ACLU-AZ: tasers, prisoner abuse, and juvenile diversion.

This is really exciting folks. Go to all if you can if for no other reason than to show them how many people out here care....

From: ACLU of Arizona [mailto:grassroots@acluaz.org]
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2011 2:53 PM
Subject: Location update: You bring your lunch. We'll bring the experts.

---

All lectures will be held at 3707 N. 7th Street, Suite 100, Phoenix, AZ 85014

You are invited to the ACLU of Arizona's Summer 2011 Brown Bag Lecture Series!

Who says there is nothing to do during the summer in the Valley of the Sun?

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

In Their Own Words: Enduring Abuse in Arizona Immigration Detention Centers

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Protecting What Works: Juvenile Diversion in Maricopa County

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

A Force to Be Reckoned With: Taser Use in Arizona Police Departments

All brown bag lectures will be from noon to 1 p.m.

Free and open to the public. Drinks and desserts served.

Seating is limited, so please make reservations by calling Mary Hope Lee at 602-650-1854 ext. 100 or by emailing info@acluaz.org.

When education is under attack: FIGHT BACK!!!

These youth so ROCK!!!

Let's go support them today, folks!

Tuscon Unified School District's Board is meeting today at 5:30pm at TUSD HQ!

TUSD's ethnic studies meeting changed again

Reporter: Steve Nunez
Web Producer: David Rush

TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - KGUN9 News has learned TUSD will hold a special meeting to consider a controversial ethnic studies proposal on Tuesday. And it will be held 5:30pm at district headquarters.

9 On Your Side reporter Steve Nunez was at the board's agenda committee meeting today where the decision was made to change the meeting for the second time.

The meeting was originally scheduled for Tuesday this week. But moments before the start, protestors stormed the board room. Some chained themselves to board members' chairs and refused to leave. TUSD Superintendent Dr. John Pedicone then canceled the meeting.

Board members re-scheduled the meeting for Thursday May 5 at the Catalina High School auditorium. But the agenda committee changed its mind and moved it two days earlier and back to district headquarters.

Board members said they were concerned over security at Catalina High. They said security will be beefed up inside the board room, in the hallway and outside the building. In addition, when the board room fills up, authorities will lock the doors and won't allow anybody else in.

Doctor Pedicone told KGUN9 News he was upset at the student's actions Tuesday night and vowed to keep them from holding back the democratic process.

Ethnic studies supporters were demonstrating over a proposal by Dr. Mark Stegeman that would make most ethnic studies courses electives. Currently students have a choice of taking U.S. history or Mexican American studies to graduate.

Stop the HATE! Spring Break at AZ State Capitol!

Phoenix student walk-out, Arizona State Legislature. March 4, 2011.

Spring Break at the Arizona State Capitol begins Monday

MARCH 14, 2011

11:30am AZ State Capitol
1700 W. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Tucson Citizen
by Three Sonorans
on Mar. 10, 2011

As college students prepare for Spring Break next week, and as colleges face 20% budget cuts next year, Arizonans from around the state will be at the State Capitol from Monday to Friday of next week.

The state legislators have not done their most important job, and that is to balance the budget.

Instead they have been distracting the citizens of this great state with all these bogus and unconstitutional bills, everything from having guns in public buildings and universities, to forming the Arizona Rangers, a secret police force for Jan Brewer, a state border wall to be built with detained immigrants, huge 9 digit corporate tax cuts, anti-union bills, and of course the regular slew of anti-immigrant bills.

Arizona have had enough and say YA BASTA!

Caravans will be converging on the state capitol at noon on Monday.

In Tucson we will be meeting at Rudy Garcia Park, on Irvington and 6th Ave, at 8:30am and leaving promptly at 9pm. On Sunday evening from 5-7pm we will be having a sign-making party for our vehicles and person once we get to the capitol at Fortin de las Flores, on the Southeast corner of 31st and 6th Ave.

Russell Pearce first banned Latino activists, then the public, then the media from the senate building. He also took out the concrete/stone benches at the state senate building to tell Arizonans “you are not welcome here, you do not have a voice in your democracy.”

As a special bonus, former President George W. Bush will be visiting the area on Wednesday.

Come join the rest of the people that have had enough, and let your voice be heard!

Many people in Phoenix are opening up their homes for those who need a place to sleep or shower as protesters keep a 24 hour presence to tell Russell Pearce and the nation to stop the hate, fix the state, and BALANCE THE BUDGET!

Our jobs, schools, healthcare, and future depend on it!

For the latest info you can join the Facebook event page in English here, or in Spanish here. Anyone Tweeting from the Capitol will be using the hashtag #AZM14 and #AltoArizona for the Spring Break at the Capitol weeklong event.

----------------------




posted by activistausa


---------------------

Photos below are from the March 4, 2011 Phoenix student walk-out, where several hundred youth converged on the Capitol protesting the recent anti-immigration laws...

Stay tuned for a week long demonstration at the legislature now. :)

If you can't get to the capitol for any of the demonstrations there this week, try a little anarchy and autonomous action- it only takes one person to make resistance visible, and you can orchestrate something from wherever you are: put a sign on your car, or street corner, or chalk the sidewalks in choice places in your own town (or all of the above, so they think there's more than just one of you out nuts there). It's the conversations with ordinary people walking by that you have and generate about politics in the grocery store parking lot that will in time make a difference.



Better yet, find a place where you're likely to be seen by undocumented youth, and make sure they see your signs of solidarity. Your message will inspire and encourage them at a time when the state is legislating hate in their direction. I run into one of the McCain DREAM Fasters, Carlos, at these demonstrations and still get a big hug every time.

I kind of like the"Phoenix Point of Pride" signs with the image of the Arizona flag on it, like this one at Wes Bolin up at the Capitol. Just make sure to stay on the public sidewalks, keep it relatively clean for the kids there (their teachers will use your action as a chance to discuss the 1st Amendment, if they're any good), and don't deface any memorials, or you'll make us all pay for it.

US Senate: More DREAMS Deferred...

These three are among the bravest, finest youth in America. John McCain and the US Senate have shamed us all.


Carlos, Marlene, and Francisco: I'm so sorry. I pray that someday all your DREAMS come true. This land desperately needs more good souls like you...

-------------------from America's Voice via Common Dreams-----------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 18, 2010
11:56 AM

CONTACT: America's Voice
Michael Earls
(202) 494-8555


Senate Votes Against DREAMs

WASHINGTON - December 18 - This morning, in a procedural vote requiring 60 votes to advance the legislation, the U.S. Senate voted against the DREAM Act by a 55-41 margin, effectively shutting the doors of opportunity to thousands of bright and talented young people who grew up in America and wanted to give back to the country they call home.

The following is a statement from Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America's Voice:

"Today we won a majority of votes in the Senate. Last week we won a majority of the votes in the House. But because of a Republican filibuster we needed 60 votes to pass DREAM and we fell short.

To those who did the right thing and voted for DREAM, you had our back and we'll have yours. But to the majority of Republicans and the handful of Democrats who voted against the best and the brightest of the Latino immigrant community, your vote against DREAM will be remembered as long as you are in politics. Many of you have expressed your sympathy for the DREAMers. But today we did not need your sympathy. We needed your vote.

As disappointed as we are in those who slammed the door of opportunity on talented young people who are Americans in all but paperwork, we are buoyed by the nationwide outpouring of support for this cause, the unprecedented mobilization in support of DREAM across the nation, and the leadership and courage of the DREAMers who came to Washington to insist on making their DREAM come true.

Where do we go from here? We will continue fighting, organizing, mobilizing and educating. We will continue to build an ever more powerful movement. We will continue to speak up and speak out for immigrant youth, for immigrant families, for immigration reform that embodies the best of our ideals rather than the worst of our fears.

We get stronger every day. We may have lost this battle, but in the war between justice and injustice, inclusion and exclusion, courage and cowardice, victory is not a matter of if, but a matter of when."



###
America's Voice -- Harnessing the power of American voices and American values to win common sense immigration reform. The mission of America’s Voice is to realize the promise of workable and humane comprehensive immigration reform. Our goal is to build the public support and create the political momentum for reforms that will transform a dysfunctional immigration system that does not work into a regulatory system that does.

------------So, what do we do now? A reminder from Arundhati Roy:---------

"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness, and our ability to tell our own stories..."

the Desaparecidos of 9/11

A friend passed these lyrics on to me today in remembrance of those most forgotten from the tragedy on 9/11/2001. Grief was spoken in our country in many languages that day - and it was silenced by fear. Still is.

This is for the families of the Desaparecidos everywhere. May you someday safely bring your loved ones into our light.

--------------------------

If I Give Your Name
by Emmas Revolution


Mi esposa, my wife, worked on the 80th floor
The company had hired illegals before
She got the job by word of mouth
That’s the way in the north when you’re from the south
They say 3,000 but the counting’s not done
Mi esposa está muerta
Three thousand and one


I have no papers, I have no rights
All my days end in sleepless nights
Missing you, silently
If I give your name
Will they come after me?


Mi hermano, my brother, the elevator man
A doctor in our country but you take what you can
I saw the photos in Union Square
But I could not leave his picture there
They say 3,000 but that’s not true
Mi hermano no volverá
Three thousand and two


Mi hija, my daughter, went in early that day
She had always been that way
Her daughter asks, "Where did she go?"
How to tell her, I don’t know
They say 3,000 but that can’t be
Perdí a mi hija
Three thousand and three


Mi padre, my father, I have no words
I tried to find you when I heard
They gave some ashes to families
But I’ll only have the ones I breathe
They say 3,000 there’s so many more
Desaparecidos
Three thousand and four


Mi esposa, my wife. Will they come after me?
Mi hermano, my brother. Will they come after me?
Mi hija, my daughter. Will they come after me?
Mi padre, my father. If I give your name,
Will they come after me?

DREAM Activists Sit-in, Arrested at McCain's Tucson Office.

This email floored me when I got it last night. These kids have more courage than most American citizens. They've put everything on the line for the DREAM Act. The least the rest f us can do is can McCain and tell him we want these kids free and legal. How can anyone think they'd be anything but a blessing to our nation? They already are.


Here are McCain's Senate office numbers:

• Phoenix Office: (602) 952-2410
  

• Prescott Office: (928) 445-0833
  

• Tempe Office: (480) 897-6289
  

• Tucson Office: (520) 670-6334
  

• Washington Office: (202) 224-2235

  And here are his campaign office numbers. 

   Phoenix Office: 602-604-2010                      Tucson Office: 520-327-2773

  Boy is his campaign site looking scary...he's really turned anti-immigrant - and didn't mention a thing in his news releases about having those Dream Activists arrested, of course. I don't see how he can keep all his promises to the Latino community when he's so busy sucking up to the far right...

  Made my call, and registered my voice to free those youth and push the DREAM act through. It'll only take you two or three minutes to do the same - just pick an office and dial.

---------------------------The Dream is Coming--------------------------

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts: Juan (407) 602-8675,
Flavia de la Fuente (949) 910-6362
media@thedreamiscoming.com
 
DETAINED in Arizona: Four Student Immigrant Leaders
Peacefully Resist Current Immigration Law, Urge Passage of DREAM Act

As of 6:00 PM PST Monday May 17, Mohammad, Yahaira, Lizbeth and Raul, an Arizona Resident, have been arrested and detained after their day long sit-in at Senator John McCains Office in Tucson, AZ. Tania, who was not detained, has been designated as spokesperson and will be relating the experiences/thoughts of the group during the action.

Senator John McCain offered the students a meeting in order to discuss the Dream Act, however, the students recognize that this is insufficient and that immediate action is needed to pass the DREAM Act!

Tucson, Arizona. May 17th, on the anniversary of landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education, Arizona law enforcement arrested four undocumented leaders of the immigrant student movement in addition to Arizona native Raul Alcaraz. Lizbeth Mateo of Los Angeles, California; Tania Unzueta of Chicago, Illinois; Mohammad Abdollahi of Ann Arbor, Michigan; and Yahaira Carrillo of Kansas City, Missouri; were detained Tucson, Arizona, after staging a sit-in at Senator John McCain’s office. With this challenge to local and federal law, these youth hope to highlight the urgency of legislative action in Congress, and catalyze mass grassroots mobilization to pass the DREAM Act before June 15th.

These four leaders are risking deportation from the United States in the hope that this action will make a significant contribution to the fight for immigrant rights. In response to the onslaught of enforcement-based immigration law, they staged a sit-in at Senator McCain’s office, and urged congressional leadership to champion the DREAM Act and the values it represents: hard work, education, and fairness.


Lizbeth, 25, an organizer with DREAM Team Los Angeles, states, "There are already ten other states across the country considering immigration legislation similar to Arizona’s: legislation that is anti-family, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom. Police states and enforcement are quickly becoming the standard, and we are running out of time. We are going to pass the DREAM Act because it is based on freedom and equality."


Mohammad, 24, co-founder of DreamActivist.Org, a resource web portal for undocumented students, said in a statement: "Never in our history has it been American to deny people their civil rights. We have decided to peacefully resist to encourage our leaders to pass the DREAM Act and create a new standard for immigration reform based on education, hard work, equality, and fairness."
At least 65,000 undocumented immigrant youth graduate from high schools every year, and many of them struggle to attend institutes of higher education and the military. The DREAM Act will grant youth who traveled to the United States before the age of 16 a path to citizenship contingent on continuous presence in the country, good behavior, and the attainment of at least a two-year university degree or a two-year commitment to the armed forces.

"During the civil rights movement, African-American students were arrested for sitting down at lunch counters. We’ve been detained for standing on a sidewalk. We can't wait any longer for the DREAM Act to pass," said Tania, 26, co-founder of the Immigrant Youth Justice League, and immigrant rights organizer in Chicago.

All four are leaders in their own communities and have dedicated years to work for immigrant rights, legalization for undocumented immigrants, and the DREAM Act. “Dr. King spoke of a dream of equality overcoming fear. Well, the fierce urgency of our dreams has overcome any kind of fear we may have had before. We can’t wait,” concluded Yahaira, 25, a founder of the Kansas Missouri Dream Alliance.

National Press Conference
Tuesday May 18th
9 AM Pacific, 11 PM Central, Noon EST

In front of Senator John McCain’s office:
407 West Congress Street
Tucson, AZ 85701

Criminalization, not racial profiling, is the problem.

----From my favorite blogger in Phoenix on issues of migration and criminalization, at "Chaparral Respects no Borders". Explore the blog and I guarantee you'll think differently about some things. She's a genuine abolitionist.-------

Racial Profiling Focus is Still a Distraction

(This is an updated version of a post I made a few months back).

I keep hearing people (such as at the last anti-SB1070 rally) repeating their concerns about racial profiling as if this is the main problem with the bill. Racial profiling is a legal term and is against the law. Unfortunately, "illegal" immigration is also against the law. So when people talk about racial profiling, it sounds like they are only concerned with "legal" people.

I have become convinced that the focus on racial profiling is a distraction to the detriment of migrants' freedom. I am not saying racial profiling is okay, but it implies that what is wrong is that people who are being stopped because of their skin color (or other physical cues) are innocent, implying that those who have broken immigration law are not those worth our concerns. Yet, I would hope that those who claim to be allies or advocates for undocumented immigrants would not allow this idea to be promoted.

We've been hearing about racial profiling for a while. Anti-Arpaio folks have been so focused on these sweeps and the racial profiling and all that, yet only 6% of the arrests of undocumented immigrants occur out in the community, whereas the other 94% of migrants are identified for deportation when they go through the jails (and the folks in the jails are those arrested by the various police departments in the valley) (Source). (This is partly why DHS is continuing the agreements of 287(g) that involve jail checks.) Other police departments are arresting more migrants than the MCSO without these hyped-up "crime supression sweeps", as i discussed further in If Phx and Mesa PD are arresting more immigrants, why is focus on Arpaio?

(read on from here)

Deputy shot; AZ Militia plans"Cinco De Ammo."

From Stephen Lemons' blog, "The Feathered Bastard," at the Phoenix New Times. The rally last night in Phoenix to legalize medical marijuana (a ballot initiative petition drive is underway) was timely; if pot was legalized for all and we could buy it at a pharmacy or grow our own, we could do a lot to boost Arizona's economy and tax base, and cut down on all the crime that accompanies drug-smuggling.

As for this story, we'll see how it plays out, but it looks like it's going to just be uglier than it already was. How it was determined that these guys are "possibly undocumented" - except that they are "Hispanic" - is unclear, and asserting that assumption alone at this particular time disturbs me.

I've read and heard other accounts of what happened with this deputy. It's too bad this guy was following these suspects so long in the desert alone, or they might have caught them and avoided gunfire. Since they were on foot, you'd think he could have gotten back-up with helicopters and everything before they even had a chance to spot and fire on him - especially if they were lugging a bunch of marijuana with no vehicle (how did he know what they had?).

Not that I don't believe the deputy's account; it's just a considerable amount of conjecture has been embedded in the "news" reporting of it. It doesn't appear as if he was actually able to check his suspects' documents or cargo while they were shooting at him. Reportedly, they fired about 20-30 semi-automatic weapon rounds before taking off.

I'm boycotting drug cartels, by the way, because of the violence - and would like to add to that list Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and all the other pharmaceutical pushers that exploit patients, torture animals, and kill third world "subjects" for profit, while depriving others of life-saving treatment if they can't make a buck from them. If medical progress via pharmaceuticals is a gift from God, those guys have absconded with something that belongs to all of us, and they hold our sick and dying loved ones for ransom every day. I know; I pay.

More Americans died for lack of ability to pay for health care last year, by the way, than were killed by undocumented immigrants, but you don't hear Russ Pearce or the Arizona Republican Party naming our dead as they push bills to "protect" us through the legislature - or championing our right to life.

Instead, they hoard resources stolen from the public in private tax shelters, cut more children, elderly and disabled people off of health care and social services, brutalize the teachers for protesting them, and criminalize anyone who disagrees with them. In my book, that makes the Arizona GOP both fascist and anti-American - and far more of a threat to the ordinary Arizona resident's survival than the drug cartels.

Anyway, as Lemons points out, SB1070 would have done nothing to prevent the incident with this deputy, nor would it have prevented the murder of the rancher a few weeks ago. Repealing it can prevent a considerable amount of violence being done to Arizona's Latino community, where even long-standing citizens are learning that it's never safe to call the cops.

Never mind that violence rates along the border have in fact remained flat for the past ten years. Every Latino-looking male in this state, today, is a suspect in this deputy's shooting, of course, and is presumed, as usual, to be in the US illegally. The Minutemen and militia extremists, (what a bunch of nuts. Just for the record, I saw no "feral foreign invaders rioting" at the capitol this week) and nativists like Shawna Forde (who murdered a Latino family several months ago) are going to pick up on this incident with delight and use it as an excuse to perpetrate more violence against the rest of us, be it with their laws or their guns, or both.

Arizona Militia units are on "Ribbon Status" now, by the way, and they've called for citizens to go out and buy five boxes of ammunition to celebrate "Cinco de Ammo" on the 5th of May. Those guys are scarier than the cops. Some might even BE cops. What could they possibly be planning to do with their guns and ammo? Are they going to shoot us all in the streets for resisting their right-wing rule?

Fuck them. They are deeply disturbed. Those people do not stand for America; they only stand for themselves. In any event, I'm with the guy who says "I'm Mexican. Pull me over", and am still going undocumented. We have to stop these people here.

------------------------------

Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy Shot By Suspected Drug Runners/Illegal Immigrants

By Stephen Lemons, Friday, Apr. 30 2010 @ 6:57PM

A Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy was shot and wounded today by suspected drug runners smuggling an unknown quantity of marijuana through the desert.

The Pinal County Sheriff's Office identified the injured Deputy as Louie Puroll, 53, a fifteen year veteran of the department. PCSO spokeswoman Lt. Tamatha Villar said that Puroll was doing well, and had been transported to Casa Grande Regional Medical Center for treatment.

She described his injury as a "grazing wound" on the left side of his body above the kidney. Puroll identified the weapon as a high-powered assault rifle, possibly an AK-47.

Puroll was on patrol in the desert when he came across "five Hispanic males, possibly undocumented" transporting a load of marijuana.

He also saw two long gun rifles on them, according to Villar. They fired on Puroll. Puroll returned fire, but is not sure if he hit the suspects.

A manhunt is underway, with Pinal County being joined by the Border Patrol, MCSO, Arizona DPS, the Casa Grande Police Department, and other agencies. Villar said there was no vehicle involved. The men were on foot.

Fortunately, Puroll was not killed or injured more seriously than he was, but you can bet that this incident will become a battle cry in the ongoing debate over SB 1070, Arizona's new immigration law.

That law would have done nothing to prevent an incident like the one today. Nor would it have saved the life of southern Arizona rancher Rob Krentz, who was murdered, many believe, by drug or human smugglers.

But that won't matter for the debate, as we soon shall see.

PUENTE Detention Protest Thursday, Noon-1pm.

Local Activists Demand “Dignity not Detention” and Call for an End to Human Rights Abuses in Arizona

Submitted by sshah on February 24, 2010 - 17:27

PHOENIX – Local activists and community members will participate in a solidarity action in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in central Phoenix where they will deliver a letter calling on the federal government to end all immigration enforcement agreements with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office(MCSO). The action will take place from 12:00pm to 1:00pm ending with a press conference at 1:00pm. 

Despite DHS announcements made last fall regarding plans to reform the immigrant detention system, there is little evidence of change. In addition to detaining 3,000 immigrants in Arizona daily, and over 33,000 nationally, the Department of Homeland Security continues to work with MCSO through a 287(g) agreement in the county jails.

Who: Puente, American Civil Liberties Union-AZ

What: Action in front of ICE Office in Phoenix, Delivery of Letter calling on the federal government to end all immigration enforcement agreements with the Maricopa Country Sheriff's Office. 

When: 12:00pm-1:00pm Thursday February 25th, 2010

Where: 2035 N. Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ 

For more information about Puente please contact Carlos Garcia at carlos@puenteaz.org or call 602-314-5870