By Redwood Curtain CopWatch

Eureka, CA: A jury delivered a resounding victory for plaintiffs in a police misconduct civil rights case by awarding the total sum of $4,575,000 against the City of Eureka and Eureka police officers Adam Laird, Justin Winkle, and Gary Whitmer for the death of Martin Cotton II. Punitive damages were assessed against the three officers. Mr. Cotton, a 26 year-old man living on the streets died of blunt force head trauma. The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys Dale K. Galipo and Vicki I. Sarmiento of Los Angeles County, were Mr. Cotton’s 5 year-old daughter and his father. The jury found that Officers Laird and Winkle used excessive force, and that all three officers failed to provide medical care.
On August 9th, 2007, Eureka police officers Winkle, Laird, Whitmer, and five others were involved in beating an unarmed Martin Cotton II to death. In broad daylight, officers pummeled Mr. Cotton’s head and body, then brought Mr. Cotton to jail, failing to seek medical assistance for him. Expert testimony presented by the plaintiffs established that timely medical care would have saved Mr. Cotton’s life. Mr. Cotton died in the jail cell within two hours. Painful video of Mr. Cotton dying in jail was presented during the trial.
The fatal beating of Mr. Cotton occurred outside the Eureka Rescue Mission. Police were dispatched to the Rescue Mission for a disturbance involving Mr. Cotton. When they arrived, Mr. Cotton was no longer in the Rescue Mission and was alone and defenseless. Laird and Winkle claim they ordered him to put his hands behind his back and he did not move. Both officers pepper sprayed him, Officer Winkle kneed him in the ribs and forced him to the ground where the officers beat him. Mr. Cotton made no moves against the police and remained prone on the concrete. Officer Whitmer (the third officer on the scene) gave a running kick to Mr. Cotton, battered him with a baton, and pepper-sprayed him. More officers arrived and joined in the beating.
The trial of Siehna Cotton et al v. City of Eureka included police readily admitting they they sat on Mr. Cotton, forced his head onto the concrete throughout the beating, kicked him, hit him with a metal baton, kneed at his vulnerable organs, deployed pepper spray three times, and did not seek medical assistance for him afterward. The officers, however, denied hitting Mr. Cotton in the head, most likely because blunt force head trauma was determined as the cause of death.  Crucial testimony came from two civilian witnesses who bravely reported that they had indeed seen at least Officer Winkle pounding on Mr. Cotton’s skull multiple times on the concrete. One witness said he heard “fist-to-skull”, “bone-on-bone” from those head strikes.
The verdict was announced September 23, 2011 after a two week trial and 7 hours of jury deliberation in Federal Court in Oakland. Siehna Cotton was awarded $1,250,000 for the pain her father suffered and $2,750,000 for wrongful death damages. Marty Cotton Sr. was awarded $500,000, which required plaintiffs to show that the officers’ actions “shocked the conscience.” The jury also found that the officers acted with “malice, oppression, or reckless disregard” to the decedent’s or plaintiffs’ rights, and assessed punitive damages: $30,000 from officer Winkle, $30,000 from officer Laird, and $15,000 from officer Whitmer.
Mr. Cotton was only one of many people killed at the hands of police in the Humboldt region from fall 2005 to fall 2007.  Attorney Vicki Sarmiento hopes the verdict sends shockwaves to other officers who may consider committing such atrocities in the future. “We don’t want this to happen to anyone else. We as a community, we as a society, cannot tolerate it.” Ms. Sarmiento speaks of the victory, “The jury’s decision showed respect for Martin Cotton’s life. They acknowledge the wrong that occurred and acknowledge that Martin’s life had value. The issue of human dignity and humanity is what this is about, and that everyone has a right to have that.”

By Lydia Heather Blumberg

In a nearly unprecedented win for justice in California, two of the Fullerton police officers involved in the brutal beating death of Kelly Thomas have been charged in connection with his murder. This marks only the second case in California history that a police officer has been held criminally liable for a murder committed in the “line of duty.” The first case was last year’s trial against Johannes Mehserle for shooting a restrained and compliant Oscar Grant in the back as he laid on the ground—begging for mercy—on the Fruitvale BART platform. The backlash from that case has been a thorn in the side of BART administrators ever since then, forming the original basis for an ongoing protest against a militarized and unaccountable BART police force, called No Justice No BART (for more information about the Oscar Grant case, surf to indybay.com/oscargrant.)
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas announced last week that charges were filed against the two Fullerton police officers after the DA’s office reviewed numerous videos of the incident, coroner’s reports, and over 150 witness statements. Officer Manuel Ramos was charged with second-degree murder and Officer Jay Cicinelli was charged with involuntary manslaughter and excessive use of force.
Kelly Thomas, a 37-year-old homeless man suffering from schizophrenia, was a familiar character to many in downtown Fullerton. Officers say they approached him at a bus depot on July 5th while following up on a report of attempted vandalism on a car in the area. Eyewitnesses report that Thomas ran when officers unlawfully demanded to search his bag. Scores of eyewitnesses to the following aftermath say that they saw multiple officers viciously beating and Tasering Thomas while he was on the ground sobbing and crying out for his father. Many eyewitnesses were video interviewed in the days following his death; their accounts can easily be found on YouTube.
Although defense attorneys for the killer cops have sought to portray Kelly Thomas as a violent criminal—responsible for his own death at the hands of six officers—hospital toxicology reports showed that Thomas was not under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol at the time of his fateful execution. Other hospital records showed that Thomas sustained severe internal bleeding, several broken ribs, a smashed cheekbone, and shattered nose in addition to the multiple brain injuries that eventually caused his death. Thomas died of brain death due to “head trauma” in the hospital five days after the confrontation when he was finally removed from life support. He was also shown to have been shocked “multiple” times with Tasers, including in the left chest area near the heart. Taser International, who manufactures Taser stun guns, specifically warns police departments not to Taser suspects near the heart, as such use has been widely shown to cause cardiac arrhythmia resulting in death.
John Barnett, defense attorney for Officer Manuel Ramos, stated at a news conference after his client’s arraignment, “I believe none of the officers were responsible. Lethal force was the result of Kelly’s actions.” Barnett made reference in court to Kelly Thomas having been convicted for assault with a deadly weapon 17 years ago, although it is doubtful that the officers were aware of Thomas’ conviction prior to his murder. Barnett even went so far as to tell the court that Thomas’ own parents were afraid of him, a claim that Ron Thomas, Kelly’s father, has flatly denied. Officer Ramos pled not guilty at his arraignment hearing, but the presiding judge, unimpressed, declined to reduce bail, leaving it instead at $1 million.
The Kelly Thomas murder case comes at the same time that another victory against police terror in Eureka has come to light. Last week the family of Martin Cotton was awarded over $4.5 million in a civil suit brought against Eureka police officers. Martin Cotton was a homeless man brutally beaten and left to die in a jail holding cell. Cotton was unarmed and compliant at the time of his execution. The two cases bear striking resemblance, although the officers involved in the murder of Martin Cotton never spent a single day in jail for his death, as criminal charges were never filed.
Why are we seeing a backlash against police terror in some of the most cop-loving, conservative counties in California, yet in San Francisco—arguably one of the most liberal cities in the state—when we can’t even get an independent investigation into whether the killing of Charles Hill by BART police was an excessive use of force? Charles Hill, a mentally ill homeless man, was shot to death on a crowded BART platform on July 3rd. Hill had been reported as “wobbly drunk,” and officers claim he tossed a small pocketknife toward them.
It becomes more and more obvious to the community at large that the real threat of violence on the street comes from the gun-wielding thugs behind the badges. It’s no wonder that No Justice No BART has enjoyed such popular success with hundreds of activists turning out to many of their protests and the national hacktivist group Anonymous lending their technical support. After so many incidents of unconscionable violence, many of them seemingly unprovoked, it only makes sense to demilitarize and disarm BART police. After all, MUNI seems to run just fine without its own armed police force. Then there are the more more novel ideas that make us all smile, like a big, fat protest banner that reads: “Disarm Cops, Arm Feminists.” At a press conference preceding a BART protest against the police killing of Charles Hill earlier this month, the group Feminists Against Cops released the following statement:
“As Feminists against Cops, we want everyone across the bay area to know that women are not safer because of police presence, in BART or elsewhere. Quite the opposite. Many women are in danger because of the police. Every police institution is sexist and violent. The police are more of a threat to women than a protection, and we do not want our public transport system militarized.
“Let’s be clear: the police are here to protect the capitalists and the state institutions, not us. The police have been given the authority to determine our freedom of movement, to harass us and enter our homes. The police even have the authority to determine if we live or die.
“There are many accounts of police murdering youth of color in the bay area, or of police murdering homeless people, or whomever they see fit. There are as many accounts of police using their power as police and as men to dominate, harass, intimidate, imprison, and rape women. Many police feel that they have a right to women’s bodies, and when they abuse our bodies it is considered “normal” police procedure.
“We are not asking for a less brutal police force because we know that brutality is an inevitable product of this policing system. Police only exist in order to brutally repress us. We must free ourselves. We are asking you to join us as we continue to struggle against the police. The quick and inhumane murder of Charles Hill is a warning: if you call the police you are putting people in danger of their lives.
“To the media and to the police we say: do not use women’s bodies and the claim that you are protecting our bodies as an excuse for murder. You called Kenneth Harding a pimp to excuse shooting him in the back. But Kenneth Harding was not harming any women when he was murdered-he was evading paying his fare as many of us do. The ridiculous BART fares are a burden for people who struggle for survival. We evade fares because we claim the right to be able to move freely even if we don’t have the money to pay the fares. Since evading fare is part of how we survive and move freely, then this also means that in order to survive and move freely, we must resist police.
“Our message to the police is this: we are under no illusion that you make us safer, or that you protect us. We women join these anti-police movements, including the Oscar Grant riots and the response to the murders of Charles Hill and Kenneth Harding, because safety to us as women means resisting the police.”

By Joe Nolan (From Street News Service)
The golden age of the American hobo dawned during the last decade of the 19th century. As the Industrial Revolution began its techno-cultural transformation of work and life in the United States–and the world–a number of wandering workers abandoned the security of home, family and steady employment for a self-reliant, vagabond existence, living by the hobo code to “decide your own life.”
Today, the image of a train-hopping hobo carrying a bindle stick (a cloth containing one’s belongings, tied to a stick) is a part of the country’s collective consciousness. Indeed, some itinerant workers still live the lifestyle today: the National Hobo Convention is celebrating its 111-year anniversary in Britt, Iowa this August. The convention kicks off with a parade and serves as a diverse celebration of the traveling worker under the motto: “Some in rags, some in tags, some in velvet gowns.”
The word “hobo” today may be seen in a derogatory light, but this understanding is incorrect. Although the origins of the word “hobo” are hard to trace, writers and etymologists have revealed possible meanings that also shed more light on the hobo’s day-to-day life. In his book Made in America, Bill Bryson suggests that the term evolved from a railroad greeting, “Ho, beau!” or that it was an abbreviation that stood for homeward bound. Both of these interpretations imply the life of a wandering worker, not simply a beggar or an itinerant ne’er do well. In The American Language, H.L. Mencken points out that “[a] hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but sooner or later he returns to work.” Again we see that while the hobos valued their freedom, it was a freedom that was won through self-reliance and shared values within the greater hobo community.
Along with a code of ethics and a system of written symbols that allowed wandering hobos to leave messages for one another on their travels, American hobos developed a unique spoken vocabulary that took on a particular flourish when it came to addressing one of a hobo’s persistent concerns: his next meal. A hobo seeking “bullets” for his “banjo” was looking to put beans in his cooking pan. A wandering worker new to a town might “call in” on a fellow hobo, hoping to cook up his “gump.” In other words, he wanted to share a campfire in order to prepare a scrap of meat.
Hobo cookery tells a lot about the hobo life and the men who lived–and continue to live–it. It is also an outdoor, camping, culinary tradition with a long history that still finds echoes among outdoor enthusiasts, contemporary hobos, and homeless people in America today.
Many Americans start the day with a hot cup of coffee, and after a long night of camping out, the hobos of yesteryear and the homeless men and women on our streets today love the brew, too. In these days of paying more than a few dollars for a daily dose of the gourmet good stuff, affording one’s morning coffee can present more than a challenge for someone living on the street. In addition, trying to pull together your own brew without the benefit of a kitchen can be just as daunting. During the days of the hobo, our vagabond heroes took a page from their Western brothers, brewing up a camp side cup with a technique borrowed from cowhands camping out with their herds. The beauty of the recipe is that it dispenses with hard-to-find coffee filters, boiling the brew down to its most basic components: coffee, water, and heat. After adding coarse-ground coffee and water to a pot, a pan or even a coffee can, the resourceful hobo would bring his brew to a boil and then take it off the heat to simply let it sit. Once the agitated grounds had settled to the bottom of the brew, one could pour the dark, delicious stuff off the top and enjoy a great wake-up before greeting the adventure of a new day.
Today, the recipe is still popular with people who live on Nashville’s streets. “It’s called cowboy coffee,” explains Jim Bo, a homeless man in Nashville who knows all about the challenges of improvising a meal on the streets or in an urban camping environment. According to Bo, simplicity is the key to a camp wake-up: “Build a fire and get a pot of water and some coffee.”
But just because the hobos of the past were independent vagabonds doesn’t mean that they didn’t enjoy options. In fact, in the hobo mindset, a life of free-wandering and self-reliance created expectations of more freedom and options than domesticity and wage-slavery could offer. So, hobos who didn’t have a taste for coffee often opted for a fragrant tea whipped up from plentiful pine needles. To brew Pine Needle Tea, one only needed a handful of pine needle clusters, a quart of boiling water. a bit of lemon juice, and some maple syrup, if desired.

1. Chop needles using pocket knife
2. Add needles & lemon to boiling water
3. Cover and steep
4. Sweeten and sip

While no hobo could live on bread alone, a long day of riding the rails was certainly helped along by a simple mouthful of Bannock Bread. This elemental recipe was brought to the states by fur traders from Scotland in the early 1800s. A similarly itinerant subculture, traders needed a hearty bread that could travel well, offering both important calories as well as flexible preparations. Consisting of just flour, baking powder, oil, water and a pinch of salt, the simple dough could be scooped into a pan to make small cakes or–in a pinch–it could be squeezed around the end of a whittled stick and  held over hot coals to bake. Once the bread had browned it could be pulled from the stick to make room for another round or simply eaten like a starchy lollipop right off the stick.
For Nashvillians like Bo, baking bread is a low priority when it comes to procuring a day’s worth of nutrition. “If I’m camping or traveling, I eat a lot of cold chili out of the can, or beans,” he said. “If it’s wintertime, I’ll make a fire and cook some hamburger and make some burritos.” However, whipping up a hot meal is not without its risks. “When people see fire and smoke they come to investigate.” Bo’s camp-cooked burritos offer up a tasty, healthy, affordable meal that also suits a life on the move. “Tortillas are more packable than bread. They’re already smashed flat.”
Accessible, convenient ingredients were also important to the original hobos, and plentiful, wild herbs like stinging nettles found their way into most well-traveled camping pots. While picking fresh stinging nettles can be a painful experience for the uninitiated, the prickly plants are the key ingredient for a classic hobo recipe: Nettle Soup. Nettles are easily found in a number of varieties all over the United States. Most of these varieties are perennial herbaceous plants and while it’s wise to use caution when harvesting them, they are a safe, delicious ingredient in a number of recipes around the world. Being careful to wear gloves or other protection when picking the leaves, all one needed was a pan of water and a salt shaker to have a delicious-and highly nutritious-meal. For Nettle Soup, use a pound of washed, chopped/torn nettles in a quart of water, and salt to taste.Simply boil all the ingredients together until the nettles go soft and the stinging hairs are rendered harmless. The soft, green leaves are left floating in a delicate, earthy broth jammed with iron, serotonin and vitamins just begging to be made into a Mulligan Stew!
Mulligan Stew was a communal, potluck recipe that consisted of anything a hobo or a group of hobos might have been able to pull from their bindles. The concoction was really an improvised Irish Stew, the term “Mulligan” being commonly applied to any Irish-American in the early 1900s. Ideally, the recipe would include some type of meat and a few potatoes along with anything else that could find its way into the pot. The Appalachian Burgoo was a Southeastern variety of the dish that often incorporated a handy squirrel or an opossum when lady luck smiled upon a hobo.
Of all the challenges that a wandering worker or any homeless person must face, gathering up one’s daily bread is one of the most difficult and the most crucial. In the heyday of the American hobo, it was a challenge met with ingenuity, originality and tasty, invigorating results. Utilizing improvised techniques and unlikely ingredients, America’s original wandering workers kept their bellies full and their spirits high, and their contribution to the American cookbook still informs the fireside meals of everyone from contemporary campers to Nashville’s homeless population today.
The secret ingredient in all of these recipes is the sense of accomplishment that is embedded in every simple bite that has been passed down from the original hobos. A tasty meal by a fire provided actual sustenance, but it also served as a testament to the hobo worldview that an independent man left to his own devices could turn his back on modern society and not only survive, but thrive in a life shot-through with dynamic, moving freedom.
Bon appetit!
Find out more about the hobos through this great read: The Hobo Handbook: A Guide to Living by Your Own Rules (Adams Media, 2011) by Joshua Mack. Find out more about the National Hobo Convention here: brittiowa.com/hobo/events.htm

“O scathful harm, condition of poverte!” -Chaucer

By Joshua Stanfield Switzer

“What the hell is ‘Vending Without a License?’”
“Citation.”
“Two hundred thirty-eight dollars!?!”
“$238.”
“This is police harassment!” And it was! The Pig. “You know, three blocks up, this is called a yard sale. You’d never write them a ticket!” I accused.
“Shut up, or I’ll cite you for public intoxication.”
So, I shut up. Because poverty will always be more powerful than the police.
This War on the Poor has ratcheted up another notch with Proposition L, a law to ban sitting, lying, or stopping on a sidewalk, if you’re poor. Why do we continue to encumber law enforcement with handling sociological, economic, medical, psychiatric, or public health problems? I just can’t understand. It’s sending a nightclub bouncer to perform emergency surgery…on your mother.
The only way to reduce crime is to improve reality! If you want people to be productive and working, then pay them a living wage. What an ugly concept: minimum wage…one cent above illegal? How about a reality wage?
And if you don’t want us pausing on your sidewalks, then offer some alternatives. And STOP PAVING THE PLANET!
Poverty requires ingenuity and perseverance. Survival drives a harder bargain than any beat cop or municipal code.
$238 for a few items on a blanket is a lotta do-re-mi! Up the hill it’s called a “yardsale.” Down here it’s “vending without a license.”
That’s just how the Fuzz handle the poor. Up the hill it’s a BBQ, down here it’s “Open Container.” We call it having a party, they call it unlawful assembly. Up there it’s just crossing the street, here: Jaywalking. There, visiting a friend; here they call it Trespassing. Job-hunting? Sorry, Suspicious Activity. Window shopping? Loitering. Fundraising? Aggressive panhandling.
And while I get busted for public intoxication, up in the hills they say, “I was just getting some air.”

By Dave Id
(Reprinted from IndyBay)

BART has repeatedly claimed that they do not allow free speech inside of the fare gates of BART stations —and, indeed, the transit agency arrested numerous demonstrators in August for simply speaking out against their police department’s violence from within BART fare gates. BART’s “free speech zones” are outside of the fare gates, the agency has made plain. And so No Justice No BART and allied groups called for a “Spare the Fare” demonstration in the non-paid area of the Powell Street station. Despite the pledges of BART board members, police, and administrators that BART respects free speech, and despite the fact that protesters were not blocking fare gates but merely chanting and holding signs, BART riot police gave no official dispersal order in the Powell station and surrounded dozens of demonstrators and journalists for arrest. This reporter was specifically targeted by BART police for arrest, by officers well aware of the over two and a half years of critical reporting on BART-related issues which can be primarily found at http://www.indybay.org/oscargrant.
With their ulterior motives unspoken, BART decided to shut down over one half of the Powell Street station before the announced start of the demonstration. This forced a crowd of protesters, media, riot police, and passengers into the relatively small section of the station adjacent to Hallidie Plaza. With SFPD and BART riot police and DHS officers throughout the station, protesters and media largely began to congregate between the ticket machines and Hallidie Plaza as 5pm approached. As the numbers of protesters and media continued to grow while the protest got underway, BART riot police moved in and blocked the fare gates themselves, allowing passengers to pass through behind them at first, and then closing the gates completely. After some chanting and speaking out, a large group of demonstrators and media marched around the ticket machines one time, until they ran into a new line of riot police blocking their path.
Moments later, an officer S. Christ came from behind No Justice No BART organizer Krystof and grabbed his backpack, lifting him off of the ground, and pushing him forward a few feet. As protesters confronted Christ about the unprovoked assault, BART’s riot police moved in closer towards encircling the large group of demonstrators and media assembled.
BART’s riot police then fully closed the circle from all directions and notified those kettled/trapped inside that BART police were “investigating” the entire group of protesters and media for violation of California Penal Code 369i. With this detention of dozens of people within the station, this reporter included, the demonstration was effectively over by 5:30pm. Shortly thereafter, the first official dispersal order was heard over BART’s loudspeakers, that those in Powell Street station should leave or risk arrest. Those encircled were told they were not free to leave. BART pulled the metal gates across entrances and closed the station to the public for the next two hours. Those outside of the kettle were allowed to exit towards Hallidie Plaza or the Westfield shopping center
Detainee and SF Bay Guardian reporter Rebecca Bowe asked for a show of hands to see who amongst those kettled were media. At least a dozen hands went up, if not more. No one in the group had heard any dispersal order prior to being detained, not this reporter, not Rebecca Bowe, and not SF Chronicle reporter Vivian Ho. Some demonstrators protested their detainment, while both media and protesters attempted to get clarification from the BART police officers surrounding them on the justification for the detainment.
This reporter witnessed BART police deputy chief Dan Hartwig assemble a line of riot police behind him, in a straight line away from the detainees just outside of the kettle. As soon as the line was in formation, Hartwig began to march rapidly through the police line encircling detainees, into the crowd, and began calling out, “Him, him, him…” as he pointed at different people within the detained group for immediate arrest. The officer closest behind Hartwig each time would grab the next “him”. This reporter was the first “him,” most likely first because I was right at the edge of the group facing Hartwig’s police line as they approached. I was also likely chosen for arrest by Hartwig due to my over two and a half years of critical coverage of BART issues which can be primarily found at http://www.indybay.org/oscargrant (along with the reporting of numerous others). My arrest can be heard—as the crowd objects to my arrest and that of others at the time— and then briefly seen in Josh Wolf’s video starting at 6:50.
Dan Hartwig knows this reporter quite well after two and a half years, as do many BART administrators and directors of the board. The Friday previous to this demonstration, for instance, BART board president Bob Franklin told me that he reads every report I write on Indybay.org about BART. While covering a mundane and tedious meeting of the new police oversight Citizen Review Board just three days prior to the demonstration (as the CRB debated its bylaws), the new police Auditor Mark Smith’s assistant was seen reading Indybay on her smart phone. I have had regular conversations with at least three members of the BART board over the last few years. BART’s PR team and several administrators know me by name. And I have had regular conversations with Dan Hartwig over the same period. Sometimes it might be humorous banter such as me asking Hartwig if he’s having fun while policing a BART protest. Sometimes it might be a more serious exchange around topics such as BART’s clampdown on free speech inside of BART stations. One time Hartwig told me that a demonstration inside of Embarcadero station on April 8th, 2010, was the best organized protest to date. Be it at any of the dozens of BART protests or any of the even more BART board and subcommittee meetings I have covered, Hartwig and I generally at least acknowledge each other’s presence in an amicable manner. And so it was somewhat shocking that Hartwig would point me out for arrest as he did while I was just standing there with a camera in each hand and my Indybay press pass around my neck.
The arresting BART officer’s name is S. Coduti. Even though I have never met him personally nor do I recall having seen him at board meetings or demonstrations, he clearly knew who I was. After roughly pulling me from the crowd and placing handcuffs too tightly around my wrists, I was escorted to the BART police substation within the Powell Street station. Almost immediately after finding a small office in which to place me, Coduti asked me if I was “Dave Id.” This is obviously the nom de plume I use on Indybay, of which many at BART are well aware, and only those who know my long history of journalism at Indybay would refer to me as such.
Over two hours after I was first placed in handcuffs, BART police stood me up and replaced the metal handcuffs with the plasti-cuffs in which I was to be transported to San Francisco county jail at 850 Bryant. I could not see the officer who was behind me placing the plasti-cuffs on my wrists, but he stood out as being overly confrontational with me after I had been basically sitting under the watchful eye of officer A. Rudi who was nothing but polite to me. The new officer who I could not see at the time gave me vague orders to spread my legs. I did and then he said, “wider.” I did further, and again he said, “wider,” and so it went with every instruction he gave. I asked him to be specific so that the process would be easier for both of us, and he taunted me, something to the effect of that I liked to fight or argue. I tried to look back over my shoulder, but could only see his face, not his name badge. I did not recognize him. After I was told to sit down again, I did get a look at his name when he hovered over me at a later point, before I was transported. He was Emery Knudtson, one of the officers on the Fruitvale BART station platform the morning Oscar Grant was shot in the back by Johannes Mehserle. I believe I can safely presume that Knudtson was aware of who I was as well, hence the unnecessarily confrontational stance he took towards me.
Hartwig stopped by the office in which I was being held twice. We spoke for a few minutes each time. Obviously, I objected to his having specifically pointed me out for arrest, knowing full well who I was, and that there had been no dispersal order. In the first encounter, Hartwig lied and said he had not pointed me out for arrest. He added that BART police did not have to issue a dispersal order. He told me that journalists could be arrested, too, if they broke the law. I responded that he knew I had not broken the law, and that he knew I was covering the demonstration as a journalist. Hartwig told me that other journalists had been arrested as well, although at the time I assumed he was completely lying. Other’s had been handcuffed, but apparently none of them were cited and all were allowed from leave Powell Street station.
I told Hartwig that he was silencing my journalistic voice, that he was denying my right to cover events as they continued to happen. Loud chants of “Let them go! Let them go!” could be heard from those outside of the station. Hartwig responded that I would be free again in a few hours and could continue reporting then. I told him that indeed I would not be deterred by his having illegally arrested me and would not stop covering wrongdoing at BART.
In my second visit from Hartwig while I was still handcuffed in the BART police substation at Powell, Hartig changed his story somewhat about the dispersal order. He claimed that there had been “several announcements” made, without saying exactly what those announcements had been or when they had supposedly been given. This newer claim mirrored what Dan Hartwig and Jim Allison told the media at a press conference BART staged at just about that same time. This reporter only ever heard one announcement, from an officer with a red bullhorn prior to the beginning of the demonstration. He announced that deliberately blocking fare gates was an arrestable offense. Again, though, no protesters blocked the gates or even came close to doing so. Fare gates were only ever blocked by BART’s own police, and it was BART’s decision to close the station for two hours.
As I was lined up with other arrestees who were to be sent to 850 Bryant, I could clearly see that none of the journalists with whom I had been in the kettle were present (aside from one who has posted a few reports to Indybay over the last year). I counted twenty-two arrestees at that point, and presumably there were at least a few more. Most of us were transported to 850 Bryant, eight at a time in SF Sheriff’s vans, and released not long after arriving at a temporary processing area outside of the jail, once we had each been presented with our 369i citations and had our property returned. Only four arrestees were actually taken inside of the jail, three of whom had been arrested for speaking out in BART stations during the August demonstrations. I was released about 8:30pm and the last few arrestees behind me were out shortly after that. The four who were booked into the jail were out by 3am the next morning.
And so as I was physically prevented from covering and being an eye-witness to further arrests and events at Powell Street station after I had been snatched by Coduti, the photos and story told here cannot directly go beyond this reporter’s arrest. Reports of BART police handcuffing other journalists, and misleading SFPD into taking their SFPD press passes by telling SFPD that the journalists had violated the law, can be found through other sources such as http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/2011/09/08/bart-police-arrest-journalists-cite-kgo-ktvu-at-bart-protest-homeland-security-present/.
It is notable that during the BART press conference, staged while they knew I was in handcuffs in the police substation, BART began referring to “legitimate” reporters, and Jim Allison as recently as today made a reference to reporters with “agendas” to SF State Journalism professor Justin Beck. As BART has run roughshod over the free speech rights of protesters of late, it has now done the same with journalists to varying degrees. Our U.S. Constitution, along with related U.S. and California law, offers strong journalistic protections, yet BART does not seem to understand that it is not within their authority to sort out “good” and “bad” journalists, nor to attack protesters without warning, simply for expressing views critical of the agency.
To begin to seek redress for my wrongful arrest, I will be filing formal complaints with both BART’s new police Auditor and Citizen Review Board. I will publish updates to Indybay regarding whatever may come of those. Thus far, there is little reason to hope for justice of any kind for anyone from either of these new “oversight” entities. Nevertheless, it is important that those who feel they have been treated unfairly or illegally by BART police stand up for themelves, create a public record, and likewise file complaints — be they journalists, protesters, or victims of police violence.

The Fair Shelter Initiative was set to go on the ballot in November, 2011, but after intense bullying from the Mayor’s Office, it was pulled off the ballot by members of the Board of Supervisors.
Trent Rhorer, Executive Director of San Francisco’s Human Services Agency was the main architect of Care Not Cash, the measure that “Fair Shelter” attempted to change by removing “shelter” from the definition of housing. Mr. Rhorer may be renowned inside city hall for his false statements and truth stretching, but for many long time veterans of the anti-poverty struggle, he reached all time highs with his lies around the fair shelter initiative. You will note that he uses a combination of half-truths, missing information, and outright misstatements to save his reputation.
 
BIG LIE # 1:  “Alameda County’s General Assistance is $25, and San Mateo County is $59. If Fair Shelter passes, homeless people from surrounding counties would flock to SF because their benefits are less generous than ours.”  He stated this both at a Rules Committee at City Hall (July 13, 2011), and when called out on it during a radio debate on NPR, Trent insisted it was true.  This was used to justify the continuance of paltry public assistance payments in SF to homeless people. 
 
Hmmmm.  According to the said counties’ ordinances, officials inside the counties and attorneys working on cases there?  Way off.  For example, San Mateo County is $338, and while they get $58 in cash, unlike SF, you do get the rest of the grant for rent, food, etc. You can also save the grant in an escrow for first/last, and security deposit up to an unlimited amount. SF has by far the most restrictive grant in the area. For example, Marin County gives $387 in cash, but folks are not flocking there.
 
BIG LIE #2:  “Care Not Cash recipients are the same as Disability recipients.”
 
Slight problem with this statement.  You cannot qualify for Care Not Cash if you receive disability payments.  In other words, once you qualify for disability, you leave county welfare. 
 
BIG LIE #3:  For years, Trent’s Department has insisted that they “cannot track which vacant shelter beds are attributed to Care not Cash set-asides.” This has been in writing, in response to FOIA requests.
 
Surprise!  Suddenly during the hearing Trent reported just that.  Interestingly enough, he quoted stats from a shelter that has no Care Not Cash beds on the two nights that the T train going out there wasn’t running all the way.  Of course on these nights there was only 5–7 vacant Care not Cash beds. 
 
What he never bothers mentioning is how many of the one night beds given out are unused Care not Cash beds, which is the real problem. The vacant beds are a slight problem when folks are getting turned away daily, but the one-night beds are what create the problems for people with disabilities having to return each day for the long shelter shuffle.
 
BIG LIE #4:  Mr. Rhorer quoted the Controller as stating that the cost of the program is $1.4 million.  What he didn’t say is that this is not a new expenditure.  Sure it is taken from checks, but it is used elsewhere and counts as an expenditure on the books.
 
BIG LIE #5: Mr. Rhorer claims “shelter beds are an entitlement under Care Not Cash.”
 
If you read the ordinance, it does not guarantee beds for everyone.  In fact, there have been times when no shelter beds were available that they continued to pay out cash to homeless people.  In surrounding counties that have adopted similar measures, they do not guarantee shelter beds. 
 
BIG LIE #6:  At the same hearing, Mr. Rhorer claimed that under the proposed Fair Shelter Initiative, an individual’s GA grant could not be reduced if someone declined an offer of housing.
 
Slight problem with this theory.  IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.  Currently, grants are reduced when services or housing are offered.  Under the definition of housing, shelter is included.  The Fair Shelter Initiative would have simply removed the word “shelter” from the definition of housing.

By OccupyWallStreet
Plans for a peaceful occupation in San Francisco are under way since the #occupywallstreet campaign has gone viral.
Activists and citizens on the West Coast who cannot venture to New York City are gathering to display a sister movement in San Francisco to protest against fiscal irresponsibility, corporatocracy, and general dissent with the United States leadership. Occupy Financial District SF is partnering with numerous activist organizations on the West Coast to combine numbers and media attention. The non-violent rally is set to take place on September 17th, 2011, at 555 California Street in San Francisco at 2pm with plans to maintain an on-going occupation until demands are met.
Occupy Financial District San Francisco is looking for interested persons to discuss logistics. Additional tasks are also in need of fulfillment, particularly technology and transportation. Please direct all questions and suggestions to occupyfinancialdistrictsf@gmail.com. For more information, surf to: occupywallstwestcoast.wordpress.com.

Dear San Francisco,
I am one of your local physicians and have taken care of many different kinds of people during the past 9 years of my appointment as an internist at UCSF, where I have worked at SF General Hospital as well as at the VA and the UCSF campuses. San Francisco is a surprisingly small town, and when you spend enough time in the health care industry, you come to recognize many of the city’s residents. You hold their stories and watch over them, in the hospital when they are ill and in the chance occurrences of running into them on the streets, in the market or painting the town red. It is an honor and great privilege to take care of the people of this city that I love so dearly.
  Last month, I learned that one of my former patients, Charles Hill, was shot and killed by BART police. Per the police, he was armed with a bottle and a knife and had menacing behavior. Per eye witnesses, he was altered and appeared to be intoxicated but did not represent a lethal danger. I remember Charles vividly, having taken care of him several times in the revolving door which is the health care system for the people who do not fit neatly into society. Charles was a member of the invisible class of people in SF–mentally ill, homeless and not reliably connected to the help he needed. While I had seen him agitated before and while I can’t speak to all of his behavior, I never would have described him as threatening in such a way as to warrant the use of deadly force. We often have to deal with agitated–sometimes even violent–patients in the hospital. Through teamwork, tools and training, we have not had to fatally wound our patients in order to subdue them. I understand the police are there to protect us and react to the situation around them, but I wonder why the officer who shot Charles did not aim for the leg if he felt the need to use a gun, instead of his vital organs. I wonder if he possessed other training methods to subdue an agitated man with a knife or bottle.
  I feel this situation quite deeply. It is hard to watch our civil servants (police) brutally handle a person and their body when i spend my time and energy as a civil servant (physician) honoring the dignity of that person, regardless of their race or social class, their beliefs or their affiliations. I know it is not my job–nor the police’s job—to mete out justice or judgment of a person’s worthiness. It is also hard because Charles has no voice, no one to speak for him now that he is gone. It would be easy to let this slide and move on with our busy lives, as we all struggle to make ends meet in this expensive city during a recession. I believe this situation  shows us how powerless we all feel to some degree.
  I feel outraged and am trying to find the best ways to express it–through creative outpouring, through conversations. I would like to lend my voice to the growing protest of the BART police’s excessive use of violent force and know that weekly protests are being organized on Mondays until demands are met for BART to fully investigate the shooting of Charles Hill, disarm its police force and train them properly, as well as bringing the officer who shot him to justice. The media is portraying the annoyance of the protests to commuters more than the unbelievable horror that an innocent man was shot dead by the force that is meant to protect us. I don’t want to upset commuters or be a nuisance. I would like to be part of educating and not letting this slip under the proverbial rug, in honor of Charles Hill and Oscar Grant, another recent victim of a BART police shooting, and in order to help prevent something like this from ever happening again.
  I will be present at the peaceful demonstrations on Mondays in front of the BART Civic Center station, not to prevent commuters from getting home, but to educate a population that may need to pause and think about the value a human life has and the kind of San Francisco we want to live and work in.
  If you feel this gravity of this situation and want to lend your voice, please join me at Civic Center on Monday at 5pm to be part of a nonviolent, peaceful demonstration. Please bring a simple sign, expressing your concern. Or just your self to stand in support. If you’re a musician and would be into creating an acoustic street band with drums and brass outside the BART for this purpose, please let me know. And if you support this outpouring, please spread the word.
  Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration.
 
Respectfully,
Rupa Marya, MD

Hobos to Street People presents a social, cultural and political history of homelessness from the Great Depression to the present as seen through the work of artists from the 1930s to today. The book is based on the touring exhibition of the same name that began in San Francisco in 2008. The artists range from Dorothea Lange, Rockwell Kent, Fritz Eichenberg and Richard V. Correll to contemporary artists including Kiki Smith, Sandow Birk, Eric Drooker, Jos Sances, David Bacon and others.
Author Art Hazelwood weaves together the history of homelessness in American society through the lens of artwork that tells a story of struggle and hope, of solidarity and demonization over a seventy-five year period. Many of the images from the 1930s sought to express the nobility of those living in poverty rather than portray people as victims. And many of the artists were employed by the federal government under several programs of the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Artists represented the struggles of poor people and shared in them. A new activism spread amongst artists who worked on political themes from homelessness to anti-lynching and anti-fascist campaigns. This artist activism was largely suppressed by art world trends and anti-communist witch hunts in the 1950s, but returned again in the 1970s.
New Deal programs followed by the GI Bill, the Civil Rights movement and Medicare reduced poverty for many groups but other forces were at work in society to create a new wave of homelessness and poverty. This new era of homelessness has been with us since the 1980s and takes on increased urgency with every turn of the economic cycle. With the rise of conservative economic theories of trickle down and boot strap individualism, emergency shelters began to spring up all across the country in the face of rising populations of homeless people, the first indicators for the gross inequity and wealth disparity in America. By contrasting the responses in the 1930s with today the emphasis on demonization and criminalization of poor people becomes all the clearer. In the last few decades artists have worked increasingly with activist groups to create imagery that speaks to contemporary homelessness.
Ben Bagdikian, Dean Emeritus at the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley wrote of the book “In 1964, I wrote a book, In the Midst of Plenty: the Poor in America, describing what was shameful for the richest country in the world. Today, as depicted in Art Hazelwood’s Hobos to Street People, we still do little or nothing about the homeless poor and it is still shameful.”
A Book Release party will be held at Alliance Graphics 1101 8th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710-1203 (510) 845-8835, Thursday September 15th, 2011, 5:00–8:00 p.m. A portion of sales at this event will be donated to homeless rights groups WRAP, the Street Spirit and the Coalition on Homelessness. The Great Tortilla Conspiracy will be present at the book release, printing edible and cogent quesadilla’s with a message. Freedom Voices will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sales of the books to the Coalition on Homelessness. To buy the book and make a donation to the Coalition visit http://freedomvoices.org/new/hobos and enter COH in the coupon code/comments section of the online order form.
Hobos to Street People is also a touring exhibition that originated in San Francisco in 2008 and is currently on view through December 4, 2011 at the de Saisset Museum of Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053 (408) 554-4528 www.scu.edu/desaisset/
Exhibition Reception: Thursday, September 22, 7-8:30 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Thursday, September 29, 7-8:30 p.m. with homeless rights activist Paul Boden, New Deal scholar Gray Brechin, and artist/curator Art Hazelwood.
Hobos to Street People: Artists’ Responses to Homelessness from the New Deal to the Present, by Art Hazelwood with an afterword by Paul Boden. Published by Freedom Voices in San Francisco, CA. 84 pages, 57 images, ISBN 9780915117208, $25.95. For more info about the book, surf to freedomvoices.org.

The Coalition on Homelessness has enlisted over a hundred Bay Area artists in the battle to end homelessness. These artists are backing the Coalition’s annual auction, Transforming Art into Action: Many Voices, One Community, which will feature more than 120 pieces of art for sale, musical performances and live art-making by local muralists and printmakers. This gala fundraising event for the Coalition on Homelessness will take place from 5:30pm to 10pm on Thursday September 8, 2011 at SOMArts, 934 Brannan Street in San Francisco.
Providing a snapshot of contemporary Bay Area art, the auction will highlight dozens of painters, sculptors, photographers and printmakers, including conceptual artist John Baldessari, renowned abstract painter Gregg Renfrow, printmaker Favianna Rodriguez, neo-pop stencil artist Scott Williams, and many others. Transforming Art into Action is the 11th annual auction sponsored by the Coalition, and it is our largest benefit celebration of the year with hundreds of expected attendees.
The event will also feature special musical performances by singer/songwriter Erica Benton and Golda Sargento, front woman of the indie rock band Golda and the Guns. Muralist Hugh Leeman will lead a live art, painting session, and the Great Tortilla Conspiracy will conduct on-site screen printing, using tortillas as a tongue-in-cheek canvas for their silk screened edible art. The $25 admission includes free food and drink provided by the California Culinary Academy, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
For further information about Transforming Art into Action: Many Voices, One Community, visit the Coalition on Homelessness website at cohsf.org or call Lorraine DeGuzman at 415-346-3740 x307.