from Unravel
Philadelphia police are searching for multiple suspects caught on video vandalizing cars in the city’s Fishtown neighborhood back on Friday, March 29.
In the social media video obtained by police, you can see the suspects jumping on hoods of parked cars and kicking in windshields along the 1400 block of Oxford Street. Police say the string of vandalism incidents along Oxford Street happened around 8:30 p.m.
from North American Animal Liberation Press Office
Catawissa, PA, February 21, 2024 –
Fire completely destroys a meat market and deer processing business.
The Valencik family writes: “A devastating fire destroyed the nearly 57 year old deer processing shop at the Valencik farm. It is a total loss and although the building was insured it is not nearly enough to cover everything that was kept inside the entire building.”
Submission
“Are people within prisons/jail/detention the only ones who are expected to engage in material disruption? To take risks? Are we just vessels of emotional solidarity?”
“Where are the vulnerabilities to prison management’s morale and how does one remove the will of guards to endure?”
Security guards protect property. They help the police put people in prisons, they are part of the prison industrial complex. As people attack property private security acts as the auxiliary of the prison and police state. With this in mind as well as reading about the conditions at SCI Rockview we slashed the tires of a Securitas van. This was a small, easy, and replicate-able action that you can do with a friend. We agree with the comrade at SCI Rockview that “an assault on both fronts” is necessary, targets are everywhere. In the amerikkkan hellscape our lives are deeply embedded in the infrastructure of confinement. This is why we chose to attack the security van. Small actions like these can build capacity to be able to break down the prison walls.
Destroy PA-DOC
Fuck security guards
Fire to the prisons
-some anarchists
Submission
There are some dire questions that non-imprisoned abolitionists keep asking, of what solidarity with collective action inside entails. Central among them is: How do we embolden our comrades in prison or jail to feel protected enough, seen enough, and empowered enough to take action when they desire to?
Yet what is less discussed is the question posed in self-reflection: How can we embolden our comrades on the outside (who are willing to take physical risks) to provide forms solidarity that actually give inside demands a little more teeth?
These are questions that shift conversations about strategy from mere activism toward insurgency. As a comrade who was at SCI Rockview last summer writes:
“As prisoners, we can riot & take control of the prison at any time, but that won’t relieve us of this living death. We need our comrades in the world to take the fight out of the halls of legislation & to the prison walls themselves. Only then can we actually end this war. An assault on both fronts would make the difference between us banging on the walls & us breaking them down. When the world sees this, it will show that the facade of invincibility that the system has cultivated over generations of slavery is just that: an illusion.”
To compliment this ask from the inside, we believe it is equally important to attack & disrupt the everyday operations of structures and relations that compose PA-DOC’s instiutional form in ways that strategically compliment inside collective action.
For autonomous attack as abolitionist prisoner support to be decisive and effective, it first means decentering (not ignoring but thinking beyond) the “reified” site/scene of the prison facility itself in our ideas of the terrain of struggle and attack. A prison facility, such as SCI Rockview, is one among many other sites and nodes in a web of structures and social relations that make up PA-DOC’s institutional form. The targets of insurgent outside solidarity through sabotage therefore consist of everything and anything that upholds the reproduction of the prison facility itself or a DOC system from without.
Some questions we may want to ask ourselves in outside support circles include:
One way abolitionists can support people on the inside during a strike is to initiate (and sustain) conflict w/ the state & capital. To either disrupt its logistical operations and/or weaken the regime’s resolve.
One example that comes to mind is during the 2016 nationwide prison strike, which saw sporadic instances solidarity actions that did not abide by codes of non-conflictual demonstration.
For example, ABC Chicago in 2017 writes:
“In the context of prison struggle, a recent example of solid praxis that comes to mind was in Pittsburgh at Allegheny County Jail. About eighty prisoners began a work refusal and released a list of demands that included more case workers, better medical services, and a legitimate grievance procedure. After those on the outside heard of this sit-in, they took to the jail in masks, smashed windows of the jail, a security camera, and several police vehicles. Similar models of solidarity occurred around the September 9th prison strike where people all over the US and even other continents took action in solidarity with those on the inside rising up. This took the form of noise demos and marches, as well as direct attacks on prisons and those who profit off prison… This is a type of solidarity that can produce results.”
Some more questions to consider are as follows:
To bring this strategy to life we not only need comrades who are up for the task of directly attacking in solidarity with inside collective action, but we also need a range of people to take up this cause at the level of research, propagation, and expanding capacity for regional anti-repression work and community care.
We need people who can map the institutional form of PA-DOC. We need people to map the digital communications infrastructure. We need people that understand how the nodes of institutions that make up PA-DOC within Pennsylvania branch out to every corner of the US settler colonial territory, with offices, remote workers, contractors, etc… all within reach of someone who is willing to take action, yet simply needs a map to take part. We also need a more focused effort of people who are not involved in combative actions directly to participate in defending the fire of revolt as it spreads. This can be done by simply organizing letter writing nights to support people in the case that they catch charges for the risks they take. This can also be done by focusing in on building or strengthening networks that provide care and mutual aid within your local spheres of movement and community.
from Scenes from the Atlanta Forest
“We are not special. Our skills are not overly technical or advanced, and our tools are simple to acquire. If you are reading this, you are capable of doing what we do.”
While I agree with this sentiment, the reader is left with many questions about how to develop such a capacity for action, even if they are motivated. What exactly does it take to not get caught carrying out heavy actions like arson? This is especially important in the long run; not getting caught for a single arson is one thing, but being able to continue carrying out attacks in the face of heightened repressive attention is quite another.
For anyone who wants to carry out actions like this, but isn’t doing so yet, I’ve sketched an outline of the steps I think are necessary to sustain hard-hitting attacks on domination (limited to the topic of “operational” considerations, i.e., acquiring skills). This brief outline is intended to orient you and provide a “learning path” — each step has recommended reading that actually goes into the appropriate amount of depth on the subject. Use the Tails operating system to visit these links, which runs from a USB drive and leaves no trace on your computer. What I’ve written here is by no means definitive, and I hope to spark a dialogue about any operational aspects I may have neglected, as well as anything outside this scope that is important for sustaining and intensifying the capacity for action.
For anyone who doesn’t already have an action group, deciding who to act with is the first obstacle to overcome. I prefer to act in groups of two or three; it’s easier to maintain a high level of trust and agility with just a small handful of people. Most actions don’t require more than three participants, and when they do, action groups can collaborate. I prefer not to act alone because some aspects of actions are less risky when there are at least two people (for example, having a lookout).
In deciding who to act with, there is a tension between flexibility and consistency. Acting in several different configurations allows you to develop trust and experience with more people, which makes you more resilient in the face of arrests, burnout, or interpersonal splits. On the other hand, acting in a more consistent configuration can make it easier to develop a higher capacity for action in a shorter period of time.
Action groups only form because someone takes the initiative to propose them to a comrade with whom they want to deepen affinity and trust.
Deciding who to approach in your network should be based on a sense of affinity between you, as this will determine what the action group decides to focus on. Affinity means sharing analysis, discovered through getting to know each other, that leads to prospects for action. It means knowing that you share goals and want to act in similar ways to pursue them.
The long-term exploration and deepening of affinity across a network, beyond a specific action group, opens up many more possibilities for the configuration of action groups to adapt over time, as well as for collaboration between them. I’ve chosen to use the term “action group” rather than “affinity group” to emphasize that affinity exists in many different constellations, each with its own potential.
Recommended reading:
Trust is contextual — you may trust someone to be a good friend, but that is different from trusting them with your freedom. Deciding who to approach in your network should be based on trust that they can live with the possible consequences of their actions without betraying their comrades, even if it means a long prison sentence. Trust is qualitative in a way that can’t be reduced to a simplistic formula. It’s based on an intimate knowledge that can only come from singular experiences within a relationship. However, there are established practices for deepening trust that are still worthwhile.
Recommended reading:
Once there are two or three people who want to experiment with acting together, I recommend starting with actions that do not have particularly serious consequences if you get caught, such as breaking windows. This allows you to assess whether the configuration is a good fit, practice any skills that are new to anyone, establish operational approaches and a good “workflow” for the tasks involved, and develop an interpersonal dynamic that meets everyone’s needs, all in a relatively low-stakes environment. Progressively increasing the intensity of the action also gives you the opportunity to practice moving through fear so that decision-making, communication, and execution in high-stress situations can remain unimpeded.
“Operational security” means the practices that allow you to get away with crimes. I recommend that your action group first discuss each of the highlighted resources at the No Trace Project before taking action, in an outdoor and device-free location. Many of these discussions are well suited for larger affinity constellations than your action group. This will take a considerable amount of time, but an in-depth discussion of these topics will provide a necessary foundation. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that everyone is already on the same page. These conversations will also be an opportunity to discuss how you will prepare for any repression that may result from your actions.
With this foundation in place, you are now in a strong position to begin action planning. As you gain experience, organizing and executing actions will become much more natural. What was initially a lot to keep track of will eventually become second nature. This is another reason why it’s a good idea to start with actions that aren’t particularly risky.
Recommended reading:
Before your action group engages in actions that will be more intensively investigated, it is especially important that you become competent in two operational security practices:
DNA minimization protocols are necessary to avoid leaving evidence at a crime scene. However, these precautions are not perfect, so the action should be conducted in such a way as to leave nothing behind that could have DNA traces on it. I recommend learning and practicing this skill long before you actually need to use it for high-risk actions.
Recommended reading:
If there is no evidence left at crime scenes, and you have established practices that prevent targeted digital surveillance from providing leads, investigators will be forced to use physical surveillance to try to incriminate you. The main goal of physical surveillance is to surveil the suspect during an action (as they did for Jeff Luers), and if that doesn’t work, to surveil the suspect while they are preparing for an action (buying materials, doing reconnaissance, etc.), all the while mapping the suspect’s network to find more suspects.
Detecting physical surveillance is a skill that takes a lot of practice, so I recommend that you start learning it long before you actually need to use it for high-risk actions. If you are ever the target of an investigation, this is the only thing that will prevent the police from following you to an action or preparation for an action.
Recommended reading:
Of course, skills related to action techniques are also important. For example, there are many ways to start a fire. Some are better than others in terms of reliability and effectiveness, but your approach should always be adapted to the specific scenario (target, exit plan, expected response times, etc.). Whatever techniques you end up using, it’s important to stay open to innovation rather than limiting yourself to following a guide.
Action technique is also related to operational security: for example, if you decide that the incendiary device(s) need a delay, it’s critical to be very confident that the delay won’t fail, as this would leave evidence for investigators to take samples from. Thoroughly test its reliability under the same conditions, and build in redundancy by using multiple delays on each device. Depending on the circumstances and terrain, you may even want to make a plan for noticing if any fires don’t start, such as choosing an exit route that provides a line of sight and pausing along it until you see the light of the flames.
Recommended reading:
The next step in developing capacity for action requires going beyond one’s own group. This is where things get really interesting: coordination between autonomous groups allows them to accomplish far more than they could on their own, while their autonomy wards off hierarchy and centralization. Of course, conspiring with more people involves risk and must be balanced with the need for compartmentalization — the need-to-know principle can help here.
Affinity is the strongest foundation for a common project among these groups — while affinity within an action group is based on interpersonal experience, affinity between action groups is based more on affinity with the project than with each other. The long-term search for affinity beyond your action group is what makes this foundation possible. Informal organization can then grow between action groups, which is a model that has been experimented with since the ’70s. Informal organization is born and shaped by the pursuit of specific goals, such as preventing the construction of Cop City through diffuse sabotage. “It doesn’t have a name to defend or assert, only a project to bring about”.
This outline touches on what I think are the minimal steps necessary to develop a capacity for hard-hitting action, limited to the topic of acquiring skills. Much more is needed — learning other skills beyond this baseline, experimenting with informal organization while navigating its challenges, developing analyses to understand the changing terrain, studying the vulnerabilities of domination, and focusing on all the other aspects that contribute to sustaining and intensifying action.
from Unravel
Jan. 31—A crime was committed almost literally in Central Berks Regional Police Department’s own backyard.
On Monday night, a vandal used a baseball bat to smash the windows of a patrol car and the personal vehicle of an officer in the parking lot behind the police station at 2147 Perkiomen Ave. in Mount Penn.
The vandal got away and was “difficult to identify” in security footage.
found on news media
Submission
We attacked two excavators that were demolishing the street dept warehouse in north bartrams. When we arrived we were delighted to realize that someone had already damaged the machines! In addition to smashing the machines, we poured quick-setting concrete into the exhaust pipe of a machine. We choose this method because of its simplicity and ease. The other machine we used various techniques that can be found in warriorup.noblogs.org. Good luck finding what we did!
Submission
The All Out For Gaza demo tonight was a genuine expression of love, solidarity, and rage for Palestinians experiencing genocide at the hands of the occupying forces of the state of Israel. While the spirit of this demo was more inspiring in some ways than most demos in Philly, there was a general vibe that the space was not open to more combative expressions of solidarity. This was due both to the crowd generally not taking part in that, but also the march route being relatively devoid of potential targets. However small though, we take victories where we can get them. During the march I punctured the tires of 2 Septa Transit Police vehicles that the marched passed by. Police are an occupying force in any form and are the enforcers of settler-colonialism. In expressing solidarity with those fighting for their freedom and lives in Palestine, functionaries of a colonial project in support of the state of Israel, such as the U.S, can and should be attacked. Destabilizing individual colonial powers can make the larger project of settler colonialism more and more vulnerable.
Love to and Solidarity with Palestinian people. Fuck the state of Israel and the entirety of the settler-colonial project.
Submission
A military recruitment office in Upper Darby was attacked with paint. We wrote slogans and threw red paint on the facade. Born from our love, grief, and rage, this was a letter to Gaza and those in solidarity with the Palestinian uprising against colonial power. This wasn’t done to only send a message to imperialists, consider it an attempt to warm passersby chilled by the cold logic of genocide. In the face of massive non-disruptive protest, we hope we can inspire others to act more directly and confrontationally. Those pushing imperialism and islamophobia are being watche and can expect resistance.
RIP Ganda, killed by the same Amerikkan imperialism that feels entitled to exploit and kill without repercussion.
For Gaza with love
Submission
On Tuesday, September 26, during the widespread looting, a small group attacked Clarkville. It’s another business that’s gentrifying West Philly and exploits its workers. After hearing about the looting we decided it was an easy way to contribute to the chaos. We read a cool zine called Toward Insurrection, in that zine they talk about anarchists interfacing with the riot. One way to do that is targeting our enemies just outside of where the riots are happening to overextend the police. Hopefully actions like these will grow the general disorder. We encourage other like-minded individuals to take action similar to this one next time.
Death to small businesses
Love to the looters
-some anarchists
from Mainstream Media
The unrest stretched across the city, including Center City, the Northeast, and West Philadelphia.
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Large groups of young people broke into numerous stores across Philadelphia Tuesday night, stealing merchandise and vandalizing property, Acting Police Commissioner John Stanford said.
By midnight, police had arrested more than 20 people, a few of them juveniles, Stanford said, and at least two guns were recovered. The unrest stretched across the city, including Center City, the Northeast, and West Philadelphia, with business corridors along Aramingo Avenue and Walnut Street targeted through the night.
On Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office said at least 30 people, including three juveniles, were being charged so far, most with burglary and theft. One person has been charged with illegal gun possession, she said. Fine Wine & Good Spirits said all of its stores would close until further notice after 18 locations were burglarized overnight.
Initial reports of break-ins near Rittenhouse Square began just after 8 p.m., shortly after protesters had dispersed from a peaceful gathering at City Hall, where marchers called for justice for Eddie Irizarry, who was shot and killed by a Philadelphia Police officer last month. Earlier Tuesday, a judge dismissed all charges against the officer who killed him, setting off a wave of outrage in the community.
Stanford was quick to make clear that Irizarry’s supporters had nothing to do with Tuesday night’s unrest. He called the young people who looted “criminal opportunists” who were not affiliated with the earlier gathering.
“This had nothing to do with the protests,” Stanford said. “What we had tonight was a bunch of criminal opportunists take advantage of a situation and try to destroy our city.”
“It’s disgusting,” he said. “Our city can’t afford this nonsense.”
Irizarry’s family echoed calls for peace Wednesday morning. Irizarry’s aunt, Zoraida Garcia, said vandalism and looting “is not going to bring justice to my family or bring my nephew back.” Her family, she said, “does not condone this type of behavior.”
Garcia asked those who were angry with Judge Wendy Pew’s decision to dismiss the charges against the officer who shot and killed her nephew to “come to the court instead of tearing down our city.” Bring posters and stand in front of the courthouse, she said, “and let’s do this the right way. Fight together for justice.”
The young people involved, Stanford said, appeared to have organized their efforts on social media, and once one group started, others followed suit. He said police believe there was a caravan of cars moving between locations across the city and breaking into stores and pharmacies. Some of the people involved in that group were arrested, he said.
No injuries were reported, Stanford said.
Much of the night was chronicled on social media.
Around 8:15 p.m., videos showed groups of young people gather around the Apple Store near 16th and Walnut Streets and pry the front doors from the security guards’ hands. Shortly after, as the group ran down Walnut Street, the devices were locked and disabled by security technology and a loud alarm started sounding. Some people smashed the devices on the ground and police recovered a “pile of iPads” abandoned nearby.
The groups also broke into Foot Locker and Lululemon, and videos showed numerous teens fleeing the store with clothing. Officers attempted to apprehend some of them, and tackled a few to the ground.
Police had cleared and secured the Rittenhouse area by 9:10 p.m., and locked down a four-block stretch.
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Police later reported stores being vandalized along Aramingo Avenue in Port Richmond and other locations in North Philadelphia.
One woman livestreamed dozens of people breaking into a Fine Wine & Good Spirits store. Her video stream ended when, as she drove away, police appeared to pull her car over.
Just before midnight Tuesday, Stanford said the unrest had been contained “for the most part.”
Officers, he said, were still responding to some emergency calls, and have been instructed to arrest all those involved at the scenes.
“We will continue to make arrests until we have all the individuals … that have been responsible for what we see tonight in custody.”
Tumar Alexander, the city’s managing director, called the unrest “disrespectful to the Irizarry family,” who have repeatedly called for peace amid their cries for justice.
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The business corridors affected Tuesday night were similar to those targeted in the summer of 2020, after tensions between police and communities rose after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Philadelphia was one of dozens of cities across the country to experience mass unrest; some stores through Center City were burned down, and parts of West and North Philadelphia were heavily looted and vandalized.
Community outrage rose anew just a few months later, in October 2020, when Philadelphia police shot and killed Walter Wallace Jr., who was wielding a knife while experiencing what his family said was a mental health crisis. Protests again broke out across West Philadelphia, and some businesses were vandalized.
from Unoffensive Animal
18th September, PA, USA
received anonymously via email:
“dear mink murderer stahl, fur commission secretary:
i saw your mink prison recently and was not impressed. you have dozens of sheds but so many are falling apart. thankfully your operation seems to have gotten smaller over the years. when will you learn that animal abuse isn’t worth it?
people like me will continue to visit you at 4130 pennsylvania 890 sunbury, pa 17801, which i found on finalnail.com. a recent communique on animalliberationpressoffice.org inspired me to visit, document what was happening, and liberate as many mink as possible. people need to see the filthy & cramped conditions where these territorial & genetically wild animals are kept up to four in a single cage. and the joy that is possible when they experience freedom.
when the cage latches were opened the mink jumped out to experience their first steps in grass and mud. i hope most have escaped to freedom and no more animals are ever imprisoned and slaughtered here again. whatever happened after i left i hope it was expensive.
the fur industry is hurting. great. profits are already at record lows and we can make it cost more than ever to continue breeding animals to steal their fur.”
Submission
Last week a work party painted over all the new cameras at the entrance to Bartram’s North. (A)
