Thinking tonight about Muybridge’s Horse in Motion and yesterday’s BART protest, i can imagine the BART cars, stopped on the platform, like so many (of Muybridge’s) discrete, static cells, separating workers on their rush hour commute. Once set in motion, the cells and their content blur into one continuous image: the vision of seamless progress—
—the vision (here J Crary) “compatible with the smooth surface of a global marketplace with its unbound pathways of circulation and exchange.” No wonder a drunk, teetering near the tracks, a black man, or any protestor threatening to disrupt this flow are met with speeding bullets and riot cops:
BART police (and all the sycophants of capital we see bemoaning the inconvenience of being ‘stopped’ from their rush-hour trajet as docile subjects) are meant to annihilate the very objects that make the space in between these cells visible—they protect the spectacle, the illusion that there is no homelessness, no economic interest in racism, no alternative to work, servitude and exchange.
July 16, 2011: Police pursue and shoot Kenneth Harding for evading a fare on a public bus in the Bayview district of San Francisco
A cell phone video starting seconds after Harding was shot several times in the back:
Police use another video to bolster claims Harding was armed. yet the “handgun” appears to be a cellphone. Later, police will describe the figure in striped hoodie as wearing a black hoodie.
Harding dies at 7 PM on the evening of the 16th, amidst claims by police that he had a gun, even though none was found on the scene and despite multiple witnesses who said Harding was unarmed.
The shooting happened in the context of the Bay Area’s long history of police racism. Kenneth Harding was an African American shot in the black neighborhood of Bayview .
Another Black man – shot down in the street like a mad dog by occupation forces paid for by our tax dollars and 456 years of dehumanization – I read accounts of the incident and wonder: What is this young man’s name? Who are his people: family, friends etc.? Does he have a mother? Does she know her son is dead?
July 16-17 (overnight) Demonstrators respond to the murder, briefly occupying streets in Bayview and the Mission.
The angry, but mostly controlled crowd gathered near 16th and Valencia streets and walked through the Mission and Bayview around 1 a.m. Sunday morning. Police said there were reports of garbage being thrown into the street and several newspaper racks being overturned, but they made no arrests.
The demonstrations keep local Bay Area media focused on the shooting. KCBS quotes a woman saying “They’re rioting because people are pissed.”
A flyer distributed at the protest declares war on the police: In reporting this we hope to make it obvious: we will no longer allow the police (regardless of what badge they wear) to murder us in the streets. When they kill, we will respond with force. These two marches along with the burgeoning revolt in Bayview are only a beginning. We do not care about their attempts at justifying themselves. In each of these killings they claim that their lives were in danger. We say they lie, but honestly don’t care either way. As the State has removed any illusion that it exists to serve or protect people, we can see clearly that it exists only to push us into prisons and to shoot us in cold blood. Two single dollars are worth more to them than our lives. The very existence of the police clearly endangers all of us, and we won’t be safe until they are destroyed.
Meanwhile, the SFPD issues the following statement:
Information is still preliminary. The officers detained a 19 year old male suspect on the Muni light rail platform. This suspect then ran from the police officers who pursued him on foot. It appears that the suspect was armed with a gun and fired at the pursuing officers. At least one of the officers returned fire, in self defense, wounding the suspect. The suspect was transported to the hospital with life threatening injuries. He was pronounced deceased at 7:01 p.m.
The Police and the State consistently justify their systemic racist violence by saying they are protecting women. Patriarchy, the dominance of men over women, happens everywhere in our society, but the state tries to convince us that Black men are the main perpetrators. This racist lie helps the state justify their violent control over “uncontrollable” communities. Patriarchy is one of the overarching structures of our world and therefore we should not be surprised that any man has a past that includes violence against women. The police’s shooting of Harding is one instance of the way the state terrorizes a community that is a threat to the current social order, that has been historically attacked and barred from access to stable employment, etc… Its no longer politically correct to lynch Black men, but the police can shoot down Black and Brown people in the street and justify it through demonizing them.
The New York Times finally publishes a piece about Harding’s murder. The story assumes the police told the truth and frames SFPD Chief Suhr as the beleaguered hero of the story, among other bits of disinformation.
July 25: According to @mrdaveyd on Twitter®: Hardings family holds press conference with lawyers at the offices of John Buris, run down the police department’s shifting story, point out fallacies in official statements, the Buris law office formally requests all SFPD evidence, family demand evidence be made available to public, address Harding’s suposed criminal background and refute the claim Harding was “on the run.” Oscar Grant’s uncle and a dozen community leaders at press conference. Harding was enrolled in a Seattle community college. He was in the Bay Area to meet with a music manager. Harding’s brother owns a San Francisco record lable. Witnesses have contacted Buris law office contradicting SFPD claims and stating Harding was left bleeding on the ground for 30 minutes. The nearest firehouse was 7 Blocks away, but paramedics did not come for 30 minutes. Witnesses establish a timeline.
Fly Benzo arraignment and action “tentatively” delayed until Thursday July 28th.
July 26: Charges dropped against Fly Benzo. Police repeatedly delay his release.
July 27: Early AM: Fly Benzo released after crowd at Hall of “Justice” dissipates.
July 28: Press conference about DeBray Carpenter, AKA Fly Benzo, Noon. SF City Hall.
The people of the bay area will not accept serial summary executions by police. Further actions to come.
“Crabgrass is a free software made by the Riseup tech collective that provides secure tools for social organizing and group collaboration. It includes wikis, task files, file repositories and decision-making tools.”
“Off-the-Record” (OTR) software can be added to free open-source instant messaging platforms like Pidgin or Adium. On these platforms, you’re able to organize and manage different instant messaging accounts on one interface. When you then install OTR, your chats are encrypted and authenticated, so you can rest assured you’re talking to a friend.”
“Similar to the social media aggregating service Storify, but with an activist bent, CrowdVoice spotlights all content on the web related to campaigns and protests. What’s different about it? Founder Esra’a al Shafei says “CrowdVoice is open and anyone is a contributor. For that reason, it ends up having much more diverse information from many more sources.”
If one online activist comes across a spare or one-sided post, he can easily supplement information. Furthermore, campaign participants can add anecdotes and first-hand experiences so that others can check in from afar.
CrowdVoice makes it easier for far-flung audiences to stay abreast of protests and demonstrations, but it also helps organizers coordinate and stay abreast of other activist movements.”
