Author Archives: laborsolidaritycommittee

From 8:00 AM until Noon on Friday, September 9th, 2016, hundreds of activists protested the Urban Shield militarized police training and weapons of repression exhbition in Pleasanton, CA. They blocked three entrances to the Alameda County Fairgrounds where the event is being held for hours, and twenty-three people were ultimately arrested, cited and released. Tweets and tweetpics as the protest unfolded. Solidary statements from locals. All respect, solidarity & love to everyone who’s putting themselves in harm’s way to stand up for what’s right today. We’ve got your back. — … Continued

On Friday, September 9th, at the Alameda County Fair Grounds in Pleasanton, CA, beginning at 8:00 AM, activists from around the state will converge in protest against this year’s Urban Shield conclave. Urban Shield is a 4-day SWAT training and global weapons expo that will be held in Pleasanton, CA September 8-12th. We come in peace ready to blow you to smithereens.Urban Shield brings together law enforcement agencies from across the world – from the State of Israel to the Ferguson Police Department – along with many Bay Area police … Continued

Kali is free! Kali, a resident of the Occupy Oakland Occupation at Oscar Grant Plaza in 2011, was arrested in a raid on the plaza a month after the tents were cleared in November, 2011.  His crime? Sitting on a bench, possessing a blanket, and being on parole. Arriving at Santa Rita after futile attempts to bail him out, he was then charged with assaulting a prison guard Kali later informed us that guards viciously attacked and beat him while transferring him to solitary, after which he was then charged … Continued

No Coal in Oakland A report on the campaign (revised August, 2016)   Many activists have expressed interest in an account of how the No Coal in Oakland campaign was organized.  This article is a response, but is not a history.  It is structured thematically rather than chronologically, and the many amazing activists and organizers are not identified by name.  Some of our initiatives came from organizations and some came from individual activists, but this account does not attempt to credit them, as every idea became a shared project.  Unlike … Continued

In April, 2016, the Postal Service through the Department of Justice, threatened to sue Berkeley if Berkeley did not rescind the Historic District Zoning Overlay Ordinance, passed in September of 2014, that made most commercial uses of the zone (see right) – which includes the Post Office at 2000 Allston Way (8) – illegal. This ordinance was passed in the middle of a four-year fight to save the downtown Berkeley Post Office from sale and privatization, begun in 2012 and ended, at least temporarily, by a Federal Judge’s decision in April … Continued

Two members of the Oakland Privacy Working Group (now called simply ‘Oakland Privacy‘) recently gave a presentation at the 2016 HOPE Conference in New York City about the work that went into opposing (and essentially defeating) the Domain Awareness Center here in  Oakland. Aestetix, a technology expert who has since moved to Europe, and Brian Hofer, a local lawyer and now chair of the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission, both members of OPWG while the fight against the DAC was being waged, gave the presentation. This talk covered the reign of … Continued

Jeronimo Yanez, the officer who shot Philando Castile in his car in Minnesota weeks ago, took a training course called “The Bulletproof Warrior” less than two years ago. The evidence suggests that this course, and courses similar to it, offered by a private company called Calibre Press, are even worse than Urban Shield – the organized para-military and terror response training put on for police by the Alameda Sheriff’s Department – if that’s imaginable.   The New York Times quotes Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, … Continued

In coordinated efforts, groups affiliated with #Blacklivesmatter here in Oakland, in Chicago, Detroit and New York City, and likely elsewhere, shut down police stations, union buildings, and police banks Wednesday afternoon. In Oakland, as of 10:00 PM, they were still barricading. Oakland: “We’re here because officers pay dues to this group that does nothing but defend and justify murderers across the country,” said Anti-Police Terror Project co-founder Cat Brooks, who added that half a dozen protesters chained doors shut. “We want the city to divest from police and put money … Continued

The I880 Freeway in downtown Oakland was blocked for some three and a half hours last evening as more than 3000 people responded on a day’s notice to a Facebook event post calling on Oakland to SHUT It DOWN in response to the executions of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. The Freeway was taken at approximately 8:30 PM, after thousands marched from Oscar Grant Plaza to the downtown Police Station and then, finding the freeway unguarded by the usual CHP patrols, up the Broadway ramp. Watch in fast motion as … Continued

A week ago the Beal family, homeless, moved into Oakland City Hall, confronting Mayor Libby Schaaf, asking for help for themselves and all those families in desperate straights – homeless or about to become homeless – because of a rising economic tide that is drowning many instead of giving them a houseboat. Read their open letter (scroll down) to the Mayor and watch the video that Community Ready Corps made of the encounter: Mayor Libby, what are you going to do about people being homeless? There are kids out here … Continued