Racist Vigilantes Gather to Defend Columbus Statue

  • June 14, 2020 12:50 am

From Twitter

Racist vigilantes gathering with bats and guns at the statue of Christopher Columbus at Columbus Square in South Philadelphia, some of them just assaulted our reporter
 
Several guns, bats and sticks carried by white vigilantes here at Columbus square in South Philly to “protect” the Columbus statue. Police have been visibly quite friendly with this group

 
This man in first photo is who initiated the group assault on our reporter – he noticed he was being filmed and instantly bee-lined for us to demand we stop filming him. As he left, police passively watched him strike our reporter’s bike with a metal bat.
 

About 100 almost exclusively white vigilantes our by Columbus Statue at Marconi Plaza in Sourh Philly. When police arrived after we were assaulted, one cop accused us of instigating the crowd.

 

This man by the Columbus statue at Marconi Plaza is armed with some kind of rifle

The crowd of aggravated South Philly Italian Columbus statue defenders applaud and cheers for the police as some officers leave the area
 
More agitated white men with bats and sticks are continuing to arrive at Marconi Plaza outside the Columbus statue. Philly Police faced some backlash recently after they appeared to tolerate and endorse similar activity in Fishtown on the north end of the city recently.
 
South Philly Columbus statue enthusiasts got very upset once again when police told them they aren’t allowed to physically stop us from filming them
 
Most of the all-white crowd at Marconi Plaza now seems mostly interested in confronting our lone reporter on the scene. Many invitations have been given to engage in hand-to-hand combat. As journalists we are obliged to decline!
 
We are no longer able to document the ongoing, escalating Marconi Plaza South Philadelphia vigilante incident after @PhillyPolice ordered us to leave or be arrested. We were told we no longer had the right to document this event.
 
Before incidents shown in this thread, we spoke w some ‘statue defenders’ about why they were there. Many said the statue represented Italian heritage. Some justified Columbus’ rape and slavery etc by saying “the natives were savages”. Others denied these atrocities took place.
 
Many people present at the statue who confronted our reporter accused him of being from out of town/not from South Philly and of being racist against Italian people. Ironically, our Philly reporter Chris Schiano lives in South Philadelphia and comes from an Italian family.
 
Shortly before @PhillyPolice ordered us to cease our on-site reporting under threat of arrest, the crowd was cheering as a man with a Trump 2020 flag arrived. Police were also shaking hands with some of the white vigilantes as this was happening.
 
Going back over our footage and stills of this incident – we observed at least 2-3 open carried long rifles, and overheard that many present were concealed carrying. Some showed up with improvised weapons, like this man who was standing alone with a golf club.
 

Cameras Sabotaged for June 11

  • June 13, 2020 12:47 am

Submission

On June 11, international day of solidarity with anarchist prisoners, as a small act against policing and imprisonment we cut the wires of nine security cameras in a concentrated area. We want to remind prisoners that they are with us in the struggle against white supremacy and police.

Let’s keep things conflictual, forever fuck cops, towards a world with no prisons!
(A)

Local Police Information

  • June 11, 2020 5:01 pm

from Instagram

There are 796,000 police officers in the US in 17,000 police departments. 85% are men and 77% are white, average age 39, average yearly salary of $69, 036. You could think of cops as a militarized white men’s club with all the makings of patriarchy, weaponized white privilege and a culture of loyal brotherhood. The police are also occupiers of oppressed communities, enforcers of systematic inequality. In some communities during a medical emergency cops may be your best bet getting to the hospital. Or you could just consider them all bastards.



New Encampment on the Parkway

  • June 11, 2020 4:52 pm

from Instagram 

Yesterday Morning @occupypha and @workers_rev_collective set up an encampment at 22nd and the Parkway. Help out and be on the lookout for supply needs! Reminder that should you go that you are a guest- these are peoples lives. To donate: $wrevolutionary CashApp or http://www.wrc.life/donate/ list of demands will be written out in the comments .


from Twitter

Supplies are needed at the Workers Revolutionary Collective encampment ASAP, especially tents! Come out toVon Colln Memorial Field at the intersection of Spring Garden & Pennsylvania.

 

Philly Summer Skillshare Rescheduled

  • June 11, 2020 4:49 pm

from Instagram

Initially postponed due to covid, we feel the urgency to reschedule in light of the rent political climate. We’re looking for people interested in giving skill building workshops around the themes of revolutionary struggle. We’re planning an all-day event with the intentions of strengthening our individual and collective capacities to survive, heal, build, attack, imagine, and live in anti-cop, anti-capitalist, & anti-authoritarian ways.

Expect free food, literature, blocs of workshops alongside informal and spontaneous learning and hanging.

If you’re interested in presenting a workshop please send us a brief description of what you have in mind and how it connects to the themes. We’re looking for workshops to be more or less an hour long.

Please send your proposals to hereandnowzines@riseup.net

We’re also looking for help with setup/breakdown, food, and accessibility, so if you want to lend a hand please reach out.

See you in the streets!
Here & Now Zines

Deadline for Submissions July 1st, Skillshare date July 25th rain dates July 26 Aug 1

 

Racist Reaction to Protests and Rioting

  • June 10, 2020 10:44 am

From It’s Going Down

[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]

Posses of white vigilantes have been springing up across the United States in response to recent anti-police protests. While some of these groups are explicitly connected to existing far-Right organizations, just as many appear to be composed of reactionary white vigilantes previously unaffiliated with any particular far-Right groups.

In Philadelphia, a posse of men armed with baseball bats and rifles was seen patrolling the streets and posing for photos with local police officers. Though one of them was wearing a Three Percenter sweatshirt, it is unclear if they were all militia-associated.

Also in Philadelphia, a group of three paramilitary snipers were photographed on top of a Gamestop. Philadelphia Proud Boy Zach Rehl, who organized the November 2018 “We the People” rally alongside several militia groups, appeared to take credit for them, saying “We had some guys up on a roof” on a National File appearance. Meanwhile, Rehl, along with fellow Proud Boys Sonny Sullivan and Aaron Kitchell, posted photographs of themselves in the Philadelphia Proud Boys Telegram channel dropping off refreshments for the police.

Political Prisoner and Prison Rebel Birthdays for June

  • June 4, 2020 3:03 am

from It’s Going Down

[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire articles follow the above links.]

Inspired by the spirit of the Political Prisoners Birthday crew, here’s a short listing of some rebel prisoners who have upcoming birthdays in June.

For an introduction on how to write to prisoners and some things to do and not to do, go here. If you have the time, please also check IWOC’s listing of prisoners facing retaliation for prison strike-related organizing.

June also sees the International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners on the 11th, and the Day of Solidarity with Eric King on the 28th, so you may want to do something to mark those dates.

Happy birthday to former Wikileaks/Anonymous-related prisoner Matthew DeHart, who’ll be celebrating in freedom this year, RIP to Tom Manning, whose birthday would have been this month, and congratulations to Spanish anarchist prisoner Amadeu Casellas, who was provisionally freed in May.

Much as I hate to see even more of our lives and communications being enclosed by tech companies, it seems inescapable at the moment, so for anyone who doesn’t want to leave their house to buy stamps/cards/envelopes or to send mail, a reminder that many prisoners can be contacted electronically, via Jpay or similar services.

Jarreau Ayers

Vaughn Uprising prisoner, one of the only two prisoners from the Vaughn 17 to be convicted. As one write-up put it, “Jarreau Ayers and Dwayne Staats, already incarcerated under the hopeless sentence of life without parole, took it upon themselves to admit to involvement to prevent the rest of their comrades being found unjustifiably guilty, which led to success – not guilty verdicts or their charges being dropped.” You can learn more about Jarreau in his own words here and here.

Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility”, choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections”, going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “NS9994”.

Birthday: June 15

Address:

Smart Communications / PA DOC
Jarreau Ayers – NS9994
SCI Huntington
PO Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL, 33733

Doxx: Joshua Knarr, Right Wing Death Squad Member in Norristown PA

  • June 3, 2020 12:46 am

from It’s Going Down

[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above links.]

Antifascist researcher We Will Be Ruthless have identified Norristown, Pennsylvania resident and Right Wing Death Squad member Joshua Knarr. RWDS became a far-right meme in 2018, and in response to the popularity of the meme, a Facebook group was created. According to the dox, Knarr has been involved with the RWDS Facebook group since January 2020 and posts frequently.

In his posts, Knarr refers to Black people as “farm equipment”, makes jokes about Jewish people and the Holocaust, reminisces about fascism and supports “rapewaffen”, a neo-Nazi accelerationist tactic that has been promoted by neo-Nazi groups like Atomwaffen as a way to send (accelerate, if you will) civilization into a race war.

His posts also include anti-Asian sentiment, Nazi nostalgia, and general racism and even mocks the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, who died at the hands of three white men. Knarr also participates in discussion around the indoctrination or “red-pilling” of younger people through Minecraft servers. He also occasionally posts memes that originate in eco-fascist and accelerationist terrorist circles.

Joshua Knarr is currently employed at Envestnet, a wealth management firm. You are encouraged to contact them via their twitter account, as well as reaching out to Envestnet CEO Bill Crager and President Stuart DePina. You can also reach out via email to the media relations team: media@envestnet.com.

Updates on George Floyd Protests, Riots, Repression, and Reaction

  • June 2, 2020 3:01 am

from Instagram

Today the cops and the racists waged war. A very unrowdy, chill march had a deluge of teargas leveled at them by the hands of state and city police agents from both the ground and helicopter as they tried to disperse. If you don’t know your history, in 1985 the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb via helicopter on a residential block of West Philadelphia then shot people trying to flee the ensuing fire, murdering 11 MOVE members and burning down 61 homes. Helicopters and weapons targeting us here, that’s a trauma that hits HARD.

To make things more terrifying today, bands of white people were encouraged by the PPD to arm themselves and patrol the streets, beating the hell out of a number of folks with baseball bats, and then congratulated by the police. We did our best to support who we could, and will continue, but the horror of today was beyond words… #georgefloyd #blacklivesmatter

from Instagram

Another day of Philadelphia Uprising. People are still standing off across Philadelphia. In west philly police tear gassed the surrounding neighborhood of 42nd and market so we made this guide about tear gas. Send this to all your west philly friends. Love and Rage. .

from Twitter

After hearing several reports that Philly cops were “warning” white residents that “antifa is coming”, about 50 – 150 all white men gathered around Girard and Berks and started heading west down Girard. At least three reported by assaults by them.
This guy attacked street medics who were helping another person they attacked.
Some footage of them marching down Girard. They are being protected by Philly police, who seem to have intentionally instigated their violence
Please share more pics and videos if you have them. Make sure your comrades and loved ones are aware. As always, it’s on us to defend ourselves from violent white supremacists.