Author Archives: laborsolidaritycommittee

An unidentified man, part of a group of rent control advocates that had not been allowed into the 11/4 Alameda City Council meeting due to the room being at capacity and had crowded into the hall outside, was thrown to the ground by two Alameda Police officers before being arrested. He apparently had his face smashed into the floor because after he is removed the video shows a signficant amount of blood on the surface. Below are a few tweets from the meeting and a video of the takedown. The … Continued

Pirate Mike, an active participant in Occupy San Francisco, was killed by a semi trailer truck in Texas on October 30th, 2015 during his March Across America. Stephen Michael Clift, Pirate Mike to his comrades, @occupirate on Twitter, was also one of the original participants in the first Occupation of the Berkeley Post Office in July of 2013. That event, and the second Occupation by First They Came for the Homeless in November, 2014, in which he also participated, ultimately played a significant role in preventing the Allston Way building from … Continued

– A lawsuit against the Alameda County Sheriff, Harman v Ahern, over forced pregnancy testing of women taken to Santa Rita jail ended Wednesday, October 28th, with the announcement of a settlement forbidding the practice. Activist Susan Harman, a member of the Oakland Privacy Working Group and Strike Debt Bay Area, was one of three plaintiffs in the lawsuit, having been arrested in 2010 during the Oscar Grant protests, taken to jail and forced to submit to a pregnancy test despite her age: Ms. Harman told the officer that she … Continued

Gino Pepi was a member of the Occupy Oakland Labor Solidarity Committee, 2011 – 2013. Tribute to Gino Pepi by Jack Heyman and Richard Chen of the Transport Workers Solidarity Committee, October 11, 2015, Oakland, California Gino was born and raised in San Francisco. As a young man he became convinced of the need of an equal and just society, and dedicated his life to socialism and to the struggles of the working class internationally. He worked hard to enhance the living conditions of all Bay Area workers especially B.A.R.T … Continued

This weekend, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law what advocates describe as some of strongest privacy protections in the United States. Legislation which takes effect January 1st, 2016, known as CAL-EPCA, will prohibit police from searching electronic equipment and records such as email, including metadata, without a warrant. (Another bill which he vetoed wanted to put an RFID chip into every California driver’s license. ) A further bill, signed into law, requires most state and local agencies acquiring a Stingray Cellphone Surveillance Device or equivalent to both conduct a public hearing … Continued

October 10th, 2011 Hundreds of protesters poured into Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza late in the afternoon, joining a multi-city movement taking aim at Wall Street… Two hours into the protest, a dozen participants set up tents and said they planned to settle in for a long stay.Oakland bartender Dion Jardine, 27, said he would camp “until things change or they force us out.” A large number of police monitored the peaceful protest… Four years, many millions of dollars in lawsuits, and much social upheaval later, the forces created or magnified by … Continued

On September 1st, 2015, members of the Anti Police Terror Project led a speak-out against police terror and the execution of Yuvette Henderson by Emeryville Police at the Emeryville, City Council meeting. Powerful testimony was given by many, excerpts of which are provided below. Directly below is the video of an hour and twelve minutes of testimony. Speakers included Yuvette’s brother and Cat Brooks (both pictured at right), co-founder of APTP. Yvette Henderson was killed approximately eight months ago after exiting Home Depot over a dispute over shoplifting. At the … Continued