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* The so-called Damage Assessment Accountability Task Force has been going through surveillance camera footage from protests in late May and early June, and arresting protesters for allegedly throwing things at the cops, looting stores, etc. Right now they are pretty narrowly focused on the protests that happened on May 30th and June 1st, but it’s not hard to imagine them expanding into a more general role in the future. So far they’ve arrested at least 20 people, most of whom were new to protesting and don’t have any connections in activist circles. We don’t know exactly which police forces are in DAAT, but news reports point to the FBI, ATF, and Pittsburgh police.

* Grand juries are hella sketch, especially federal grand juries. There is one at work in Pittsburgh that has already indicted three people. All of them were allegedly part of the same two protests being investigated by the DAAT, but federal grand juries last 18 months. If this one has just started up, it has plenty of time left to indulge in mission creep.

* The FBI has approached two activists that we know about. They also attempted to talk with several protesters arrested at the action on June 1st. We don’t know what the feds were able to learn from these interviews, but we have to assume they’re coordinating with the DAAT and the grand jury.

* An anarchist squat was recently evicted. As awful as this would have been on its own, there is reason to believe that the squat was targeted specifically for the politics of its residents. Several cops tried to get the squatters to talk about their beliefs, and an “intel unit” officer took pictures of the inside of the house and tried to get permission to take several zines with him. Even the building inspector called in to condemn the house was getting in on the act, by taking pictures of the license plates of cars coming to help people move.

* The Allegheny County district attorney has been trialing facial recognition technology from Clearview AI, a company founded by an alt-right grifter and spammer. While the DA doesn’t appear to have a current contract with Clearview, they’re obviously interested in the technology and might have just gone with a different supplier.

This report shows the backlash is well under way. DA Stephen Zappala pulled off a neat PR coup by charging 61 arrested protesters with misdemeanors – and then loudly announcing that he was dropping the charges for lack of evidence. This let him take credit for respecting protesters’ civil rights while dodging the flood of criticism that would have accompanied the prosecution of proverbial peaceful protesters for minor offenses. Now he gets to rack up felony prosecutions in relative peace, knowing Pittsburgh’s liberal activist groups won’t give him any shit as long as he’s only going after “violent looters”.

In the street, actions continue under the same old implicit bargain with the cops. Incredibly aggressive marshals scream at anyone deviating from the organizers’ script, undercover cops shadow every march taking pictures, and any possibility of militant action is snuffed out at birth. Multiple peaceful marches are taking place every week, which stretches police resources and forces them to spend money on overtime, but this is a very small consolation. The absence of state police and other outside reinforcements at recent protests indicates the Pittsburgh cops think they’re on top of the situation. It’s hard to argue with their assessment.

This pacification is reflected in the absolute denial of any concessions by local politicians. Unlike cities such as New York or Portland, where police departments have seen slight budget cuts and minor restrictions on their authority to use force, in Pittsburgh the police are getting more money. The 2020 operating budget grants them a 10% increase in funding. At the county level, the Allegheny county council refused to ban tear gas or even do mass coronavirus testing at the jail.

Alternative approaches to defunding the police abound. In Minneapolis, where resistance fighters burned down the third police precinct building, cops are resigning in droves. While they might just be taking advantage of their generous health benefits to retire early on disability pensions, the fact remains that they won’t be murdering unarmed Black people on the streets anymore. In Portland, police admit to $8 million and counting in overtime expenses from two months of riots, already over half the paltry budget cut imposed by the Portland city council.

We could go on, but you get the idea. Shrinking the Pittsburgh police is going to have to be a DIY effort. The sooner we start the better.

***

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photo of ACJ inmates from a noise demo during the 2016 national prison strike

This report was originally published on 04.16.20 by
TORCHLIGHT — Anarchist News From Pittsburgh

UPDATE 2: Contrary to our previous reporting, prisoners in ACJ can buy postage stamps, but the process to do so is byzantine. A family member must access the prisoner’s commissary account to buy the stamps, which are then delivered to the prisoner’s cell. We do not know how long this takes, but suspect the wait is lengthy.

UPDATE 1: Pittsburgh Current has published an article featuring a current prisoner at ACJ that confirms much of our information, and further exposes the media coverup of the Covid-19 outbreak in the jail. 60 prisoners recently wrote and signed a letter to the media, which never appeared in any outlet. In addition a second jail employee, this one a CO who had contact with prisoners, has tested positive. ACJ has updated their statistics to reflect the new data, but has not made any further announcement. No other outlets than the Current have reported on the new case.

Torchlight has spoken with multiple sources with inside knowledge who describe increasingly horrific conditions inside Allegheny County Jail. Many prisoners have symptoms of Covid-19, but the jail’s web page indicates only 12 have been tested as of this writing. Not only have visits been canceled, but commissary purchases and most phone calls have also been cut off. With only two five-minute calls permitted per week and no way to buy stamps, contact with the outside world has become almost impossible, leaving prisoners with little ability to report on the inhumane circumstances of their confinement.

Torchlight has learned that ACJ has devoted an entire housing unit to presumed Covid-19 patients. Prisoners there are only allowed out of their cells for a few minutes a day to exercise and are not being taken to a hospital. They are also still being housed two to a cell, in cells far too small to allow for the six feet of separation recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. This is a violation of the jail’s own Covid-19 procedures policy, which states “The ‘at-risk’ individual shall be placed in a holding cell alone or with other symptomatic individuals if space does not allow for single cell housing.” Due to the recent population reduction at ACJ, space does indeed allow for sick prisoners to be single-celled, but instead all prisoners there have been packed into fewer housing units, making social distancing impossible.

Anyone who needs medical attention now has to visit the infirmary instead of having a nurse come to their cell, risking coming into contact with potential coronavirus carriers. In addition to being a public health hazard, this practice violate ACJ’s own policy for combating Covid-19, which states “Healthcare staff will be deployed to housing units to perform non-emergency healthcare requests, provider visits, or assist in other locations of the facility that have critical staffing needs.” Without being able to buy food at the commissary, the only dining option for prisoners is the cafeteria, where small tables and general lack of space add to the risk of infection.

The jail’s procedures do call for screening incoming inmates for fever, coughing, and other symptoms of Covid-19. However, they do nothing to address asymptomatic patients, such as testing for coronavirus, or the 14 day quarantine recommended by the CDC. New prisoners have been sent directly to work in the kitchen preparing meals for the entire population with no idea whether they were infectious or not. One source reports that only prisoners who hold jobs within the jail are having their temperatures taken. Any prisoner without a job has to visit the infirmary if they think they have a fever.

What sanitation is being done within the jail exacerbates prisoners’ vulnerability to Covid-19, because ACJ mandates the use of bleach. Fumes from the bleach solution used to clean surfaces are causing sickness and weakening respiratory systems already at risk.

In short, a major outbreak of Covid-19 appears to be on the verge of exploding in Allegheny County Jail, and jail officials are doing little except hiding their heads in the sand and issuing press releases. The 12 prisoners they have tested for coronavirus are 5 fewer than the number of ACJ staff who have received tests, despite staff being fewer in number. Of the 12 tested prisoners, four came up positive with one still pending. This represents at best a 33% positive rate, which is far higher than Allegheny County at large. Only one ACJ staff member has tested positive out of ten completed tests, a rate of 10%.

ACJ’s response has been to minimize the pandemic, hide conditions in the jail by cutting off contact with the outside, delay even the half measures they been forced to take as long as possible, and exaggerate their effectiveness. In this they have had the able assistance of most of the local media. For example, much has been made about the “over 900” releases in the last month – without taking into account the number of new prisoners who have been confined in that time. Pittsburgh Current (a notable dissenting voice) has released a timeline of ACJ’s response to the pandemic that shows a clear pattern of pattern of delay, lies, and callousness. Historically ACJ has dealt with serious medical problems by letting the patient die and dealing with the PR fallout later. In a pandemic that approach will be even more lethal than in the past.

Photograph from a local march supporting the June 11th
International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners in 2017

CLICK HERE  to donate to the
Bukit Community Bail Fund of Pittsburgh

This report-back was originally sent to TORCHLIGHT — an anarchist news site based here Pittsburgh. It was published on January 5th, 2020.

Torchlight has been pretty much moribund for the last few months, but we pledge to make a comeback in 2020! To kick the new year off, here is a reportback from an anarchist who went to the noise demo at Allegheny County Jail on New Years Eve. Get in touch with us at torchlight[at]riseup[dot]net.

I got to the jail a little late, so a few folks were already chanting and making noise in front when I arrived. More people trickled in behind me, but I don’t think we ever had more than 20 total. We damn sure made a lot of noise though. There were drums, pots and pans, and one person even brought an electric keyboard.

After spending some time at the jail front entrance, we marched around to the lower level, in front of the courthouse. This is where it really picked up, because we could see prisoners flashing their lights on and off, while dancing and cheering us on. A couple of people brought out a banner, but unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of it (Ed note: We’ll let it go this once…). Cops coming in and out of the courthouse gave us dirty looks, but they never really bothered us. After almost an hour, we marched again, this time to the back of the building along the bike trail. There’s a guard rail back there that makes a really loud noise when you bang on it.

Not too long after that a few folks clustered up to sing a song, but I was hoarse from chanting, and starting to get really chilly, so I left. I think anarchists in Pittsburgh have been scared of noise demos since the one where a bunch of people got arrested, so I was glad this one happened. Hopefully they will become a regular thing again.

***

• It’s tempting to laugh at the list of intersections and colored coded zones for revealing exactly where protesters should set up blockades for maximum disruption, but let’s face it, that wasn’t exactly classified information anyway. More interesting are the locations that were left out. Butler Street in Lawrenceville? Allegheny Center in Northside? Both are perfectly acceptable protest spots under the new rules, and both are virtual parking lots during rush hour even under ideal conditions. Pittsburgh’s, um, idiosyncratic street layout offers many more such choke points. Maybe it’s time to branch out geographically, if only for the hilarity of watching a police liaison wave a copy of the guidelines under the nose of a frustrated cop, screaming “We’re nowhere NEAR the red zone, what are you even complaining about???”
  
  They do give themselves some wiggle room toward the end with “Officers may use their discretion to make other roadways or intersections off limits to protests if judged necessary to ensure public safety”, but still…

• This sentence is highly interesting: “Whenever possible, warnings should be given with a bullhorn, a squad car PA system or LRAD.” For those unfamiliar with the term, “LRAD” stands for Long Range Acoustic Device, a crowd dispersal weapon that emits a piercing noise loud enough to cause pain and hearing damage. It can also be used as a loudspeaker. The LRAD made its US debut right here in Pittsburgh during the 2009 G20 protests, where it permanently damaged the hearing of a woman who wasn’t even protesting. She sued the city, won a $72,000 settlement, and Pittsburgh’s LRAD has been in mothballs ever since. The guidelines only mention the LRAD’s loudspeaker function, but the fact that the cops are bringing it up at all is intriguing. However, given their past experience with the thing, and their general hands-off approach to the protests for Antwon Rose II, they’re probably bluffing. Even if they bring it out, chances are they won’t use the crowd dispersal function. Protesters are advised to pack earplugs just in case though.

• The guidelines say absolutely nothing about requiring permits. This should be a standing rebuke to all the liberal nonprofit organizations in Pittsburgh that refuse to set foot in the street without getting permission from the people they’re protesting against.

• Zooming out a little, the guidelines as a whole make it obvious that the cops are gaining confidence and worrying less about Pittsburgh going up like Ferguson. At the most recent march for Antwon they shadowed the march with the usual phalanx of city cops, but they didn’t feel it necessary to call in the state police, and no more than one undercover was spotted in the crowd. Even after marchers got right up in the face of Chief Schubert and Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich, no further reinforcements were called in. If the cops feel like they’re getting away with the current set of restrictions, more will surely follow.