For Immediate Release July 24 2019
Contact: Refuse Fascism 323-946-1742
RefuseFascism.org
Defendants and attorneys available for interview
What: Press Conference by Refuse Fascism Response to LAPD’s Chief Michel Moore’s slander and distortion, and LAPD spying on Refuse Fascism.
When: Tuesday July 30 9:00 am
Where: LAPD Headquarters 100 West 1st Street Los Angeles
From Refuse Fascism, Los Angeles in response to LAPD’s Chief Michel Moore’s slander and distortion and LAPD spying on Refuse Fascism:
At Tuesday’s LA Police Commission meeting, LAPD Chief Michel Moore engaged in an outrageous abuse of authority, telling lies, spreading slander and disinformation to justify, and aggressively pursue, investigation and attacks on Refuse Fascism. This came in response to Isabel Cardenas, co-initiator of Refuse Fascism and longtime Salvadoran-American activist demanding to know who from the Police Commission approved sending a spy in to infiltrate Refuse Fascism meetings.
Infiltrating and spying on Refuse Fascism for engaging in constitutionally protected political speech and organizing is a major violation of First Amendment rights. The LAPD spy went into the Echo Park United Methodist Church and provided real time updates to the Anti-Terrorist Division of the LAPD’s Major Crimes on such things as fundraising goals and plans, attendance at our meetings, an attendees’ license plate number and recording political conversations with activists. In their own police files, they distorted the actual content of these conversations as the basis for bringing criminal charges against non-violent protesters engaged in civil disobedience aimed at sounding the alarm about the extreme danger concentrated in the Trump/Pence fascist regime.
This violates our right to privacy and political expression and has an intense chilling effect on others in regard to exercising rights to free expression and political dissent.
Moore is engaging in a “dis-information” campaign – a deliberate spreading of false information to try to justify, deflect from the fact, that legal, protected speech and organizing is being targeted by the LAPD (and possibly higher) and to justify more of the same. The LAPD has a long history of this, spying on hundreds of political organizations over the decades. What’s revealed here is that despite all their promise of reforms and overhauls, the LAPD is acting as a force of political suppression.
This is all the more dangerous with a fascist regime in power. Trump has expressed his desire to outlaw protest, anti-protest laws are on the books across the country, the Republicans are working to classify anti-fascists as “domestic terrorists,” the regime is tearing up the rule of law, stacking the judiciary with fascists and making openly white supremacist statements intended to unleash his violent fascist mobs. Mobs which have been given a green light by the protection of the LAPD and UCPDs.
Beyond that, Moore has committed a grave act of slander for which he should be immediately fired. A group that questions his office’s actions of illegal surveillance and prejudicial prosecution is hit with completely and utterly groundless allegations of vandalsim, assault with a deadly weapon or arson.
Note the slipperiness of Moore’s exact words: that “members that identified themselves as being within this group had traveled to other parts of the country, and that in other parts of the country, there had been criminal acts including vandalism, assault with a deadly weapon or arson…” This is like saying that people in San Francisco eat broccoli, that some people in San Francisco have cancer, and that therefore broccoli should be investigated for causing cancer.
This would be outrageous in any circumstance, but for the LAPD Police Chief himself to spread these kinds of lies and distortions about activists now facing criminal trials makes this even worse.
Of all the political groups in Los Angeles, including fascist groups that actually DO assault people and violently attack political demonstrators, the LAPD chose to investigate only the group calling for mass non-violent political action against the Trump/Pence fascist regime. This came together with an entire national campaign of “violence-baiting” organized barrage of hysteria by fascists like Alex Jones and the John Birch Society against the November 4, 2017 actions, which in the actual event were uniformly nonviolent.
This is being written at a time when Trump is both carrying out genocidal crimes against humanity at the border, threatening to slaughter ten million Afghan people and whipping up a wave of racist hatred around the country, threatening those who politically oppose him. Had the call issued by Refuse Fascism for November 2017 been answered in the way it needed to be, things would possibly be significantly different and far better right now; the campaign of slander, surveillance, and blackout which Chief Moore is continuing is an attempt to sew confusion and prevent what is happening right now in Puerto Rico from happening here.
That call itself https://refusefascism.org/2018/03/22/this-nightmare-must-end-the-trump-pence-regime-must-go-in-the-name-of-humanity-we-refuse-to-accept-a-fascist-america/ – for millions to flood the streets in mass, sustained, non-violent, determined protest to demand The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! – remains valid and more urgently needed than ever.
We are calling on people to pack the LA Police Commission meeting on Tuesday, July 30. Press conference at 9:00 am, LAPD Headquarters, 100 W. 1st Street
Los Angeles CA
Interviews available:
Coco Das, national spokesperson for RefuseFascism.org
Chantelle Hershberger, one of the #Freeway9 and a member of Refuse Fascism, LA and one of the #Freeway9
Miguel “Alex” Antonio, one of the #Freeway9 and a member of the Revolution Club, LA; part of the Get Organized for an Actual Revolution National Tour
Andy Zee, co-initiator of Refuse Fascism, spokesperson for Revolution Book and member of the National Revolution Tour
Damon Alimouri, Defense Attorney
Previous coverage:
LAPD informant infiltrated left-wing activists during Trump protests, records show
Los Angeles Times, James Queally, Staff Writer July 19 2019
Los Angeles police spied on anti-Trump protesters
The Guardian Sam Levin in Los Angeles July 19 2019
Pig Spying on Refuse Fascism, LA, Hits the Press
Revcom.us, July 22, 2019
Some Observations on the Declared Mistrial of the Freeway 9 Defendants: This Fight Is Not Over! The Stakes Are Great for All Those Who Hate This Regime, and Who Wish for a Better World
Revcom.us, July 1, 2019
Por protestar en Los Ángeles contra la separación familiar, los acusan de conspiración
La Opinion Jacqueline Garcia June 25, 2019
Alex Hernandez and Chantelle Hershberger go on trial in what they view as a fight against fascism
Pasadena Weekly Posted by Coco Das, Jul 18, 2019