Redwood Curtain CopWatch, based in the north coast of California, is part of a larger movement of self organized CopWatch groups throughout the US. Our local efforts seek to intervene in the drastic rise of the presence, militarization, and violence of the police, and build support networks based on self-determination, caring, and concrete needs.
We are dedicated to grass-roots struggle to end the aggressive role of police in and against our communities.
Learn more about what we do >>Contact us by phone (707) 633-4493, email copwatchrwc@riseup.net or through our contact form
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URGENT: re Sgt. Ken Swithenbank, Deputy Stockton, and Jimmy Hartman
Submitted by copwatch on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 9:03pm5/17/2012
Open Letter to Humboldt County Sheriff, Michael Downey:
We send you this information WITH URGENCY.
Sandy Hartman of Redway has been working on getting a restraining order in Eureka (with help from a Resource Center) against her brother, Jimmy Hartman, to protect herself and her boyfriend. She is almost done with that process. Her brother has pointed and clicked guns at Sandy, and she is scared of him. Sandy, her mother, and her brother previously lived in the same house together, but her mother is being treated for leukemia in the Bay area, and her brother moved out.
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012, Sandy was in her backyard and came in to the house to check on the time. She observed two Sheriff's officers in the carport, Sgt. Ken Swithenbank and Deputy Stockton. The officers told her that her brother (against whom she has been seeking a restraining order) was inside the house “looking for his guns.”
Support Palestinian Hunger Strikers! SIGN PETITION
Submitted by copwatch on Fri, 05/11/2012 - 8:19pmPrisoners Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh, who started the strike and have been detained for 2 years without charges, are at grave risk of death, now entering their 74th day (5/11/12) of fasting. For reference, Mahatma Gandhi ended his longest hunger strike on day 21; Bobby Sands died on day 66.
This history-making prisoner-led nonviolent movement is growing by the day. Sign Petition HERE
Israeli policymakers, hunger strikers, the media and Palestinian citizens all need to hear from the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who support nonviolent resistance and oppose grotesquely undemocratic practices like "administrative detention" which allows Palestinians to be detained without charge.
SUN NIGHT, MAY 13 at 8:30PM: Gathering/Rally at Occupy Eureka for Hans: STALWART ACTIVIST GOING TO JAIL
Submitted by copwatch on Fri, 05/11/2012 - 7:02pmOn Friday, May 11th, Hans Ashbaucher took a plea bargain in the case from his November 12 Occupy Eureka arrest. Hans was preparing to go to trial on Monday, but we all know that from the court system, it can be very difficult to get any justice (or to avoid being screwed).
On November 12, Hans was filming EPD Sgt. Rodrigo Reyna-Sanchez because, in Sanchez style, he came to harass and bully the Occupy Eureka folks and flash a big bright light in peoples' faces. What was particularly remarkable is that Sanchez (as CopWatch has seen him do before) ignored some very serious violence going on less than a block away, in order to stick around to intimidate people who were doing nothing wrong (Occupy Eureka folks). He also cut down our banners with a knife and is openly adverse to being filmed.
Hans was injured by the cops that night, his ribs broken. He was in jail for five days. When Sanchez brought Hans to the hospital after bringing him to the jail (against EPD policy), with Hans cuffed, injured, and calling out for help, Sanchez choked Hans. Sanchez then went on to claim that Hans assaulted him while cuffed on the hospital bed (Sanchez admitting in his police report that he was choking Hans)- and the all-too complicit DA went along with it.
MOTHERS DAY, May 13th: Mothers Smashing the Prison Industrial Complex & Mothers Speaking Out for Their Children in Solitary Confinement (Hear Audio)
Submitted by copwatch on Fri, 05/11/2012 - 6:02pmMother’s Day provides an opportunity to honor and celebrate our given and chosen families. For those of us fighting the prison industrial complex, Mother’s Day can also provide an opportunity to reflect on the ways the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) attacks and disrupts our families.
The good news is that all over the world moms are leading the charge against the PIC.
In the United States more than 1.7 million minors have at least one parent in prison. As we all know, the effects of a parent’s imprisonment on family life can be devastating. Children may be shuffled between family members, wind up in foster care, or forced into other vulnerable positions. They may have infrequent visits with their parents if they get to see them at all. Even if parents get out of prison, reunification with their kids may be difficult or impossible, and the stress of living with a felony conviction or under conditions of parole can add additional hardship to family life. And the burden on those left to become primary caregivers—grandparents, sisters and brothers, family friends—heaps additional strain on networks already frayed by the daily pressures of life. For families of imprisoned people, bad news abounds.
How to Fund an American Police State: Real Money for an Imaginary War
Submitted by copwatch on Mon, 03/19/2012 - 1:44amAt the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, California. American police forces had been “militarized,” many commentators worried, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere.
There should have been no surprise. Those flash grenades exploding in Oakland and the sound cannons on New York’s streets simply opened small windows onto a national policing landscape long in the process of militarization -- a bleak domestic no man’s land marked by tanks and drones, robot bomb detectors, grenade launchers, tasers, and most of all, interlinked video surveillance cameras and information databases growing quietly on unobtrusive server farms everywhere.
Repressive H.R. 347 Criminalizes Dissent
Submitted by copwatch on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 4:13pm"The global elite have repeatedly demonstrated their animosity toward the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Taking down the First Amendment – in addition to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and most importantly the Second – under the bogus and contrived aegis of a manufactured war on terror amply reveals what they have in mind: a gulag panopticon where resistance is not only futile, but illegal, and where the slaves are disarmed and powerless to effectuate change."
H.R. 347: Another Step in the Elimination of the First Amendment
Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com March 5, 2012
It is fairly obvious Obama and Congress rushed through H.R. 347 in order to curtail demonstrations that will undoubtedly occur during both Democrat and Republican conventions this summer. Also known as the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,” the bill makes it a felony to disrupt or protest at any place or event attended by any person with secret service protection.
150,000 Calls to Support CA Hunger Strike! (call began Feb 2012)
Submitted by copwatch on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 1:31pmSupport 150,000 Calls for CA Prisoners through Facebook
Invite all your Facebook friends to the 150,000 Calls for Prisoners event page (click here).
Prisoners and support broke a mainstream media silence that refused to cover prisoner resistance accurately, as US and international press-- including Democracy Now, The New York Times, the LA times, Al-Jazeera & many others-- consistently followed the strike.
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity is calling for a 150,000 calls (phone calls, emails, letters & faxes) on the California Legislature in support of the hunger strike and the strikers' five core demands.
California's 2nd Appellate District Court Allows Release of Police Officers Names in Officer Involved Shootings
Submitted by copwatch on Sun, 03/18/2012 - 12:42pmThe Second Appellate District Court held that officer names sought in connection with shootings cannot be withheld under the California Public Records Act.
The opinion, to be published can be read at: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B231245.PDF or in the attached document.
Practical tips on making CA Public Records Requests can be found here: http://www.calaware.org/programs/Top10CPRA%28booklet%29.pdf
Shut Down the SHU! Torture Chambers of U.S. Prisons [PHOTOS from inside]
Submitted by copwatch on Wed, 03/07/2012 - 12:33amThese are photos from a Security Housing Unit (SHU) cell in Pelican Bay State Prison. The person who lives here has been in SHU for more than 25 years, since August 1986, and in the Pelican Bay SHU nearly 22 years, since 1990. Read his description below each photograph.
#1 Front view of the cell. The locked tray slot is where I get my food trays, mail, etc.
Please Write a Letter ASAP to the Eureka PD for Return of Occupy Eureka Property!
Submitted by copwatch on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 1:55pm
Here is the letter, hand-delivered and emailed to EPD on March 1, 2012
Eureka Police Department (EPD) officers have been taking property from Occupy Eureka since the first week of November 2011. EPD has not properly inventoried or cataloged this property. EPD has told Occupy Eureka participants, the rightful owners of thousands of dollars worth of confiscated property, that the EPD has no current property policy.
