For immediate release October 10 2019 Jury Deliberation Begins Today in #UCLA5 TrialEmail request to be notified when they return News from the trial of the #UCLA5:Judge throws out three charges because of new evidence proving police lied… prosecution goes after defendants’ revolutionary communist politics…police say they arrested defendants only because the Vice-Chancellor told them to…Professors sign petition to drop the charges…and Defendants call for Rally at the Bruin Bear at 5:00 on the Day of the Verdict From an article from revcom.us on the case of the #UCLA5, who faced up to 2 years in jail for making a great and appropriate statement when Steve Mnuchin spoke: Watch the video of what is being criminalized. 1) Right before closing arguments, the Prosecution revealed new evidence including photos of bruises and scrapes on the two defendants that had been charged with resisting arrest and audio recordings that show the defendants were never read Miranda rights even after they requested the right to speak to an attorney! These prove that four University of California Police Department cops lied on the stand, claiming there was no evidence of police brutality against the defendants. The judge was forced to dismiss three charges of resisting arrest against two of the defendants but refused to declare a mistrial, moving ahead with an illegitimate prosecution. Why was this evidence suppressed until this late hour and by whom? What agencies were involved in hiding this? Was it the UCPD? Was it the UCLA Administration? Was it City Attorney and Democratic Party politician Mike Feuer? Or was it all of them? What other evidence has been suppressed? And what does this say about all the cases brought by the City Attorney against Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club, in coordination with the LAPD? Who knew what and when about the larger investigation, how high up has this gone and is it ongoing? 2) Despite the repeated claims from the Prosecution that these are not political cases but about simple violations of the law, the Prosecutor repeatedly brought in the political mission of the Revolution Club in her cross examination of the Defendants and in her closing arguments. She asked completely irrelevant questions about people’s nicknames, their membership in the Revolution Club, the fact that the defendants are communists, the content of people’s social media—going so far as to show the jury tweets from the defendants where they talked about why they disrupted Mnuchin—trying to paint this as if it was anything besides free speech. 3) In the trial, three UCLA Administrators testified for the prosecution, justifying a new UCLA policy and “arrest protocols” for controversial events. Mick Deluca, the UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor of Campus Life, testified that he initiated the arrests of the defendants within seconds of speaking to Mnuchin. The UCPD cops who made the arrest testified that they did not know what law had been broken, making the arrests on the say so of Deluca! But Deluca is not a cop and cops who make arrests are supposed to do it on the basis of “probable cause.” This would be like your neighbor telling a cop go arrest so and so and the cop does so on the basis of their say so, NOT THE LAW itself. The #UCLA5 case is a test case for this new UCLA policy, which they’re establishing to be the new norm on campus. This is unconstitutional and illegitimate. At this point, the trial is going ahead and the verdict is expected Thursday October 10 or Friday October 11. The following petition was signed by an initial list of educators at UCLA and other universities listed below. PETITION: We stand with the #UCLA5. Drop the charges! The UCLA administration – far from defending these people or even standing aside – initiated their arrest and has acted in concert, banning some activists from campus and using police to spy on others. The defendants are members of the Revolution Club and Refuse Fascism who, a year and a half ago, sounded the alarm against the fascism being imposed by the Trump-Pence regime: ” is part of a regime that is hellbent on consolidating fascism!” That these defendants are facing jail time for speaking loudly to a government official at a public university is a major attack on campus free speech, and has ominous implications for the space for dissent in the University. Reflecting a further leap in repression, police reports released in the case reveal that university police stalked the Revolution Club, recording their activities – including the recording of someone’s license plate number when they were on campus carrying out what is supposed to be constitutionally protected speech and simply talking to people This is taking place while University administrations nationally are spending millions protecting the free speech of fascists who have the bully pulpit of the president, and criminalizing ANTI-fascist protest and speech of people who have no Oval Office and own no airways to amplify their voices. These cases are criminalizing constitutionally protected protest and speech while the Trump/Pence regime is tearing up the rule of law, stacking the courts with fascists, rounding up immigrants and fanning mobs against the press, LGBT people and anyone not white and Christian. Many more need to be acting in these bold ways to oppose fascist normalization – and that is exactly what this kind of criminalization is aimed at preventing. We cannot allow UCLA to silence and criminalize meaningful protest that is aimed at stopping this regime from bolting fascism into place. We, the undersigned, recognize that silence is complicity. The #UCLA5 stood up, in the name of humanity. We stand with them! Drop the charges! Partial list of signers from academic community. Andrew Apter, UCLA To learn more about the case: Activists Who Called Out Mnuchin At UCLA Now Face Months In Jail: Which Side Are You On?, Refusefascism.org, October 3, 2019 Activists Who Confronted Mnuchin During UCLA Protest Now Facing Years in Jail, Julia Conley, Common Dream, October 1, 2019 Video Statement by Stephen Rohde, retired Constitutional attorney and founder of the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace on the case of the #UCLA5 Video of Defendant Atlas Winfrey on the facts of the case. |