Infamous day for the SFPD, arresting a 9 year old boy & followed by brutality.

NOTE: UPDATE FROM A.N.S.W.E.R AT FOOT OF POST WITH PRELIMINARY VICTIMS AND ARRESTS COUNT - SEEKING EYEWITNESS TO THESE EVENTS.

Yesterday (March 21, 2009), I attended the action organized by the ANSWER Coalition in SF against the 6 year-old occupation of Iraq, what started as a day with some drizzle, turned out to be beautiful weather for a peaceful demonstration / rally at Civic Center Plaza.

It was peaceful in spite of a couple of dozens pro-Iraq occupation counter-protesters, waving Israeli flags, and the usual verbal exchanges between the two sides across a cops-lined Polk street.

I started hearing that the cops were arresting a young boy behind the stage, I was located to the left of the stage as you face it and saw that there was a commotion to my right and saw cops and ANSWER Security volunteers moving toward the side where I was, the group marched and continued to an area to the left of my location, I started to shot video with my cell camcorder as I moved toward the area where they had stopped.

As you will see in the video, the group was calm, I started to hear that the cops had decided not to arrest the boy after all, while I have not confirmed that this is what happened, this was indeed the info that was circulating among the people around me.

One of the cops in the back of the group, relative to my location, can be seen given instruction to the other officers, then he moves in to where the boy and what I assume was his mother, were starting to leave walking in my direction, the cop intercepted the boy and started to push him to the back and right, members of the group started to yell in protest of the cop's action, what happened next was chaotic, to put it mildly, the other officers charged the group, pushing them as other cops converged in a flash, pushing, shoving and clubbing people in what appeared to me to be in a undiscriminated and unwarranted fashion.

As a eyewitness to these events, in my opinion, the police over-reacted and their actions were totally disproportionate to the situation, they inflamed an, albeit emotionally charged, peaceful conditions, into a melee where police abuse of force can be seen.

SF Cop moves in to arrest 9 year old boy

In this clip (1 of 4), a Cop moves in to arrest 9 year old boy - 032109 SF Anti Irak Occupation March & Rally

This is one of the clips I shot with my cell camcorder during the protest in SF against the 6th year occupation of Irak, some of it was done with my hand over the head trying to aim by feel, sorry if I miss the heads of participants in some scenes but by chance I got some of
the action.

As a witness, in my opinion, the cops' actions were unprovoked and disproportionate to the situation, they over-reacted, although to call it over- react may not be the correct term to use, a more accurate description would be to say 'they acted'

On this clip, you can clearly see how all was relatively calm, as the video rolls, there was a small cluster of people and cops on the street, the young boy they wanted to arrest, his mother? when the young woman, the boy and a young man started to walk away because I believe the decision was made not to arrest the boy, a cop on their right moved in to stop them and push the boy back, from then on, as you know, was very chaotic, anyway, this is the clip that captured some of that action.

UPDATE: This video taken by Meklorka of same scenes but clearer.

- Here is a completely unedited video of the very beginnings of this confrontation, which clearly shows the police attacking the crowd without provocation. The situation began when it was announced from the stage that the police were trying to arrest a nine year old Palestinian boy for reasons they would not divulge. A crowd of people rushed over to video tape and witness what was going on.

UPDATE: This video taken by herbnotbombs is more complete in that it shows the very beginning, it also includes the scenes of the other two videos above.

- The video start after the police have plucked the boy from the other demonstrators, from here they walked in the direction where I was located, you can see that all was calm, you can see protest's volunteers talking to officers in what appear to be negotiations to not have the boy arrested. The peaceful discussion continued until one cop goes and talks to a grup of officers and then moves in to detain the young boy, this scenes ware the ones captured by the videos above.

Young man arrested - cop with loaded grenade launcher

- In this clip (3 of 4), I captured some of the activity when a young man was arrested and at the end he was led away, somewhere in the middle of the clip, there is cop with a fully loaded grenade launcher and two more grenades on the butt of the launcher, he looked very menacing,on two times I focused on him, you will catch a brief sights of another cop on his right with what appears to be a belt full of grenades

Seeking Eyewitnesses & Video of Mar. 21 SFPD Attack; Demand Release of Those Arrested San Francisco police arrested 10 people and assaulted many more during and after a permitted March 21 rally in the Civic Center marking the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Dozens of people suffered bruises, cuts and other injuries in unprovoked attacks. The police particularly focused their attack on young Palestinians and other Arab Americans. As of this writing, eight of those arrested remain in jail, all but one facing felony charges, their average bail is set at $50,000. One of the women arrested remains hospitalized for a head injury inflicted by an SFPD officer. The ANSWER Coalition, which was one of the central organizers of the March 21 march and rally is calling upon everyone to take action. What follows are: 1) An appeal for anyone who has eyewitness testimony and/or video to call the National Lawyers Guild Hotline; and 2) An appeal from Arab American community organizations to make calls to the offices of the Mayor, District Attorney and SFPD demanding that charges against all those arrested at the March 21st rally be dropped and that they be immediately released. Legal Update from the National Lawyers Guild on Mar. 21 Anti-War March in S.F. There was a large amount of police violence at yesterday’s anti-war rally and march. The SFPD arrested ten people. Five are being held on felony Lynching and Resisting charges after a skirmish with police in the Civic Center. Their bails are $53,000 each. At least one woman reportedly suffered a head injury during the arrests. During the same incident SFPD also reportedly seriously injured two women who were not arrested but were hospitalized with numerous injures including reports of head trauma and multiple broken bones. Another five people were arrested in the BART station as the rally was ending after an incident involving pepper spray. Police arrested five Arab youths who were reportedly the victims of the pepper spraying. Two of them who were under eighteen were released to their parents; the other three are being held on Battery and Conspiracy charges also with bails of $53,000 each. The NLG and legal volunteers are keeping track of evidence concerning these arrests. If you witnessed the incidents or know anyone who did, please have them call the legal support hotline at 415-285-1011. The NLG will also be looking for lawyers to help with arraignments anticipated for next week. Immediate Action Alert from Arab American Community You can use the following to call or email city officials about the March 21st arrests: Hi my name is____________________________. I am calling about the arrests of: Mustafa Albouyha Majdi Abu Hamdieh Elizabeth Haskell Mohammed Ibrahim Nadeen Elshorafa These individuals were wrongfully arrested while participating in a legal, peaceful march yesterday. We are demanding that the charges be dropped immediately and that they be released to their families. Make your call immediately to all of the following: SFPD Public Affairs (415) 553-1651 (ph) (415) 553-9229 (fax) sfpd.online@sfgov.org SF District Attorney Bureau of Investigation: (415) 553-1030 Public Inquiries: Erica Terry Derryck (415) 553-1167 Connie Chang (415) 553-9108 Mayor Gavin Newsom (415) 554-6141 gavin.newsom@sfgov.org If you find out any update about these arrests during your calls, please let us know by calling (510) 534-7933. Additional calls for action are to follow. Forward Widely
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Act Now to Stop War & End Racism http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org answer@answersf.org 2489 Mission St. Rm. 24

"Michael Savage is not the sickness, he is a God-Awful symptom"

Of Media Ownership's Rules and Regulations.

There's a claim that Michael Savage is not racist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, etc. and that the language and the characterizations he uses daily in his show "The Savage Nation" Are merely the words of a Patriot who is defending his country, as the mantle he put on implies by the creation of his "Paul Revere Society" with him riding his horse yelling: "The Latino immigrants are coming to invade us!", "The Latino immigrants are coming to invade us!"

Now, there's a debate that needs to take place but, alas!, the so called "Mainstream Media", in general, does not allow for opposing views to be heard, as to why this is so would take at least a full volume to do justice to the issue, but in short, these media people on the fringes of the political dialog such as: Neal Boortz, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, , Ann Coulter and many others, have nationally syndicated shows and/or are invited to Network Channels and allowed to make outrageous and regularly baseless comments without challenge from the hosts and with the exception of a few guests with mildly opposing views, there's practically no guests with real opposing views or opinions, or these shock-jock hosts are just simply dismissed or ignored thus keeping the stream of hateful words to continue unabated.

Whether or not people like Michael Savage are prejudiced or hold phobias against segments of the population who are attacked as groups, it is not the main issue, at stake is the poisoning of the minds of millions of people who then make decisions based on what they hear on such shock-jock shows to support exclusionary or punitive legislation in accordance with the message received, it also creates and sustains a social atmosphere that adversely hurts the targeted groups without the benefit of hearing the other side of the narrative.

Case in point: On August 14 2007 there was a press conference to announce a demonstration on August 15 2007 in front of M. Savage's broadcasting booth to protest his statements RE immigrant students fasting to raise awareness and support for the passage of the DREAM ACT.

Is it Hate Speech what Savage and people also holding his positions do?, or is it Free Speech as his supporters claim?

We, the protesters feel that what Michael Savage does, creates an atmosphere of warrantless intolerance that incites hate and violence and needs to be publicized/debated/discussed in public forums, but with the exception of Spanish speaking Media's limited coverage of the action, the Mainstream Media silence on it, was deafening, besides a C.W. Nevius balanced article in the San Francisco Chronicle: Despite Latino protest, silencing Savage seems unlikely" Wednesday, August 15, 2007, and some bloggers reporting on Michael Savage's words and what people are saying, as you can find on the Huffington Post Bloggers:, you have to go to Spanish speaking reporters such as Erika Cebreros', writing for El Mensajero and La Opinion Digital - Discriminación ‘salvaje’ - Rechazan ‘palabras de odio’ - Protesta comunidad latina contra el locutor Michael Savage, arrollado por el ‘Tren de la dignidad humana’ Lunes, 20 de agosto de 2007 , the few seconds on the 6 and 11 pm news shows on Univision, Telemundo, local English TV outlets in SF on that day, progressive websites and 'leftist' local publications, what you normally find on the Mainstream National Media and on the internet, are misleading articles, the rest for the most part, is intolerance and hate coverage.

Thanks to some local Spanish AM radio stations in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Seattle and Phoenix, that I know of, who gave us air time to carry our message locality to locality, we will get there if we keep the eyes on the prize.
In addition, I wrote a report on the action to our supporters (Text)

Since last year, new developments have taken place, more organizations are getting more involved and have joined in the struggle to stop the verbal, legal and physical attacks against the Hispanic / Latino community in general and against immigrants in particular, such as NHMC's Campaign "Latinos Against Hate Speech", and NCLR's "WAVE OF HOPE" With their "We Can Stop The Hate" Campaign.

For a more humane and civilized society,

Aurora
More Documentation and info below in the event you are interested.


SAN FRANCISCO: Rob Roth Reports On Group Protesting Comments By Radio Host Michael Savage On KTVU TV (Local FOX Affiliate hence NOT, repeat, NOT "fair and balanced" Where Dr. Marcos Gutierrez, Producer and Host of "Hecho en California" ("Made in California") Called in to demand time for an opposing opinion (There was none in the original format of the segment))

Demonstration on August 15, KNEW's broadcasting booth and local Clear Channel Communications' executive offices - See Pictures - See video(From: SFCollegeRepublicans)
The Savage Debate
Press Conference: Stop Hate Messages on Local Radio August 14, 2007 on SF City Hall steps (Video), Photo Gallery.

Know Your Right-Wing Speakers: Michael Savage

From Campus Progress

Born Michael Weiner in the Bronx in 1942, the future Savage graduated from Queens College with a degree in biology, after which he attended the University of Hawaii for master’s degrees in anthropology and botany. He spent the rest of the late 1960s and early 1970s traveling the South Seas. Weiner received his doctorate from the University of California in epidemiology and nutrition science. He became an expert on herbal remedies, penning more than 15 books while still known as Michael Weiner, including such classics as Earth Medicine, Earth Food, Getting off Cocaine: 30 Days to Freedom, and The Complete Book of Homeopathy. While his knowledge base in herbal medicine was vast, he was more of a snake oil salesman than anything else. In Getting off Cocaine, he gave addicts “an alternative plan for getting ‘high’” that consisted of a daily dose of Sudafed, vitamins C and E, amino acids, and the occasional coffee enema. No word on the effectiveness of this treatment. His turn to the far right coincided with the rise of gay activism, as he linked homosexuality to the spread of not only AIDS, but the general spread of disease.

Savage is a prime purveyor of the slanderous liberal-bashing that passes for “humor” on talk radio. He describes his style as a mix of “Plato, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Moses, Jesus, and Frankenstein,” although a comparison to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would also be appropriate, given his frequent mood swings. Savage is juvenile and defensive in his insults, resorting to lazy and trite grasps at “humor” as well as frequent comparisons of prominent progressives to Nazi leaders. In reference to Jimmy Carter’s criticism of Israel’s West Bank policy, Savage called him an “anti-Semitic bastard,” “Jew-hater,” and “war criminal” who is “like Hitler.” Yes, Michael Savage compares a celebrated humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner to the man responsible for one of the worst genocides in history. He has referred to Brokeback Mountain as Bareback Mounting, making him as original as the guy who comes up with puns for pornographic movie titles.

Savage is also convinced that affirmative action is a conspiracy to hold back all white males.

From Salon.com By David Gilson
Page 1: Michael Savage's long, strange trip"

How a Jewish kid from the Bronx went from swimming naked with Allen Ginsberg to spewing the ugliest bile on talk radio.

Everyone who has ever known Michael Weiner seems to agree that he has always been a big talker. One of his classmates from Jamaica High School in Queens, which Weiner graduated from in 1959, recalls him as a garrulous character: "He was on the short side, and he was intense -- a fast talker, and always hatching some scheme or other." "The fellow I knew was a natural comic and as reliable as a clock," remembers another classmate, who says the teenage Weiner was "non-political." His yearbook page notes his participation in the Chemistry Lab Squad, school government, and the Rifle Squad, presaging his interest in science, politics and firearms.

Page 2: The therapeutic benefits of a coffee enema

In "The Way of the Skeptical Nutritionist," he ventured that a person's ideal diet should be determined by his or her ethnicity. "Getting Off Cocaine: 30 Days to Freedom" promised blow addicts "an alternative plan for getting 'high' -- legally and naturally!" The treatment involved ingesting a daily cocktail of Sudafed, vitamins C and E, and amino acids, as well as self-administering the occasional coffee enema. "Use a good quality coffee," Weiner advised. "Not decaffeinated or instant."

Page 3: "Inner voice screaming at me ... first rational, then crazy"

Mar 5, 2003 | At first glance, Michael Alan Weiner seems like an improbable candidate to be America's angriest, most vicious conservative radio host. Born 60 years ago in the Bronx, Weiner has lived in Northern California for most of his adult life, making a living as an herbalist and nutritionist. He communed with Fijian traditional healers, got married in a rain forest and studied ethno-medicine at the University of California at Berkeley. He swam naked with Allen Ginsberg, dreamed of being the next Lenny Bruce and wrote a rambling novel about a half-mad alter ego. His son's middle name is Goldencloud.

Page 4: A deepening love affair with the sound of his own voice

These days, Weiner's more interested in purging the body politic. Using the pseudonym Michael Savage, he's launched a one-man mission to save America from its enemies at home and abroad, which on any given day includes liberals, gays, academics, the homeless, the Clintons, immigrants, feminists, CNN, the American Civil Liberties Union, Muslims and other minorities. Broadcasting three hours a day, five afternoons a week, from a rented studio in downtown San Francisco, he gives voice to the right wing's darkest fantasies. He muses about launching preemptive nuclear strikes on the Middle East ("I wish to God the hatches were open and the missiles were flying!"), suggests gunning down illegal immigrants ("If we had a government, we'd blow them out of the desert with airplanes!"), dreams of dispatching with "commies, pinkos and perverts" and other undesirables ("I say round them up and hang 'em high!") and even paraphrases a remark attributed to Nazi leader Hermann Goering ("When I hear someone's in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-15!")

The terror arrives in the morning… And that is only the beginning.

Immigration is a world-wide phenomenon whose effects are more noticeable at the local level, we see and heard of the loss of jobs and the separation of families, accompanied by the consequent terror of our undocumented sisters and brothers, fearful in the uncertainty that if today, agents of I.C.E. will knock on their door, the terror is greater in the children. than they ask themselves if today, or tomorrow, or the following day, their parents, brothers and sisters without documents that guarantee their legal stay will be taken away.

Those arrested are taken to detention centers where they are victims of insults and crimes, they suffer humiliations, negligence and sexual abuse, in at least 30 of 83 deaths from 2003, the death was due to lack of medical care and administrative practices devoid of consideration to the human condition, civil and legal rights.

Important to note, that while much is spoken of the raids, very little is said of what is happening in the detention centers, where in any given day, it is easy to count 33,000 prisoners, among them women and children, many are citizens of this country, there are cases of whole families in detention.

The immigrants are of all colors and nationalities that are reflected in the dead, Yusif Osman of Ghana, the transgender woman Victoria Arellano of Mexico, Arthur Suarez-Almenares of Cuba, Edmar Alves Araujo of Brazil, Young Sook Kim of Korea, Ms. Kenley of Barbados, Caesar Gonza'les-Baeza of Mexico, for others there is not even information on their places of origin like Reinaldo Prado-Arencilia, Yvel Fils-Aim, Abdoulai Sall, or Enríquez-Betancourt, of whom there is only last names.

Among the deaths, 13 are listed as suicides, 14 as a result of cardiac diseases and 9 related to H.I.V and A.I.D.S, the lists contain other cryptic definitions of the causes as “undetermined” or “unresponsive” , in too many cases these lists do not mention their nationalities or where they lived in the United States. Some names and date of birth are ineligibles.

Sexual violation to a Mexican transsexual woman in the detention center of Miami, where some women reported that the guards promised to release them in exchange for sex or to deport them if they refused, of the Pearsall center in Texas. there are reports of extensive and systematic sexual abuse from the guards, in the present, there are legal complaints, lawsuits and demands for exhaustive investigations on irregularities, abuses and crimes in those concentration camps, euphemistically called detention centers, which are managed by contractors working for private corporations.

The immigrant community faces a crisis of catastrophic magnitude where the efforts to remedy it run into a great segment of the population that ignores the reality, do not care or are in agreement with the policy of the US government.

Those of us who struggle to remedy, or at least to alleviate the situation, have different opinions on what to do to fight off the attacks or how to go about it, we debate weather our immigrant marches inflame the anti immigrant sentiments or alert the rest of the population on the tragedies, the opinions on the course to follow vary in all aspects and apparently the debate arrives to the point of choosing between this or that option as the most suitable or effective method.

Other difficulties derive from the consideration of the causes and effects of the artificial phenomenon that is the forced and massive mobilization of workers and families at a global level, on these points there is no disagreement that they are the result of economic agreements at an geopolitical level, but there is indeed a debate on the spheres of influences or jurisdiction where activities on corrective measures would have to be applied or which of them must have priority, taking into account the stark reality that the problem is caused as much by the countries receiving the immigrants as is their country of origin, since both entities are controlled by corporatist interests, they share the blame for the victims of their economic policies and transnational agreements which are the workers, farmers, small entrepreneurs and their families.

And this way, the debates continue while the tragedies increase, the crises multiply, the terror remains and it is institutionalized in a pernicious way, especially in our children, thus we arrive at the situation were we find ourselves in, where we agree that it is untenable and intolerable and that something has to be done, the only remaining questions are: What, where, and how.