Colorado Indymedia

by Tom Gomez

Danny (not his real name), is 28 and a father of 2 children: one born when he was 16 years old, the other when he was 19. Like most of the men here in the Sterling Correctional Facility, he has little formal education, no job skills, and has spent most of his adult life in prison for drug charges – both here, and in the neighboring state of Arizona where he was born.

Recently Danny returned to prison again, this time from a halfway house in Denver, not for alcohol or drugs, but for having 2 children. Arizona, which provides income support, housing assistance and medical coverage to his first child, wants its money. The state has filed an order to garnish 25% of Danny's pre-tax earnings for unpaid child support. Colorado has done the same for unpaid child support for his 9-year old.

Danny has had no contact with either of his children, both born to unwed teenage girls, in over 5 years. He says he tried to maintain contact with the children's mothers from prison but lost touch over time. While Danny may have lost touch with his children, the state governments that have provided the children with food stamps, section 8 housing and medicaid have not lost touch with him. The tens of thousands of dollars he owes in back child support payments, plus interest, keeps growing every year he's in custody. It is, in fact, the very reason Danny says he's back in custody.

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It seems that the only thing Cecil Bynum and the police agree about is that after he was arrested for a small amount of 'crack' cocaine on Colfax Avenue in Denver (in January of '05) his thumb had to be amputated.

Bynum, now 40 years old and serving a 24-year sentence as a habitual offendor, was a passenger in a car pulled over by Denver police, who arrested him on an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court on a summons for trespassing. Police allege that during the course of that arrest, Bynum gagged while trying to swallow a piece of "crack" cocaine that resulted in his being sentenced to 24 years in prison. They deny any knowledge of, or responsibility for, the fact that 2 days later his thumb, badly mutilated and by then seriously infected with staph, had to be amputated.

Predictably perhaps, Bynum, whose case is now on appeal, tells a different story. According to Bynum, who was last released from prison in 2004 and has an extensive record of drug-related offenses, police had had seized his ID and social security card after detaining him in early 2004 as a suspected drug dealer. Despite the fact that no drugs were found on Bynum, who insists he was working as a day laborer through a temporary service at the time, police refused to return his identification. As a result, Bynum says that the same officer who seized his ID and social security card then singled him out for harassment, intimidation and persecution, citing him no less than 3 subsequent occasions for "trespassing" for not having his ID after he was stopped and searched. When Bynum attempted to retrieve his ID from police however, he alleges that he was told the documents were the subject of a "personal hold" placed on them by Officer Heart, the same officer responsible for both confiscating the documents, and for repeatedly citing Bynum for not having them.

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(Actually, this is for all Colorado and all of the country. Why's that option not there in the "Region" box?)

Health care bill, now in hands of the Senate, ignores every industrial threat and harm to health. It finds that people's behavior is the biggest threat. Could this be because all Senators are economically-linked to health-harming industries, AND their insurers and investors? Sworn and public-paid Congress members wouldn't go AWOL on their solemn oaths and duties to the people, would they?

If it were not for people, there would be no Health Crisis.

The legislation the Senate is discussing now is quite interesting and telling by what's there, or not.

See the Bill at: democrats.senate.gov/reform/patient-protection-affordable-care-act.pdf

A convenient search tool at the site finds the number of times a word appears in the legislation:

Nutrition 29 times
Tobacco 25
Smoking 11
Obesity 9
Exercise 9
Behavior 8
Lifestyle 5
Alcohol 2

However:

Pesticides 0
Insecticides 0
Herbicides 0
Dioxins 0
Mercury 0
Chemicals 0
Carcinogen(s) 0
Chlorine 0
Radiation 0
Depleted Uranium 0
Salmonella 0
Pollutant(s) 0
Pollution 0
Vehicle exhaust 0
Smog 0
E-coli 0
Asbestos 0
Toxins 0
Toxic 0
Hazardous waste 0

And... Marijuana 0
Condoms 0
Vegetarian 0
Organic(s) 0

There seems to be a theme here, perhaps aimed at reassuring us that private industries, especially investment properties of for-profit insurers, are no threat to health. That is off the radar. Nothing to worry about or act on there.
We (the) people are the problem.

 November has been quite a month for change here at Grand Junction Alternative Media (GJAM).  GJAM is the umbrella media group for such projects as The Red Pill, CUNTastic, The Peep Show, Vignettes: Glimpses of Culture, Confluence Books, and more.   At the beginning of this month the collective, after a many month-long process, have changed the name of GJAM to Confluence Media Collective.  CMC will be continuing all of GJAM's media projects, except one, Confluence Books storefront will be closing at the end of November.  We are sad to have to close the storefront, and we are looking into becoming a mobile infoshop to bring radical literature to all the small radical communities around the region.  On Friday 13th of this month CMC held its first Variety Show, highlighting CMC's many artist, writers, and activists. In the coming months look for the variety show to come to a radical community near you soon. 

CMC is always looking for new co-conspirators.  Get in touch with us. gjredpill@hotmail.com or visit our website: www.gjredpill.org.  Many of our books, zines, and DVD's are for sale on our website.

Recently a story about Ms. Pignotti entitled “Monica Pignotti Introduces the PIGNOTRON” was published in the open newswire of COIMC. COIMC was contacted by Ms Pignotti via email and her request to remove the article follows.

Subject: Complaint about libelous harassing posting about me on
Colorado Indymedia
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:28:51 +0000
From: pignotti@att.net
To: webmaster@coimc.org

I want to make you aware that a person who has been cyberstalking me by
placing literally hundreds of false postings and ads all over the
internet about me has posted the following ad on your website that is
libelous not only of me, but also of my university. See:xxxxxxxxxxxx

Of course, there is no "PIGNOTRON". This is a libelous smear of my name
and my institution, Florida State University. Please remove this posting
or I will be consulting the university's attorneys.

Thank you,

Monica Pignotti

When COIMC receives a request to un-publish an article we on the editorial board post the request after evaluating weather the request has merit. It is the consensus of the COIMC editorial board that this request does indeed have merit and so the story on the open news wire about Mrs Pignotti has been removed for violation of the COIMC editorial policy (you can find our editorial policy at http://colorado.indymedia.org/no... ) specifically the two paragraphs bellow.

Posts which are obviously incorrect or misleading. This includes attempts to spread disinformation or to impersonate another individual. For example, if you post an article written by someone else and with your byline this is misleading and will be deleted.

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Several weeks ago, we published the contents of the 2004 FBI files on the Denver Anarchist Black Cross. Now we are announcing that on November 30th, we will be filing a new set of Freedom of Information Act Requests for FBI files on behalf of ourselves and others involved in social justice movements around Denver.

There has been a long history of state repression targeting various movements for liberation and justice in the Denver area. With the acknowledgment just several years ago of the existence of the Denver Police Department’s spy files on activists, and the release of various FBI documents and files pertaining to individuals and groups active in our area, we feel that there is a need for this new round of FOIA requests. It has been years since the release of these previous records. These years have been filled with continuous organizing and resistance and, we can only assume, continued monitoring by state agencies.

If you are currently involved with, or have been involved in the past with any social justice organization or project in Denver and want to be added to this FOIA request for records, please contact us at denverabc@rocketmail.com. We have forms for each requesting individual to fill out, and we must have these signed, notarized, and in hand for mailing by November 30th, to meet our self-imposed deadline. If you wish to decline seeking personal records, but want an organization listed in the request, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

In solidarity,
Your comrades with the Denver Anarchist Black Cross
denverabc.wordpress.com

A recent Durango Herald article reported that a military recruiter was overheard by students using a homophobic slur during the adminstration of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test in Durango High School.

We would like to say we are shocked by the language of the officer described in the article, but we are not. No one familiar with the history of homophobia, transphobia, and hetero-normativity in the military would be. The armed forces of nation-states are instruments of patriarchy and a hetero-normative world view. Our lack of surprise, however, does not detract from our anger and rage against the larger social dynamics present in our increasingly precarious lives, which this incident is merely a microcosm of. We find ourselves more than anything surprised that parents and students are not more resistant to military-supervised testing in the first place, let alone the presence of military recruiters in our schools, and the overwhelmingly conservative backlash in local discourse surrounding the incident. Kudos though to DHS for at least making a bit of a ruckus about it, and not taking it sitting down.

Though by law schools receiving tax dollars must allow military recruiters to stalk their hallways for fresh cannon fodder, there are easy steps that can be taken to protect your children from these predators (at least to a certain, albeit minimal extent). Just google "military opt out form" or go to leavemychildalone.org

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From The Colorado Palestine Community Network & The Gaza Action Coalition:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ga...

Please distribute widely.

Dear all,

Governor Ritter, Mayor Hickenlooper, the University of Denver, and the Joseph Korbel School of International Studies are hosting the Israeli mayor of Jerusalem in Denver on Tuesday, 11/3/2009. Nir Barkat is leading a campaign to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem of its Palestinian residents by declining building permits for Palestinians and launching a campaign of house demolitions that has displaced more than 150 people this year alone. The latest demolitions of five houses took place on Tuesday, 10/27/2009, just on the eve of his trip to the US and displaced 26 people, including 10 children. Hosting Barkat in Denver means that we endorse Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem in violation of international law and makes us party to the injustice being committed against the Palestinian people.

The Colorado Palestine Community Network is urging you to take the following actions:

1- Sign the online petition . This will be submitted to the Governor's office, the mayor's office, and the University of Denver on Monday. The petition is to urge them to rescind the invitation of Nir Barkat. The petition can be found by clicking here: http://www.petitiononline.com/Je...

2- Join us for a rally on Tuesday, 11/3/2009 at 6:00 PM in front of University of Denver Newman Center for Performing Arts located at 2344 E Iliff, Denver, CO 80208. The forecast is calling for good weather.

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Help defend and support social justice movements in Denver and beyond!
A benefit event for the Denver ABCF Mutual Aid Fund

"Martyr's Ball: Remember the dead and dance like hell for the living"
Wednesday November 11 (Haymarket Day) 8pm
Mercury Cafe 2199 California Street (22nd St and California), Denver

Enjoy a night of music and food to commemorate Haymarket Day, the anniversary of the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs, four anarchists executed during the height of the struggle for the 8 hour day in 1887. We will remember fallen comrades while also helping to raise funds for
contemporary social justice movements active in Denver and across the globe.

In the spirit of remembrance, we are encouraging attendees to come dressed as a martyr or fallen comrade from a social justice struggle. We are also encouraging participants to contact us in advance to let us know who they will come as, so we can compile educational materials about many of the martyrs represented at the event.

All funds generated by the event will go to benefit with Denver ABCF Mutual Aid Fund, a project that aims to provide financial support to members of social justice movements in need of economic relief and assistance.

For more information about the event you can contact the Denver ABCF at denverabc@rocketmail.com or contact Whitney at 303-995-3899

For more information about Denver ABCF you can visit our blog at
denverabc.wordpress.com
 

 EDITOR’S NOTE—This document recently fell in our laps. It’s the Spanish-English phrase book for Grand Junction’s finest. Notice there is nothing about rights translated. Its also insightful on how the police view their interactions with the community both hispanic and otherwise.

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Former Israeli Minister of Internal Security and Zionist hard-line supporter of genocide of the Palestinian people, Uzi Landau, will be speaking about the supposed threat of Iranian Nuclear Weapons on his first trip to the United States. The speech will be taking place at the University of Colorado at Denver on the Auraria Campus on Wednesday Oct. 28 from 1:30pm - 3:30pm at Saint Cajetan's Church across from the King Building (please come early around 1pm)

For those of you unfamiliar with this war criminal and human rights violator, he was opposed to the 2004 disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip. He encouraged armed resistance by settlers to the plan and was actually banned from traveling abroad by Ariel Sharon due to his extreme views (hard to believe he was too extreme for Sharon). He was also Minister of Internal Security at the time of Rachael Cory's murder by Israeli forces. He was previously sponsored by the Zionist of America in a failed speaking tour and continues to support human rights violations of the Palestinian people.

Please come with signs and a spirit of "vigorous" protest. This should not go un-resisted!!!

 Hey Everybody:

Big shout out from the Federal Supermax.

First, I hope you'll all keep an eye on my new website in progress jordanlitigation.com, 

Second, a cry for help, my attorney Paula Ray, will be arguing on my behalf before 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on November 17th, 2009, to reverse the district court's denial of my motion for post-conviction DNA testing under the Innocence Protection Act. As I'm from Philly, I am pleading with all Colorado-area friends to attend in a show of support. Need ID to get into the courthouse. It's Bryon White Courthouse 1823 Stout Street, Courtroom IV. United States v. Mark Jordan, No. 081431. Its a huge case dealing with ability to access DNA when it will prove innocence. I really hope some folks can show. Some other neat cases are being argued also. Please show, (I'm looking for #'s).

Third, my sis could use some web building tech support. Anyone? 

My best to all

In Struggle & Solidarity,

Mark Jordan

note---We got this call to support, and wish we could make it. Mark has won a case about the right of prisoners to publish, and fought another on censorship of reading materials that he lost. He was originally sent to prison for bank robbery, and while serving his time he was convicted of a jail-house stabbing homicide. This hearing is about his right to have DNA evidence examined that may prove that he is innocent. I hope some of our comrades in Denver can attend in our stead.

Solidarity form Junktown

 Steven Kilcrease a local activist was arrested during critical mass and his board was confiscated for over 3 months.

On october 13th 2009 he was sentenced to 10 days in work release (road crew) and over 1,100 dollars in fines. This is what petty skating where prohibited and petty disregarding police charges get you in Backwards Grand Junction Colorado? No! Others with the same charges walked away with fines, and nothing else. Steven kilcrease has been targeted by the GJPD because if his affiliation with and participation in local grass roots organizing activities. The Grand Junction Police department needs to LAYOFF of grand junction activists. WE (A)RE TIRED OF YOUR BULLSHIT GJPD!

After failing to prevent fascist neo-Nazi David Irving from holding a public speaking engagement at a restaurant in Arvada as well as allowing “performance artist” Buju Banton to spew homophobic hatred with impunity at a recent show in Denver, Colorado activists and radicals have some explaining to do. Unity is short between fragmented, sparsely attended groups and actions are few and far in between. In times like these, those that espouse theories of direct action and organizing for a better world should be taking advantage of the political climate and mobilizing. As the post-DNC activist vaccum continues to delay serious change, many groups are starting to find a good routine with steady participation, but there are still holes to fill.

Hard economic times breed violent xenophobia and nationalist sentiments. Fascist elements can and will take advantage of this climate, and providing a militant counter in the street to that threat is the only answer. Racists, white supremacists, homophobes, sexists, and fascists should never be given the opportunity to organize publicly. That makes communities unsafe for anyone marginalized by the views of irrational, hateful individuals and groups, and fighting for the physical safety of the marginalized in the face of violent bigots should be a priority for anyone looking to destroy oppression.

By allowing this hate to propagate in the region, anyone in Colorado looking to make positive change has failed. This was because of lack of organization, not willpower. Plenty were interested in countering these events, many of which in a militant fashion, for Colorado has no shortage of determined individuals ready to defend their communities; however because of a complete lack of framework, infrastructure, or even basic social network, much needed mobilizations never occurred.

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 The Police here in Grand Junction have for a long time been able to do whatever they want with little or no oversight by the community. Skateboarders, Latinos, poor people, and political activists have long known that the police have grudges they settle with force or through the justice system.

Recent arrests and firings of two GJPD officers for beating a woman and raping a woman, Coutrney Crooks and Glenn Coyne, respectively, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Former Police Chief Bill Gardner resigned this fall, because of another case that was successfully kept off the pages of the newspapers. It involved nine GJPD officers beating a woman in her own house, and then charging her with felony assault on an officer, she threatened to sue the PD and an agreement was reached which dropped the lawsuit and the chargers. The victim is still too traumatized by the incident, she just wants to put it behind her, but we as citizens need to know what happened in that incident.

The GJPD is notoriously secretive and non-transparent. Multiple open records request have been denied, or simply ignored. The process for people to make complaints about the department is not open or accessible. No hotline, No form, No advocate outside of the Police Department. To make a complaint you have to go to the station and into a locked corridor and into a locked room and make a complaint to an uniformed officer.

The Police also have a long history of selectively enforcing petty laws against the poor and homeless of this town. Smoking in the Park Tickets are only issued to homeless people. Forty-nine percent of ‘walking-violations’ are issued to homeless people. While houseless people represent maybe two percent of the city’s population.

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Denver Protests Ongoing Imperialist Wars

(raimd.wordpress.com)

October 7 was the 8th anniversary of the start of the current war in Afghanistan by the United States. A number of national groups in the remaining U.S. anti-war movement called for actions. Locally the Denver Anti-War Network (DAWN) called for a march many months ago, and it kicked off this day. Many activists gathered for two separate events in Denver on October 7th, a march against the Afghanistan war, and a “Justice and Peace Jamboree” right after the march.

About 50 people mobilized for a rally and march that started at the Denver Federal Courthouse downtown. A rally was held there for an hour. A street theater was held about the situation in Afghanistan. The crowd consisted of nominal anti-imperialists, anarchists, national liberation supporters, and anti-police brutality activists, along with RAIM members and supporters. As it was a broad-based march against the war in Afghanistan, there were many who advocated First Worldist, pro-Amerika politics. RAIM provided many anti-imperialist, anti-Amerika, anti-troop, and pro-Third World signs and slogans to promote our politics. After the rally the march then set down 16th Street mall. It was small in comparison to previous anti-war rallies, but was spirited and opted for more charged slogans. “Number One Terrorist, U.S. Imperialists” were chanted by a large majority of the protesters for much of the march. The protest itself stayed on message, the notable interject of the so-called health care debate in the march was a sign brought by a RAIM comrade: “The Real Health Care Crisis- Amerikan Imperialism.”

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Jacob Richards of  Housing First! No More Deaths (above)

An organizer of the Housing First! No More Deaths! campaign was arrested 09/29/09 during the group's weekly meeting, in an act of politically targeted police abuse of power. Housing First! No More Deaths! is committed to empowering people to actively and collectively work to address root causes of houselessness and create grassroots solutions. 

The arrest of Jacob Richards was an obvious act of retribution for his political activities. On 9/28/09, Richards assisted local houseless community members who were being harassed in a public park by two officers from the Grand Junction Police Department. The same two officers returned on 9/29/09 during the publicly advertised campaign meeting, asked Richards to identify himself, and arrested him on an unrelated petty matter.

Despite the fact that the GJPD has a working relationship with Richards and is in regular contact with him, they chose to arrest him in the public arena of a campaign meeting. In a phone conversation a few hours after the arrest, Deputy Chief of Police John Zen stated, “That makes it look like retribution for political activities.”

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**Feel Free to Forward to Other Interested Folks**

Denver Anarchist Black Cross has been busy organizing letter writing nights, a 5K run, and establishing connections with political prisoners and fellow badass people in the movement. To keep up with what we're doing and actions you can take to support political prisoners and work to better defend our movements please subscribe to our announcement list by going to

http://groups.google.com/group/denver-abc-announce/subscribe

We're committed to keeping the list to a low level of traffic, so you'll only get information about upcoming events and occasional urgent calls to action. For daily news on the status of political prisoners, state repression, prisoner writing and much more visit out blog at denverabc.wordpress.com

We've got a lot of fun and exciting work coming up- a Zombie Martyr Ball, hip hop benefit show for Mutulu Shakur and a film screening on National Stop Police Brutality Day (October 22nd). To be the first to know about this and more make sure to sign up!

Love and Solidarity,
Denver Anarchist Black Cross

On August 24th, eleven windows at the Colorado Democratic Party Headquarters were purposefully broken. The media quickly took up the story, but only within a narrow framework that couldn’t explain the incident. As members of the Denver Anarchist Black Cross, we would like to offer a practical analysis of why someone might take such action against the Democratic Party.

The first question asked by the media, understandably, was why this was done. Unfortunately, the question was framed as all political questions are framed in our society—right or left? Whoever smashed the windows could either be a “Republican thug” attempting to intimidate the Democrats, or a Democrat provocateur trying to soil the image of the Republicans.

To frame the issue in the same old Democrat/Republican binary is to once again assume that those are our only options. This framework dismisses or simplifies the experiences of the vast majority of people. People have diverse understandings of the world, and unique desires and goals that do not fit perfectly into political party boxes. In the end, the framework failed as the suspect was identified as an anarchist, a “fan of no party.”

The political system was not the only binary imposed by the media coverage of the incident. Blog, radio, and newspaper reports all grappled to identify the gender of the arrested suspect when reports from the police came into conflict with communication from the individual’s friends. In the confusion, some reports claimed there had been two different people arrested. The media eventually reported that the arrestee is transgender.

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DENVER - A jury of three men and three women reached a verdict on the fate of a Denver Police officer who was videotaped slamming a man's head into the ground during an arrest outside of Coors Field last year on the Opening Day of the Colorado Rockies.
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Cpl. Michael Cordova was found not guilty of the third-degree misdemeanor. Cordova, who was hired in 2001, will be able to continue working in law enforcement.

John Heaney, who was riding his bike past Coors Field on the way to see his mother in a nearby hospice, claims the under officers taunted and challenged him. Not knowing they were cops, Heaney says he tipped off Cordova's hat. After that, the 58-year-old man claims the officers pulled him off his bike, kicked, punched and beat him.

When he was lying on his stomach about to be handcuffed, video shows Cordova pulling Heaney's head up with his ponytail, then slamming his face into the ground.

The arrest was caught on videotape by a local sports production crew.

The jury began deliberating around 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, after hearing closing arguments. Cpl. Cordova did not take the stand in his own defense.

"We feel like we established enough facts to prove our case," Cordova's defense attorney Marc Colin said.

During the trial, Colin argued to jurors that the sound on the videotape and that witnesses say they heard was not the sound of Heaney's two front teeth breaking on the cement, but rather it was the sound of a baseball hitting a bat during batting practice outside of Coors Field.

The defense also called expert witnesses who said it looked like Heaney was resisting arrest on the videotape, and as a result, Cordova and other police officers were legally authorized to use force to take Heaney into custody.

"Cordova acted within the duties of a police officer and within the scope of his training," Colin told jurors.

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