Anonymous Submission

From Pittsburgh to Washington DC:
DROP THE CHARGES

Anarchist banner dropped in solidarity with the ACJ noise demo arrestees and Dane Powell. (circle A pictured on the left side of the banner)

Today in Pittsburgh, the 11 comrades arrested for allegedly demonstrating in solidarity with striking inmates at the Allegheny County Jail are scheduled to waste a perfectly good Friday in court. We dropped this banner in hopes that a few of yinz might see it on your way downtown. We sincerely love you, even if we don’t know you. Stay strong! The bastards aren’t invincible, no matter how many cops they can get to lie under oath. Who knows, maybe you’ll even catch a glimpse of justice, like the one we celebrated just last week when former ACJ inmate Andre Jacobs won an abuse settlement against the jail for nearly $300,000. Fire the warden, fire to the prisons!

**UPDATE** Charges dropped to summaries for at least 9 defendants!

Today, Dane Powell is far from his home in Florida. As preliminary hearings take place here in Pittsburgh, Dane will be in another courtroom in Washington DC, receiving his sentence after having plead down to felony riot and felony assault on a police officer. Dane faced the choice between a plea deal and the possibility of never seeing his kids again. On January 20th, 2017 – Day One of the Trump Regime – Dane (allegedly) joined one of the largest black blocs in US history to directly confront the hetero-patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist Empire on its home turf. He is one of over 200 comrades charged with multiple felonies for (allegedly) choosing to fight that day. While it may be too late to drop the charges, this banner is also for him. “We love you, stay strong, the revolution lives on!”

Solidarity with the rebel inmates at ACJ and everyone arrested at L&12 on J20. 

*disclaimer* there is a circle A on the other side of the banner! we promise!

In the video below, you can see Dane carry a child through the crowd in search of a street medic after police indiscriminately attacked with chemical weapons. Other black bloc comrades can also be seen defending and shielding protestors from police violence. Click HERE to watch a mini-documentary / video montage that includes footage from both the ACJ noise demonstration and the J20 riots.

These judicial proceedings are an expression of the war that the authorities are waging on the bond between thought and action, which is the foundation of anarchism’s dangerousness. […] active solidarity is a fundamental element of our anarchist acting and relations of complicity aimed at the destruction of dominion. This form of solidarity goes beyond repression’s attacks, and is capable of not letting itself be suffocated by the specificity of the trajectories of struggle when we recognize ourselves in a common tension of attack. In particular, active solidarity is an essential instrument to respond to state violence and not take its blows passively but maintain a stance of attack, so as not to develop attitudes of victimization, which is what repression wants. Thinking in terms of offensive, of permanent and internationalist conflictuality beyond each one’s path, the risk of isolation can be reduced and one of the enemy’s most important goals can be made ineffective.

– Call for a Dangerous June

The insurrectionist’s response to state repression is to release the tension you feel, to find the frontline that weighs heaviest on your mind and attack. The frontlines are all around us: from the fucked up shit that the system pulls on us, to the fucked up shit that we pull on each other. Find a reason to get out of bed that offers something more than the day’s routine of work, school, court, addiction, or whatever other obligations we millennials face. Participation trophies all around. 

An excerpt from the call for an International Week of Solidarity with J20 Defendants:

We are calling for a Week of Solidarity with the J20 defendants from July 20 to 27, 2017. July 20 marks six months from the initial actions and arrests during Donald Trump’s inauguration, and on July 27, a motion to dismiss the charges will be argued in court. The case has finally begun to receive the media attention it warrants; with this court date approaching and the cases underway, this is a crucial time for a second Week of Solidarity.

On January 20, 2017, thousands of people came to Washington, DC to protest the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. In the early morning, blockades shut down security checkpoints and discouraged people from attending the inauguration itself, while impromptu marches and direct actions occurred throughout the day. There was a spirit of defiance in the air.

Iconic images circulated almost immediately, from the punching of white supremacist Richard Spencer to pictures of a limousine on fire. These were only the most spectacular images, however, of a day that was characterized by generalized disruption.

Midmorning, an “anticapitalist and antifascist” march of several hundred people made clear its opposition not just to Trump but also the system that made Trump possible. Led by banners reading “MAKE RACISTS AFRAID AGAIN” and “TOTAL LIBERATION FROM DOMINATION,” the disruptive march took the streets of DC to the sound of fireworks and anticapitalist chants. After about half an hour, the march was brutally attacked by police, who used chemical and crowd control weapons along with physical force, then boxed in (“kettled”) and mass-arrested people. Everyone on an entire city block was arrested and given the same charge of felony rioting. Approximately 214 arrestees now face a total of eight felony charges, including conspiracy and destruction of property. All of the J20 defendants are now facing up to 75 years in prison.

A great deal has happened in the six months since the inauguration. Confrontational protests have taken place across the continent, challenging the political landscape shaped by Trump’s election. Participants have stood up to emboldened white supremacists, disrupted airports in the face of anti-Muslim bans, blockaded proposed pipeline routes, set up sanctuary spaces and rapid response networks against ICE deportations, and much more. In turn, states are passing legislation aimed at further criminalizing protest and limiting resistance.

The J20 case fits into this wave of repression. The police seized and hacked phones in an attempt to strengthen the government’s case, and subpoenaed social media accounts. They raided an organizer’s home in DC. Arrestees had their personal information leaked online. The prosecution filed additional charges, essentially accusing the entire group of breaking the same handful of windows. All this has disrupted the lives of the defendants in the J20 case, who have lost jobs, incurred legal expenses, and been forced to make repeated trips to DC. The majority of cases are now headed to trial, with a handful of trials set for November and December 2017 and the rest scattered throughout 2018. Despite the fact that the state forced a large number of strangers into this situation at random, the majority of defendants are working together, responding to the charges in a collective way.

In order to continue to build our capacity to counter state repression and strengthen our interconnected struggles, we are calling for a Week of Solidarity from July 20 to 27, 2017, to make support for the J20 defendants widely visible. July 20 marks six months since the initial actions and arrests; on July 27, a motion to dismiss the charges will be argued in court.

DONATE HERE to support and welcome back our friends Maxx and Shea.
Click HERE or HERE to read the report-backs from the action and subsequent arrests.

DONATE HERE to support the ACJ 10.

DONATE HERE to support Pittsburghers arrested on J20 at the intersection of L&12th streets. 

DONATE HERE to support Victoria and Phil, two comrades arrested during an action at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Originally posted to It’s Going Down

Pittsburgh anarchists held a march in solidarity with anarchist prisoners on June 11th, 2017. Full marching band in tow, the group disrupted traffic patterns and whatever the fuck else gross yuppie shit goes down on Butler Street, Pittsburgh’s “hipster” strip. Banners in solidarity with Eric King, Marius Mason, and Fernando Bárcenas were on display, along with other anti-prison banners.

After the march, a picnic and info fair was held near by, where t-shirts and buttons were traded in exchange for commissary funds for Joseph Buddenberg, Nicole Kissane, Eric King, and Marius Mason.

Until Every Cage Is Empty

 

Originally posted to It’s Going Down

MF1, Daniel Montano, pictured on the right, has passed away at 30.

Possibly Pittsburgh’s most well known graffiti writer and a life long anarchist, MF1 had an absolutely unique and thoughtful style that even many who dislike graffiti had trouble not being inspired by. While he could certainly look intimidating, you’d be hard pressed to find anybody who knew Daniel who doesn’t describe him as warm, caring and joyful.

In 2008 Daniel went to prison for committing over $713,000 in 79 instances of property damage stemming largely from a graffiti campaign targeting the rapidly gentrifying East Liberty neighborhood where he lived. He and his friend HERT were made examples by the city and were both sentenced to multiple years in prison, during which Pittsburgh ABC helped them release the zine Now Serving Felonies in which Daniel tells us:

“When I was 12 years old I decided to become an anarchist… Graffiti, for me, was one of the ways to reshape the world. It was my voice to stand up as an individual for my own individual freedom, to express my own personal idea of freedom, and to stand in direct and deliberate opposition to the existing social norms/the state. What I did was about human and world development. To me, it placed importance on the spirit that exists in all of us over the material world and possessions. It was like putting what was inside of me on the outside and saying “People matter! Fuck property!!!” It is a shame that my friend Ian (HERT) was put in prison for cosmetic property damage when there is real suffering going on in the world! Walls do not have feelings, walls do not suffer, walls do not starve, and paint does not kill people. I would like to see a society free of money, capitalism, material property. A society that is free to govern itself, built on the principles of non-violence and equality. The crimes for which I am currently serving my sentence were in no way violent. To me these actions are a symbol of what true freedom means to me and they represent even the slightest possibility of something different than what currently exists. Simply, they represent change. In the state system there are hundreds of thousands who are imprisoned solely for their beliefs and their own personal ideas of morality. I am proud to say that I was imprisoned for being one who stood up against the state, and for making it clear that I will not abide by a rule I do not believe in. I remain a voice that identifies itself with liberation, equality, pacifism, truth, justice, and above all else love.

Free the creative hands and minds suppressed by prisons. Freedom for all people.

-Daniel Joseph Montano”

Daniel would unfortunately get caught up in the all too common cycle of parole violations and spend the next 9 years in and out of jail and prison. In his most recent trip back, he was also charged with 40 more counts of graffiti because he was an unfuckwithable bad-ass. In a city that literally always succeeds at scaring writers into taking deals with menacing 30-65 count indictments, Daniel decided to fight all the charges. They were dropped and he walked free earlier this month. Our city has lost somebody truly special.

Statement from the Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross
Received 5.18.2017

Today we are happy to report our friends Maxx and Shea were released early from the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh. Far from being an example of goodwill and magnanimity from Judge Mariani, their initial 3-12 month sentence from him (when the D.A. only asked for a weekend) was the real show of his great benevolence. We are excited to have our friends out to enjoy the beginning of the summer.

While two of our accomplices now transition into probation, we have handfuls of Pittsburgh comrades still going back and forth to court appearances with stacks of felonies held above their heads, in what is the new normal for anarchists and anti-authoritarians in this country. While we predict these large and exaggerated cases will get increasingly common for us in Pittsburgh and around the U.S., we want to be ready to support our friends and ourselves in what should be looked at as the inevitability of, in the least, wasted cash in courts; in the most, long prison sentences. Tabling information, talking to lawyers, conference calls, getting legit, putting on shows and letter writings, crowd funding, meetings and late night talks, hanging outside of that stupid jail, and Signal upon Signal loops—we got this, in a sense. But what can we do beyond responding to the crisis of individual repressions? How can we create a culture of defiance and rejection to police, jails, prisons and snitching on a local level beyond reaction and into action? As we move forward with supporting our friends locally, and reach out to folks across the country, we aspire to move towards actively promoting an anarchist total rejection of the court and policing systems, and to respond to their tactics of fear head first, horns down.

Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross
PGHABC [at] riseup [dot] net
PO Box 9021
Pittsburgh, PA
15224

DONATE HERE to support and welcome back our friends Maxx and Shea.
Click HERE or HERE to read the report-backs from the action and subsequent arrests.

DONATE HERE to support the ACJ 10.

DONATE HERE to support Pittsburghers arrested on J20 at the intersection of L&12th streets. 

DONATE HERE to support Victoria and Phil, two comrades arrested during an action at the University of Pittsburgh.