How Protest Marshals Sabotage Liberation and Protect the State
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With love and rage a vigil for Tortuguita
Wentworth Park, 100 N Grand Ave, Lansing
Thursday 1/18 7:30pm
It’s been 1 year since forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Teran (Tortuguita) was murdered by ATL police as they sat in their tent, legs crossed, hands up…
Join us in holding space for our fallen comrade, while connecting with others to learn about solidarity efforts taking place in Michigan.
Dress warmly and bring something for the altar. #stopcopcity
On January 18, 2023, Georgia State Patrol officers entered the Weelaunee Forest alongside police from other agencies in the region. They sought to clear the encampments re-established there in the weeks prior. A month earlier, on December 13, a similar operation cleared encampments after a year of struggle, and culminated in the arrest of 6 forest defenders on obscene and fraudulent charges of Domestic Terrorism.
When Patrolmen entered the forest in January, they entered into a long confrontation they had little or no experience with, a confrontation pitting free people, local residents, environmentalists, aspiring revolutionaries, and itinerant insurrectionalists against the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and his submissive City Council, Michael Thurmond and the Dekalb County government, Ryan Millsap and Shadowbox Studios, and all of the contractors hoping to devastate the land, displace its life forms, and replace them with a police training facility and soundstage complex.
This struggle has been something of a burning torch for class confrontation and subversive cultural innovation in the United States for nearly 3 years. It would not be an exaggeration to say this has been the sharpest struggle in North America during the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration.
The nature of this confrontation was altered permanently by the hasty and poorly-made decisions of Jerry Parrish, Bryland Myers, Jonathan Salcedo, Ronaldo Kegel, Royce Zah, and Mark Jonathan Lamb. These officers ambushed and killed Tortuguita, the nom de guerre with which we knew a 26 year old anarchist living in the forest.
******************** Continue reading “JANUARY 18: DAY OF THE FOREST DEFENDER”
In addition to facing profound state repression, Stop Cop City RICO co-defendants are having their accounts at Bank of America suddenly closed. Defendant Hannah Kass, an organizer for food equity and eco-defense, is in need of survival funds this week because she had her account closed—to support Hannah and her co-defendants, please share this ask, and venmo @madisonsolidarity with the subject line “support.” No donation is too small, and if you can’t contribute financially, signal boosting this is equally helpful and meaningful. Thank you all for your community care and solidarity!
To learn more about Hannah and her co-defendants, check out the statement “Anarchism Must Not Be Criminalized”: https://bbnews.noblogs.org/post/2023/11/10/statement-from-12-of-61-rico-co-defendants-anarchism-must-not-be-criminalized/
Originally posted on It’s Going Down at https://itsgoingdown.org/michigan-activist-finds-gps-trackers/
Report on law enforcement being caught placing GPS trackers on an activist’s car in so-called Michigan. For more information and photos, go here.
On Monday August 1st, Michigan activist Peatmoss found 2 GPS tracking devises attached with powerful magnets to the rear axle of their car, see pictures here. This happened after Peatmoss spent a week hanging out with friends at the Camp Gayling Week of Action against the Camp Grayling national guard base.
A lawyer calling the police on Peatmoss’s behalf relayed that the police confirmed the trackers were placed by law enforcement, though they refused to name the agency.
Three days before, on the evening of Friday July 28th, Peatmoss was arrested outside Lansing, MI after being followed by a large blue Ford pickup truck into a church parking lot to meet two other folks. The arrest stemmed from a warrant issued in another area of Michigan. During the arrest the police verbally stated that they believed the car had been present at a recent legal demonstration put on by Sunrise Ann Arbor on the sidewalk in front of Accident Fund headquarters, an insurer of the Cop City project. The cops stated they knew the car had driven by the home of Accident Fund CEO Lisa Corless, which was nearby at 3945 Turnberry Lane, Okemos, Michigan.
While in custody police attempted to coerce consent to a DNA sample by threatening Peatmoss with a longer detention. Peatmoss refused and was released without giving a sample. They also noticed their file had an “FBI number” highlighted underneath their SSN.
The second week of May, Peatmoss was followed for 45 minutes by a blacked out Ford sedan. The car began following them at their legal residence, the first time they had been home in several months. The car followed them onto the highway, off the highway, around in circles in a neighborhood, and then back onto the highway, only leaving when they were about to cross the Michigan-Ohio state border. They had given their legal name and address when putting money on many Atlanta Solidarity Fund defendants’ commissary accounts earlier this year.
We, comrades and supporters of Peatmoss, wish to remind all of our comrades that repression is ongoing, but that we can build resilience together. This means affirming our solidarity and standing behind those targeted and sharing information broadly about repressive tactics. Understand that surveillance, like that faced by Peatmoss, can be both a tool for repression from the legal system, but also, conspicuous surveillance can be a tool of repression on its own as a way to chill otherwise legal activity, spread fear and distrust.
We encourage everyone to speak with comrades openly about repression they are facing or concerned about, and to educate yourselves on best practices when dealing with law enforcement or facing criminal charges.
For more information on resisting political repression: