A Reporter at Court: Hands Off Janye!

By Jesse Smith

There is a long tradition of targeting activists with trumped-up charges. This is a simple and disgraceful fact of America’s sordid history with activism. To a large degree, false charges are SOP (Standard Operational Procedure). This practice is a mundane (yet Orwellian) reality known to any activist who has been arrested-for-resisting-arrest, or charged with assault after being brutalized by police. Activists seen as “leaders”, are targeted for charges that will never stick, in an attempt to neutralize them through harassment and intimidation. After all, when one faces false charges, all it takes is a simple, everyday failure of the justice-system.

When I learned of the charges against Janye, I immediately saw what was at hand. I know Janye from protests, and he’s exactly the kind of person the police target. He handles himself with a sense of purpose, he actively stops destructive stupidity from hooligan tourists, and he’s Black. Learning of his ordeal through Qilombo, I thought it couldn’t be made more obvious Janye is another activist being targeted with false charges, but then I witnessed his pre-trial.

On Dec. 7th 2014, a man was assaulted in a Berkeley protest. When testifying in court, the man who was assaulted said “I’ve never seen him before in my life”, referring to Janye. Video footage of the incident was blurry, and the assailant concealed their face. So why is Janye being bothered with this? The answer is so ludicrous it would be amusing, if a young person’s life weren’t being threatened.

I’m not sure which of the two other ‘witnesses’ was more contemptible or ridiculous, the crime-reporter with a beyond-suspicious relationship with the police, or the wild-eyed photo hobbyist who kept using hackneyed lingo from TV police-shows. The two ‘witnesses’ were exuberant as they professed absolute certainty in their ability to recognize someone at a distance, with their face concealed, at night, and seemed to describe themselves as experts in recognizing eye shape. Their contradictions, conflicts, and confabulations were an absolute insult to intelligence. This truth was only brought to light by Janye’s lawyer, Dan Siegel. I am chilled to think what would have happened with a public-defender.

Siegel fought hard against the prosecutor, who seemed to object to Siegel’s every question with the crime-reporter, Thankfully, the judge sided with Siegel much of the time. I watched the prosecutor shake her head rhythmically, instructively, glaring at the victim as he answered Dan’s questions. Astounded, I thought “isn’t that illegal?” The prosecutor seemed embarrassed by the final ‘witness’ (the wannabe-cop), as she was unable to contain the witness in his excitement to describe events he said he never saw, openly speaking from his imagination, reconstructing events like a TV detective. He not only contradicted himself, he contradicted the crime-reporter, the victim, and managed to contradict the videotape.

Dan Siegel is legendary for defending falsely accused activists. In the case of the Ice Cream Three, he even revealed the racist motivations for the false charges. The system is about to make ass of itself in public, and as activists our role is clear. We must support Janye.