a bad article. It is a relevant article. But I think the article would serve everyone better if it were edited with the issues in mind that blackalaureate pointed out.
The response to this comment bothers me. Lately, I am more and more distressed by the racism I’m learning about within the Occupy movement. When someone takes the trouble to come along and point out a problem, it behooves us white people to say, “Thank you for pointing that out. I will think on this and change this.” This is an issue of social justice, courtesy, and the only hope, IMO, for the survival of a strong movement that speaks for *everybody.*