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Enough already with tasers for San Francisco police!
April 13, 2013
San Franciscans working from 2004 to 2013 to keep tasers out of SFPD officers’ hands as they “talk down” people in public crisis are today celebrating SFPD Chief Greg Suhr’s Wednesday, April 10, decision to drop his “less lethal” taser proposal for San Francisco cops. Idriss Stelley Foundation Program Director Jeremy Miller affirmed: “The Police Commission should be commended for engaging this issue seriously in a manner that befits their political responsibility. Tasers torture and kill. They are unaccountable weapons for unaccountable officers. But it was the people of San Francisco who forced Suhr’s hand.”
Taser community forums raise unanswered questions
March 30, 2013
Police Chief Greg Suhr and the SF Police Commission finally scheduled and held the required community forums, where Suhr and Comdrs. Richard Corriea and Mikail Ali described the Electronic Control Weapon (ECW) proposal and invited community input. This updated story includes a report on the Tenderloin community forum, organized by residents. All testimony was anti-taser.
ACLU opposes SFPD taser deployment
January 5, 2013
A Dec. 4, 2012, ACLU letter to SF Mayor Ed Lee urged rejecting any SFPD proposal “to deploy tasers or other conductive energy devices”. The letter emphasizes that costly tasers would generate heavy legal fees from officer overuse and abuse, posing serious injury and death risks, especially to SFPD’s targeted populations: people in public mental health crisis and people of color.
San Francisco Mental Health Board passes ‘no tasers’ resolution 9-2
November 20, 2012
At its Wednesday, Nov. 14, meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Department of Public Health, 101 Grove St., Room 300, the San Francisco Mental Health Board will welcome public comment before voting on a resolution against putting tasers in SFPD Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officers’ hands.
SFPD chief invites the community into the taser debate, shuts down people of color!
October 31, 2012
Police Chief Greg Suhr scheduled six community forums in September and October to discuss tasers replacing guns in mental health crisis situations. When a citizen group kept showing up at hearings asking questions about hundreds of taser deaths and maimings and supporting SFPD Crisis Intervention Team training in verbal de-escalation, Chief Suhr cancelled the community forums.
SFPD facing people in crisis: No gun, no taser! Talk ‘em down
September 29, 2012
People in crisis appear to have become the rationale for equipping police officers with so-called “non-lethal” tasers in addition to lethal weapons – guns. Concerned citizens acknowledging taser lethality seek to re-direct the SFPD from weaponry to a focus on verbal de-escalation techniques, especially appropriate in talking down people in mental health crisis.
Wells Fargo threatens foreclosure leader Archbishop King’s home – auction postponed again to July 20
June 20, 2012
Thanks to all who called Wells Fargo or went to City Hall on behalf of Archbishop and Marina King. Wells Fargo removed the home from the auction list on the morning of June 21, several hours before the public auction. Wells Fargo is currently reviewing the Kings’ case for modification a second time. Until a real agreement can be reached, the Kings and their supporters are planning to block the auction July 20 at City Hall. Call Grace Martinez at ACCE for more information at (415) 377-6872.
Banksters beware: Archbishop King’s on a mission to save his community and his own home
April 19, 2012
Says Archbishop King: “I’m more concerned about my neighbor or his grandmother who labored in the shipyard to get these houses – living clean, doing right and being honest, hardworking people on the principles they brought from the South. … Thousands of people were illegally foreclosed and evicted from their homes by a bank that had no authority or right to do that.” Sign the Change.org petition to save Archbishop King’s home.
Stop Wells Fargo from foreclosing, evicting Kathryn Galves
March 22, 2012
The Occupy the Auctions and Evictions Campaign has put out an urgent action alert to the public to help stop Wells Fargo’s eviction of 63-year-old African American foreclosure and eviction fighter Kathryn Galves, her elderly sister and their dog from her San Francisco Noe Valley home at 1164 Church St.
Foreclosure fighters and occupiers
March 7, 2012
At his ground-breaking Feb. 15, 2012, press conference, San Francisco Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting announced “the first audit of foreclosure records in the state of California.” This nationally publicized report revealed that laws were not followed and that the neighborhood hit the hardest was “the Southeast part of town, which is very diverse, probably the lowest income area of San Francisco.”
Can police raids stop Occupy Oakland or SF?
November 1, 2011
On Oct. 16-17, SFPD conducted a brutal raid on the Occupy San Francisco encampment. Videographers recorded police stepping on backs, dragging protestors and striking them with batons. Before police dispersed, tents reappeared. San Francisco occupiers joined the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality in a short Bayview march protesting unrelenting police assaults on residents.
Inside a housing takeover
July 29, 2011
For 17 hours – 4:45 p.m. Monday, July 4, until 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, July 5 – San Francisco Homes Not Jails took direct action conducting a second open housing occupation at the long-empty Mission District Sierra Hotel.
Sidewalks are still for people, Harvey Milk!
June 23, 2011
On Sidewalks are for People Day, May 22, the people decided to reclaim San Francisco sidewalks. Then Berkeley folks asked, “Can we do that too?” Then Portland folks were like, “We’ll do something simultaneously.”
Partisan resistance: Anatomy of a takeover at a health care corporation
May 23, 2011
On Monday, April 11, in San Francisco, I felt it was not a romantic notion that my videographer Scott and I were embedded among partisan guerrillas deep in enemy territory. We were all joined together in a viciously difficult corporate class war.
Global and local people power unites
March 16, 2011
Crying “Have a Heart, Save Our Homes,” a large Bay Area coalition marched in a driving rain from City Hall to the San Francisco Federal Building – Causa Justa/Just Cause, San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE and many more.
Why did SFPD shoot Randal Dunklin in his wheelchair?
January 29, 2011
As the police continue to shoot unarmed and mentally disabled people, including a man in a wheelchair, the community is speaking out against these incidents of excessive force. On Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan. 17, about 150 San Franciscans and Bay Area activists expressed their outrage with a march and rally in San Francisco.
Black Friday 2010 ‘Housing Harvest’ occupation
December 6, 2010
On Black Friday 2010, at 16th and Mission in San Francisco, Creative Housing Liberation held a “Housing Harvest” rally with songs and speeches followed by a tour of four vacant neighborhood properties. Creative Housing Liberation would like to invite “all kinds of folks, including families,” to be involved in future housing occupations and demonstrations.
Civil sidewalks or civil rights?
October 30, 2010
At a meeting with the Coalition on Homelessness, Police Chief George Gascon confided he knew a sit/lie law was unnecessary “scapegoating” (Gascon’s word), but he was under tremendous pressure from Haight Street businesses to promote it. Many Haight merchants, however, oppose sit/lie, Prop L.
World Homeless Day: San Francisco’s Leslie Hotel takeover
October 14, 2010
On Sunday, Oct. 10, from 4 to 7 p.m., in coordination with World Homeless Day, a spontaneously organized group, Creative Housing Liberation, came together to help kick off a rally with speakers and music at San Francisco’s Civic Center in the shadow of City Hall, the Mayor’s Office and the Board of Supervisors’ chambers.
Are SFPD officers stalking Nation of Islam security head?
April 11, 2010
Community outrage over Florida-based developer Lennar sending an armed ex-SFPD officer to a meeting where a scientist invited by the EPA was criticizing a controversial report favoring Lennar’s massive development plans for Hunters Point will be aired on Monday, April 12, at a 9 a.m. hearing in the Legislative Chamber, Room 250, of San Francisco City Hall. Don’t be tricked. The meeting time was advanced from 10:30 to discourage attendance. Please be there!