In the Streets of Philadelphia

from Hard Crackers

A lot can happen in a week.

On Saturday, May 30, a beautiful sunny afternoon, we joined thousands of others at the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum to protest the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police. This was the first major protest of Floyd’s death in Philadelphia, the poorest big city in the U.S., now further ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. After a short rally, we marched with throngs of people, chanting under our masks. We  saw buildings tagged with “ACAB” and “RIP George Floyd.” There was a palpable tension in the air, a simmering rage that was not to be contained.

We were stopped near an on-ramp to the Vine Street Expressway (aka I-676, the highway that passes through Center City). The march seemed determined to get on the highway, but police had blocked the ramp. Over the heads of those in front of us, a young Black woman shouted to the crowd from atop a police SUV. Two young Black men joined her, and they raged against the police, stomping on the roof of the patrol car while everyone cheered and chanted. Soon the police SUV was on fire.

As the car went up in flames, the first of at least four to do so that day, the police pushed us out of the intersection in multiple directions. The crowd stayed loud and strong, pushing back and yelling at the cops. A shirtless guy sat atop a city bus near the intersection, casually eating a bag of chips and watching the chaos.

A police vehicle on fire near the on-ramp of the Vine Street Expressway. (Saturday, May 30).

After failing to get on the highway, we changed course toward City Hall, where things were already happening. At the Municipal Services Building, the long-reviled statue of notoriously racist former police commissioner and mayor Frank Rizzo was splashed with red paint and “FTP,” a rope tied around its extended right arm. Many tried valiantly to pull down or burn down the statue, but it remained stubbornly in its place. A formation of police officers guarded the building, occasionally pepper-spraying someone because they felt like it, but mostly ignoring what was happening with Rizzo.

Nearby, while about 10 cops guarded a TD Bank, three more police cars went up in flames in the street. Fireworks exploded into the thick smoke, and the crowd cheered. An outdoor cafe and a “pop-up” Starbucks next to City Hall were set aflame, the latter pretty much gutted by the time firefighters got near. They couldn’t get closer, as the crowd was content to let the Starbucks burn. In two decades of attending and organizing various demonstrations, we had never witnessed anything quite like this orgy of joyful rage. And the night was still young.

As the cop cars and Starbucks smoldered, police re-grouped to protect City Hall. We lingered, wondering what would happen next. We noticed excited folks appearing on the scene with boxes of new shoes. A quick walk to the shopping district of Walnut and Chestnut Streets confirmed that “an immense collection of commodities,” as Marx would say – from Apple, Modell’s, Nordstrom Rack, Vans — had been made available for redistribution. Dumpsters and furniture were repurposed as intersection barricades, as people dashed in and out of smashed storefront windows, carrying all they could. Dozens of alarm systems blared out of synch with each other. With people vastly outnumbering cops, we owned the streets and the goods. Mayor Kenney announced an 8pm curfew, but people stayed in the streets–and in the stores—regardless. Graffiti scrawled on the wall of a McDonald’s summed up the night’s joyous vibe: “I’m lovin it.” 

The next morning, media predictably decried the looting. Like so many feckless leaders, Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw tried to lay blame on “outside agitators.” Other pieces have already ripped this age-old trope to shreds, but let us state clearly that the vast majority of folks we saw Saturday were Philadelphia’s own.

With traffic closed to much of Center City on Sunday, the protests moved to diffuse neighborhoods across the city. A comrade in West Philly described what unfolded there:

Mid-afternoon, friends and I noticed a lot of police lights flashing near 52ndand Market Street. I took a quick bike ride to check it out. A dozen or so cruisers and vans were parked in the area, and 25 to 30 cops with batons and helmets milled around looking uneasy. A crowd of about 150 was scattered around the intersection, almost exclusively Black and very young. Voices raged against the police. The mood felt tenser and angrier than the previous night’s absurd and almost joyous looting in Center City. I headed home to change and check in with housemates before returning.

By the time I got back, a few trash cans were on fire. The police had formed a tenuous line at 52nd and Chestnut. Chunks of broken pavement and shattered glass were scattered around the street and the police cruisers were dented. Occasionally someone in the crowd tossed something at the police lines. Despite having been split into two parts, one being pushed north and the other being pushed south, the crowd continued to grow. Once it became clear the cops didn’t have enough manpower to actually do anything other than hold a line, the crowd let loose and started looting. A primary goal was the Foot Locker just behind police lines. 

After pulling the shutters off a few shops and tipping over some vendor booths, people got bolder and moved up on the police lines. Around this time, a SWAT vehicle with riot cops in black uniforms and gas masks showed up to reinforce the vastly outnumbered cops. A vehicle burned just north of Market Street. Without warning, a riot cop in the armored SWAT vehicle shot a few teargas rounds at the crowd while the others pushed us south on 52nd Street. People were furious and responded by lighting up a building. Inexplicably, the SWAT vehicle left the scene after this. After checking social media, it was clear why: This was happening all over the city! The cops didn’t have enough armor to hold any one place and had to send the SWAT vehicles careening all over the city to reinforce their positions.

Eventually, people forced the police to retreat. They abandoned one of their cruisers blocking the back door to the Foot Locker, which was smashed and entered almost immediately. The SWAT vehicle returned to fire teargas rounds into the crowd of black teenagers looting the Foot Locker. At this point, firefighters had arrived to put out a building fire a few blocks south. It was surreal to see a crowd completely ignore the firefighters, letting them go about their business. The crowd was hyped, but I saw no interpersonal violence. No fighting, just looting or throwing stuff at the cops. Civilian cars moved through the scene without getting so much as a scratch. 

The cops were pissed about getting their asses handed to them the night before and were out for revenge. The SWAT vehicle stuck around longer, firing teargas and rubber bullets into the crowd. Their only specific targets seemed to be street medics. One had her helmet shot off her head by a rubber bullet. She was also hit in the arm. They hit a young white woman in the face. With blood pouring from the wound and covering her jeans, people helped her back to the firefighters, who got her to an ambulance. The cops launched another barrage of teargas rounds at us, even though we had been retreating. Multiple teargas canisters landed directly among the firefighters, spinning crazily and spewing gas around the fire trucks. Some firefighters had to abandon the smoldering building to wash out their eyes. 

The crowd started dispersing, mostly to loot the box stores on City Line Ave, but the SWAT vehicle stuck around to punish the neighborhood for the uprising. It drove up and down 52nd Street, launching teargas canister after teargas canister down residential side streets. It didn’t matter if anyone was in the street or not, they just gassed people in their homes. 

Something noteworthy was the mood and concentration of the rioting and looting. It was extremely focused on 52nd Street from Arch to the north and about Spruce to the south. Drugstores were cleaned out, as were a few dollar stores and vendors’ booths. And of course the Foot Locker. But most businesses were untouched, even ones with large glass windows. Many had painted “Black-owned” across the windows. The library on 52nd Street was not damaged, and the residential neighborhoods were untouched by the crowd, as were civilian cars. Early on, one person threw a rock at a SEPTA bus, but was quickly denounced by the crowd. 

On Monday, National Guard troops showed up. The uprisings continued and people again filled the streets. In the early evening, a crowd of thousands halted traffic on the previously impenetrable Vine Street Expressway. In response, police let loose with a torrent of teargas and pepper spray, targeting people fleeing toward the only way out, over a steep embankment.

Meanwhile, just north of Center City, in the gentrified neighborhood of Fishtown, white vigilantes roamed the streets with baseball bats, golf clubs, and hammers, claiming to be a defense against activists and looters– none of whom had made their way to Fishtown’s streets. Many folks oriented toward justice and liberation– those the vigilantes feared– had already been teargassed on the highway. But their brandishing of weapons, along with a few actual assaults on people, including reporters, certainly scared some people. Philly cops eventually showed up, apparently only to take photos and yuk it up with these so-called protectors, who also, it must be noted, were out in the streets well after the city-imposed curfew.

On Wednesday, in the wee hours of the morning, the defaced and heavily guarded Rizzo statue was hauled away by city workers. What more than a decade of pressure by mostly respectable Black Philadelphians couldn’t accomplish, a days-long uprising by entirely ungovernable, mostly Black, mostly young people did. Mayor Kenney had hemmed and hawed for the past two years about taking down the Rizzo statue. He even tweeted on Saturday, May 30th, that “he never liked it” and that it was slated to be removed next month. But those who were in the streets as May gave way to June know the real truth: they were the ones who banished Rizzo for good.

Saturday, June 6 was another beautiful day, though warmer. The gathering again began at the Art Museum steps. The crowd was more than double the size of the previous week’s estimated 4,000. Although they weren’t visible at the museum, National Guard troops were just around the corner, lining the perimeter of city blocks the mayor had closed to traffic in anticipation of the protests. There was a line of porta potties that weren’t there the week before. The rally became a march, and people swelled into the empty streets. The crowd was huge and still chanting but felt less urgent and angry than a week earlier. With all of center city closed to traffic, there was lots of room to roam: city leaders had conceded lots of space to “peaceful protest.”

 The same area one week later (Municipal Services Building where Rizzo had stood is to the right of photo.)

The exception to the open streets was the area between City Hall and the municipal building where the Rizzo statue had recently stood. Dark spots marked the outlines of charred police cars that had been hauled away. Lines of police, National Guard troops, and military trucks barricaded this small swath of the city. The TD Bank across the street was unguarded, after being protected like one’s firstborn the week before. Throughout the day and into the evening, protesters occasionally yelled at the cops and Guard troopers, but the tone was much less confrontational than the previous week, and included calls for the enemy to “kneel with us.”

A simplistic contrasting of the two large Saturday protests might say one was more “Fuck 12” and “ACAB,” and the other more “End Qualified Immunity” and “I’m not Black, but I see you.” Maybe this signals the beginning of the funnelling of insurgent politics into so-called respectable avenues. Or perhaps these contrasts do not tell the whole story. For one, after protesters had been teargassed for several days and the uber-armed National Guard had been present for six days, there still were twice the number of people out the second Saturday. In a city that had been under curfew for a week, people came out to protest not only the murdering of black people by police, but also the heavy hand of the city and state police. At a time when the mayor has called for the firing of hundreds of city employees amidst the pandemic, city activists and perhaps the newly energized are primed to fight these cuts and instead raise the practical solution of defunding the police.

In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 7, Mural Arts Philadelphia painted over the large mural of Frank Rizzo at the Italian Market in South Philadelphia. Mural Arts, which was commissioned to paint the mural, worked with the owners of the building to remove it and will work with them to “collaborat(e) with the community on a new mural project that can reflect the fabric of South 9th Street.” Also on Sunday, notably, the citywide curfew was lifted for the first time in a week.

After a crew painted over the mural of former top cop and mayor Frank Rizzo early Sunday morning, all that remained was the street sign on the upper right hand side.

 

When we say a lot can happen in a week, we mean to say that riots fucking work. The bridges are open. The streets are clear. Although center city is still boarded up, much of the graffiti is painted over. The glass on the sidewalks outside the fancy stores is cleaned up. In just one week, the mayor, in a pathetic hope at flashing some progressive credentials, has conveniently scrubbed away the awful legacy of the Rizzo years and, bowing to the pressure of once-in-a-generation riots, has completely reversed his initial proposal for a $19 million budget increase for the cops. But the rallies and marches continue, and the Fishtown vigilantes and those who light a candle to Daniel Faulkner’s memory in South Philadelphia haven’t gone anywhere, either. The fissures that follow the long line of white supremacist policing both in Philadelphia and beyond have been split open as wide as ever.

Black Philly Radical Collective March

from Instagram

Today was powerful out in the streets with the Black Philly Radical Collective remembering the bombing of MOVE and building the struggle.

No talk about voting or reforms. Only complete abolition.

 

Racist Vigilantes Gather to Defend Columbus Statue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

George Floyd Riots in Center City

from Twitter

No shortage of artwork to depict the way people in #Philadelphia feel about police. #RestInPower #GeorgeFlyod



from Instagram

It was a beautiful sunny day of resistance in #philadelphia. Rest In Power #georgefloyd. #letitburn #ftp #acab

 




from Twitter

Philly police pin young black man to the ground with their knees, swat our field reporter with a baton for filming the scene.

“Beat it.”

“I’m a journalist, sir!”

“I don’t care what you are. Beat it.”

In a scene echoing George Floyd’s death, tonight @PhillyPolice kneeled on a young black man’s neck as another officer already had him pinned. Officer w knee on neck called him a “pussy” shortly before other cops batoned our camera away fom the scene

[Video Here]

We’ve ended our ground reporting from Philadelphia for the night due to repeated assaults by officers on our reporter making it unsafe and impractical to continue. Our Philly staff is safe at home now but Philly Police made it clear our 1st Amendment press freedoms are suspended

In Philly tonight we repeatedly saw some officers charging ahead to beat people with batons while their commanders yelled at them to stop and hold their line. Police personnel generally seemed quite on edge and quick to verbally insult, taunt, and push/strike protesters

Whether police command structures can actually control their rank and file during these escalating protests is a question we find ourselves asking a lot

from Twitter

Modell’s window advertisement: “Everything must go!”

Rebels: “Okay, if you say so!”

#FTP #ACAB #GeorgeFloydProtests #Philadelphia

 

from Twitter

Anger at #GeorgeFloyd’s murder has spilled over into Philadelphia, PA today – fires and looting across center city, City Hall is at least partially on fire
 

These fires were cop cars on fire on the North side of Philadelphia city hall
 

Philadelphia: Windows of Wells Fargo at 15 and Chestnut have been smashed. Graffiti seen saying “Fuck 12” and #NoDAPL.
 




Philly Police are holding line but outnumbered and many projectiles thrown.
 
Small fire started near Wells Fargo as protesters stand off with police in #Philadelphia while seeking #Justice4GeorgeFloyd. Many stores are being broken into and goods are being expropriated.
[Video Here]
 
An update from Center City as #GeorgeFloyd protests erupt in Philadelphia.
 
From Instagram

YO PPD YR RIDE IS HERE. Philly set it the fuck OFF today. #FTP #georgefloyd

 

from Instagram

Solidarity with all fighters against police terrorism .






Up Against The Law: Solidarity statement with Twin Cities response to police terrorism

from Facebook

May 29th, 2020

First, a big thank you to those saying “fuck the police!”

This statement is our written expression of solidarity to the Twin Cities rioters and against all police.
We are saddened and angry to hear about the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. But we are not surprised.
We support the actions of racial justice by whatever means participants deem necessary. We urge people who are ideologically opposed to certain freedoms of dissent to step aside. Interventinon, especially by white people, will support further police terrorism. Respect a diversity of tactics. Our experience has shown that power and white supremacy doesn’t give up voluntarily, and neither will we.
Don’t attack each other. Understand that this isn’t simply about the choices and actions of individuals, but is a product of the racist system that we live under.
We believe that solidarity is our greatest weapon against state repression.
We need to take care of each other, so we can be dangerous together.
It is our duty and commitment to support those who fight back against police terrorism of black, brown and indigenous communities. We’ve been with you in Baltimore, Charlottesville, DC, and of course Philly. We will march with you as legal observers, call the bail commissioner to see that we can help you out of jail, host trainings at your request, and in some cases get locked up with you.
We want you to know you are not alone in this fight.
We are watching from Philadelphia, and we will support those fighting locally, as we always have.
Please visit our Stop Snitching On Yourself series on our website and arm yourself with the legal ways of dealing with law enforcement, which includes what to do if you witness police brutality.
In solidarity, with love and rage,
Up Against The Law Legal Collective
Philadelphia, PA
Our arrest hotline is (484) 758-0388
*Know that we are an all volunteer collective that is committed to mutual aid and community empowerment. We do not solicit donations, but these MN orgs could use resources: http://justiceforgeorgefloyd.link

Anti-Reform Banner for George Floyd

Submission

In the wee hours of the morning of 05/29 we performed a meager act in remembrance of George Floyd and in support of our accomplices throwing down in so-called mpls, st. paul, memphis, louisville, nyc, la, phoenix and wherever else folx are fighting against the constant plague that is the police. Mpls burned down a fucking police station! You are all so inspiring , hope this little message shows a bit of love coming out of philly.

RIP GEORGE FLOYD, RIP AHMAUD ARBERY, RIP BREONNA TAYLOR, RIP PHILANDO CASTILE, and all the other people who have been murdered by the pigs and their white supremacist collaborators. Fuck reform, it’s about revenge, been a long time comin.

FUCK 12
FUCK THIS RACIST COUNTRY
BURN IT THE FUCK DOWN, NOTHING LESS!

The Riot Manual

Submission

Definition. A riot is a form of popular warfare in which a crowd engages in a variety of illegal and violent activities. These can include property destruction and looting; disrupting lines of transportation; street fighting against the police and/or military. Like all forms of revolutionary warfare, those who participate in riots assume the risk of injury, imprisonment, and/or death.

[Full text here]