Philly ABC April Letter Writing to Janet and Janine Africa

  • March 27, 2018 3:30 pm

from Facebook

On 04/02/18 Philly ABC will be hosting a letter writing event to Janet and Janine Africa, 2 members of the MOVE 9. Please join us in writing letters to these rad folks.

” The August 8, 1978, police attack on MOVE followed years of police brutality against MOVE and was a major military operation carried out by the Philadelphia police department under orders of then-mayor, Frank Rizzo. Mayor Rizzo’s reputation for racism and brutality was and is well known–it followed him up through the ranks of the police department to the police commissioner’s office to the mayor’s office.

During this attack, heavy equipment was used to tear down the fence surrounding our home, and cops filled our home with enough tear gas to kill us and our babies, while SWAT teams covered every possible exit. We were all in the basement of our home, where we had 10 thousand pounds of water pressure per minute directed at us from 4 fire department water cannons (for a total of 40 thousand pounds of water pressure per minute). As the basement filled with nearly six feet of water we had to hold our babies and animals above the rising water so they wouldn’t drown. Suddenly shots rang out (news reporters and others know the shots came from a house at 33rd and Baring Street, not our home, because they actually saw the man shooting) and bullets immediately filled the air as police throughout the area opened fire on us. Officer James Ramp, who was standing above us on street-level and facing our home, was killed by a single bullet that struck him on a downward angle…Nine of us were charged with murder and related charges for the death of James Ramp.” (http://onamove.com/move-9/)

Help NJ Activist Resist Police Repression

  • March 23, 2018 12:38 pm

from You Caring

During the summer of 2017 Linette was wrongfully accused and arrested for vandalism in South Jersey. Linette is being wrongfully targeted by police due to their leadership as an activist against police violence and repression. Linette’s ongoing legal battle is becoming increasingly difficult and they need your help.

Linette has been denied for Pre Trial Intervention four times and is now facing five misdemeanors of criminal mischief and the possibility of a minimum of 5 or more years of jail time. In order to be accepted into the Pre Trial Intervention program, which would in turn drop all of Linette’s charges, Linette needs to pay $30,000 of restitution. Friends of Linette are trying to raise $15,000 to help mitigate the cost for Linette’s family.

If Linette cannot raise this money by April 20th 2018 the case will unfortunately go to trial. Because Linette is already a target for police the likelihood of the court system making and example of them is extremely high. If you oppose police repression, support activism, or believe in freedom of speech and expression please give to Linette’s fund. Keeping activists out of prison and in the communities where they are doing the work is critical to upholding justice, we can’t do it without you!

[Donate Here]

Signals of Disorder in West Philly

  • February 10, 2018 10:42 am

Submission

Took these photos over the last few weeks.



Reportback from the Eagles riots: A chance for solidarity, but more importantly, a chance for Joy.

  • January 25, 2018 1:03 am

Submission

On January 21st, we took the opportunity to take part in the temporary autonomous spaces created by the post victory fervor of thousands of football fans. Realizing that the soon to be victory of the Eagles was an ample time for us to strike back against the domination of civilization, the police, and the prison walls built by our own deteriorating mental, we met up with friends outside of Lincoln Financial field with the intention of freeing ourselves, albeit temporarily. We joined up with fellow members of the continuous class war in their celebration, singing, chanting, lighting fires, and using this opportunity to attack ATMs and throw a little bit of art on the dismal walls of south Philadelphia. We moved down broad street with a roving party that the Philly PD just couldn’t seem to shut down.

After the pigs threatened an individual with noise violations for playing music to the crowd, the atmosphere took a more exciting turn. South Philly sports fans who normally shrieked about the thin blue line became agitated at who they viewed as their protectors. We took this opportunity to begin chants such as “Fuck the Patriots” and “Fuck Tom Brady” which many didn’t notice quickly became abbreviated to “FTP” and “Fuck 12” (Brady’s number). The crowd began to swell, with people leaving and even more left their homes to join the party and follow what soon became an autonomous, spontaneous anti police demonstration.

We made our way to city hall where our moving party joined up with an even larger group, the smell of smoke and alcohol filled the air and the distinct sounds of chanting bellowed in our ears, drowning out the orders of the Philly PD. With growing anger, the police attempted to clear the street. We used this opportunity to use the hundreds of bottles littering the streets as projectiles, with many others soon following our lead. The riots moved slowly, untamed by the police as people continued to share their joy and release their rage against the city through attack. More and more riot cops materialized from the side streets as someone with a speaker played NWA’s “fuck the police” to the excitement of many within the crowd. We continued to throw projectiles, light things on fire, and paint the walls with many other folks, most of whom we had never struggled against domination with, but whom we certainly hope to have at the barricades with us in the future. The crowd moved towards 15th and JFK and eventually dispersed. At this time, we are unsure of anyone arrested for taking part in this spontaneous riot.

This action was super great for us and hopefully for the hundreds of others who took to the streets at our sides. It was a beautiful change of pace to strike back in such a low stress environment on such a large scale without the traditional cover of the black block. As insurrectionary anti-authoritarians, we’re far too aware of how damaging to our mental health the institution that is the state is, and how little we get to exercise our rage to the capacity we would like to. This battle in the on going class war was extremely refreshing, and most importantly it was fun. By striking back, we were reminded of the level of joy only experienced when we make our executioners fear us, to watch the uncertainty and terror that manifests in their eyes when they realize that they’ve lost control. We are reminded that within the chaos, we can be free. Most importantly, we are reminded of our own power and that class war and insurrection will never be a few small groups taking actions, but a writhing unstoppable horde of love and rage.

 

We took these actions in memory of all our comrades across this dying world who are no longer with us and those who are slowly slipping from our embrace, whether it be from toxic institutions pushed onto them, or ones they’ve summoned for themselves. A riot will always carry the ghosts of our losses, and our hopes for a world we hope to see one day. For this reason, we view every attack as a eulogy, and a chance for inspiration. We hope to see y’all in the streets February 4th.

Fuck Cops, Go Birds

Anti-Police Intervention at Women’s March

  • January 20, 2018 9:56 pm

from Facebook


This banner was put up today after the Women’s march!

The order of police protection was a threat to trans folk and women of color.
Paying the state for your resistance march is not RESISTANCE in any shape or form, just mindless liberals pretending that they’re actually making a difference. The use of direct action is absolutely necessary for resistance.

Your kitty ears and signs are useless.
Go smash a bank window and kick a nazi in the nuts, ladies.

Shout-out to Philly Rebellion for a sick demo today.

The Cinema Committee Reflects on 2017 from Belarus to Philadelphia

  • January 20, 2018 10:52 am

from It’s Going Down

[Video Here]

We’ve all heard the story before. People still tell it from the moldering dankness of their mom’s basement. It goes like this: George Soros contacts The Anarchist Antifa Supersoldiers and hands over bulging bags thick with gold in exchange for doing his bidding. Interesting story, right? Well, turns out plenty of shitholes on the internet tell it nearly every week. Since we can’t seem to convince anyone that we’re broke a a joke, and since everyone is calling everyone else a Russian spy, we thought it appropriate to celebrate our current predicament by weaving it all together in a simple and clear narrative. Contrary to popular reports, the international anarchist movement is beholden to neither George Soros or Vladimir Putin. All flags look the same to us. Every country is our homeland.

While the techno-overlords continued to blast the San Francisco Bay Area with their continuously stoked housing crisis, several individuals found it wise to begin burning down luxury housing developments in the city of Oakland. These fires began in 2016 and continued into 2017, each of them completely destroying their targets and costing ten of millions of dollars. The latest was in July when a luxury apartment block caught fire in the heart of Downtown Oakland. These arsons have been wisely left unclaimed by their authors. With the housing and homeless crisis plainly visible for all to see, the sight of burning luxury apartments is a simple message difficult to misinterpret.

Across the continent in Philadelphia, the local anarchist movement has grown quite strong in the past years and become popular for organizing and marching against Trump. Since the fall of 2012, local anarchists have printed their paper Anathema and chronicled events in their city and beyond. With housing costs rising and homelessness increasing, some individuals found it wise to sneak into some luxury developments and torch them to the ground. This arson took place in the Point Breeze neighborhood in 2017 and garnered wide attention in the local media. In another act of rebellion, a group of fifty people rampaged through a series of new developments and trashed everything that reeked of luxury. These two events happened within weeks of each other and sent a clear message against this new luxury development most liberals view as normal. Because of the fluid and toxic news cycle of our current era, few people remember these important activities outside of Philadelphia.

Black December

  • December 3, 2017 11:01 pm

Submission

Because we are internationalists, and recognize no borders, we want to share this call locally. But to add further context, it was on December 15th, 2014 that Brandon Tate-Brown was murdered by two police officers here in Philly. According to members of his family, Tate-Brown was really murdered for “driving while black.”

A witness who approached the officers after the shooting said one told him they stopped Tate-Brown “for a vehicle that was described in a robbery earlier.” But an Officer Heng Dang, involved in the murder, told Internal Affairs investigators that he pulled over Tate-Brown because he drove with just his daytime running lights on. The Police Department has also maintained that Tate-Brown was shot as he reached into the passenger side of his car, possibly trying to retrieve a stolen, loaded, hidden handgun Officer Nicholas Carrelli claims to have spotted earlier jammed into the center console. But in his statement to Internal Affairs, Carrelli said he opened fire when Tate-Brown ran around the trunk of the Charger, “before he gets to the roof of the car.”

Worldwide: Call for a Black December!

Received and translated by Insurrection News on 01.12.17:

With the anarchist Sebastián Oversluij in our memory, four years since his death in combat in Chile during an attempted bank expropriation in December 2013.
With swollen hearts, remembering the anarchist comrade Alexandros Grigoropoulos, seven years since he was murdered in Exarcheia, Greece by police bullets in the year 2008.
For a Black December!
While democratic and civilized totalitarianism advances, expanding its control and surveillance mechanisms, devastating territories, attacking liberated spaces and hunting down insurgents throughout the world, imposing punishments and long sentences of imprisonment against the enemies of domination.
While in Italy our comrades are launching blasphemous attacks against the judges and reaffirming their anarchist convictions during the trial by the repressive operation Scripta Manent.
While thousands of prisoners in struggle are mobilizing in Greece in response to the attempts of the power to asphyxiate prisoners with a new penitentiary code.
While in Chile the power tries to strike its blow of revenge demanding long sentences in the trial against the anarchists Juan Flores, Nataly Casanova and Enrique Durán.
While in Argentina where you can still feel the rage and pain from the murder of comrade Santiago Maldonado, and then the police murdered the Mapuche warrior Rafael Nahuel while the government militarizes its territories in preparation for the next G20 summit.
While in Brazil, police intelligence tries to halt the anarchist struggle via Operation Erebo, accusing comrades, anarchist spaces and libraries of being behind the beautiful incendiary flashes that in recent years have spread in an intentional way against political party headquarters, police barracks and various power structures.
While all this is happening, in various parts of the globe anarchic minds explore practical and offensive responses to the constant aggression that represents the very existence of power and authority.
From the dignity of the prisoners struggling in the prisons of Bulgaria, to the burning cars in France and the call to action in the Czech Republic. From Belarus to Australia, from Mexico to Belgium and Germany. From Bolivia to the United Kingdom, Finland, Russia, Indonesia, Spain and the whole world, the yearnings for freedom are expressed, shouted, conspired and acted upon without bosses or hierarchies, opening the way to anarchy here and now.
That’s why December continues to be an invitation for insurgent communication via the wild heat of the offensive action against power.
For all our imprisoned and persecuted comrades. For all those that rise up and take action against domination by attacking their structures and their representatives.
May solidarity with our comrades become action. May the memory of Sebastián Oversluij and Alexandros Grigoropoulos ignite barricades and feed fires and explosions against power and their defenders. Let the enemy feel the siege of revolt in every neighbourhood, in every cell and on every corner.
For a Black December, long live anarchy!

The City is a Canvas

  • November 23, 2017 12:06 pm

Submission

Here are some photos from around West Philly and South Philly of things I was pleased to see. The bus photo is not recent, the rest are.



Philadelphia police targeted by vandals on South Street; 10-12 suspects sought

  • November 18, 2017 3:38 pm

from mainstream media

Philadelphia police are looking for as many as a dozen suspects after vandals struck late Thursday night using a smoke bomb, paint, and a hammer.

The incident happened shortly after 11 p.m. at the South Street police station.

Officers say they heard a disturbance and went outside to find two police vehicles had been damaged.

One vehicle had a hammer sticking out of the windshield.

In addition, police say a firework-style smoke grenade was set off in front of the station, causing a blue stain on the sidewalk, and glass bottles with red paint were thrown at the building.

Investigators say pamphlets with anarchist and anti-police messages were found on the street, along with black gloves and masks.

Report from Anti-Police and Anti-Surveillance Actions

  • November 14, 2017 12:25 pm

Submission

In the lead up to the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference last month, we visited a big glossy office building at Commerce Square/2001 Market Street where two of the conference’s corporate sponsors, Accenture and PricewaterhouseCoopers, operate. We left behind a message in glass etch across the entirety of two building entrances, reading: “FUCK THE POLICE,” “NO IACP,” and a circle-a or two. It took them several days to buff it out of the six doors and four windows.

In response, they installed security cameras, so we came back and removed two of them.

Fuck police, fuck surveillance culture.

Philadelphia, PA: The Only Good Cop?

  • November 3, 2017 1:56 am

from It’s Going Down

Stories run the world. Most of the time, when you approach a person on the street and suggest that the police be abolished, they respond, “what would replace them?” People believe the police are necessary to preserve the order of the day. Deaths caused by police among inordinately Black and brown populations occur under the watch of an institution with roots in slave patrols when slavery was the order of the day.

Were there good aspects to the order of the day back then? A few people were doing quite well, some were doing okay, and many were barely surviving. And many more were deemed necessary casualties for the economic system to funnel money to the rich.

Sound familiar? The racial and economic order of today is intolerable, too. We want to overthrow it, too. We are not interested in reforming the police. We want to abolish the present-day policing model entirely.

What would replace the police, you ask? What replaced slavery? What replaced sharecropping? What replaced Jim Crow? Author and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander doesn’t call the prison-industrial complex the New Jim Crow for nothing. How do we look out for one another – care for one another – without being susceptible to the state offering us repression wrapped in the guise of public safety? We are fighting to abolish oppressive forces such as racism, capitalism, patriarchy and imperialism from the social order entirely.

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia the weekend of October 21-24, 2017, there were many events with titles like, “Managing the Narrative of Your Critical Incident as Captured by Body-Worn Cameras,” “Public Trust After a Police Use of Deadly Force Incident,” and “Managing Critical Incidents, Officer-Involved Shootings, and Viral Social Media Posts.” But none titled, “Stop Killing Black People.” This is very telling about the intentions held by chiefs of police around the world. They are not good intentions. They are not moral intentions. They are focused exclusively on PR, covering their own ass, and silencing political dissent through media management strategy.

There were reports of vandalism of memorial plaques to dead cops during the weekend the IACP was in Philly. There was attempted media spin. But that spin doesn’t capture the essence of the message they sent: “The Only Good Cop” written over these memorial plaques celebrates the people’s power to rewrite the stories about who has the right to be in charge or have power over life and death. The police have lost that right, if they ever had it in the first place. They have no moral authority. The people must take it back. The message for the International Association of Chiefs of Police is: The people are waking up to your lies and the lies of those who pay you. Your story’s days are numbered. We call for police abolition. The only good cop is a dead story.

Remember Brandon Tate-Brown. Remember Sandra Bland. Remember Freddie Gray. Remember Philando Castile. Remember Laquan McDonald. Remember Michael Brown. Remember Eric Garner. Remember Amadou Diallo. Remember Oscar Grant. Remember David Jones. Remember all victims of racist state violence.

Cops think revolution is a flower to be crushed. Year after year, they think they can surround us with monuments celebrating state oppression. They understand neither seasons nor seeds. We are growing, we are spreading, and we will be victorious. We can, and we must, overwrite the intolerable stories set in public stone. All power to the people. Abolish the police. Tell a better story. Build a better world.

The only good cop is a defaced memorial plaque. They’re all over Philly. We’ve all seen them. Even though the police state seems insurmountable, a million angry fires can burn it down, one tag at a time. What are we waiting for?

No IACP Propaganda

  • October 22, 2017 11:21 pm

Submission

Came across some different items around town, though I would share.







Bail Fundraiser for Disrupt IACP Arrest 10/21

  • October 22, 2017 1:46 am

from YouCaring

A young protestor was arrested today at the Disrupt IACP actions while helping other protestors who were being assaulted by assembled police forces. Please help us get them out of jail ASAP!

Please DONATE and SHARE this fundraiser to support action against police brutality in Philly! Any funds you can give would be deeply appreciated and will help get this person out of jail as soon as possible!!! Any additional funds will go to the PHL Anti-Repression Fund to help support future arrestees.

[Donate Here]

ANTI-F.O.P. MARCH

  • October 18, 2017 12:59 am

from Disrupt IACP

October 21 – Philly Anti-F.O.P. March
7:30pm @ Rittenhouse Square

Nationwide, people have taken over streets and highways to fight back against local police departments and their brutality. Putting heat on the department results in police chiefs and PR managers recycling the same lies to persuade the people to “move on” with our lives. Meanwhile, police unions such as the Fraternal Order of Police go out of their way to openly mock and intimidate the victims (and victims’ families) with their perpetual terror. In rare occasions where departments attempt to fire officers, police unions fight tooth and nail to keep them instated. The F.O.P. does not care about public relations. They do not care to present themselves differently from what they truly are, a violent gang of bullies and proud of it. Philadelphia is home to arguably the most brutal branch of the F.O.P., historically and present. The F.O.P. continues to brutalize with impunity, while chiefs and PR managers try their best to cover their asses.

All struggles are anti-police struggles. For every slain, maimed, and brutalized victim of police terror, this is for us. Join your community for an intentional Anti-F.O.P. march on Saturday October 21st, Rittenhouse Square at 7:30pm.

Let the Philadelphia F.O.P. know we are sick of their shit. Wear Black!

FTP//1312

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Things you can do in the meantime:

Tell the ADL: End Deadly Police Exchanges

  • October 15, 2017 12:26 pm

from Facebook

TELL THE ADL: END DEADLY POLICE EXCHANGES. Militaristic policing doesn’t make us safe!

Why will the Anti-Defamation League, a self-professed civil rights leader, have a table at a conference of police chiefs?

Join JVP Philly for this action outside the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference. We’ll be out there to call on the Anti-Defamation League to stop running exchange programs between U.S. police departments and Israeli military. These exchanges exacerbate racist police violence, militarization, and surveillance both here and in Israel/Palestine.

Policing doesn’t make us feel safe, and we reject safety built on militarized, racist, Islamophobic policing.

We’re working towards a world in which safety for all people is created through community and justice, and not for some people only through violence against others.

This action is part of the #DeadlyExchange campaign to end police exchanges between the US and Israel. To learn more and get involved with this local campaign email philly@jvp.org.

#EndtheDeadlyExchange #AbolitionWeekend

[October 22 from 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM at Convention Center 1101 Arch St]