Left Coast Right Watch

police brutality

  • HERE'S WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE BOMB-PLOTTING RACISTS AT "SHADOW MOSES"

    posted on
    by JAMES STOUT

    EDITOR'S NOTE : James Stout is a San Diego-based journalist. You can donate to him on cash app at $jamesstout and venmo at @james-stout-5.

    In late July 2020, activists in San Diego were planning a BLM march in La Mesa. There hadn’t been a large action there since banks burned and the cops shot a grandmother’s eye out (within policy apparently) in late May. After those banks burned, a group of anti-BLM locals had sprung up under the name “Defend East County”. Soon DEC had over 20,000 members in their Facebook group and Justin Haskins, a perpetually sunburned Arizona resident, claimed leadership of all of them.

    Among that group was Grey Zamudio, age 33. To the uneducated eye, his Facebook page might look like he was a soldier or private security contractor. His banner image features a suppressed, short barreled, and non-California compliant AR15. Zamudio was a long time airsoft enthusiast, and some of his shooting pictures could be mistaken for airsoft. When he played airsoft, Zamudio used the callsign “Shadow Moses” in homage to the computer game Metal Gear Solid. (He seems to have had a somewhat passing understanding of the plot, or only appreciated that the main character was good at killing people. The game focuses on the evils of war and violence for profit.)

    But the guns on his page were all too real.

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  • RACIST UTAH COP HAS LONG HISTORY OF TRAINING ALPHABET AGENCIES

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    by LCRW STAFF

    In May of 2014 Dan Watson of Kanab, Utah posted a photograph on his personal Facebook page of a line of armed men silhouetted against a sunset. The man at the far right of the photo holds the leash of a dog – probably a German Shepherd. Overlaid on the photo are the words “There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.” A comment left by another Facebook user reads, “thank you bro for the service you give all of us.”

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  • ELECTION WEEK IN LA: CELEBRATIONS, PROFILING & MASS ARRESTS

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    by OWEN GRADY

    EDITOR'S NOTE : Owen Grady is a young journalist living in the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. You can help us by paying him what you can at $velocinaptor on cash app.

    On Tuesday, November 3rd, Los Angeles Police Department preemptively announced a citywide tactical alert. L.A Sheriff’s Department had done the same the previous Sunday. Both law enforcement agencies were preparing for possible unrest during the election. Black Lives Matter Los Angeles hosted a celebratory all-day election viewing party which was interrupted when LAPD stormed in and violently apprehended 6 people for wearing all black.

    On Election Day, BLM LA hosted a ‘Marathon Party At the Polls’ at the Staples Center. Organizers of the event arrived at six a.m.; setting up a stage, refreshment tables, canopies, and a television. The mood was celebratory and energized. There had been months of ‘Get out to Vote’ and ‘March to the Polls’ rallies which resulted in hundreds of voters unifying to drop off mail-in ballots together. During the day, the group of about fifty danced and sang, while others voted in-person a few hundred feet away at the polling location. Los Angeles Police Department preemptively declared a tactical alert for election night and had every officer available.

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  • EYEWITNESS: MULTIPLE CAR ATTACKS AT MONDAY SACRAMENTO TRUMP EVENT

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    by ABNER HÄUGE

    On Monday, Trump came to Sacramento in between campaign events to be briefed on the massive wildfires happening across the West Coast and hold a press conference. His supporters and counter-protestors both showed up outside Sacramento McClellan Airport where he landed. At least Three civilian drivers and one highway patrolman used their vehicles to attack anti-racist counter-protestors. At least two people left in ambulances.

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  • SAN DIEGO: OFFICERS ASSAULT PROTESTER HAVING A SEIZURE

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    by ROSE HENNA

    EDITOR'S NOTE : Rose Henna is San Diego-based journalist focused on protest coverage. You can follow her work on Twitter here.

    On Monday, August 24, 2020 at approximately 1:00 PM a flyer began circulating on popular social media sites calling for a protest at 1401 Broadway in San Diego, California (San Diego Police Department Headquarters at 5:00 PM to show solidarity with protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Outrage over the August 23, 2020 police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man from Wisconsin, sparked protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

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  • OAKLAND RAGES OVER SHOOTING OF JACOB BLAKE

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    by Jungho Kim

    EDITOR'S NOTE : Jungho Kim is a Bay Area-based photojournalist who contributed this piece to LCRW. As you know, dear readers, this outlet is completely funded by donations. Covering these kind of protests takes skill and means taking risks. If you are able, please consider contributing to his work at https://cash.app/$mrkim. We’d like to raise $300 for him. You can find his excellent photography portfolio here and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.

    Tensions were high as hundreds of people marched through Oakland on Wednesday evening to protest against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 23. Speakers led the crowd in chanting the names of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Oakland’s own Oscar Grant who was killed by BART police in 2008.

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  • AUGUST 15: WARWOLVES OF PORTLAND

    posted on
    by JAMES O'RYAN

    EDITOR'S NOTE : James O’Ryan is a Portland-based journalist writes for LCRW on ongoing local issues such as far-right violence and police brutality. You can contribute to his work at @PunchableFace on Venmo. We’re trying to raise $300 for his work on this article.

    An unusual scene began during a Black Lives Matter protest at the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. Among the activists manning the western barricade, word rapidly spread that Proud Boys or some other form of alt-right militia was approaching the edge of the action in a limousine with a camera crew. Protesters and press alike couldn’t seem to believe what they were hearing and a decent size crowd formed behind the barricade.

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  • PORTLAND, AUGUST 9TH–PROTESTERS COMPLY WITH DISPERSAL ORDER, POLICE ASSAULT THEM ANYWAY

    posted on
    by JAMES O'RYAN

    EDITOR'S NOTE : James O’Ryan is a Portland-based journalist who’s going to be writing for LCRW on ongoing local issues such as far-right violence and police brutality. You can contribute to his work at @PunchableFace on Venmo. We’re trying to raise $300 for his work on this article.

    Kenton Park is a rolling, twelve acre, green-space in this tightly-packed city. People from the neighborhood had begun quietly assembling on Sunday, August 9 2020, in socially-distanced and masked groups at the north end of the park since around 6 PM. Unlike the visually packed spaces in the city center so famous from national and international headlines, this scene is more reminiscent of pastoral, little “a” anarchists on holiday during the plague times. Another stark contrast to what national news shows and talking heads discuss, this crowd is noticeably diverse. Portland is a majority white city in the whitest state in the country. The larger number of BIPOC activists present here is indicative of both the neighborhood and the continuing dedication of activists of color to not only control the narrative but to create it.

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  • PORTLAND POLICE PROMISE VIOLENCE, DELIVER

    posted on
    by TJ PARTRIDGE

    EDITOR'S NOTE : TJ Partridge is a Portland-based journalist who plans to cover ongoing issues in the city for LCRW. You can help pay for his hard work on CashApp here and Venmo at the address @LABreaux. We’re trying to raise $350 to pay him for this article and his live coverage last night.

    On the heels of a night wherein the Portland Police Bureau beat, flashbanged, and gassed a crowd through the streets of outer Southeast Portland, the teenage-led activist group Youth Liberation Front posted a follow up call to action in the East Portland neighborhood. The announcement, of course, was not unnoticed by the Portland Police Bureau, whose official Twitter account stated unequivocally that “this call for direct action… will not go unanswered,” and that it “[meant] there [was] intent to engage in violent actions.” The interaction would prove to influence both fear in protesters’ minds and anger in the actions of the PPB officers later in the evening.

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  • "IT CONSUMES YOUR LIFE". INTERVIEW WITH A PORTLAND PROTESTER

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    by ABNER HÄUGE

    ‘TRANS RIGHTS’ is, in my opinion, a brilliant alias. That’s what my interviewee chose to call herself for this article.

    Before I even asked a question, there were a few things TRANS RIGHTS wanted to make clear: She’s white. She’s trans. She lives in Portland. Portland is stolen Chinook land. Oregon was founded as a literal ethnostate. While it was founded as a ‘free state’–meaning no slavery–black people couldn’t live there by law. The 14th Amendment wasn’t ratified until 1973.

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  • INTERVIEW: ROSA FROM THE WITCHES PDX ON POLICE BRUTALITY, HEXING FASCISTS AND MORE

    posted on
    by ABNER HÄUGE

    At one point during our conversation, Rosa cleared her throat.

    “Excuse me,” she said. “It’s the teargas, not COVID.”

    Rosa is a lead organizer with The Witches PDX. She spoke to LCRW about the group’s mutual aid work, the brutality of the state and federal law enforcement’s response to the now over 50 days of continuous in Portland and the shared experiences both of trauma and kinship during the daily assault by police.

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