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54 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
54 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
PROTEST AGAINST GOVERNMENT HARRASSMENT OF SAN FRANCISCO FOOD NOT BOMBS
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MONDAY JULY 11, 1994
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The San Francisco Police Department and San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordon
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have implemented the Matrix Program, which calls for arresting and
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pressuring the homeless to force them to leave the city.
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Homelessness in San Francisco has become a crime given a high priority
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by the police and the mayor.
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Homeless activists across the city have been organizing a
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continued effort to expose the contradictions and hipocrisy that are
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being promoted by the mayor. SFPD has targeted Food Not Bombs activists
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(who serve free hot meals to the homeless 13 times a week) for arrest
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and continued harrassment. The mayor, and the Police consider feeding
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the homeless a crime that must be stopped at any cost.
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There have been over 350 arrests against Food Not Bombs since the
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implementation of Mayor Frank Jordan's Matrix program in August, 1993.
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Food servers and supporters have been beaten, tortured, harrassed and
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sexually assauilted by the police. In custody, hot soup was dumped on
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one man and a woman was forced to go to the bathroom in front of an
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entire group of male officers. Arrests have been extremely brutal and
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violent, all for the simple act of serving food to the hungry. Many of
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these incidents have been well documented and the video tapes bear
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witness to the violence perpetratred on Food Not Bombs by the City of
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San Francisco.
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The city has stepped up its repression and is now taking a man to
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court on five felony charges. The man, Keith McHenry, has been singled
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out by City Hall as the leade of Food Not Bombs. Keith McHenry is a
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lifelong pacifist yet he is being charged with two counts of felony
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assault. On Janueary 4th he was attacked and injured by Mayor Jordon's
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Film Commissioner Nick Roomel and then charged with assaulting Roomel.
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Bail was set at $1000. Then on May 13, McHenry and a cowerker were
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delivering literature to San Francisco Supervisor Barbara Kaufman when
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an aide started screaming at them and then slammed the door in their
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faces. Extending his hand to protect his partner from the door, the
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glasss shattered and cut an artery in his wrist. For this, too, he was
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charged with felony assault., bail was set this time at $25,000. After
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making bail in both cases, Judge Cantelli arbitrarily raised Keith's
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bail in the Roomel case to 75,000
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In a statement from jail, Keith McHenry summed it up this way:
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"This level of attack indicates the City of San Francisco is worreid
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about the degree of resistance that groups such as Food Not Bombs can
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generate. Thes attacks clarify just how immoral, greedy, and corrupt
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the government of San Francisco is. To jail someone repeated on trumped
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up felony and misdemeanor charges because they feed the homeless and
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hand out flyers suppoering the civil rights of the poor clearly exposes
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he corrupting infulence of corporate power on civil rights and
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liberteis in this country. It is becoming increasingly clear that the
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ideals and vision of San Francisco Food Not Bombs and its 50 sister
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groups across North America are spreading rapidly and gainsing world
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wide support and recognistion... We will not be stopped from exerting
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and expressing our fundamental right to resist political repression and
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oour demand for an equitable distriubution of wealth and resources."
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