Pete Eyre of CopBlock.org and I had the honor of being the Non-Political Activism Panel at Liberty Forum 2013. Hope you find our discussion useful. We cover a lot of activism types and ideas in an hour’s time:
Yesterday I delivered a presentation entitled CopBlock: Policing the Police with Alternative Media during the first block of panels kicking off the sixth annual All Power to the Imagination conference at New College of Florida. There may be video emerging soon, for now you can tune in to the audio on the Sound Cloud:
It has been over three years since the face-fracturing beating of Christopher Micklovich by four off duty Manchester police officers, and today it was announced that there was ultimately an admission of culpability from the city. For $200,000, a federal civil rights lawsuit was withdrawn by the plaintiff, with city risk manager Harry Ntapalis revealing that the case was settled privately and was paid off in May of last year. The Union Leader has the story.
The Attorney General’s distasteful exoneration of the four officers, as well as the killing of James Breton in front of his daughter in May of 2011 was what inspired a police accountability rally at the former MPD station house on June 4 of that year. The demonstration against police violence became a demonstration of petty police violence, as around a dozen cameras were confiscated and eight people were kidnapped for offenses such as chalking, standing near chalk, and not following illegal orders fast enough. The Chalking 8 incident only proved the protesters’ point.
How Micklovich’s search for justice in his case snaked through the law enforcement bureaucracy before being resolved by the city further illustrates how detached from responsibility individuals in law enforcement are. Taxpayers are the source of both police salaries and plaintiff payoffs, yet legal immunity shields those tax recipients who are directly culpable from any restitution obligation.
LRN.FM is cosponsoring a contest with CopBlock.org and CheckpointUSA.org. You could win a Veho Muvi Gumball 3000 Special Edition MUVI HD Camcorder for your video entry that best demystifies roadblocks. Get details here. Here’s Pete announcing the contest:
A handful of panels featured at the 2013 New Hampshire Liberty Forum were recorded for Free Concord, and raw footage continues to appear on Fr33manTVraw. Embedded below is Pete Eyre presenting on the project of CopBlock.org that he co-founded in 2010. He offers solid advice from an experienced activator. Check out the playlist set for links to other videos from the weekend in Nashua as they publish.
Today I was made aware from KPD Officer Jason Short that removing the chalk that the parking enforcement officers put on a parked vehicle’s tires is a class b felony. I was given a piece of paper, pictures below, with the applicable RSA.