I have never seen this happen in Fresno, CA before. 4th night Occupiers are Arrested

[annm4peace]

there has always been a core of activists trying to fight against the raging river of neo-cons in Fresno.. and 10 years ago Peace Fresno formed.. but i have never ever seen this many arrested and the fact it is night after night. I hope they can keep it up and i hope they have the legal and financial support. I also home it is enough to wake up and inspire others in Fresno. Because there really are a lot of compassionate and progressives in Fresno.. they just need to realize how incredible and powerful they are.

OCCUPY FRESNO!

We are the 99%

Occupy Fresno needs your help!

Nov. 6th – 15 peaceful protesters arrested by 40 cops in riot gear

Nov. 7th – 9 peaceful protesters arrested by 35 cops in riot gear

Nov. 8th – 8 peaceful protesters arrested by 30 cops in riot gear


What the heck is going on?!

We are being illegally arrested for engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience as protected under the First Amendment right of the Constitution. We will not be coerced into submission, we are not going away, and we will not be silenced. Our voices will be heard. Arrestees are students, teachers, retirees, veterans, retail workers, independent business owners, parents, and grandparents. We are straights and gays, people of color, poor and middle class.


PLEASE JOIN US NOT MERELY AS A “SUPPORTER” BUT AS AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN A GLOBAL MOVEMENT TO END CORPORATE DOMINATION AND POLITICAL CORRUPTION. We are asking all of you to please consider taking your turn to stand up for basic constitutional liberties. You will not be arrested if you don’t want to. You have an option at midnight to move to the sidewalk and be safe. However, if you choose to, arrests will take place shortly after midnight and you will be released around 3 or 4 AM. You will be joining in a global movement with your brothers and sisters.

The United States is in the worst recession since the Great Depression.

1 in 5 U.S. citizens are now unemployed
1 in 8 U.S. citizens Food Stamps
1 in 8 Mortgages in the U.S. are in Default or foreclosure
46.2 million U.S. citizens lived in poverty in 2010, a majority of them children
49.9 million U.S. citizens lack health insurance
The top 1% now take almost 25% of the nation’s income
The top 1% control 36% of the nation’s wealth, a greater share of wealth than the bottom 90%
Hedge fund manager John Paulson made more than $5 billion in personal profits last year; the jaw-dropping figure works out to roughly $159 rolling in every single second for a year.

Come out the Courthouse Park tonight in Downtown Fresno and stand up for justice!!! General Assembly starts at 6PM and arrests start at Midnight. Come have fun!!

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world” – Margaret Mead

occupyfresnoca.com

twitter.com/occupyfresno

facebook.com/occupyfresnoca

[coalition_unwilling]

1. Occupy Los Angeles stands in full solidarity with our patriotic

brothers and sisters in Occupy Fresno.

Which agency is making the arrests? Any phone numbers we can dial or emails we can send to signal our displeasure?

The truth ALWAYS PREVAILS.

[annm4peace]

7. Thank you Occupy Los Angeles..

1st time i have heard LA or Bay Area giving Solidarity.. almost made me tear up.
So I greatly thank you.

Email for Sheriff Margaret Mims

[e-mail]

Phone # [phone]

The man behind the eviction is the County Administrative Officer, John Navarette. You can reach him at 559 600 1710.











Here is an email that one of our members sent out:


Dear Sheriff Margaret Mims:

I have many complaints about your department's response to Occupy Fresno. At the top of the list is the arrest of Michael Dominguez at 1:00 p.m. on Nov 7 for exercising his First Amendment right to hold a sign in Courthouse Park. Three hours later I held a sign and chanted in the same location in the presence of your deputies and was not arrested. VOID THE ARREST OF MICHAEL DOMINGUEZ NOW!

Also, there is absolutely no need to waste precious county resources on arresting members of Occupy Fresno or for deputies to be standing around the Occupy Fresno group at any and all times of the day. YOU HAVE CERTAINLY STRENGTHENED THE RESOLVE OF THE LOCAL GROUP AT THE EXPENSE OF COUNTY TAXPAYERS!

Your arguments for the arrests after midnight are specious. Also, last night around 7:00 p.m., your deputies had an opportunity to peacefully quell a tumultuous situation when cars in the Tulare Avenue parking lot were being ticketed. The deputies could have used their PA system to announce to the angry crowd that the tickets were issued unlawfully by the private security company employed by the County of Fresno, and that the tickets would immediately be voided. Instead, they chose not to use their PA to inform the large crowd, depending on Occupy Fresno members to inform each other merely that the tickets were issued by the private security company.

I have been at the Occupy Fresno site at length on numerous occasions, while maintaining my professional duties as a classroom teacher (of 25 years) at a public elementary school in Fresno County. The ridiculous actions of the County Sheriff's Department need to stop now.

cc's to the County Board of Supervisors.

[annm4peace]

9. Veteran Chicana Civil Rights lawyers does a Teach In for Peace Fresno

Yesterday Occupy Fresno had this posted:

WE WILL BE JOINED BY Elizabeth Martinez, A PROFESSOR OF LAW AND A LAWYER WHO IS A LEADING EXPERT ON PERMITS AND THE 1 ST AMENDMENT. She has tried a number of prominent cases in this area and is currently working on a book on the topic. She will present to us and take questions. COME ON OUT!


I'm so hopeful for Fresno.

[lob1]

2. Good luck, annm4peace. Keep up the good work.

[teddy51]

3. Is Fresno primarily a Republican/Tea Party City? n/t

[annm4peace]

6. Fresno was taken over 30 years ago by Neo-cons..

just like what is happening all over the country in the last 10 years.. is what happened to Fresno 30 years ago.
1st they take over the newspapers and radio... (the only talk radio for the last 20 years has been KMJ, hate radio), and break the unions in your newspaper.. editors control the writing.. dumb them down.
then take over the big box churches or bring them in.. and promote "christian conservatives" and everyone else is immoral, evil anti-christ.
then attack the unions .. equate unions with socialism, and communism.

then lower the wages.. make people feel they are lucky to have a job. Threaten those who speak out.. arrest those who speak out..etc.

They vilified Cesar Chavez.. the beat up those who organized in the papers and radio.. They intimidated for 30 years..
but 10 years ago.. a small group stood on a corner to protest the war.. and it slowly encouraged others to speak out.. and SEIU rose up... and more spoke out..

and now we have Occupy Fresno.. and i hope more and more in the area join.

[nineteen50]

4. How is it that state and local laws supersede national federal

constitutional law? "When you fail to allow peaceful
protest the only resolve is violent protest"

[redgiant]

5. Not protected under the First Amendment

Peaceable assembly...Yes, protected by the First Amendment

Civil disobedience...No, not protected by the First Amendment

[JDPriestly]

10. To be civil disobedience, the protestors have to be violating some law.

These protestors are not performing civil disobedience. They are challenging local laws too narrowly (in their view) restricting what constitutes peaceable assembly.

After all, if in Citizens United, the Court determined that the free speech rights of corporations could not be ended or limited by an Act of Congress, then why should a city be able to make laws that deprive ordinary citizens of the ability to redress their grievances 24 hours a day?

We shall see what the courts decide.

[redgiant]

11. The fact remains...

Civil disobedience is not protected as free speech or peaceable assembly under the First Amendment. If the courts rule that a previously illegal act, XYZ, is included in the definition of free speech or peaceable assembly, then XYZ would no longer be an act of civil disobedience. Claiming one's illegal activity is a protected form of protest is not sufficient to prevent legal consequences, such as being arrested.

A good example might be the act of burning or otherwise desecrating a US flag. At one time, such an act was illegal. A protester who burned a flag as part of the protest was committing civil disobedience and could legitimately be arrested for the act. Persons so arrested, could, and did, challenge the constitutionality of the desecration laws in court. Eventually, the courts ruled such acts were protected as a form of free expression of political views. So, now burning a flag is not civil disobedience--but only because the law was challenged in the courts.

The OP expressed some surprise or outrage over the arrests described in the OP. If the protesters feel their illegal activities should be a form of First Amendment protected rights, then they should welcome the arrests and proceed with court challenges.

Frankly, I believe many of the illegal acts of the protesters are not protected, should not be protected, and probably won't be sustained in court. But, neither what I say nor what the protesters say matters until, as you said, we see what the courts decide.

[JDPriestly]

12. But Citizens United raises the standard for determining whether speech

should be protected.

Because speech is an essential mechanism of democracy—it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people—political speech must prevail against laws that would suppress it by design or inadvertence. Laws burdening such speech are subject to strict scrutiny, which requires the Government to prove that the restriction “furthers a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest.” WRTL, 551 U. S., at 464. This language provides a sufficient framework for protecting the interests in this case. Premised on mistrust of governmental power, the First Amendment stands against attempts to disfavor certain subjects or viewpoints or to distinguish among different speakers, which may be a means to control content. The Government may also commit a constitutional wrong when by law it identifies certain preferred speakers. There is no basis for the proposition that, in the political speech context, the Government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers. Both history and logic lead to this conclusion. Pp. 20–25.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html

In that case, the laws prohibited corporations from certain political speech in part because the shareholders would be forced to pay for the speech.

These OWS cases would be somewhat difference, but I have difficulty thinking of any compelling interest that would be compelling enough to justify actions against OWS.

The OWS groups are not exclusive against political opinions other than their own. There were Ron Paul supporters present at Occupy LA when I was there. They really do represent the 99%. I think there may be no local ordinance compelling enough to justify the treatment they have been getting.

Of course, I am guessing, but Citizens United is one of the things that OWS is protesting. I hope they try this argument.

[redgiant]

15. Again...

Again, my original comment was to the point that civil disobedience, in and of itself, is not globally protected by the First Amendment. The specific acts for which protesters are being arrested would have to be considered by the courts to determine if those acts are an essential part of the political speech without other overriding considerations, such as public safety, coming into play.

I have no opinion on the Fresno arrests without knowing details of the laws under which the arrests were made, and I did not claim those specific arrests were not a violation of First Amendment protections. In the end, the only opinion that counts is that of the courts.

[JDPriestly]

16. Agreed. That's why they should take it to the courts if they can

find the money without sacrificing too much.

They might be able to get some clarification about the extent to which Citizens United includes time, place and manner limitations for clearly political speech.

I think Congress is being coy by not placing some limitations on corporate speech. If local governments can limit political speech with ordinances about the use of open, public spaces, then Congress should act responsibly and limit the political speech of corporations.

Either political speech is subject to time, place and manner regulations or not. Let's get that really clear and then go back to Congress and request action.

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. #Occupy San Diego have taken legal action against the city for their civil rights. ALL OCCUPIERS

SHOULD IMMEDIATELY DO SO AS WELL!

[Kablooie]

13. Isn't Fresno where the Free Republic is based? Sounds like a tough audience.

[Tsiyu]

14. Wake up, Fresno

To the Powers That Be in Fresno: the world is watching you make a mockery of the American Constitution.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. You are on the wrong side of history.

Wake up and allow the peaceful Occupiers of Fresno to do the People's work.

Kicking in solidarity with the steadfast, courageous protesters in Fresno.


:kick:

[annm4peace]

17. the arrests continue for another night. occupy Fresno invited to join Vets Parade.. 11/11/11

The Sheriff's Department continues nightly arrests of Occupiers standing for their Constitutional Rights.



These eleven occupiers were kidnapped at approximately 1:30 a.m. at courthouse park: Summer Vue, Kayla, Sy, Razor, Joseph, Michael D., Michael B., Malachi, Jim Compton Schmidt, Moises, and one new person currently known as the "fifth Michael." In this arrest, several were trying to disperse and were forced back onto the park grounds to be arrested.

Please come out to g.a. this evening to learn more about the ongoing coercive suppression of our first amendment freedoms and about upcoming Occupy Fresno! actions. Also, please consider either standing up for our rights despite the threat of arrest or serving as a legal observer.

http://occupyfresnoca.com/2011/11/10/11-arrested-7-of-them-while-leavinglegal-observing/

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/video?id=8425789


March in support of veterans. Occupy Fresno will join Green Hope Veterans in the Veterans Day Parade in downtown Fresno Friday.

Please check the Occupy Fresno www.occupyfresnoca.org later today for details and see Karen's comments below on the number of people expected and the coverage the parade gets.

[Tsiyu]

18. kick

Kicking please help kick


:kick: