From January 23 – 25, 2013, a Ceremonial Grand Council was held on Ihanktonwan homelands to affirm a unifying International Treaty between Indigenous Peoples and allies who seek to protect the sacred from the Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline.
The International Treaty–signed by Tribal elders and their Allies–builds upon the Save the Fraser River Declaration, Rights of Mother Earth Accord, Indigenous Leaders Spiritual Declaration, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Read the rest of this entry →
This is a call to all for assistance in investigating the facts surrounding the events detailed in the story below, if you have information, make it available. Run with it if you find something out and want a pulitzer… there is so much more to this that no one is talking about publicly yet.
Obama paid a recent visit to Minneapolis, MN earlier this week saying he was here to promote his gun control and weapons bans stance . The event took place, not among the public, but at a special facility, the Minneapolis Police Department Special Operations Center, speaking with law enforcement directly rather than the general public.
This is somewhat interesting considering a number of sheriffs around the country have recently voiced concerns over the legislation and executive orders, some going so far as to say they would not enforce unconstitutional laws.
The peculiar thing about this is it is reported that major players in the D.R.E. ( Drug Recognition Evaluator ) scandal , were at the conference. This meeting comes on the heels of a major lawsuit filed last Friday by several individuals involved in being “tested on” by police as subjects in the program. The lawsuit aledges that police were involved in unsupervised testing, and distribution of drugs to civilians, with no medical supervision or regulatory commission, and then dropping them off in the street after just confirming through these tests that they were in fact intoxicated.
This article is an attempt to ask some serious questions about the connections between gun control, the fast and furious scandal, the war on drugs and how all of these tie into the D.R.E. investigation and trial. There are some serious questions that need to be answered by policy makers and those that are serving in public office regarding these connections. Read the rest of this entry →
Notice in this movie as the BBC illustrates how U.S. propaganda artists (AKA, the CIA) manufactured consent for the war, by creating a group ( al-qaeda ) they could go after with RICO law that was meant to take down fraudulent politicians, judges, and gangsters (i would add banksters). The same law we should now use to go after these FASCIST WAR CRIMINALS !! Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and anyone else that knew the full scope of these lies need to hang for treason, the time is coming… Knowledge is power. Do not let any more of our children die in this manufactured war, do not let any more of our money be spent on these lies !! Educate yourself, no one is going to do it for you, roguemedia.org is one of many places to start – stop listening to the lies fed to you by big corporate media, who is owned and operated by these politicians.
According to all recent reports, police officers themselves indicate people were provided with drugs by law enforcement agents, think what happens in the medical world for one second and how a Dr.’s life could be ruined in a second with one faulty prescription….
After thinking about that. realize that both Hennepin county and the city of Richfield and Minneapolis where this all happened, have both refused to file criminal charges despite confirmation from law officers that they were giving people drugs with no medical supervision and letting them loose in the street afterwords.
The original DRE report video, a new BCA ( bureau of criminal apprehension ) report and a list of all the interesting pages and the statements made on them is noted below, enjoy
hongpong.com — MINNEAPOLIS — NOV 12 2012 — Law enforcement officers under a state training program called Drug Recognition Evaluators encouraged people in downtown Minneapolis, including Occupy Minnesota protesters at Peavey Plaza and other vulnerable and houseless people to participate in alcohol and drug intoxication evaluations. After a 35-minute video “MK Occupy Minnesota” [produced by Occupy Minneapolis, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Rogue Media & Twin Cities Indymedia] was released documenting claims of several DRE participants they’d been given drugs and encouraged to take drugs, an officer from Hutchinson, MN, stepped forward to corroborate part of that story.
Mn Bureau of Criminal Apprehension under the Department of Public Safety, generated a 513-page investigative report described in Minnesota Public Radio & Star Tribune stories, but not available publicly in full until now, adding another chunk to this incomplete story from one of the many gray areas in the war on drugs & the suppression of Occupy protesters.
Despite being denied a permit at a national level, which is required by U.S. law. TransCanada is continuing construction of it’s Keystone XL pipeline through Texas to the Gulf of Mexico. The pipeline will connect the volatile and environmentally devastating tar sands of Alberta to the world market, and in the words of Bloomberg’s news drive UP the price of oil in the US.
As new pipelines including TransCanada Corp. (TRP)’s Keystone XL are built to ship oil from Canada and North Dakota to the U.S. Gulf Coast, U.S. crude prices are likely to rise, diminishing a key cost advantage for U.S. refiners and shrinking profits – bloomberg.com
People are currently putting their bodies on the line to stop this illegal construction, which TransCanada lawyers are trying to justify by getting judges in the state of Texas to sign off on evicting landowners from their land. Something that is illegal according to U.S. law as the pipeline is intended to cross international borders and serves only private corporate interests, not the general public as certain eminent domain law arguments might be argued. The following story shows the environmental implications of this pipeline, shows how what TransCanada is currently doing is illegal, and details the efforts of people that are standing up to this company and it’s illegal pillaging of our fellow Americans land and rights.
From TransCanada’s own website in their own words describing the process they must comply with, and in effect admitting that on going construction is in violation of the law :
TransCanada is fully committed to the construction of the 1,897-km (1,179-mile) Keystone XL Pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska. We will re-apply for a Presidential Permit and expect a new application to be processed in an expedited manner, making use of the exhaustive record compiled over the past three plus years of regulatory review to allow for an in-service date of 2015. TransCanada anticipates approval of the Presidential Permit application – which is required as the pipeline will cross the Canada/U.S. border – in the first quarter of 2013, after which construction will quickly begin.
Notice that they say construction will begin only after approval by the president, as that is legally required for this foreign company to do the work they are doing within the U.S. This is not the case, and as you will see in the article below they are currently involved in construction. The company is trying to use several legal snafus that their lawyers made up to say that the state of Texas has the authority to grant permission. They are using eminent domain laws to scare home and landowners into signing agreements that they do not agree with or condone.
http://fb.com/harryfear - Harry Fear talks about his trip to Gaza, recounting the military escalations and meetings with resistance supporters, at the Cardiff Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
OccupyHomesMN was defending the Cruz family home from eviction, when a journalist is arrested without cause. This is the unedited video of the journalist being detained after asking what was going on and saying he was with the press. The police officer arresting our camera man her is the same officer who latter that day was pepper spraying peacefull protests and choking them.
This same arresting officer is seen below from our April 7th video that shows him assaulting a KSTP cameraman, destroying his camera, and then arresting another independent journalist.
This journalist’s arrest [below] happened less than 30 seconds after the journalist was dropped off at the scene, and the journalist himself said later he felt he was being targeted for arrest and noted that there was no other media present, and the place the lady officer referred to as “the media / press spot” was over 1/2 a block away from the house where police were cutting people out of the house if they refused to leave…
roguemedia.org feels very strongly that our reporter’s rights were violated in a way that is intolerable.
This comes on the heels of several disturbing things in the last few months regarding members of the press being assaulted, unfairly scrutinized, and repressed from documenting the real news and what corporate media can not or will not cover.
Stories From A Street Medic Involved In NATO Protests In Chicago, May 2012
all day i’ve wanted to be left alone, yet needed to be around others.
i don’t remember how i ended up at the front of the lines.
the first anti-capitalist march i went on was proof enough that my instinct is to cut away, dart through the crowd, and get to the front as swiftly as possible to deescalate the situation as quickly as possible.
or at least be there to provide any services within the skill-set of an energy mosh-medic.
so i guess i arrived there on auto-pilot.
be aware, i did not panic through all of this.
when they (cpd) first started shoving us back, i felt confused and in danger.
my perception snapped into slow motion.
(though there remain some gaps in my memory of it all)
what i noticed in those first split seconds was the commanding officer stepping forward. walking down the line. assaulting every other protester in passing.
prepping the army. leading by example. Read the rest of this entry →
credit – CUAPD (communities united against police brutality), indymedia twincities, roguemedia.org, and occupy minneapolis who are all awesome.
Update since this article/video first aired on the interwebs :: Pending Further investigation by the BCA (Bureau of Criminal Apprehension) the DRE program has been suspended in Minnesota.
Video documentation [shown below] by local activists and independent media shows that police officers and county deputies from across Minnesota have been picking up young people near Peavey Plaza for a training program to recognize drug-impaired drivers. Multiple participants say officers gave them illicit drugs and provided other incentives to take the drugs. The Occupy movement, present at Peavey Plaza since April 7th, appears to be targeted as impaired people are dropped off at the Plaza, and others say they’ve been rewarded for offering to snitch on the movement.
Local independent media, activists, and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality began investigating police conduct around the Plaza after witnessing police dropping off impaired people at the plaza and hearing rumors that they were offering people drugs. We videotaped police conduct and interviewed participants, learning some very disturbing information about the DRE program.
Officers stated on record the DRE program, run by the Minnesota State Patrol, has no Institutional Review Board or independent oversight. They agreed no ambulances or EMTs were on site at the Richfield MnDOT facility near the airport where most subjects were taken. Multiple times, participants left Peavey Plaza sober, returned intoxicated, and said they’d been given free drugs by law enforcement. We documented on more than one occasion, someone being told they were sober by one officer, and then picked up by a different officer, and returning intoxicated.
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Last May, WCCO reported DRE as an innovative training program for law enforcement agents in which they recruited individuals who were already impaired on drugs to test and observe the effects of those drugs minnesota.cbslocal.com. This program, which trains Drug Recognition Experts (DRE) was portrayed in glowing terms and the article emphasized the subjects recruited were already drug-impaired.
On its website, the State Patrol provides this training description:“DRE training consists of nine days of classroom work, where officers learn about specific drug categories, physiology, and enhance their SFST [standardized field sobriety testing] skills. Following the classroom training, DRE candidates must complete certification training, where they perform 12 evaluations on drug-impaired subjects. These evaluations will be monitored and verified by DRE instructors and the BCA Lab. Certification training generally takes 2–3 weeks.”
Given the dangers of impaired driving, there is value in training law enforcement officers to distinguish between the effects of various drugs and several common medical conditions. However, we have captured video footage of instances in which DRE trainees recruited subjects who are not already impaired, and those participants say they were given drugs by the officers.
Although program documents indicate that participants must sign a waiver, dps.mn.gov there was no indication from any of the participants interviewed that a waiver was offered or obtained. Further, video footage seems to validate the recollections of participants that no medical personnel or ambulance were on site during the observation and testing in Richfield. A DRE officer told one of our investigators that no Institutional Review Board assessment of the program has been made, a requirement of all experiments involving human subjects. Since it’s unethical to encourage people to take drugs–whether by giving them drugs directly or enticing them with food, cigarettes, or other rewards (which participants say they were given)–it is unlikely such a program would pass IRB review as it endangers the test subjects.
According to the WCCO article, officer trainees in the past have worked with various non-profit organizations to recruit drug users. It would appear now that they are no longer relying solely on this tactic, instead recruiting users directly and, participants say, providing them with drugs. After the sessions, these individuals are then dropped off in public areas without supportive care, creating a public safety hazard. In an example at Peavey Plaza caught on film, an individual who said he’s been smoking courtesy of the police for an hour, crossed a line of Minneapolis police barricades, climbed to the top of a large sign and sat 15 feet above the sidewalk swinging his arms and legs in front of a police camera.
Our investigation points to particular efforts to target and recruit youth. Further, law enforcement officers have been taped recruiting people from the Peavey Plaza area of Nicollet Mall and have dropped off a number of impaired individuals at Peavey Plaza. In some instances, Minneapolis police squad cars were present while DRE trainees recruited people at Peavey Plaza. After receiving drugs, some subjects were asked to snitch on the Occupy movement or asked about various people and activities of Occupy, they said. Given efforts by the Minneapolis city council to pass an ordinance designed to restrict access to Peavey Plaza by the Occupy movement, the conduct of DRE trainees points to the possibility that they are working hand-in-glove with Minneapolis police to discredit and disrupt the Occupy movement.
“I think most people would be very surprised to have our tax dollars used to get people high,” states Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “These activities call into question the methods and motives of this DRE training.”
There are some key points to this video evidence that is being overlooked by people who say there is no smoking gun in this video. The key points are:
1- no medical professionals are on site while this is going on
2- there is no review board, or independent oversight of this program to ensure people’s safety
3- the police are admittedly dropping off people they have just tested and confirmed were intoxicated in public…
When this was released there was a hearing in the Minneapolis City Council to decide the future of Peavey Plaza. They were trying to use evidence police had of people intoxicated on Peavey Plaza to create a new rule saying people could not be on the plaza after 10 or 12 pm..
There was a brood of slumlords and private corporate interests there to speak out about how vile and despicable the people on Peavey Plaza were and that it was a public nuisance that must be eliminated.
Meanwhile, every single citizen that stood up to speak talked about how opening up public space for a dialog among the people within the community was the best thing that had ever happened to the human race.
To end it all, the man with the afro in this video stood up and told city council exactly what was happening in this video as it had happened to him. A member of city council had recieved a phone call the night before from a concerned mom, who said that police had given her son drugs and she was very concerned about how her government was being run.
Police did indeed give Occupiers free pot, new evidence suggests; DRE program suspendedblogs.citypages.com
::Update since this story was run:: Apparently at least one officer has come forward and tried to railroad a Hutchinson Officer as the sole perpetrator of this offense. Our investigation seems to point to this as being a systemic problem, and that painting one single officer who was only doing as he was told is not the solution. It is quite clear from the video that all of the officers felt very uncomfortable being on film as they knew what they were doing was wrong. One officer from the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office clearly says, “we don’t need to get in trouble for anything.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Timothy Dolan {who is reported to have been at a national conference of the International association of chief’s of police during this documentary, IACP, who are the private organization behind this program} said the city’s {minneapolis’} police force had no part in the training. Elsewhere in City Hall, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak expressed outrage in a statement Wednesday. This statement from Dolan comes in stark contrast to the fact that last may WCCO ran an article that highlighted the benefits of this program and that Minneapolis PD was involved, and had more than 1 officer involved in the training. It is clearly seen in the video that a Minneapolis Police cruiser is escorting the out-of-town sheriff vehicle away from Peavey Plaza.
Based on the preliminary findings of our investigation, we make the following demands:
1) An investigation into the training and recruitment methods of the DRE program, along with an identification of the sources of drugs being given to recruits and the source of funding for those drugs. Public release of any written protocols regarding recruitment, treatment and release of impaired subjects, along with policies on the presence of medical personnel. An investigation into what—if any—oversight exists of these training programs and their use of human subjects, including any controls, standards of conduct, or oversight bodies. A ban on participation by the Minneapolis police in the DRE program until it is fully investigated.
2) An immediate change in practice so that only already-impaired people are used for training and an end to the practice of providing drugs or offering them to entice subjects. An immediate change in practice so that subjects are only released to a safe and supportive environment
3) An investigation into possible ties between DRE trainees and the Minneapolis police department and any efforts to discredit the Occupy movement. Immediate cessation of efforts to recruit and drop off impaired people at Peavey Plaza. An end to all efforts by government and law enforcement to defame, disrupt, or discredit protest movements in a way that decreases the safety of public gathering spaces.
4) An end to the Johnson Resolution and other efforts to block access to public plazas. It is blatant hypocrisy for the city to advance these kinds of proposals supposedly for public health and safety while police programs endanger people in the same areas.
Activists and journalists intend to continue our investigation and demands for safety for the subjects of this training program along with an end to attacks on the Occupy movement.
In a short video released last week, a group of students from New York’s Paul Robeson High School stand in an unremarkable classroom: school bags slung over wooden chairs and busy pinboards in the background. Their message, however, is a radical one: at front and center of the shot, a young man holding a white sheet of paper announces a mass high school student walkout on May 1, the day of the Occupy-planned general strike.
“Dear New York City. We the students of public education are here to inform you of the injustice that is taking place in our school system,” he begins, surrounded by members of the school’s student leadership, some staring defiantly into the camera with arms crossed. After listing student grievances including the privatization of the public school system, budget cuts, school closures against community wishes and over-policing in schools, the young man announces the May Day walkout to nearby Fort Greene park in Brooklyn.
It would be easy to dismiss high-schoolers’ plans to participate in May Day actions — which included calls for “No School” alongside those of “No Work” — as an excuse to skip class. But the video from Paul Robeson High shows a politically aware and angry student body, which is keenly drawing connections between educational policy and broader political issues — most notably the production of racist systems. Read the rest of this entry →
I am sure many people have by now already heard about Occupy the Midwest and the events of Thursday the 15th. I was one of the people arrested in the events of the evening, basically because I had a camera and was to close to some very violent police officers. I was filming them as they beat the crap out of peaceful protesters, 3 of which ended up in the hospital in what has been the first real acts of police violence in the Midwest at this scale. Pepper spray was used previously in other locations such as Tulsa, but never to this extreme. Several other journalists I have spoken with were pepper sprayed in the events of Thursday, police seemed to target media first to be able to hide the true extent of the illegal repression they violently upheld.
I was in a police vehicle with 5 other men and 2 women, 3 of us were journalists. Here is some of the video from the evening, more updates to come. We were all released from jail yesterday, and I wanted to get this out as soon as I could. Some of the video is rather bad from my recording as very little light was available and the camera I used was not the best. Altogether 15 people were arrested and given the same charges, except for the 3 people who had to go to the hospital who were given assault charges so the police could explain away their actions — I observed NO violence from demonstrators, and from other footage I have seen from other journalists covering different angles with static footage we are still in the process of uploading there is no evidence any demonstrators broke any windows or were violent in any way.
The thought that with the entire city’s police force on the site they were unable to stop a window of their own car being broken is rather laughable. (inside information details that all the police in the city were ordered to drop what they were doing and get on site, including calling up off duty officers.) In a surprising turn of events, I have just been informed that internal affairs is reaching out to all of those arrested and any witness to investigate the matter.
*** UPDATE as the weekend progressed – It seems as though Cell / WiFi jamming has been used to keep the media from reporting the events, over 5 different live reporters I talked to and myself were unable to get an internet signal through numerous events the rest of the weekend, My guess is they are scared of the truth of their abomination being told to the world UPDATE ****
This is my video, the audio is actually the most interesting part as much of the screen is distorted from water on the lens and lack of light.
this is footage from a journalist I was working with who was standing next to me and also arrested.
video feed we were able to broadcast live to 6k+ viewers from inside the cab of the police vehicle. I helped plug his phone into the battery pack I had to keep our broadcasts going.
KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice.
On the Listening Post this week: It has been 10 months since the Arab uprisings spread to Syria but reporting the story is near impossible. Plus, how will political change in Guatemala impact press freedom?
