Urban Shield 2014, the glorification of the militarization of the police, was held at the Convention Center in downtown Oakland September 4th-7th this year.
A number of reporters and activists “went inside” the Urban Shield convention and/or participated as volunteers for the training. exercises. The Coalition staging “Inside Urban Shield” – people from the Occupy Oakland GA, the Oakland Privacy Working Group, Code Pink and the Oscar Grant Committee – invited Shane Bauer (@ShaneBauer) and Julia Wong (@juliacarriew), two investigative reporters who got inside, to speak at the event, which will take place on Friday, October 10th, at 7:00 PM at the Oakland High School Auditorium, 1023 MacArthur Boulevard.
Also speaking
- Joshua Smith, a local activist who attended some of the seminars
- Susan Harman, a long-time activist who became a “volunteer” on one of the training exercises.
Shane Bauer is best known for the harrowing experience he, his to-be wife, Sarah Shourd, and their friend, Josh Fattal, experienced beginning in 2009 when they were kidnapped by Iranian military on the Iraq border, then put into solitary confinement. When he returned he became an advocate against solitary confinement, especially in California prisons.
Sarah Shroud, as chance would have it, was invited to give the keynote speech at Occupy Oakland’s 2nd anniversary on October 10th of last year, the same day this event is being held. Watch and listen to it here.
Julia Wong is an independent reporter who was written pieces for a variety of journals including The Nation, Rolling Stone, Vice, Al Jazeera America, and In These Times. Her article on Urban Shield in Vice, Militarized Cops Pretend to Fight Terrorists in Oakland, got rave reviews.
Come, listen to their experiences ‘Inside Urban Shield’ and participate in the discussion about what are our next steps in combatting this urban plague.
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