DENVER, COLORADO- Occupy Denver veteran Corey Donahue was released from county jail on Thursday, thwarting two surprise court filings to keep the activist in custody for additional months. Donahue had negotiated a global plea deal to serve concurrent sentences for his outstanding charges of inciting public protests in 2011 and 2012. Yeah, those aren't crimes, but when you're an involuntary guest of the Denver jail, your stamina for disputing bogus accusations wanes with every bogus meal. Municipal court judges are as vindictive and perfunctory as the petty officials pressing the original charges. Engaging that crowd is not reciprocal, so it's especially unrewarding if it means enduring protracted incarceration. Having cleared his cases and completed the good-behavior obligations of a 9-month sentence for the nut-tap crime, Donahue was due to be released Thursday. But that morning, the Lindsey-Flanagan justice center activated an additional 2012 case which lawyers had been prevented from negotiating because the Division-3D judge withheld it from the docket. Neither private attorneys nor public defenders had been able to compel 3D to address that lingering case number. On Thursday the case mysteriously engaged... As a result, on Thursday Denver sheriffs demanded a large cash bond and they scheduled Corey for an in-custody court appearance the next day. When funds were rushed to the bonding office, an even larger bond was imposed for a 2011 case specifically stipulated to have been dismissed by the terms of Donahue's global plea. Can they fucking do that? No. And yes, everyday. Municipal court despots are not accountable even to their consciences. We've seen Lindsey-Flanagan chief justice Martinez confabulate on the witness stand in federal court to suit his duplicitous machinations, and his minions embellished on his lead. Usually their victims, locked in the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center across the plaza, are powerless to decline their sadism. Clearing up this clerical error would take until after Christmas, so it seemed more in the holiday spirit to give Denver their blood money and take the courthouse to task afterward, from the relative comfort of being out of custody. WTF.
Tag: Occupy Denver
Iraq War embed Rob McClure, witness to war crimes he didn’t report, suffers phantom pain in gonads he never had.
DENVER, COLORADO- Today Occupy Denver political prisoner Corey Donahue was given a nine month sentence for a 2011 protest stunt. Judge Nicole Rodarte's unexpected harsh sentence came after the court read the victim statement of CBS4 cameraman Rob McClure, who said he still feels the trauma of the uninvited "cupping [of his] balls" while he was filming the 2011 protest encampment at the state capitol. Donahue admits that McClure was the target of a "nut-tap", but insists it was feigned, as occupiers demonstrated their disrespect to the corporate news crews who were intent on demonizing the homeless participants even as Denver riot police charged the park. Though a 2012 jury convicted Donahue of misdemeanor unwanted sexual contact, witnesses maintain there was no physical contact. Of course simply the implication of contact would have humiliated McClure in front of the battalion of police officers amused by the antic. That's authentic sexual trauma, just as a high school virgin is violated when a braggart falsely claims to have of engaged them in sexual congress. Donahue was wrong, but how wrong? Can professionals who dish it out claim infirmity when the tables are turned? Ultimately the joke was on Donahue, because his mark turned out to be far more vulnerable than his dirty job would have suggested. The CBS4 cameraman who Donahue picked on was a louse's louse. Off limits? While some might assert there is no context which would excuse touching a stranger's genital region, I'm not sure the rule of no hitting below the belt is a civility to which folks facing riot cops are in accord. Protesters can't shoot cops, they can't spit at cops, in fact protesters have to pull all their punches. Some would have you believe demonstrators should do no more than put daisies in police gun barrels, all the while speaking calmly with only pleasant things to say. Let me assure you, simply to defy police orders is already a humiliation for police. What's some pantomimed disrespect? Humiliating riot cops is the least unarmed demonstrators can do against batons and shields and pepper spray. Should the authorities' private parts be off limits for a public's expression of discontent? Jocks wear jock straps precisely because private parts aren't off sides. It's tempting to imagine that all cops are human beings who can be turned from following orders to joining in protestations of injustice and inequity. This is of course nonsense. But it's even more delusional to think corporate media cameras and reporters will ever take a sympathetic line to the travails of dissidents. Media crews exploit public discontent just as riot cops enjoy the overtime. Media crews gather easy stories of compelling interest from interviewees eager to have their complaints be understood. Corey Donahue On October 15, 2011, Rob McClure turned his camera off when the narrative wasn't fitting the derogatory spin he wanted to put on the homeless feeding team which manned Occupy Denver's kitchen, dubbed "The Thunderdome." Donahue observed the cameraman's deliberate black out of the savory versus the
Denver used protection orders to curb mobility of Occupy protesters in 2011
DENVER, COLORADO- Activist Corey Donahue's 11-11-2011 protest case is still outstanding. The recently surrendered fugitive is charged with inciting a riot in the first months of the Occupy Denver encampment, when supporters crowded a police cruiser and began to rock it in protest of Corey's third arrest. Clouding this nostalgic look back at DPD's mishandling of mass demonstrations are the quasi-legal steps the city took to constrain the protest. It turns out Corey's felony riot charges were used to convince a Denver court to grant protection orders to two state troopers who considered themselves personal victims of Occupy Denver's assertive tactics. As a resut, Corey was prevented from leading demonstrations into areas when those officers were deployed, and he didn't know which those officers were. The measure was of dubious legality and so far remains shrouded in disinformation. Were two officers "seriously injured", as news outlets reported, in the so-called riot of Nov 11? Except for their official statement, no evidence was ever provided by DPD. What were the injuries and who were the officers? Can police invoke the protection of a blanket injunction to stop public demonstrations whenever they want? Can a police department enforce protection orders and pretend its subjects can remain anonymous? These are the questions which Denver police face as they push charges against one of their most outspoken antagonists. Can law enforcement officers unknown to a defendant file for restraining orders against the public they serve and protect? Can police require that ordinary citizens maintain a prescribed distance from them in a public space? Encamped on the grounds of the capitol, at the peak of an ongoing protest movement, Corey Donahue was in no position to push back with a legal challenge. Denver has since used an even more abusive method, designating “area restrictions” to keep active protest leaders out of places like the state capitol, Civic Center Park, and 16th Street Mall. DPD cite the arrestees' repeated arrests as justification. This probation stipulation may be applicable for criminal recidivists, in particular domestic violence abusers, but it is hardly constitutional when applied to free speech. Denver's practice hasn’t been challenged yet, for want of sympathetic plaintiffs. Giving police protection orders, to prevent specific demonstrators from assembling near police lines, would seem to fall in a similar category of judicial misconduct.
If it’s illegal for homeless to sit on the ground, take away their benches! The Tattered Cover sweeps its sidewalk.
DENVER, COLORADO- Homeless sweeps continue in Denver, this round the downtown development authority is sweeping away their furniture. In particular the Wazee-to-Wynkoop block of the 16th Street Mall, in front of the Tattered Cover Bookstore. Not only was the quiet block popular with Denver homeless, it is the site of Occupy Denver's friday night feed, the weekly shared community meal hosted at the doorstep of the Tattered Cover in protest of their support of the city's anti-homeless measures. With the benches gone, there remain no surfaces from which to serve food, nor of course, seating areas to accommodate the homeless community.
Trump reorders recidivist “Muslim Ban” and Denver activists redouble efforts to welcome all refugees to America.
DIA, COLORADO- So banning Muslims from six countries instead of seven is supposed to ease legal concerns about religious discrimination?
Occupy allstar Caryn Sodaro breaches bank doors, allows water protectors to ask Denver Wells Fargo to defund DAPL
DENVER, COLORADO- At the behest of the beseiged Standing Rock encampment currently blocking the Dakota Access Pipeline, Denver water protectors held an unannounced rally on the capitol steps Friday morning and marched prompty to the Wells Fargo building several blocks north. Led by the American Indian Movement, and joined by allies, the predominantly Native American assembly intended to deliver a message to the major banking entity underwriting the Energy Transfer pipeline project. The action Friday was prompted by President Trump's recent executive order to bypass legal restrictions holding up the drilling. Arriving at the bank, the hundred fifty marchers found all doors locked. After a few minutes of rallying outside, a door suddenly opened and everyone rushed inside the atrium. That everyone included drummers, dancers, leaders, and television crews. After a long rally and a round dance were held in the Wells Fargo atrium, another door leading to the bankteller counters miraculously opened and the group was able to rush in to the bank. Behind these miracles was veteran Occupy Denver activist Caryn Sodaro. The security guards and police were unable to reach the open door in time, so within a minute the lobby was filled with water protectors making loud their demands. Eventually all the banners were gathered inside and multiple television cameras and reporters covered it all. Occupy Denver has breached the Wells Fargo Building before, in 2011, for an allied action against the predatory bank. The original feat resulted in an arrest. In the bank lobby, the water protectors chanted and walked in circles as leaders asked to speak to bank representatives. None appeared, and eventually DPD took to a megaphone and gave the gathering three minutes to leave. That was the cue for AIM leader Glenn Morris to spend well over three minutes telling the bank and the police that the water protectors would be back. Caryn Sodaro urges water protectors to raise their voices so that bank officials can hear them from the upper floors. Caryn's feat on Friday was unheralded even as participants celebrated their victory. But that's par for the course for the unsung agitator. Maybe it's unwise to brag about it here. Nonesense. Activists deserve mythbuilding all the more when the adversarial media and moderate reformists refuse to credit radical actions. I've purposefully obfuscated the details of Caryn's breach so that they remain Occupy Denver trade secrets. But let's here give Caryn Sodaro her due. If the DPD can glean one lesson from their unsuccessful blockaid of marchers on Friday, it can be this: next time keep better eyes on Caryn!
Occupy v. Martinez (Plaza Protest Ban) 2016 US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision AFFIRMING Prelim Injunction
Yesterday I published the federal judge's order to grant the 2015 preliminary injunction against the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse. Since that time the city motioned to dismiss, there were show cause hearings, and depositions, and an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. On April 8, 2016 the appeals court AFFIRMED the preliminary injunction. As a result this legal action is on the road to becoming a permanent injunction, to be decided at trial this April. The prospects look promising, based on how the appelate judges schooled our First Amendment adversaries. I'm reprinting their full decision below. In particular you might enjoy Judge McHugh's citing of US Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, writing in 1939 for the majority, in a decision to uphold public first amendment rights in Hague v. [AFL-]CIO. Robert affirmed that streets were traditional free speech areas: "Wherever the title of streets and parks may rest, they have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public and, time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions. Such use of the streets and public places has, from ancient times, been a part of the privileges, immunities, rights, and liberties of citizens. The privilege of a citizen of the United States to use the streets and parks for communication of views on national questions may be regulated in the interest of all; it is not absolute, but relative, and must be exercised in subordination to the general comfort and convenience, and in consonance with peace and good order; but it must not, in the guise of regulation, be abridged or denied." Here's the full 2016 opinion rejecting Denver's appeal of our federal injunction: Document: 01019599889 Date Filed: 04/08/2016 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT _________________________________ ERIC VERLO; JANET MATZEN; and FULLY INFORMED JURY ASSOCIATION, Plaintiffs - Appellees, v. THE HONORABLE MICHAEL MARTINEZ, in his official capacity as Chief Judge of the Second Judicial District, Defendant - Appellant, v. THE CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER, COLORADO, a municipality; ROBERT C. WHITE, in his official capacity as Denver Chief of Police, Defendants - Appellees. _______________ FILED ?United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit April 8, 2016 Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court No. 15-1319 _________________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado ?(D.C. No. 1:15-CV-01775-WJM-MJW) _________________________________ Stephanie Lindquist Scoville, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Colorado, Denver, Colorado (Cynthia H. Coffman, Attorney General; Frederick R. Yarger, Solicitor General; Matthew D. Grove, Assistant Solicitor General; Ralph L. Carr, Colorado Judicial Center, Denver, Colorado, with her on the briefs) for Defendant - Appellant. David A. Lane, Killmer, Lane & Newman, LLP, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiffs - Appellees. Wendy J. Shea, Assistant City Attorney; Geoffrey C. Klingsporn, Assistant City Attorney; Evan P. Lee, Assistant City Attorney; Cristina Peña Helm,
Denver Occupier Martin Wirth was shot in the back as sheriffs shot each other.
Much as it's comforting to think our Occupy Denver comrade Martin Wirth went out in a blaze of glory, with bank repo henchmen in his gunsights, another truth seems to be emerging from the crime scene report and autopsy. Key details are still obfuscated, such as where were sheriffs deputies when struck by bullets and what caliber ammo were they firing? Evidence made public indicates that deputies fired many shots into Martin's home trying to snipe him at his computer desk. Martin was not hit until he tried to make his escape up the hill out back. Our friend was shot with eleven large caliber hollow-points IN THE BACK. The location of shell casings and penetration trajectories in the house suggest a shootout between someone who came up through the basement garage and others who breached the front door. Neighborhood witnesses have yet to recount in full what they saw. Martin is dead, but we are told the Park County deputies didn't trim their force of enough trigger happy motherfuckers for locals to feel safe contradicting the official version of events. According to the Final Anatomic Diagnoses conducted by a Dr. Galloway for David Kintz Jr, Park County Coroner: Present widely distributed over the back involving the upper; mid; the lower; the left gluteal; and the left upper thigh laterally; are 11 entrance type of large caliber gunshot wounds showing circumferential marginal abrasion Deputies claim Martin was levelling his gun at them when they shot him, except all eleven of their Hydra-Shok bullets struck Martin Wirth in the back. WOUND SUMMARIES: The autopsy reveals eleven entrance gunshot wounds involving the full spectrum of the back with a predominance of the mid-back. The autopsy further reveals five exit wounds involving the lower right neck and the mid and upper chest. A sixth exit wound is located in the upper abdomen, in the midline. At the autopsy, three bullets were retrieved outside the body. One bullet is found in the clothing related to the chest; a second bullet is found under the head while removing the clothing; a third bullet is retrieved from the body bag. Two large caliber bullets are recovered from the right and left anterior chest wall. One large caliber bullet remains deeply embedded in the left pelvis. The extensive internal injuries in this case associated with six anterior exit wounds preclude a precise definition of wound tracts. The crime scene report described where Martin's body was left for hours and the pool of blood beneath him, but does not say where Sheriff's deputy Nate Carrigan was found, nor where two other deputies were injured. The diagram below records where bullets struck Martin's house. If evidence supported the Park County narrative, all the facts would probably be public. Instead we're left to speculate: whether officers sprinkled the home with empty shell casings matching Martin's gun, or if deputies deployed with rifles of the same caliber as Martin's so their rounds could be confused for his. Martin Wirth made
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.
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.
Occupy Denver’s new one finger salute
HILARIOUS! Thanks to "What Happened in Bailey", as FBI agents have put it, Occupy Denver has a new gesture with which to salute police when their cruisers make frequent passes during OD actions. Instead of raising the middle finger, high and defiant, to flip off the cops --NOW what's done is to POINT your index finger, thumb upward, and PUMP, tracking the officers as they pass! DPD had become nonchalant about being disrespected, responding to the bird with "have a nice day". They don't know what to do when protesters mock their deaths under the gunsight of home defender Martin Wirth. As they say: Live by the disproportionate use of force, die by disproportionate use of force.
In Colorado they will kill you for your house. RIP Martin Wirth and assailants.
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.
Occupy Your Liberal Tendencies
"OCCUPY YOUR LIBERAL TENDENCIES". Yeah, it doesn't mean what you think it means. Dems love the slogan because they read it as "embrace liberalism". Iliterate radicals fall for the same misconception. Occupy activists know the concept means to DISRUPT or BLOCK you liberal inclination. This slogan separates those who understood the Occupy Wall Street encampment from hipsters who always look for excuses not to participate when a movement is catching on. To "occupy" a space meant more than inhabiting it, or conquering it. Occupy Wall Street introduced a new definition which meant to inhibit the satus quo's regular function. Interrupt it. We still see "occupy" conjugated as an attachment: "Occupy Homes" or Occupy Sandy Relief, for example. Hopefully the reborn "Occupy Democrats" means to be a thorn in electoral politics, not just a herding mechanism. About the megaphone, I decided to retire it. Confiscated and returned multiple times, it still bore a zip-tie from its last PD property tag, but it only barely survived the last arrest. I considered keeping this bullhorn, or "blowhorn" as Caryn called it- as a momento, but it was more valuable as a trade-in. What good are warrantees when we usually lose bullhorns to the police before they have a chance break? Maybe we're using them wrong. No doubt we're using them short of their full potential.
Occupy Denver shifts night camp to Colfax Ave to confound plaza curfew
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.
Care for the less fortunate
With dusk falling across the skyscrapers of upper Manhattan, Pope Francis implored the city – all cities – to care for the less fortunate. “There are the foreigners, their children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly,” he said. “These people stand at the edges of our avenues, of our streets, in deafening anonymity.”
To the Denver Better Business Bureau: Complaint about DPD Moving & Storage
Dear sir, We are writing to you as a last resort to recover our lost property or to receive compensation. On Sept. 18th of this year we contacted Toni Lopez ( Head Mover) with the DPD Moving & Storage Co. As you can see clearly in the attached video, when the DPD Moving & Storage showed up at our home, there were many more movers than were needed for the task at hand. It's true they were all dressed in company uniform, but it seemed they were a little over-armed for the occasion. Toni Lopez handed my husband the contract for his signature, my husband refused to sign until Lopez gave a cost estimate for the extra help. At that time my husband was overpowered by the movers demanding payment, he was place in one of the moving vans and taken to their office for further negotiations. They are now demanding one thousand dollars before my husband's release from their office. As you can see in the video, many of the movers at our home preformed no task and should not be paid. They left our home with trash scattered everywhere and now claim they have lost all our possessions. Any help you can give in this matter will be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, Freda Farkel
Happy birthday to Occupy Wall Street. 4yrs old & still drawing party crashers (who took everything but the cake).
DENVER, COLORADO- Our #S17 bash for the fourth anniversary of #OWS was interrupted by an eviction, actually the second sweep of the Lindsey Flanigan Plaza that day, where Denver police and SWAT took everything, our inverter, sewing machine, banners, posters, flags, fliers, file cabinet (administration tower #1), even our kitchen sink. Everything but our CAKE!
On its 4th anniversary, Occupy Denver is beating up the Urban Camping Ban. #OWS #S17
DENVER, COLORADO- At 1am last night, the Lindsey Flanigan Plaza Occupiers defended against their twelfth police raid in 30 days, this one a sweep of violations of the city's "Urban Camping Ban". After forcing individual sleepers to stand and feign gathering their things, the police officers left without confiscations, citations, or arrests. The supervising officer admitted that DPD orders are to disrupt the protest camp every night. During the day, police enforce a statute 49-246 allowing the director of public works to designate "encumbrances" on the public right-of-way. Occupy is of course, by definition, an encumbrance. Officers make protesters fold up chairs and umbrellas and threaten to arrest anyone who puts them back up. At night the DPD enforce an ordinance against sleeping in public. The officers make their presence felt, then take off. Meant to make the camping spot less hospitable, homeless participants see through the ruse and swiftly resume their slumber. With who-knows how many HALO cameras focused on us, the plaza is the safest bed in town. The unintended consequence of the nightly raids is that campers oversleep. When the courthouse opens, the public streaming in gets a shocking view of what otherwise goes unseen: homeless sleepers on the concrete.
Occupy Denver caught off-leash again
DENVER, COLORADO- Halo camera operators spotted Lizzie AT LARGE in the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse Plaza on Sunday night. Ten police cruisers arrived to deliver the citation. They stuck around to make other inquiries, someone wouldn't offer ID on command so they put him in handcuffs, he did not consent to a search but they searched him anyway and released him.
Monk gets constipated in public
DENVER, COLORADO- Occupier Adrian "Monk" Morningglory draws unwanted attention at the Lindsey Flanigan Courthouse protest camp as nearby detention center personnel continue to deny activists access to the public bathrooms. Meanwhile the Colorado Attorney General has filed a motion to vacate the injunction barring the enforcement of a court order banning protest in the courthouse plaza. The AG argues that protest denigrates the decorum necessary for a functional justice center, exhibit one, evidence encountered that a protester defecated in Lindsey Flanigan's expensive landscaping. It's unlikely to fly but a Denver chief judge thought he could ban free speech from the entire complex and city administrators behave like it's written in stone: give 'em an inch and they'll shit in your park.
EVICTED! Denver police conduct sixth raid on courthouse protest camp, this time seizing signs, flags & tombstones.
DENVER, COLORADO- Occupy Denver's Jury Nullification Education Protest Camp had gathered steam Labor Day weekend, overnight participation growing to thirty sleepers Monday night, but at 4:30pm Tuesday DPD riot cops swept through the camp in force. Activists were allowed to save only what they could carry. All other items were considered "abandoned" and then removed by the officers as "encumbrances" as outlawed by notices recently posted by DPD. Nearly a hundred police officers in riot gear, including two vehicles carrying SWAT soldiers, swooped upon the Lindsey-Flanigan Plaza encampment when the afternoon camp security team had dwindled to four. Only one camera was on hand to record the police raid. Over the course of 45 minutes, homeless contingents were able to scramble to preempt the DPD confiscating their personal items. Once again the police appear to time their raid when most of the protesters have stepped away. Will Occupy Denver have the stamina and resilience to stand against the constant stealing of its resources? The Occupy Denver participation is already weakened by counterinsurgent strategies to demoralize and marginalize their actions from within. The Denver activist community has seasoned social media promotors and videographers who are being waylaid from assisting the city's highest profile protest since the Occupy movement of 2011. Two arrests that made national news, a court order, a "Plaza Order" amended, a preliminary injunction granted, a contempt of court ruling declined, four more arrests for erecting "encumbrances", then two more. A total of six raids, two evictions, and not a hope that any of the charges will stick. Next the District Attorney will be subpoenaed. Can an action be any more successful?
Occupy Denver to offer amenities for public loos at Lindsey Flanigan Plaza
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.
Police raid Occupy Denver camp, issue citation for having OD leader off-leash.
DENVER, COLORADO- Occupy activists had no sooner retrieved their pop-up canopy, which the Denver police had been ordered to return, and re-erected it, when riot cops marched in again to re-confiscate it! After tearing down the now usual "encumbrances" Friday morning, this time the canopy, table and chairs, and not also the handcart, drums, signs, banners, brochures, water, and personal items, the officers were determined to issue a citation. But for what? Apparently LIZZIE had been spied off-leash on the city's Halo surveillance cameras. Lizzie's owner was not on the scene, but the humble Canis Lupus Coracinus had been entrusted to fellow Occupier Caryn Sodaro, who swore to break pig skulls before she would ever surrender Lizzie to the pigs. Behind the SWAT team and shielded riot cops, two officers were approaching with a black leash. Onlookers have described the strange tiptoeing that's overtaken the latest dances between activists and the DPD, but witnesses to this scene can attest they were bracing themselves for both Caryn and Lizzie's abrupt demise. Fortunately the DPD deescalated and wrote a citation as other Occupiers took photographs of the surreal show of force. The circus, a literal circus, was calculated no doubt to overcome Occupy's well broadcasted Oppositional Defiant Disorder. It's presumed DPD Intelligence knew that Lizzie had been anointed the newest leader of Occupy Denver. Their recordings would also have reflected that we expected she be accorded diplomatic immunity from the city leash law. Lizzie is the successor of Shelby, the border collie who made news in 2011 as the inaugural "leader" of Occupy Denver, when Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper wouldn't accept a leaderless movement.
Eric Brandt sets speed record for First Amendment Jail-to-Freedom-Pipeline
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.
Argonaut Liquor helped city of Denver jail Caryn Sodaro, the DPD’s most vocal critic of police brutality.
DENVER, COLORADO- On Thursday July 30 in Denver Municipal Court, Argonaut Liquor succeeded with what the City of Denver and its violent policemen have been trying to do for years: take down Occupy Denver activist Caryn Sodaro. Earlier this year, Caryn was attempting to film the DPD as they brutalized a handcuffed detainee in the parking lot of the liquor store on Colfax Ave. When store managers couldn't block her camera phone with their hands, they authorized officers to arrest Caryn for trespassing. Of course they had to pretend she'd been warned once before. Yesterday a jury found Caryn Sodaro guilty of trespass, though they heard scant mention of the crime she was trying to document and prevent. It didn't come up and video evidence was snipped to exclude it. Videos from multiple vantage points were excluded and witnesses were not questioned about the brutality they saw. Protesters were characterized as protesting the police, not police VIOLENCE and not protesting to PREVENT IT. In one of the trial's most surreal moments, the city attorneys were trying to admit officer body cam evidence taken of Caryn after her arrest, angrily describing the brutality she witnessed. The prosecutors hoped her coarse language would displease the jury. The defense attorney objected for that reason, even though it would have been the only evidence to explain why Caryn risked arrest, if indeed she knew she was not allowed on the Argonaut lot. The judge disallowed that video in the only ruling she made in favor of the defense. Caryn's protesting activity has been given area restrictions before and friends know how strictly she adhered to them, unconstitutional as they were. Drivers giving her rides had to take detours to keep Caryn geographically safe. When a defense witness tried to add this detail, or that he'd returned often to the Argonaut even while the managers had testified that he too had been "trespassed", the defense attorney cut him off, stopping his own friendly witness with "I ask the questions here." I've seen valiant public defenders, but this free public servant was determined to give Caryn her money's worth. No character witnesses, no context of Caryn's activism, nor even sympathy for her altruism. The argument was restricted to: did Caryn trespass or not, and Argonaut employees perjured themselves claiming that Caryn had been instructed twenty days before that she was "trespassed" from Argonaut's property. That incident was provoked by Caryn being harassed and humiliated by an in-store Argonaut rent-a-cop who followed her to the checkout stand and told her she was "too drunk" to purchase a bottle of wine. He initiated a shouting match, not she, and that's another detail the PD declined to exploit. Did I mention Caryn's public defender opted to forgo his opening statement! The jury was let to assume the case was about a retailer's property rights versus a group of protesters' whim for trespassing. Even when public defenders are brighter than you expect, it's important to remember they don't work for you. Public defenders serve
Occupier Mark Iannicelli charged with jury tampering for distributing fliers about jury nullification at courthouse
DENVER, COLORADO- Soft-spoken activist Mark Iannicelli sits in the Denver County Detention Center tonight, wrongfully arrested for passing out fliers in front of the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse on Monday. Though he and an accomplice had no personal interest in any trial at the municipal courthouse, Mark was charged with JURY TAMPERING, a felony with a minimum bond of $5,000. Mark was disseminating information about JURY NULLIFICATION, technically "know your rights" material, to people entering the courthouse. Jury nullification is an unpopular legal concept with a judicial system meant to crank out fines and jail sentences, but the US Supreme Court has affirmed the right of juries to think beyond their allotted jury instructions and the right of citizens to spread the word about that super-judicial discretion. As Mark was being handcuffed, a passing attorney tried to intervene. Asked if he was Mark's counsel, the lawyer volunteered that he very well might be. Video of the arrest has already been filed with appropriate law offices and as a result Mark has representation. Though he was arrested before noon, as of 11:30pm Mark's fingerprints have not yet "cleared", until which time a bond cannot be posted. Meanwhile Mark's inmate status has changed to "no bond allowed." If these capricious abuses of authority persist beyond 7am, Mark will appear before a judge at 10am Tuesday.