posted on Santa Cruz Indymedia
| Title: | Copwatch Forever! |
| START DATE: | Saturday April 11 |
| TIME: | 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM |
| Location Details: | |
| In front of Borders Book Store on Pacific Ave. between Soquel and Walnut Sts. in downtown Santa Cruz | |
| Event Type: | Vigil/Ritual |
| Contact Name | Robert Norse |
| Email Address | rnorse3@hotmail. com |
| Phone Number | 831-423-4833 |
| Address | 309 Cedar PMB #14B Santa Cruz 95060 |
| Join the jovial jackboot jousters! Come listen to music, sip cocoa, and keep an eye on the big-badged bluebellies. The new Copwatch Santa Cruz Blog still needs lots of help updating it. Give a call to HUFF at 423-4833 if you'd like to help or e-mail rnorse. Or sign in and add your own comments. Downtown, we'll be taking accounts of police behavior and videoing cops on the beat as they drive poor people away and give out tickets they can't pay. Homeless vets are a significant proportion of the community without shelter outside. Please bring us any accounts of police harassment and ticketing of local vets--or discrimination at the local Vet's Building. This is both a budget and civil liberties issue locally. Police must be discouraged from being a part of the local War on the Poor, and the merchant community that supports these outrages confronted. The new anti-homeless Downtown Ordinance public assembly constrictions are now being enforced by police. They criminalize more than one hour's sitting on a city bench, make 3 unpaid infractions a jailing misdemeanor, and expand the notorious "No Go" zones downtown for sitting, sparechanging, political tabling, and street performing. Anti-homeless ticketing for sleeping at night continues with shelter for less than 10% of the homeless community. If one forms, we'll also be supporting calls for a Tent City when the Armory Winter Shelter closes in several weeksl as is already happening in Sacramento, Fresno, and Ontario CA. We will also be gathering accounts of harassment in hopes of joining Santa Barbara and Sacramento in challenging anti-homeless Sleeping Bans. Successful lawsuits and political pressure have already ended Sleeping Bans in Fresno, San Diego, Los Angeles, Laguna Beach, Richmond, and Palo Alto. We hope to encourage media to counter the City's persecution of those outside using massive police overkill and a new city attorney crackdown with a civil injunction. Please contact attorney Jonathan Gettleman at 427-2658 if you have had positive experiences with Anna Richardson and Miguel deLeon, currently under City Attorney attack. We have video cameras and tape recorders; bring your own as well. If you want to volunteer for Public Records Act request work and other behind-the-scenes Copwatching, call 423-4833. To help plan future events, come to the Human Rights Organization meetings Saturday 3-4:30 PM at the Sub Rosa Cafe 703 Pacific Ave. Or check out HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) at the same place Wednesdays 9:30 AM -11:30 AM. | |
