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Title: Millions of Dollars in Prizes! Author: CrimethInc. Date: December 12, 2009 Language: en Topics: Justice, law, USA Source: Retrieved on 9th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2009/12/22/millions-of-dollars-in-prizes
On the heels of three new settlements in which the government of
Washington, DC is paying protesters well over $22 million, weâve
completed the following article and a two-sided poster on the subject of
payouts to survivors of police repression.
Over the past decade of mobilizations, CrimethInc. agents have
repeatedly pulled off narrow escapes from mass-arrest situations in
which all our comrades were captured. We felt pretty pleased with
ourselves until we learned, some years too late, that everyone who
didnât get away was making thousands of dollars! How embarrassingâweâre
such dropouts, we canât even get a job getting arrested! This, despite
the FBI defaming our milieu as the âtop domestic terror threat.â Whatâs
a neâer-do-well supposed to do? So we read with sympathy the account
from our comrades who followed in the footsteps of the Warsaw Ghetto
fighters, crawling through the sewers to escape arrest and, little did
they know, a whopping $18,000.
Pass the word aroundâresistance doesnât always end in defeat, even when
we get beaten and arrested. We may not believe in the legitimacy of the
law any more than our rulers do, but we still ought to include the
battle in the courts in our strategizing alongside the battle in the
streets. By bringing lawsuits against our oppressors, we can increase
the costs of repressing us, and sometimes tie their hands for future
demonstrationsâcompare the behavior of the Washington, D.C. police at
the 2000 and 2002 IMF protests to their conduct during the 2007 IMF
protests. Unfortunately, some sectors of the current anarchist milieu
have such short memories that by the time the lawsuits are concluded,
many have stopped paying attention, and the initial thoughtless
appraisal of protests as âa failureâ is all that sticks in peopleâs
heads. Weâre only now learning the net results of mobilizations that
occurred a decade ago. To mount an effective resistance to capitalism,
we need to think in terms of decades, not months.
---
Over the past decade, government agencies around the US have paid out
millions and millions of dollars in settlements resulting from federal
and police violence against activists. And those are only the cases too
flagrant to suppressâthink how many more must go unreported! Far from an
anomaly, illegal activity in the course of law enforcement is the norm;
presumably it would be impossible to maintain law and order without it.
The costs of these violations are figured into government budgets as
foregone conclusions. For example, prior to the 2008 Republican National
Convention, the Republican National Committee offered $10 million in
advance to cover lawsuits from police misconductâacknowledging that,
despite new laws passed specifically for the convention, the desired
level of repression would require the authorities to break their own
laws to the tune of millions of dollars.
In all seriousness, youâre not much more likely to win a million-dollar
settlement than you are to get your hands on the prizes promised in
corporate competitionsâand being beaten by police is no more pleasant
than being abused by the capitalist system in other ways. The point is
that resistance doesnât always end in defeat, even when it results in
repression and arrest. We should include the battle in the courts in our
strategies, even if we donât believe in the legitimacy of the law any
more than our rulers do. In cities that have seen a lot of recent
demonstrations and lawsuits, police departments are often more hesitant
to beat and arrest protesters.
Organization in Seattle, the city government paid $1.8 million to
resolve charges of brutality and wrongful arrest.
lawsuits stemming from police conduct during the 2000 Democratic
National Convention.
to demonstrators and bystanders attacked by police at a 2007 May Day
rally.
government of Oakland, California over $2 million.
illegally arrested the same month at anti-war protest in New York City.
arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention, and $469,000 to
settle a lawsuit filed by people jailed after a protest of the murder of
Amadou Diallo, to name just a couple settlements.
activists, including a $13.7 million settlement following the 2000
IMF/World Bank protests and a $685,000 settlement for police violence
during the 2001 inauguration. Protests against the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund the following year resulted in various
lawsuits, netting $8.25 million, $1 million, and $200,000 for wrongful
arrests. A 2002 detention of eight antiwar protesters also resulted in a
settlement of $450,000.
2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerial in Miami engendered
lawsuits that concluded in a number of settlements, including separate
payouts of $561,000, $180,000, and $17,000.
In 2002, a federal jury ruled that $4.4 million should be awarded to
Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney for the violation of their rights by FBI
and law enforcement agents. Likewise, environmentalist Josh Connole was
awarded a total of $120,000 for being arrested without probable cause.
All the friends who were going to skip school with me flaked out at the
last minute, so I wasnât with an affinity group when I was arrested. I
had to call my dad. It could have been worseâhe gave my jailers hell and
was careful to keep copies of every piece of paper they made him sign.
This came in handy three years later when I heard about the class action
lawsuit for the mass arrest. I signed on, then waited⊠and waited⊠for a
long time. And then we won! Of course, I donated some money to anarchist
prisoners and legal support groups. Iâd been hearing good things about
an upcoming anti-capitalist mobilization overseas, and with only two
months to go I bought a plane ticket. I used the money to reinvest
myself in the movement and came out committed to a life of struggle
towards liberation.
When the police raided our bookstore, we made over $60,000 in less than
an hour. That sure is more than my college degree has made me! With the
National Governorsâ Convention coming to town, the authorities feared
that we were up to something and preemptively stormed our collective
spaceâonly to discover that our most sinister plan was a puppet show.
Truth be told, there was absolutely nothing we needed that kind of money
for, but it was reassuring to know that the City of Indianapolis wasnât
going to use it. So long as there is heart, revolutionary change doesnât
need funding. That said, I simply canât wait for my house to be raided
againâmy son and I need a vacation!
Thanks to the NYPD, Iâm a ten-thousandaire! At an anti-war demo in New
York City, I was arrested while standing on the sidewalk with a bunch of
people who were trying to get to a rally. âPreemptive arrestâ is the
strategy of choice for cops at big protests, the aim being to stop
trouble before it starts. This results in a lot of people going to jail
on minor charges based on flimsy or non-existent evidence, then being
released after the action is over. After seven hours in jail, I was
discharged with a ticket for disorderly conduct and told to show up in
court a month later. I hired a lawyer, got the charge dismissed, and
filed a lawsuit. A few years later my lawyer called and said Iâd been
awarded $15,000 for my seven hours of trouble. It didnât cost me a dime
and now I donât have to buy the store brand pasta!