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Two trials and an anniversary: Bonds, Bailey and Mixon
March 25, 2011
AT&T Park shook so hard I thought I was on a pogo stick the night Barry Bonds crushed a 3-2 Mike Bacsik pitch into right center to go past the great Hank Aaron and crown himself Major League Baseball’s all-time home-run king. He circled those bases to a deafening hometown roar.
The Mehserle effect: Vallejo shooting tests era of police accountability
December 24, 2010
In the Bay Area, the veneer of police impunity seems to be thinning even as high-profile cases of police shooting unarmed Black men – in Oakland and nearby Vallejo – continue to occur. Guy Jarreau Jr. was shot and killed by Vallejo police Saturday, Dec. 11. Facing the officer with his hands up, “Guy didn’t have a gun,” said witnesses.
The many faces of Oscar Grant and Mumia Abu-Jamal
November 18, 2010
We are not fooled by the corporate media hype that criminalizes our righteous struggle. We are not fooled by a prison industrial complexed court system acting to protect its own from criminal prosecution! Did not Malcolm X tell us that it would do no good to take the crimes of the criminal to the criminal’s courts?
Police brutality decried by angry, grieving families
October 25, 2010
Angry and grieving family members rallied at the Fruitvale BART station to mark the 15th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. One speaker, Norman Curry, spoke of how his mother was shot point blank by an officer who called her by name, “Anita (Gay).”
Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. returns to the Bay Area
November 6, 2009
POCC Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. will be hitting Northern Cali Nov. 7-13 for the 40th anniversary of the assassination of his father, Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton of the Illinois Black Panther Party, and Defense Captain Mark Clark. Come out to support Chairman Fred, Block Report Radio and the SF Bay View – 7 events in 7 days, in Oakland, Sonoma, Stanford, Pleasant Hill, Santa Cruz, San Francisco.
The POCC presents ‘You Can Kill a Revolutionary ... But You Can’t Kill the Revolution!’ Tour
July 22, 2009
The Prisoners of Conscience Committee is embarking on a six-month tour and education campaign around the planet called “You Can Kill a Revolutionary But You Can’t Kill the Revolution.” The purpose is to educate and re-inform people about the 40th anniversary of one of Black and colonized people’s “September 11ths,” the “Massacre on Monroe,” where the U.S. government by way of the Chicago Police Department assassinated 21-year-old Chairman Fred Hampton and Defense Captain Mark Clark of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, at approximately 4:35 in the morning on Dec. 4, 1969, on the West Side of Chicago.
Family of Oscar Grant celebrates victory, Mehserle to face murder charge
June 5, 2009
A victory in the campaign for justice for Oscar Grant III was celebrated today after the presiding judge, Superior Court Judge C. Don Clay, concluded the preliminary hearing in the trial of Johannes Mehserle by ruling that the former BART police officer will stand trial for murder. June 18 is the date Mehserle is scheduled to appear back in court and declare his plea of guilt or innocence before the full trial begins.
Live from the Mehserle courtroom: an interview with Uncle Bobby, Oscar Grant’s uncle
June 2, 2009
The female BART officer that was on that platform even stated in her testimony that she supposedly feared for her life, and she just knew that she was going to have to shoot somebody or kill somebody that night. Those were her words in court. The judge said: “Hold up. Wait a minute, who were you going to shoot first?”
Wanda’s Picks for May 15
May 15, 2009
Johannes Mehserle’s trial begins Monday, May 18, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Alameda County Courthouse, 12th and Oak Street, in Oakland. A strong community presence has been requested by the Oscar Grant family and allies. A teach in to prepare for the trial is Sunday, May 17, 1-4 p.m., at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. And wish Tatiana Grant happy birthday. She turns 5 on May 16.
Free the Minister of Information JR! Convict killer cop Johannes Mehserle!
May 13, 2009
Everybody out Monday, May 18, 8am-5pm, when the cop who killed Oscar Grant goes to court at 12th & Oak, Oakland, and Thursday, May 21, for Minister of Information JR Valrey’s next hearing in the trumped up felony arson case from Jan. 7, when he was covering the first of three Oakland Rebellions protesting the police murder of Oscar Grant.
Rallying, rioting, rebelling: Revolution
May 12, 2009
George Jackson said, “If terror is going to be the choice of weapons, there must be funerals on both sides … And let the whole enemy power complex be conscious of that!” Or, as Brother Imam Malik Khaba (formerly known as Jeff Fort) put it: “Ain’t gone be no killing, without killing.”
The Town in chaos: an interview wit’ rapper Beeda Weeda
April 9, 2009
While the world was watching downtown Oakland burn up in the aftermath of the police murder of Oscar Grant III, rappers Beeda Weeda and J-Stalin put their social commentary into 16 rhyming bars and came out with the Town masterpiece “We Ain’t Listening,” the remix. Listen at www.blockreportradio.com.
Police 2, Oakland residents 4
March 24, 2009
On March 21, Lovelle Mixon, 26, was murdered by Oakland police after allegedly killing four of them on MacArthur Blvd off of 73rd Avenue in East Oakland. Listen to JR’s Block Report interview with his family – his mother, Athena, his wife, Amara, and her sister, Alicia – broadcast March 30 on KPFA’s Flashpoints at http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/49609.
Caravan for Justice puts Sacramento on notice
March 2, 2009
On Feb. 19, hundreds of people who have been attending town hall meetings in nine cities in and around the Bay Area – motivated by the BART police execution of Oscar Grant III and other critical threats to our communities – made the first of many Caravan for Justice trips to Sacramento.
Two months in: The maturing of the Oscar Grant III Justice Movement
February 28, 2009
‘Since the police murder of Oscar Grant, there has been an awakening of the sleeping giant, the social consciousness of the people,’ writes Minister of Information JR. Call DA Tom Orloff, (510) 272-6222, to demand the charges be dropped against JR Valrey and all protesters. Stay tuned for more on the war against police terrorism in Oakland, birthplace of the Black Panther Party.
Bitter tears, the assassination of Oscar Grant: ‘BARTing while BLACK’
February 4, 2009
RIP Oscar Grant III. You, unarmed, pleading for your life as a young father, at the tender age of 22, while a rogue Bay Area Rapid Transit cop Tony Pirone punches you, then crushes your neck with his knee, shortly followed in his enthusiastic, racist, vicious rage by Officer Johannes Mehserle, who shoots you in the back, murdering you.
Wanda’s Picks for February
February 1, 2009
We want to call the names of those who made their transition in January and offer condolences to their loved ones who have yet to cross that bridge. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that Ave Montague is gone.
Black Power wins a Black president and a white cop charged with murder
January 30, 2009
In the first month of 2009, we put a Black man in the White House with our votes and convinced a DA to charge a white cop with the murder of a Black man with our rebellion. Don’t miss MOI JR’s next Town Bizness Townhall Wed., Feb. 11, 7 p.m., Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine, West Oakland, featuring Ch. Fred Hampton Jr., Martina Davis, Min. Keith Muhammad and more, and come with me to the BART board meeting Feb. 12, 9 a.m., 344 20th St., Oakland.
Weathering the storm: an insider's look at the Justice for Oscar Grant Movement a month later
January 28, 2009
Jan. 23 the movement for justice for Oscar Grant III kicked into high gear at the Prisoners of Conscience Committee’s Town Bizness Town Hall Meeting. Follow up by packing the courtroom at Johannes Mehserle’s bail hearing Friday, Jan. 30, 2 p.m., at 1225 Fallon St., Oakland. Don’t let the cops outnumber us.
Obama’s cross to bear
January 20, 2009
We arrived in Palestine on Jan. 2, the fourth day of the attacks on Gaza and the day after the murder of Oscar Grant III by the subway police in Oakland.
