MEDIA UPDATE & CLARIFICATION*: September 13, 2011

Jury Seated and First Testimony Heard in Civil Trial About Fatal Police Beating of Martin Cotton

Oakland, CA:   On the morning of September 12, 2011 in U.S. District Court, Northern District in Oakland, CA, a seven person jury was sworn in to hear the civil trial brought by the family of Martin Frederick Cotton II, who was killed by a fatal police beating in Eureka, California four years ago.  Supporters and members of Redwood Curtain CopWatch and the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality rallied outside the courthouse early in the morning, spreading the word about the trial about to occur, speaking out against state brutality, and holding signs "Cops Beat Martin To Death.  Justice For Martin Cotton!" 

Police State Continues to Expand.
If we don't confront it now, then WHEN?

August 7, 2010: Humboldt County Sheriff's Deputies Murder Robert Garth in Blue Lake

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/08/18655719.php?show_comments=1#18655924

http://www.youtube.com/user/RedwoodCopWatch#p/u

August 8, 1978: Philadelphia Police Try to Kill MOVE Men, Women, and Children at MOVE Home; Police Kill One of Their Own and Lock Up Nine MOVE Members "for Murder"; The MOVE 9, U.S. political prisoners, have been in prison since 1978

http://move9parole.blogspot.com/

http://www.archive.org/details/AH-MOVE

The killing of Cheri Lyn Moore on April 14, 2006 tragically illustrates the failures of a misguided and bureaucratized “public safety” system. In this writing we deliberately refer to Cheri Lyn Moore by her first name, as her friends and family do, and we acknowledge her as a real, feeling, dynamic human being; we want to counter the objectifying and criminalizing  references made by media and police, calling her "Moore", and devaluing her life by repeatedly describing her through only the claims made by the police who murdered her.

 On September 17, 1998, Gypsy was killed in the Grizzly Creek area, trying to prevent the clearcut destruction of the ancient forests by Pacific Lumber Company.  After years of Corporate Timber fomenting hate and fear toward environmentalists  - encouraging its workers and managers to feel justified using violence against Earth First!ers (violence often exceeded by the cops and and sanctioned by the DA)- a Pacific Lumber employee felled a tree on Gypsy.

May we always LEARN and REMEMBER.  LOVE and ORGANIZE.

And BRING DOWN THIS ROTTEN SYSTEM.

Song from David Rovics: The Death of David Chain

http://redwoodcurtaincopwatch.net/node/536 : Another Person Growing Marijuana Shot Dead by Mendocino Sheriff’s on August 18, 2010

Although, the Mendocino Sheriff's Department and the cop-complicit media continue to write about how the man who was killed and the other non-officers in this situation brandished weapons, "returned fire", etc, NO OFFICERS WERE INJURED.  Isn't that always the case?  The cops talk about how violent everyone else was, how in danger they were- but the only injured and killed people end up being the result of violence from the cops. 

This is the second killing by Mendocino Sheriff Deputies over marijuana in a month!!

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Humboldt County Sheriff Officers shot and killed Robert Garth in the morning of Saturday August 7, 2010. CopWatchers and friends of the Garth family went to Blue Lake, after learning of the shooting.  We took lots of video and photos. We want here to share what we learned, in brief.

First this: As we write this post (Saturday night, August 7, 2010), we anticipate two things. The first is that the media (i.e. Thadues Greenson of the Times-Standard who was in Blue Lake) will parrot, stating as fact, the police story.  That's what the media ALWAYS does.

"...three shootings — most officers go through their career with no shootings — it just raises a lot of concerns.”

'Deputy involved in June 2 shooting involved in two other shootings'

WHY WE PROTESTED AT THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

On Thursday, April 8, 2010, fifteen to twenty community members gathered in the reception area of the District Attorney's office, fourth floor of the courthouse, to address Paul Gallegos regarding a recent incident and the systematic injustice related to that and many other instances.  As you may remember, on March 15th of this year, two people from Redwood Curtain CopWatch were arrested because Sheriff's Deputy Joseph Marsh did not want to be videotaped while he was detaining and searching a man in Eureka.

On April 6, 2010, the two of us who were arrested learned that the DA had not (yet) charged us with any crime related to our arrests.  After we were arrested and in jail, we signed Agreements to Appear in court on April 6th.  When signing an Agreement to Appear, the document informs the signer that if s/he does not appear on that date, s/he can be arrested again.

On April 6, we were not on the court schedule, which means the DA had not yet decided what charges or if he would charge us at all.