Tag Archives: jail

Monk Brown arrest record with Adams County escalates to being beaten up.

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BREAKING: ADAMS COUNTY, COLORADO– COUNTY SHERIFFS BEAT UP HOMELESS PANHANDLER AND TRY TO THROW HIM UNDER MOVING CAR. VIDEO CONFISCATED FROM OTHER HOMELESS MAN.

(On March 9, Adrian Brown filed a federal civil rights lawsuit through the law offices of David Lane citing 31 counts of abuses by Adams County Sheriff’s Deputies who continue to this day to abuse and arrest Brown and others like him for panhandling at I-76 and Sheridan.)

Brown has had every one of his cases dismissed so far by Judge Doyle because CDOT has testified in court that they are not concerned with pedestrians and panhandlers at this location.

Eric Brandt has tested Adams County by flying his “FUCK COPS” sign at this location. Brandt’s arrest was found to be unconstitutional by the same Judge Doyle on Feb 5, 2016.

Since then, both Brown and Brandt have been arrested again, with Austin Johnson and at least half dozen others. Adams County has stepped up their assaults at this location in recent days.

Adrian Brown received notice this morning that Adams County made another arrest this morning and went there to intervene and show the deputies the judge’s orders and the federal lawsuit.

Brandt called the sheriffs department and advised them that they dont fuck with the fuck the cops guys.

Today Brown arrived to witness his own brother being arrested and immediatly took up station upon their departure.

The deputies immediately turned around, called for backup and took Brown into custody. The deputies beat Brown, repeatedly punching him. They tried to throw him under a moving car. Then they attacked witness Austin Johnson, forcing the phone from his hand with which he was recording he incident.

Johnson was cuffed and searched. Brown’s brother Zach, and another woman Jen, were charged with trespassing.

Internal Affairs refuses to come get statements from the homeless witnesses. Instead it is requiring them to make the 50 mile trip to the Internal Affairs office if they want an investigation.

Brown is in Adams County jail on charges of obstructing an officer, assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.

UPDATE: Monk just called. Adams deputies did not take photos of his injuries. His bond is $10,000.

Denver homeless kids are reclaiming their RIGHT to SIT on 16th Street Mall

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DENVER, COLORADO- Denver street kids are standing up against DPD harrassment, SITTING DOWN. It isn’t orchestrated, it’s barely organized, a CBS affiliate covered the first arrests, but since last Wednesday, these homeless activists have been defying riot cops and orders to disperse, suffering several citations and arrests every day. As of Tuesday AM, two arrestees remain jailed, one of them bonded with a condition of area restriction preventing him from rejoining the protest.

Mark Iannicelli Denver Revolutionary

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Mark Iannicelli
The heart and soul of any revolution is found in the people who find the courage to stand up to the power of the state and cry out for justice. Such a man is Mark Iannicelli. Mark’s crime is to quietly and consistently inform the citizens of their rights. For this the state have brought the full force and power of their kangaroo courts with the aid of the Denver puppet police. Mark must be silenced, the status quo must be maintained.

Mark has been at the center of this revolution, a genteel giant who has faced the wrath of the courts and police with courage. Now comes May 31, 2016 when once again the state with all of the taxpayers resources will prosecute in their efforts to silence him with jail. The trial will be held in the Lindsay-Flanigan Courthouse.
Mark’s champion, a 90 pound woman, with the heart and courage of a lion, defense attorney, Katayoun Donnelly, will face off with the state in his defense.

I can think of no greater gesture to Mark, then for each of us to attend Mark’s trial and stand in solitary to say; We will not be silenced.

Shit in a Sack

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?Cell House Three with 'Dog Cages' on the second floor, left.
From the front page of the Pueblo Star-Journal and Sunday Chieftain?, Dated Sunday November 6, 1977. The banner headline on the front page cried out in large bold lettering: NEWSMEN TOUR PRISON AND VIEW “LIVING HELL” By Bill Gagnon.

Canon City- A three-man reporter-photographer team from The Pueblo Chieftain and Pueblo Star-Journal stepped out of the bright and warm summerlike weather here last week and into a medieval chamber of horror- Cellhouse 3 at the Colorado State Penitentiary.

?Once inside the grim building, they were stunned by the sight of humans caged in filthy cells and living under the most wretched conditions imaginable, denied even the most simple and basic necessities of life – soap, towels, soaks, clean clothing, blankets and sheets. Yes , they even are denied the necessary materials to scrub and clean their steel hovels.

?For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, these unfortunate creatures are kept locked in their filth-covered cages with nothing to do except learn to hate an indifferent and unthinking society that keeps them there.

?Treated and looked upon as subhuman beings, even medical and dental services available to them are mediocre and to the point they are almost nil. And letters sent to them by loved ones outside the high, gray walls sometimes is delayed for weeks at the prison before being delivered to them.

?While these conditions observed first hand by the Pueblo news team in the prison’s so called “punitive segregation” section made a grown man ill, they were compounded by those seen in the narrow and darkened steel barred isolation cells in the solitary confinement wing. There, faceless and silent occupants huddle and cringe in the darkness amid the pungent stench of filth within the close confines of these cesspools like cubicles, almost concealed from those outside.

?Those confined to this living hell in the infamous Cellhouse 3 are stripped of all human dignity and respect. An aura of frustration and despair hands heavy throughout this living example of man’s inhumanity to man.

?Yet, despite such barbaric treatment, some find an inner strength which turns to outrage and they cry out to the world; “You can’t do this to me; I am a man!” But few outside the walls hear, or want to hear them.

?But the voice of one of these tortured men, David Anderson, in the form of a letter sent to the editors of these newspapers describing the deplorable conditions in maximum security, was heard. And it resulted in the assignment of this news team to investigate the shocking allegations.

?Note: the article also contained several photos of the conditions, and covered two full pages of the newspaper.

While I was confined there, Gerald Hayes, one of the prisoners, sat down in his cell, with an old razor blade, cut off his index finger.

With blood dripping from his hand, he scrawled a message on the wall of his cell “God! Help us, Convicts are people too.”

Gather round children, I’m about to tell you a true story. ?It happened nearly 40 years ago in the Colorado State Penitentiary. It happened in cell house three.

?Cell house three was isolated from the rest of the prison, it was built to house death row prisoners and other prisoners deemed problem prisoners.

?If you caused problems in cell house three, they would then send you to a special tier called the “Dog Cages” This was their jail within a jail within a prison. The “Dog Cages” was a 24/7 lock down in your cell. The only exception was when you were let out of your cell for an hour to take a shower. Some men lost their minds under those conditions. It was quite easy for a prisoner to become so confused after months, that he could not distinguish one day of the week from another.?

Many of the prisoners there committed self mutilation or suicide. In my efforts not to end up hanging from a dirty bed sheet as so many others, I chose humor as a means to hold on to my sanity.

?This is the story of one of those efforts.?

Since the beginning of time when we first started locking men in prisons, the prisoners have made knives for self protection. These homemade knives were called a “Shiv” or a “Shank” and over the years the prisoners found ingenious ways of hiding their “Shank” from the prison guards who were continually searching for the “Shank”.?

For many guards, finding a prisoners hidden contraband, made their day. And for some guards, finding a “Shank” was as near a sexual experience as they could get. They became ecstatic.?

With the hidden “Shank” and the prison guards lustful hunger to find it, I began to set up my plan.?

The chief “Shank” hunter of cell house three was well known; he was Lieutenant D. A. Davis, who was in charge of cell house three on the swing shift. Lt. D. A. Davis loved his job and the power he held over the prisoners lives, he never missed an opportunity to torment the prisoner with late delivery of their mail or medication, the two most important things to a prisoners.?

D. A. had on several occasions during the cold winter months, set the steam heater on the “Dog Cages” at the lowest setting, the control for the heaters were off tier in the control cage, there were many windows on the tier broken and snow would often blow onto the tier. Another little trick that seemed to give D.A. a lot of pleasure; when the food cart came to the cell house from the main dining room, he would let it set until the food was cold. He took joy in making the prisoners suffer, making sure to remind them he was in charge of every aspect of their lives’. ?

D.A. could also be cruel to the other prison guards. He was a Canon City hometown boy, who thought of the prison as their cottage industry, if a guard was from another city or another race ( D.A. was white) D.A. would made them also feel his wrath. guard Rodriquez had two strikes against him; he was Spanish from Pueblo.?D.A. was one of those spit and polish guards, sharp creases in his shirt and trousers, Lieutenant bars sparkling, I think he was afraid to sit down while in uniform for fear of wrinkling his trousers. He was an overweight heavy jowl bully with shifty eyes that seemed always searching as if his deeds would catch up with him.?

While Rodriquez was a complete opposite of D. A. in manner and dress.?

Rodriquez was a small quiet man, his uniform was always a little rumpled, in the several years I knew him, I never once saw Rodriquez mistreat a prisoner. He once confided to me that he thought being locked in a prison cell 24 hours a day was punishment enough and that he was not going to add to it. The empathy for the prisoners in his face was easy to see. He said that he had taken the job as a prison guard as a last resort only to take care of his family, after failing to gain employment in other areas. All the prisoners respected him for the kindness he showed them. Because of the way D.A. treated Rodriquez it could be said that he suffered as much abuse from D.A. as the prisoners did. ?

Rodriquez seemed always to have a slight smile whenever I made D.A. the brunt of one of my schemes, but he never said so with words. I think the enemy of our enemy can become our friend, it was Rodriquez who tossed the newspaper clipping ( Living Hell ) on my bunk one day, the news article was consider contraband and unavailable to the prisoners until I received that copy.

The Plan:
Timing was needed for my plan to be successful; It needed to happen just after D.A came on duty for the 3:00 swing shift, and there would need for one of the prisoners to be out of his cell for a shower. When a prisoner is out of his cell for showering, is the only time he would have access to the exterior windows you see in the photo above.?

I had acquired a small 8 inch by 12 inch plastic bag, in the bottom of this bag I place a 8 inch wooden stick and then took a nice big healthy shit in the bag, adding a smidgen of water so as to make the mixture runny. I rolled up the bag tightly and then wrapped it again in an old newspaper so that the contents were not visible. When you felt this concoction of stick, plastic and paper it felt like there could be a “Shank” hidden within. ?

The Hide:
I tied a short string in the center of this concoction and had the prisoner out for his shower lower it out the exterior window so that it hung between the second floor and the first floor. The time was about 3:15 and D.A. had just came on duty. The guard tower just yards away from the cell house had a clear view of the exterior of the cell house and I was sure what his reaction would be when he spotted it hanging there outside the window.?The prisoner out for his shower waited until the tower guard was on the back side of the tower before he lowered the bag out the window and tied it off on the bars.?

And just as I had planned; The tower guard spotted the bag hanging there a few minutes later, the Tower guard took out his binoculars for a closer inspection of the bag. Ah Ha! what are those convicts up to now? and then the next step, the guard picked up his phone to call the cell house and alert them to the mysterious bag hanging out the window on the “Dog Cage” tier. I heard the cell house phone ring.?
The Jig is up! D.A. the “Shank Hunter” was on the job.?

D.A. hollered out Lock-Up! meaning for the prisoner out for his shower to go to his cell. The cell block door slid open and D.A. came walking in as if he were doing a head count of the prisoners. He walked casually to the end of the tier, not looking at the widow where the bag was tied, on his return trip his demeanor was much different as he excitedly jumped to the window and pulled the bag up, ripping the sting from the bars. Glancing around he darted for the tier door with his prize in hand….of course, I hollered out “D.A. Come Back Here With My Shit!?

The prisoners all locked in their cells exploded in laughter.

?D.A. was still not sure of his prize as Rodriquez later told me of what happen when D.A. entered the cage. He feverishly began ripping opening the bag and discovered the sack of shit, he threw the bag on the floor and it splattered up on his pants. His face turned beet red with embarrassment as he remarked to Rodriquez he didn’t want to hear any talk of this incident. D.A. began to wretch and struggled to keep from vomiting. Of course we prisoners knew that we would have some new punishments coming from D.A., but hearing the laughter was so therapeutic, there are those moments when suffering and punishment reach a point that we don’t care what happen to us. ?

D.A. took a short leave to go home and change his pants.?

When Rodriquez came on the tier, he walked right up to my cell with the biggest smile I had ever seen on his face, and said I know you did it David and it was beautiful! my reply was “What are you talking about?”

The Moral of the story; When Shit Happens… make sure you’re not the one holding the sack.

Once more the Hippie Bard takes keyboard in hand..

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Some might be asking themselves (as I often do) “Self, just what in Hell is Brother Jonah thinking, ragging on obscure moments in American and British history and raggin’ on the Queen?” Hmmm…

Perhaps it has much ado about something. Like the partitioning of Arabia which has taken an uncounted (by me) number of wars to keep in about the same political and religious boundaries.

Here I should interject the very much related wars on the ol’ Pipeline Grid such as VietNam, Thailand, (they host U.S. Air Farce Bases) (so do about two thirds of the countries around) India in all its manifestations, Ceylon which is now Sri Lanka as per the wishes of the people there, same with Mumbai, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, the new yet strangely ancient British and American policies to keep China as a client state rather than a superpower (way too late, fellas, way too late) by encircling them militarily and economically… but let’s start with the partitioning of Arabia. The Saudi, Jordanian, Yemeni, defunct Syrian and Iraqi, Kuwaiti etc Royal Houses have been placed on their thrones not by genuine common consent of the people the Kings and Emirs but by the Armed Forces and on behalf by the British and American 1% oil (and every other marketable commodity) cartels.

By the way Iran is not an Arabic nation. They’re Persian and the muddled inclusion in the Arabian bloc by people who say stupid shit like “well, they’re all alike” just pisses off some people.

While the Queen doesn’t have full political power in England or her royal former colonial empire, she IS a major shareholder in British Petroleum. The ones who screwed up the Gulf of Mexico and told the American/Mexican/Cuban and all other nations to mind our own business, they would take care of everything and we should just run along and play somewhere.

Economic concerns fuel military affairs. In the case oil, fueling is the correct word.

AND.. the 3 leading Protestant churches in America, Methodist, Baptist and AOG, are offspring of the Episcopal Church. And there’s movements in these churches to re-start the Crusades. Taking ISIS and al Qaeda as the excuse.

I have witnessed the Colorado prison and jail system allowing and encouraging volunteer Religious Leaders who spread the Gospel of Hate and exclude as many dissenters to that perverted gospel as possible. I’ll assume here that it’s a nationwide deal. Radicalizing American prisoners, many of whom are actually habitual violent criminals, to continue a war inflamed by the actions in behalf of the 1%.

And insisting all along that every “Ay-rab” meaning every Muslim in the entire world (it hurts my brain to translate Standard English into Standard Redneck) is born with a bomb in his or her hand.

maybe not that extreme, but hyperbole spawns hyperbole.  It doesn’t matter who gets in the way of the bullets or shrapnel, not to the bigpigs at least.

You might remember this…

“Charlie asd Camilla almost got their asses dragged out of their limo and street just would have prevailed, blue blood would have flowed in the gutters of London etc… (sic) the London Anarchists found a neat way to defeat kettling”

Maybe the rich bitch establishment ought to really worry about reprisals.Their gated communities can be kettled and turned into ghettoes in the most real definition of the term.

By volunteers who probably wouldn’t ask a dime in pay, merely a just society for their children.

One in which their kids or siblings or parents won’t be shot down in the street by the cops. Or shot in their own homes. I hadn’t been up here a red hot two months when the Denver cops shot a man to death in his bed, said they saw him “reaching for something” and the evidence at their automatic acquittal hearing was their word against that of a dead man. Then they charged the victim’s nephew for the killing because he wasn’t home when they went in to serve a warrant on him but shot his uncle instead. True Story, from the summer of ’04.

They obviously want war, or think they do. Or at least their masters believe they’ll come out on top.

But their social doctrine is entwined and mirrored in Capitalism. Which is a pyramid scheme, can’t last forever and when it falls, and their social doctrine goes down with the supply of non-existent money, based on resources they don’t actually have… too bad, right? Only we’ll have the privilege of joining them in their misery.

Human rights for even Anders Breivik

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In retrospect, awarding the newly elected Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize was about as smartly ambitious as it gets. Everyone knows humanitarians don’t do it for the reward. A Nobel Prize is wasted if there’s not some eligible sociopath who might be influenced with the pressure to behave themselves. President Obama’s Nobel medal was an experiment in paying it forward. Who knows how much more bloodthirsty Obama might have gotten with his drones had not the Nobel committee tried to extort him with its higher expectations? The Nobel award givers took a lot of ribbing for their foolishness from those of us who weren’t idealist enough. AND SO IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE when Norway’s mass murdering overachiever Anders Breivik sued his jailers for abusing his human rights because he wasn’t getting sufficient visitors in his cushy prison suite, that the Norwegian supreme court would rule Breivik was right.

Of course they did. If you’re not going to give a death sentence to a crazed bigot who guns down 76 children, if you’re not going to throw him in a hole but instead give him a spacious accommodation, if instead of a life sentence you let him pursue university studies and limit his incarceration to twenty some years, then you don’t want to isolate your prisoner from human contact if it might appear even as a semblance of solitary confinement. Because lesser cultures do that.

Lesser capitalist flagship states isolate, execute and torture. I so appreciate that Norway wants to set a high bar, but I despair that the land of Guantanamo and waterboarding and indefinite detention and ILLEGAL detention and rendition and extrajudicial assassination and no habeus corpus can’t even see this bar to reach it.

Hastert being a pedophile is not the story! Where did a former wrestling coach get millions to bribe his victims?!

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If Dennis Hastert was being treated like a convicted serial pedophile, he’d never see the light of day, you’d think. Instead the judge was asked to take into account his years of public service. Which is almost not missing the point of the whole scandal. Dennis Hastert being a pedophile pales next to the number of victims of his white collar crime. Paying hush money to the former victims of his predatory sexual abuse was the petty crime for which he was sentenced to 15-months in prison. Hastert’s biggest crime was his corruption as the longest serving Speaker Of The House. Dennis Hastert was a high school wrestling coach before running for office and becoming a multimillionare land speculator. Could Hastert’s record stint in Congress mean he didn’t break records for stealing from his constituents and their interests? It’s obvious where Hastert got the millions in cash with which to pay off his many underage victims. THAT’S the crime for which Dennis Hastert isn’t serving enough time. BY ALL MEANS, DO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT HIS PUBLIC SERVICE. Award his millions to his abused victims, put Dennis Hastert in jail forever, then, for betraying the public trust, hang him.

I have to ask: if Dennis Hastert was a perv as a wrestling coach, what predilections do you suppose he indulged as America’s second most powerful office-holder and corrupt multimillionaire? Are we to imagine Speaker Hastert kicked his pedophilia habit for graft? Those are two distinct abberations. One’s a mental disorder, the other is calculated greed.

At today’s sentencing the judge called Dennis Hastert a “serial pedophile” and expressed it was shocking to say serial pedophile and House Speaker in the same sentence. I doubt that. Mostly because we only learn these things after the fact. I think it would be more accurate in the future to wonder which if any of our speakers are not pedophiles.

If fellow congressmen and staffers knew anything of Hastert activities –and how couldn’t they not?– they should face prosecution as well.

A death in the Fremont County Jail

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I have to write an article about how the Fremont County Sheriff Department, with the help of the Ku Kl/ux Kounty coroner, judges, prosecutors, Medical staff at the Jail and even Paramedics, killed a man named John Walter, beat him to death, for daring to insist that he needed health care. They broke nine of his ribs, witnessed by the Paramedics, and threw him back in his “medical observation” dungeon and left to die. Two years ago.

Now there’s a lawsuit for wrongful death. They murdered the guy for talking back and not a single pig is going to be even censured for doing it. Just a civil suit.

And I’m a witness. I don’t know how the lawsuit will come out, never am optimistic about it, and these same Fascist Police State minions did the same thing to me, minus going all the way to the death.

So here’s the deal-io … I’m going to publish it in the court of public opinion. It’s safer to be way out in the open about such things. Makes it harder for the Fascists to toss one into their cell and wham bam thank you ma’am you’d be just as totally disappeared as if you went into Abu Ghraib, Khandahar, Bagram AFB or Gitmo. It took Mr Walters family two years just to get the ball rolling. And Mr Walters physicians, the ones who had prescribed the medications the Jail Private Nursing Corporation denied to him. When they broke his ribs he had already lost quite a bit of weight in a matter of weeks.

The Chickenshit pigs who did it were probably Sgt Greene and Corporal Maas. Sick sadistic bastards who get sexually aroused by beating up on helpless victims.

Just like cops around the world and throughout history. Fascism in full bloom.

People who don’t like that, like my t-shirt published on cafe press says, “y’all can just line up and take turns helping yourselves to a Texas Size all you can eat buffet of Kiss My Liberal Ass”

Denver Homeless Out Loudest Ray Lyall

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Here’s a better picture of Denver Homeless Out Loud activist Ray Lyall and colleague, with the usual Denver protest entourage. Ray Lyall was found guilty of trespass last week, like his cohort DJ Razee before him. The two were among nine DHOL members arrested defending Tiny Houses on October 25, ten if you include a follow-up action, but Ray and DJ are the only cases to come to trial. Four more are scheduled soon: April 20, May 9 & 10, and June 1.

You might well ask, what of the remaining four? They PLED GUILTY.

It is customary not to condemn another’s self-preservation needs, but let’s be honest, taking the plea deal does hurt everybody. Pleading guilty implicates your co-defendants, validates the police probable cause, and sacrifices the opportunity for which arrest and detainment were the ante.

Ray Lyall took his case to trial, compelled five police officers and a Denver Housing Authority to take the stand, opportuned an eloquent lawyer to speak about homelessness and the bigger picture, tied up a municipal courtroom profit center for two days, and was sentenced to peanuts: one year probation plus community service. Probation is essentially what’s been on offer for plea deals, so Ray risked only being found not guilty.

DJ’s sentence admittedly was not peanuts, it included jail time. The judge declared she would rather have imposed probation, but DJ knew probation would hinder his options as a street activist. DJ stipulated jail so that afterward he’d be free to protest without the spector of a deferred sentence weighing upon him.

Plea deals have shaped a lamentable pattern for Denver activists. Owing to inadequate legal representation or financial hardship, many political arrestees have been tempted by offers of deferred prosecution or deferred sentencing which have necessitated their abstention from further protest. Some who have continued to participate in demonstrations have been in the awkward position of encouraging others to do what they could no longer risk, perpetuating the cycle of arrests and plea deal emasculation.

The Denver activist community has some serial plea dealers, who always take pleas and ensnare newbies with them every cycle. As a result, fresh activists become burned out and regular police oppression is emboldened.

The irony of course is that the vast majority of Denver protest arrests have been violations of civil liberties. It will only stop when the police are challenged and sued. Obstruction, interference, failure to obey, resisting, trespass, disturbing the peace etc, are the habitual pretexts which Denver police have been using to curb street protest. Even the felony charge of assault of a police officer has been succesfully used to scare activists into taking pleas. Usually such “assaults” were simply collisions or confrontations where police officers were the actual assailants.

Not everyone is in a position to fight their charges to the bitter end, but asserting the illegitimacy of political arrests is critical to bringing Denver police to heel.

If you are going to plead guilty because you don’t think you have the right to march in the street or to ignore unconstitutional orders or to defy unjust laws, DON’T DO IT. Spare the rest of us the bad example of capitulating to wrongful authority.

Ask the candidates: who, as president, vows to jail Obama, Clinton and Bush?

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If Americans really want to differentiate which presidential candidate represents change, a good question would be, which will prosecute America’s celebrity war criminals? Who, among them, will jail past leaders guilty of crimes against humanity?

Obama 2008 didn’t do it. President Obama didn’t even close Guantanamo, end torture, or disarm drones. By failing to curb Pax America’s wars of aggression, Obama too should now stand in the docket. Wasn’t it hoped, as Bush and Cheney helivac’d from the White House, that Obama’s “change” meant calling that chopper back for a return to accountability? At minimum, superficially? Justice didn’t happen, Obama didn’t want to look back, and the villains remain to foul the political discourse as foils to perpetuate high crimes and to normalize the forgiving of greater trespasses.

Is American exceptionalism fathomless? ISIS hasn’t grown out of the terrible twos yet already John Kerry wants to charge it with genocide; not to haul ISIS perps before the Hague –extrajudicial assassination by drone circumvents that– but because genocide law holds that those who do not condemn it are its accessories.

How far does culpability reach among our active enablers of war crimes? It extends into our pool of candidates certainly, but how far? Does Senator Bernie Sanders, at one edge, consider himself an accessory to the crimes of past and current administrations? It’s possible Sanders voted against the wars, interventions and regime changes, but will he prosecute those who did not?

Donald Trump stands on the periphery as well, avaritic criminality is not alas a purview of the International Criminal Court, but he does seem an unlikely candidate for honoring the rule of law let alone conscience.

Still, would it hurt to ask? An independent party candidate might have the only acceptable answer. Who, as president, will honor humanity’s highest laws? Who will hold state terrorists accountable?

Ray Lyall Denver homeless man loses home in legal battle over tiny houses

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DENVER, COLORADO- Ray Lyall was among nine homeless rights advocates arrested last October trying to defend a row of Tiny House model homes they built on public land administrated by the Denver Housing Authority. All were accused of trespass and today was Ray’s day in court before a jury of not quite his peers. Though the jury perceived Ray’s act to be political and were shown the paradox facing the city’s homeless, they found in favor of DHA and its SWAT eviction team. Denver’s lack of sympathy for the homeless is shared by Denver residents serving jury duty. All of whom were conscripted through addresses, many of them gentrified.

Like his co-defendant DJ Razee, the first of Ray’s colleagues to take a stand in court, Ray was found guilty of trespass.

Instead of jail time Ray was sentenced to twelve months probation, forty hours of community service, and a protection order to stay clear of DHA stooge Ryan Tobin. Ray also has to write a letter of apology stating that he understands trespass is not an acceptable protest act. Most significant however is an area restriction. Ray can’t return to the area bordered by Arapahoe and Lawrence, 25th and 26th, the block where Denver Homeless Out Loud erected “Resurrection Village”.

If the tiny houses were demolished the night of the police raid, and the vacant lot has been locked ever since, what does Ray’s area restriction matter?

The where to which Ray cannot return is under the tree he and DHOL’s real-life homeless members have called home before and since, a tree along the sidewalk of the DHA property, outside the fence but now inside Ray’s area restriction, where Ray & co. never bothered anyone, though maybe they troubled Ryan Tobin’s view, which is what prompted the heartless crackdown in the first place.

Ryan Tobin is not just DHA’s manager, he owns a $650,000 gentrified home across the street from the restricted lot. While urban “housing authority” entities purport to supply all income residences, they profit by redistributing properties to developers and relocating low income communities to the lesser desirable areas.

Denver inaugurated Spring 2016 with homeless sweeps to clear the gentrified neighborhood of its street dwellers. Where police can’t harass for “encumbrances” to move homeless along, they prosecute with “trespass”.

Each of the DHOL defendants who’ve reached trial or have taken plea deals have been given the area restriction. Restricted from a fenced lot surounded by no trespass signs. The legal overkill recalls the army of police officers deployed to assault DHOL and their tiny homes.

Ray isn’t going to jail but now he really has nowhere to go. Ray was houseless, a distinction that’s not just a technicality. Now Ray is homeless.

Turkey: where Europe hides its refugee internment concentration camp slums. And this time, Arbeit Nicht Macht Frei.

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The European Union has made a deal with Turkey to return escaped Syrian refugees to their cages. The escapees are civilians fleeing the war zones of Syria, where many of them already lived in refugee camps after fleeing Iraq and before that Palestine. So many people are seeking the safety of non-destabilized nations that the EU is full up. Too many refugees have survived the perilous crossing from Turkey to Greece that the EU wants to ship them back. To the internment camps blotting the Syrian boarder, tented slums encircled by razor wire, where huddled masses yearning to be free are concentrated and forbidden to leave. At the same time that the West demonizes Turkey, we’re counting on Turkey to jail the innocents fleeing our wars. One sticking point are the maquiladora sweatshops which exploit the captive cheap labor. EU labor laws protect against such abuse, thus slave labor pools are only profitable outside the EU. In 21st Century camps, Arbeit nicht macht frei, whether your work is weaving rugs for discount superstores or treading the waters of the Aegean.

Monk Brown set up a tent on the plaza. It took a SWAT team to take it down. Now a Denver jury took them down.

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Adrian Monk Brown
DENVER, COLORADO- Homeless Adrian “Monk” Brown was accused of “obstruction” for sitting in a protest tent last August 26th on the plaza of the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Monk was also charged with “interference” with the riot police sent to evict him. A subsequent charge of “failure to obey” was added by prosecutors pressuring Monk to take a plea. After a two day trial which ended Wednesday, a Denver County jury found Monk Brown NOT GUILTY of either obstruction or failure to obey. Owing maybe to a crime scene video that highlighted the brutal irreverance shown by protesters toward DPD officers, the jury did convict Monk of interference. Except now it wasn’t a crime scene. Monk’s attorney Melissa Trollinger Annis is challenging the inconsistent verdict because it’s unlikely interference will stick without the police having a cause for arrest. Monk wasn’t obstructing.

This verdict marks the second time Monk has beaten the obstruction charge. The first was November 17 when Monk was acquitted of erecting a tent in the plaza on August 28, two days after the recent case. Monk put up that tent the moment he got out of jail for his August 26 arrest. He was fully acquitted in that case. Monk’s subsequent arrests in the plaza on September 18 and September 24 were dismissed and dropped, respectively.

Monk’s arrests numbered among the 19 arrests and two citations issued against the plaza demonstrators during a full time Occupy Denver protest which ran from August 26 to October 21, 2015, when DPD effected a final eviction and activist resources became terminally waterlogged. Just as the activists have now become tied up in court, Denver police headquarters are now overburdened with a hoard of tents, tarps, chairs, umbrellas, banners, and drums which must be kept in evidence.

The plaza protest was launched after the arrest of Mark Iannicelli and Eric Brandt for distributing jury nullification fliers at the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Activists with Occupy Denver won a federal court injunction to prevent such further arrests. With an ongoing legal battle stipulating the plaza as not just a traditional free speech zone, but a designated free speech zone, the city’s backdoor methods of restricting First Amendment Rights could be isolated and exposed.

For too long, the city of Denver has been able to curb free speech through backdoor charges: Obstruction, disturbing the peace, jaywalking, and TRESPASS. Activists are even charged with resisting arrest, when subjects are actively objecting to their unlawful arrest. The days of halting political demonstrations by having riot cops enforce city ordinances such as obstruction may be drawing to a close.

In Colorado they will kill you for your house. RIP Martin Wirth and assailants.

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My friend Martin Wirth made the news yesterday trying to protect his Bailey Colorado home from a predatory mortgage company. Today he is dead and I can’t say I believe this is what he intended. He took a sheriff’s deputy with him, and he wounded two more, but I don’t believe Martin intended that either. At this point we know only law enforcement’s side of the story so it’s too early to give Martin credit or blame. RIP everyone, victims all.

I do know Martin was served an eviction notice and that he intended to resist it. He was waging the fight in court. Two years ago he hoped to deter an eviction by sheer number of allies camped on his lawn. It would have achieved only a stay, but a symbolic victory is the best you can hope for in a political battle.

Alone with a rifle, I think Martin meant to have a western standoff, as pure a demonstration of why Americans have the 2nd Amendment, to protect your home from the bad guys, often the armed proxies of the state.

Let’s say that’s what Martin had in mind. Do you not suppose that he was a surprised as you and I that the Sheriff’s deputies would open fire? That they’d kill him, over a house?

He’d be in trouble enough just brandishing a gun. You’d think the state would be satisfied to jail a person for that. It gets him out of the house.

According to reports, the sheriff’s deputies anticipated resistance. They sent eight deputies to take Martin’s house.

In Colorado we’ve seen law officers show up in combat gear to enforce an eviction. They carried assault rifles among other scary weapons, which most assumed were worn for deterrence. After all, recalcitrant evictees can be arrested enroute to the grocery store or to check their mail without the need for a military assault.

In Bailey Colorado apparently everyone is in a big hurry to shut up the loudmouth. Martin Wirth was an Occupy Denver activist and a Green Party candidate for the state senate. In the last election he won 25% of the vote. No good letting Martin Wirth get that far this year.

In life, Martin was probably a kinder, compassionate, more thoughtful variety of western archetype. In death, he was cinematic. Typical of the western archetype he will be both vilified and honored.

You won’t see Michael Marshall in his jail death video because his body is obscured by five deputies killing him

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DENVER, COLORADO- Never mind the video showing the in-custody killing of trespass suspect Michael Marshall, says Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, “Most of Mr. Marshall’s body is not visible in the majority of the video footage after he is taken to the floor because the deputies bodies’ block the view of the camera.”

That’s right, it took five sheriff deputies to keep the 112 lb. Marshall floored. “He was surprisingly strong” said one of the deputies, which is the same compliment deputies paid to Marvin Booker, another 135 lb. 50 year-old African American man whose schizophrenic episode was treated with a lethal dose of dispassionate elbow grease.

The Denver DA announced today he had no plans to prosecute the dentention center deputies for Marshall’s sudden involuntary release from confinement. The DA ignored terrifying details from the earlier coroner’s report but adds previously unknown facts which will be revealed when the video is made public later this week. He reports that “OPN devices (nunchucks) were used on Mr. Marshall’s ankles” and “a leg chain was placed on his lower legs.” Michael Marshall “struggled on the floor for over 2 minutes before he went limp.” and it took deputies 13 minutes and 20 seconds before Marshall was placed into a restraint chair where nurses discovered he wasn’t breathing.

Ignored completely are the damning details listed by the medical examiner: the blood in Marshall’s lungs and pulverized muscle tissue consistent with beating.

Instead Morrissey concentrates on aspiration as cause of death. Did it cause Marshall’s death or did others factors contribute? By other factors he’s not talking about the 900lbs of deputees.

As with Marvin Booker, police experts blame not the excessive use of force but the victim’s exertions against the force, struggling to breathe under a pile of officers very specifically. I’m reminded of the adage, it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden deceleration at the end. Michael Marshall couldn’t breathe, he kept trying alegedly, and the officers weren’t going to loosen their hold until he was comatose.

The city attorneys office plans to release the jail surveillance video tomorrow. You won’t see Michael Marshall but you’ll see the deputies who wrestled the slight-built Marshall to his death. The DA report lists their names: sheriffs deputies Bret Garegnani, Carlos Hernandez, Smajo Civic, Thanarat Phuvapaisalkij, and Sarah Bautista.

Marshall’s death hasteners join Marvin Booker’s killers, deputies James Grimes, Kyle Sharp, Kenneth Robinette, and Sgt. Carrie Rodriguez, all still on the jailhouse team. Except Deputy Faun Gomez, who was disciplined for another excessive force infraction and now serves with the highway patrol.

David, Goliath, and Eric Brandt

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I must confess, I’m no fan of the Bible, I’ve never understood how a man’s lips are moving and it is called the word of god. The same is true with the written word, the pen is in the hand of the human. But there are stories in the bible with a powerful message. One such story is of a small shepherd boy who goes down into the valley armed with a slingshot and a few small stones. The story of Eric Brandt.

Eric Brant went down into the valley of the 16th street mall and waited there for the giant to come to him. Eric had baited his trap with a donut, he knew of the giant’s hunger for donuts.

The giant lard ass cop came into the valley astride his motorcycle, he meant to dispatch Eric to the nearest jail. This lard ass cop had with him the power of the prosecutor, the court and a kangaroo judge.

Eric had only the truth, a small sling shot and one small smooth stone, attorney David Lane who was with the gift of words.

The giant raised his mighty sword to slay Eric. With one smooth motion Eric brought forth his smooth stone (David Lane) and sent the giant to the ground in a matter of moments.

The Moral of this story: When you come into Eric’s valley, you better bring more than the power of the state or he will send your donut munching ass back to yo mom-ma, minus yo head and ego.

The atrocity of Michael Marshall’s autopsy is what they already knew

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DENVER, COLORADO- Fifty-year-old schitzophrenic Michael Marshall died in the Denver jail in the same fashion as Marvin Booker five years ago. The city was made to pay out six million dollars for Marvin’s wrongful death but refused to discipline the deputies involved. Michael’s relatives await the release of security camera video to confirm not only another six officer pile-on, but it might have been the same personel. Actually the sheriff has admitted to the family that six deputies were on the scene, but that one of them sat it out. The sheriff would not confirm or deny the math of how many deputies were sitting on Michael Marshall when they induced his cardiac arrest. The autopsy reveals Michael asperated on his own vomit due to a spitguard placed over his mouth. The autopsy itemizes the effects of a brutal beating which left over a cup of blood in Michael’s lungs. But to me the most damning details were in the hospital’s initial diagnosis, kept from the public for reasons of medical privacy. When Michael’s body left the jail and for a week after, the news could only report that he was on life support. Unlike with Marvin Booker, the Denver Sheriff deputies hadn’t killed Michael Marshall. His family and the community awaited his recovery. But Michael would never recover. “Life support” describes his status as innacurately as “comfort care” describes the act of unplugging him.

To translate:
Michael Marshall arrived at the hospital effectively brain dead, not breathing, his body already acidifying, and his muscle tissues tenderized, ie breaking down. These are points of no return which should be recognizable to reporters on the crime beat, and likely to detectives and law enforcement managers who’ve seen this kind of thing regularly. The Denver public would know that it sees this regularly except that it’s lied to about what Denver police and sheriff deputies are doing regularly.

Though the coroner begins the paragraph noting Michael’s history of polysubstance abuse, without implying it had import, he closes the review with the detail that a pee test showed Michael was clean.

#VanillaISIS, Y’AllQaeda, YokelHaram, al-Shabubba waging YeeHawd. Har har there but for the grace of an IQ go you.

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So where’s the solidarity? Yes the Bundy rancher insurrection is a fight for settler colonial privilege, Yes the hunter-soldierers are reenacting the Okies land rush of the Indian Territories. Yes this Cabelas militia is waging #YeeHawd against the gub’mint for every wrong reason. Such as, the God-given right to despoil the commons, and such as. But NO these paleoammosexuals are not “terrorists”. They can’t even pack their own lunch. What they are are dumbass carbon-bigfoots. Their hillbilly occupation is a sidearmed rebellion. That said, the camo-twits have declared war on the US government. That’s closer to the barricades than you’ve ever ventured.

Under cover of stupid, they’ve brought guns. It’s unbecoming but the strategy has averted a shutdown thus far. Guns speak truth to power in the language power understands. And the oafs are trying to protect the people’s land from the BLM. That’s your wet dream for stopping pipelines, fracking, and ecocide. Of course these yokels want to facilitate the plunder of nature, but that’s no different than the corporate media. They’re not villains, they’re the shills.

Please stop complaining that if these white privileged jerks were black they’d get the whipping they’d deserve. What are you, cheerleading for a violent authoritarian response?! Same as with rioting fratboys, you don’t have to love them, just don’t call for their smackdown. The police need to ease up with the heavy hand, not spread the brutality with equal opportunity.

Same as the drunk fratboys, these “patriots” have zero political awareness. They are no emergent right wing, they’re not fascists. The Bundy posse is to political movements what the Westboro Baptist Church was to activism. No resemblance. Poisoned apples to oranges.

Cliven Bundy, like Donald Trump, is a distraction from the real fascistm long firmly entrenched.

Of course these poachers should be run off public land, without a federal show of air suppremacy. Don’t echo the call for imperial airstrikes. Instead of igniting a Waco, let’s wait the yokels out, slap them with fines, expropriate their gear and put them in jail. Setting a forest fires should be severely punished. But don’t let me hear supposed anti-government social media pundits cry for the ass-kicking of these wannabe-brighter insurgents.

A regime which terrorizes the have-less with drones and death squads and war has no business defining what is and isn’t terrorism, least of all the push-back.

#NotMyRevolution #FuckYou. First they came for the dumb yokels, but I was not a dumb yokel so I said nothing. It’s not without irony that the point of Martin Niemoller’s lament escapes you.

Motion hearing for 4/29 protest arrest brings out affinity of cops and judges.

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DENVER, COLORADO- A local activist flipped off a municipal court judge. Yes, it’s not done, but the consequence was more severe than even the judge intended. She was attending a motions hearing of a fellow protester accused of disobeying a cop. During DPD testimony an officer was narrating a surveillance video which the audience was unabe to see. She tried to shift seats but was told to sit down. After two admonishments, she complied in silence but made a disrespectful gesture where she sat behind the flat screen monitor, where she thought the judge wouldn’t see. But a clerk did see the gesture and told the judge. Judge Nicole Rodarte, no friend of political activists and facing a roomful of them, immediately had her held in contempt of court for the remainder of the hearing. Contrary to instructions, the unnamed activist was taken across to the jail to serve a sentence of ten days. We’re not sure yet who was complicit with the mixup. Here’s what happened:

It was a hearing no Denver street activist wanted to miss. Habitual free-speech offender Jesse Benn is accused of disobeying a lawful order, being on the street, failure to disperse, etc, etc, at the April 29 march solidarity march for the people of Baltimore upset about the in-custody murder of Freddy Gray. Jesse’s jury trial will follow shortly.

At this motions hearing, the unpopular motorcycle cop Michael Rispoli was testifying as to the evidence against Jesse. Officer Rispoli is uniformly reviled for his tendency to ram his motorcycle into peaceful marchers. At the April 29 march, Rispoli dropped his motorcycle, feigning having been pushed by bicyclist Michael Moore. A SWAT crew piled on Moore, protesters rushed to his defense, this precipitated more arrests and prompted the police to pepperspray the crowd which included a number of small children. Justified by the attack on Officer Rispoli. Jesse Benn recorded the video which proved Rispoli’s lie. All charges were dropped against Moore, but the rest of the arrestees are being prosecuted, including Benn.

Rispoli by the way has been reassigned to DIA. After six years on the downtown motorcycle crew, monitoring and herding political demonstrations, he’s been demoted to the airport.

So at this hearing Bad Cop Rispoli was proudly testifying about the crowd-control techniques of the motorcycle unit. Very, very informative. At one point the prosecution played a police surveilance video so that Rispoli could give the play by play, point out offenders, and share his strategy. Except the audience couldn’t see the video screen. The content wasn’t forbidden, the judge just saw no need to make a screen available to the public. This being a public hearing.

It was frustrating, and said audience member rose to move about to catch a glimpse of the video. Judge Rodarte told her to sit down. She explained the problem, the judge only repeated her warning. She returned to her seat and apparently formed a finger with her left hand, thrown down behind the large screen monitor, where we couldn’t see, nor even the judge. The courtroom clerk spotted it however and told the judge.

Judge Rodarte promptly asked the deputees to remove the activist to an adjacent room used for in-custody defendants. She informed us that the activist was being held in contempt and her case would be handled at the close of the hearing, hopefully before the lunch break. The hearing resumed without further incident, except more lies from Rispoli. One lie prompted defendant Benn to hold a notepad aloft, for the audience’s eyes only, on which he’d scribbled “perjury!”

The hearing ended before lunch. Judge Rodarte excused herself to review the activist’s criminal record. Rodarte emerged from her chambers to announce that the matter would be addressed after lunch.

When court resumed at 1:30pm, Offender X was brought back in from the side door. Judge Rodarte gave a brief lecture about how X’s act had insulted the integrity of her courtroom and the justice system, etc. She asked if X had anything to say in anticipation of sentencing.

X gave a similarly brief speech about what she’d witnessed in Rodarte’s courtroom and the affront it represented to the public. X closed by declaring she welcomed whatever consequence the judge wanted to throw at her.

“I sentence you to two hours, time served” said Judge Rodarte. She ordered the sheriffs to release X, when they were done with her, or words to that effect.

We went to the jail to await X’s release, anticipating the usual booking delay. We eventually learned that X was supposed to serve a ten day sentence for contempt of court. It took us 35 hours before the error was sorted out. The detention center staff had admitted X with absolutely no authority to do so, certainly no documents remain on file. There is no paper trail and the Office of the Independent Monitor and Internal Affairs are trying to sort it out. Stay tuned.

The case against activist Jesse Benn raises the penultimate question about the right to march in protest. Jesse Benn is charged with being in the street. Traffic laws favor cars over people in the use of public roads, but does a vehicle’s right of way always abridge the people’s right to assemble? Hundreds of demonstrators marching to seek redress of grievances need the road too. Very often authorities tolerate protesters taking the streets for that very reason. Or because authorities have already blocked the streets. It’s complicated, and Jesse Benn might be being punished here because he took the video that implicated a bad cop. The system wants to use Jesse Benn as an example. Activist need to use Benn as their example, to teach the city a lesson about wrongful arrest and our civil liberties.

Police toss brutality victims and video evidence in box with Schrodinger’s cat

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Michael MarshallDENVER, COLORADO- Denver jailers killed 50-yr-old schitzophrenic Michael Marshall in the exact manner they killed Marvin Booker five years ago except this time they kept it under wraps. By throwing their victim’s body in with Schrodinger’s cat. Authorities in Denver and Minneapolis have learned you can have your cake and kill it too, so long as you postpone the public learning what the outcome was. It’s the lesson of Schrodinger’s Cat. If you kill an unarmed man, for god’s sake don’t drape him in a shroud. Ship his body to the hospital under guard and stick it on life support. Medical privacy laws forbid health workers from disclosing the patient’s fate. Minneapolis police held off public outrage over the shooting of Jamar Clark with the same technique: say he’s on life support until it’s no longer plausible. Schrodinger’s box works for damning videos too. Until the public can open the box, hopefully never, the police did AND didn’t commit the atrocity.

Occupy Denver’s Caryn Sodaro was rail-roaded again by Denver courts

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DENVER, COLORADO- Weld County had twice declined to remit jailed Occupy Denver activist Caryn Sodaro to the Denver County courts for outstanding cases, but this week authorities conspired to bus Caryn to court without giving public notice. Instead of being greeted by a room full of supporters who had twice turned up to cheer for her as she faced contrived and punitive charges, Caryn was whisked before Judges Rodarte in 3F and Farrenger in 3H. Alone and no doubt demoralized, Caryn plead guilty to both obstruction and making threats, accepting concurrent sentences of 150 days. We haven’t yet uncovered the paper trail for her off-leash citation. but the Lindsey Flanigan Star Chamber probably threw that at her too.

Caryn’s cases had been continued to the week of December 7, but the criminal justice complex broke the rules, Caryn, and us too. Caryn Sorado had been unreachable for a week at the jail in Greeley. No one had been able to reach her. Inquiries had just been made to her case manager.

Caryn could not have know that last week Monk beat the obstruction charge.

And Caryn never made the threat of which she was accused, in fact it was the reverse. The addict who made the complaint had been evicted from our protest encampment by Caryn. The accuser hoped to get a protection order to keep Caryn away from the protest while she, the accuser, moved back in. Caryn had intended to repudiate the charge. Actually we were all certain the addict would not turn up in court.

Instead Caryn followed some court employee’s advice and doubled her jail stay-cation. Friends are planning a road trip to Greeley for a visitation and maybe cacophonous serenade, not to mention, desperate apologies for having been conned by the justice system.

Tragically a number of us were flyering outside the courthouse on Wednesday precisely when Caryn was being railroaded inside. We only learned of her appearance when checking on another schedule anomaly that afternoon, a scheduling ambush actually.

We’re coming to understand that the Denver Sheriffs play underhanded shell-games with detainees to maximize the inconvenience for inmates and loved ones alike.

The good news is that today we filed two complaints with the Office of the Independent Monitor directed at Denver Sheriff malfeasance. Both are cases of warrantless detention. Dead-nuts, incarceration without the authority to do it. More filings are in the works addressing bond-setting abuses and arbitrary release delays. Now we’ll throw Caryn’s habeas violation in for good measure. Occupy Denver may be going without Caryn’s loud angry voice, but we’re still hitting the Blue Meanies hard, and we’re as unpopular as ever.

Denver Detention Center a user’s guide

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eric verlo denver detention center sheriff county jail
The Denver Detention Center came under scrutiny after the county had to pay out over $6 million to the family of street preacher Marvin Booker who was killed by sheriff’s deputies while in custody. Reforms may or may not have been implemented; the deputies were neither charged nor dismissed; and the facilities remain defiant about disrespecting your rights. I had the opportunity to visit the DDC recently and I can report the experience was miserable. While the public often thinks that inmates deserve the worse the better, a county jail houses suspects not convicts, protected by the 14th Amendment from punishment before a fair trial.

As a detainee not an offender, you are not supposed to suffer handcuffs tightened like tourniquets, left fastened for hours as you wait in isolation cells. Those innocent until proven guilty should not be made to endure sleep deprivation in the booking area as you wait between EIGHT OR TWELVE hours for your fingerprints to “clear”, waiting supposedly for Interpol in another time zone to pop a new roll of thermal paper into their fax machine.

Although a bond may be listed next to your charges on your public file viewable through the Sheriff’s online inmate search, your do not become bondable until your fingerprints clear.

If you become bondable, but someone hasn’t reached the bonding desk one hour before your scheduled court appearance, you must wait not just until court, but until after the entire docket has cleared and the paperwork is put into the system.

Once your bond is posted, the release procedure can last up to eight hours. If the magistrate checked a box on your documents requiring “pretrial services” your release will be delayed until the next morning. County workers explain that these delays are not unlawful detention but are due to regular computer inefficiencies.

I haven’t even started on the jail experience.

Occupy Denver shifts night camp to Colfax Ave to confound plaza curfew

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DENVER, COLORADO- The occupiers of the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse Plaza were thrown a curve on Friday afternoon when city workers were observed installing signs closing the grounds to the public from 8:30pm until 7:30am. Was this an affront to US District Court Judge William Martinez who had affirmed in federal court that the courthouse plaza was a free speech zone “24/7”? There wasn’t time to consult a legal opinion, so when a DPD cruiser interrupted the Occupy Denver GA at 8:25pm to announce the curfew and threaten arrests, the occupiers retreated to the public sidewalk north of the courthouse, where the higher profile of Colfax Avenue would make up for having to time-share their 24hr encampment. DPD swept through the park at 8:30pm to assure it was vacated and activist spent the next hours making a ruckus on the street, egged on by Friday night traffic. At bedtime a civilian dupe came over from the jail to warn that deputes told her everyone would be arrested. Laughs. At 2am a DPD platoon paid the habitual visit. Warnings that the activists were in violation of the trespass order were laughed off, and the officers told off for abusing their authority telling lies, so police could only force sleepers off the public sidewalk and mandate that signs be untied from the trees. From their beachhead on Colfax Activists promised to retake the plaza at 7:30am where they intended to catch up on their lost sleep in broad daylight.

Occupy Denver to offer amenities for public loos at Lindsey Flanigan Plaza

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Someone got a citation for public urination this weekend at the protest occupation of the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. This may be due in part to overnight guest demonstrators now being denied access to the public restrooms at the adjacent detention center. Ironically many of those shut out are frequent patrons and fee-payers of the jail.
 
Occupy activists will very likely not be allowed to erect an outhouse, based on the structural restrictions which police are enforcing against “encumbrances”. So far the jail pretends to have full discretion to discriminate among who can use its 24-hour toilets. Thus camp bathroom facilities will remain al fresco, but that should not preclude urban toilet amenities with which camp organizers can designate latrines and shit holes to keep participants from littering the landscaping with poop.

Eric Brandt sets speed record for First Amendment Jail-to-Freedom-Pipeline

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DENVER, COLORADO- Eric Brandt got a surprise at the detention center courtroom on Friday. Then the magistrate who sentenced Eric for contempt of court got a surprise.

Eric wore his “fuck cops” t-shirt into courtroom 2300 this morning where his friend Monk was making a first appearance while still in custody. Everyone waved to Monk sitting among the inmates and stood in solidarity until the judge entered. But it wasn’t a judge we were used it seeing, it was Magistrate John Hoffman who Eric failed to recognize from one of Eric’s 43 ongoing “fuckcops” cases. The magistrate asked Eric to stand, then read the text of Eric’s shirt into the record, then reminded Eric that he’d warned him if he wore the shirt again in his courtroom he’d be held in contempt, and then he sentenced Eric to twenty days in jail.

Eric objected claiming he had no foreknowledge that this magistrate would preside today and cited “Cohen v. California” as to why this sentence was unconstitutional.

“Tell that to the ACLU” said Magistrate Hoffman as Eric was put in handcuffs.

“Fuck You Judge Hoffman” exclaimed Eric.

“I sentence you to ten more days for that outburst” shouted Hoffman. “Be sure to let the Sheriff know that Eric Brandt is to serve thirty days not twenty” Hoffman explained to the deputy as Eric was moved through the inmate booth.

The magistrate had no name plate and neither the prosecutor nor the deputies would tell us his name. Finally a clerk outside obliged and I made a call to Eric’s lawyer. Within minutes the magistrate announced that Eric should be brought back into the courtroom. A half hour later he was free, ordered out of the building, which he left loudly.

It turns out Eric’s lawyer hadn’t intervened at all. The magistrate’s “tell it to the ACLU” quip was repeated through the courtroom staff where it reached the city attorney’s office. They made the call and told magistrate Hoffman to stand down.

So Eric was sentenced at 9am and out by 10am. A new record for him at least.

The accompanying photos do not have anything to do with Eric’s Jail to Freedom speed record, but they’re not entirely unrelated. They depict his next arrest later that day, the details to follow.