Posts for: Progressive One
May 2, 2017 17:09:01 #
(Main)
S. Maturin wrote:
"What do we want?" "DEAD COPS!" "When do we want them?" "NOW!"
"Pigs inna blanket, fry 'em like bacon!"
Maybe that BLM BS has something to do with some folks getting just plain fed up?
"Pigs inna blanket, fry 'em like bacon!"
Maybe that BLM BS has something to do with some folks getting just plain fed up?
That wasn't BLM people saying that but you racists lie to lump people to justify your hatred and the murder of unarmed people.....your type believes that is just fine and that is what they deserved........okay...well you know what happens when everyone gets fed up...have it your way....
May 2, 2017 17:05:34 #
(Main)
Larry the Legend wrote:
Oh no you don't. You started this, now you tell me how many degrees I have.
OK I'll help you out with a little clue. It's more than zero. Now how many, Mr. Smartass?
OK I'll help you out with a little clue. It's more than zero. Now how many, Mr. Smartass?
Larry the Legend wrote:
How many degrees did you say you have again?
May 2, 2017 17:04:59 #
(Main)
Larry the Legend wrote:
Oh no you don't. You started this, now you tell me how many degrees I have.
OK I'll help you out with a little clue. It's more than zero. Now how many, Mr. Smartass?
OK I'll help you out with a little clue. It's more than zero. Now how many, Mr. Smartass?
Okay....I have more than zero also....see? I told you as many as you....haha.............
May 2, 2017 16:43:25 #
(Main)
Big Bass wrote:
I thought the perp might have been prog1. He has that kind of hatred.
yep...and you have nothing to say about the drunk ass white guy who shot up a pool party full of people of color....ao threatens that about black people all the time.....he will get questioned soon enough if he keeps it up....his posts have been shared since he said he talks to employers about me.............I know now when attending such events to keep my heater....your crackas ass president has brought on a resurgence of klan behavior.........from policemen on down........
May 2, 2017 15:54:10 #
(Main)
It is still working I see.....hilarious............One of the albino chimps chooses to rattle their cage again.....funny indeed.......
May 2, 2017 15:50:32 #
(Main)
Larry the Legend wrote:
How many is that?
you tell me.......
May 2, 2017 15:33:24 #
(Main)
Larry the Legend wrote:
How many degrees did you say you have again?
As many as YOU have.
May 2, 2017 15:31:36 #
(Main)
S. Maturin wrote:
Oh. OK, fine... ya, like I'll do that. That would rather be like going back onto the lawn and stepping into more dog poop.
okay....well while you are at it....save your gotdamn advice in terms of what the fk you suggest that I do.........
May 2, 2017 15:23:56 #
(Main)
Where’s the Justice in Our Criminal Justice System?
By Sharon Kyle
Brian Banks (r) was wrongfully convicted of rape in 2002
I‘ve been listening to a podcast I wish I could have heard while in high school—I probably would have gone to law school earlier than I did. Listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 10 podcasts everyone should follow, “Actual Innocence” was started by Brook Gittings, a social worker who—after watching the Netflix series “The Making of a Murderer”—realized how little she knew about our judicial system. Her desire to learn more led her into the world of wrongful convictions, which has now become the driving force behind her podcasts. Each episode tells the story of a person who has served time in the system for a crime they did not commit. Actual Innocence gives the uninitiated a view of our criminal justice system that won’t be found on CSI or Law & Order.
Like Gittings, most Americans have little to no direct contact with the judicial system. With the exception of minor traffic violations, divorce proceedings, or an occasional dispute in small claims court, what they think they know about the judicial system has come to them through the movies or television dramas. Nevertheless, if asked, the average Joe would probably say that our system is just and fair.
We are reared to believe that ours is a nation of laws. That the U.S. criminal justice system is blind to race, religion or station in life. Unless you are an attorney, a police officer, law student, or are in some other way associated with the law, you probably don’t know that one out of nine people on death row has been exonerated since the introduction of DNA evidence—or that the overwhelming majority of people serving time for a criminal offense in the United States never had a trial.criminal justice system
As much as 97% of federal criminal cases end with a plea bargain, which means the defendant and the prosecution struck a deal—a guilty plea in exchange for a lighter sentence. This business of having your day in court as depicted on TV and in the movies is largely fiction. Our criminal justice system today is almost exclusively a system of plea bargains—no trials, no juries, and no discovery with defense counsel and judges having little to no say.
What was designed to be one of the greatest assets of our criminal justice system—the discovery process with a trial by jury—is largely a relic of the past. And the system it was supposed to support has increasingly become a predatory one or, as famed defense attorney Bryan Stevenson says, “We have a system of justice that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.”
In fact, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia believed that actual innocence was not a strong enough reason to overturn a conviction, even in the face of a death sentence. He once said that the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually innocent’ is not a legal basis to overturn the conviction or, in other words, not enough reason to stop an execution. So, it appears we’ve come to the place where actual innocence can be treated as if it were irrelevant.
This jaw-dropping truth stands in sharp contrast to the protections most Americans believe are enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Surely the Founding Fathers did not intend to create a system that results in tens of thousands of innocent people incarcerated annually and—in a few cases—being put to death.
Our system is so bloated and so prone to mistake and frankly, prosecutorial misconduct, that today there are enough people convicted of a crime who were later determined to be wrongfully convicted that they have an annual conference. In 2016, one such gathering, the Innocence Network Conference held in San Antonio, attracted 500 attendees.
In a piece published by Mother Jones magazine entitled, “How Many Innocent People Are in Prison?” writers Beth Schwartzapfel and Hannah Levintova admit that answering that question definitively is almost impossible. But they say,
“Extrapolating from the 281 known DNA exonerations in the US since the late 1980s, a conservative estimate is that 1 percent of the US prison population, approximately 20,000 people, are falsely convicted.”
Several studies by respected institutions support this estimation—some believe the number is higher. So the question is what can be done?
The bullets below are a small sample of suggestions I’ve found searching the web. Using sites like the Equal Justice Initiative, the Innocence Project, the Sentencing Project, and the Prison Policy Initiative I cobbled together a small sampling of actions average people can take:
•Get rid of the money bail system. The money bail system is used in just two countries—the United States and the Philippines. Every year thousands of people in the U.S. are jailed while they await their trial simply because they can’t afford to post bail. These people are technically innocent. Recent research found that, compared to people who are released sometime before their trail starts, people held in jail the whole time before their trial were four times more likely to be sentenced to jail and three times more likely to be sentenced to prison. There are alternatives to this system that have a proven track record of success.
•Support Alternatives-to-Arrest and Alternative-Incarceration Programs. Fifty years ago the U.S. incarceration rate in the United States was on par with similarly situated nations. Over the past four decades, changes in law and policy have resulted in the prison population ballooning by 500%. This growth has outpaced the crime rate and research suggests over the long term, that it has actually increased the crime rate.
•Support Laws That Reduce Overly Harsh Sentences. People are serving life sentences for non-violent drug offenses. The United States is unique among countries in the “civilized” world to handle these types of offenses this way. Clearly this method is not producing the desired outcome as is evidenced by our high recidivism rate. We should work on eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and cut back on excessively lengthy sentences by using an alternative to incarceration for these types of offenses.
•Hold Prosecutors and Police Responsible for Deliberate Misconduct. Police and prosecutors who deliberately engage in misconduct are rarely held accountable for their actions—actions like hiding or destroying evidence that could clear the accused of charges, or fabricating evidence to make a defendant appear guilty, or relying on testimony that is known to be false, or obtaining and then using coerced confessions. A policy of liability for deliberate misconduct could make those state actors think twice before they play fast and loose with people’s lives.
•Require All States to Provide Compensation to the Exonerated. Only 30 states, plus Washington D.C., have laws that provide compensation to the wrongly convicted. Some of these laws provide only token support to the exonerated, while 20 states provide no compensation at all. When the criminal justice system makes a grievous mistake by sending an innocent person to prison, the state has a moral and ethical responsibility to make amends by providing adequate financial support, counseling, educational and job training, and housing. If your state doesn’t have a law, ask your legislator to pass one.
•Reform or abolish Plea Bargaining. Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute has presented a strong argument in favor of abolishing the plea bargain system. He believes it is unconstitutional because the plea bargaining system encourages the government to pressure an individual to waive a Constitutional right and then punishes defendants who chose to exercise their Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
•End the Death Penalty. Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit called the death penalty “arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” The number of innocent people exonerated who were on death row continues to grow and, according to the American Bar Association, in 96% of states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. Few countries continue this barbaric practice among them are the United States, China, North Korea and Pakistan.
Over the past 40 years we’ve witnessed a prison population explosion of unparalleled proportion in the U.S.. Social scientists and other scholars can give you a laundry list of reasons. Most striking is that missing on those lists is a need to increase public safety. Most experts agree that the U.S. locks up more of its citizens than any other nation at great expense with little impact on public safety.
Criminal Justice SystemOne contributing factor that doesn’t get discussed enough is the public’s naive belief in the fairness of our justice system. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that the United States has a legal system that dwarfs that of every other nation—but calling it a justice system seems to be a stretch.
If, at any point during the judicial process, actual innocence is deemed to be irrelevant, how the hell can we call what we have a justice system?
Sharon Kyle
Copyright 2017 LA Progressive
By Sharon Kyle
Brian Banks (r) was wrongfully convicted of rape in 2002
I‘ve been listening to a podcast I wish I could have heard while in high school—I probably would have gone to law school earlier than I did. Listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the 10 podcasts everyone should follow, “Actual Innocence” was started by Brook Gittings, a social worker who—after watching the Netflix series “The Making of a Murderer”—realized how little she knew about our judicial system. Her desire to learn more led her into the world of wrongful convictions, which has now become the driving force behind her podcasts. Each episode tells the story of a person who has served time in the system for a crime they did not commit. Actual Innocence gives the uninitiated a view of our criminal justice system that won’t be found on CSI or Law & Order.
Like Gittings, most Americans have little to no direct contact with the judicial system. With the exception of minor traffic violations, divorce proceedings, or an occasional dispute in small claims court, what they think they know about the judicial system has come to them through the movies or television dramas. Nevertheless, if asked, the average Joe would probably say that our system is just and fair.
We are reared to believe that ours is a nation of laws. That the U.S. criminal justice system is blind to race, religion or station in life. Unless you are an attorney, a police officer, law student, or are in some other way associated with the law, you probably don’t know that one out of nine people on death row has been exonerated since the introduction of DNA evidence—or that the overwhelming majority of people serving time for a criminal offense in the United States never had a trial.criminal justice system
As much as 97% of federal criminal cases end with a plea bargain, which means the defendant and the prosecution struck a deal—a guilty plea in exchange for a lighter sentence. This business of having your day in court as depicted on TV and in the movies is largely fiction. Our criminal justice system today is almost exclusively a system of plea bargains—no trials, no juries, and no discovery with defense counsel and judges having little to no say.
What was designed to be one of the greatest assets of our criminal justice system—the discovery process with a trial by jury—is largely a relic of the past. And the system it was supposed to support has increasingly become a predatory one or, as famed defense attorney Bryan Stevenson says, “We have a system of justice that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.”
In fact, the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia believed that actual innocence was not a strong enough reason to overturn a conviction, even in the face of a death sentence. He once said that the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually innocent’ is not a legal basis to overturn the conviction or, in other words, not enough reason to stop an execution. So, it appears we’ve come to the place where actual innocence can be treated as if it were irrelevant.
This jaw-dropping truth stands in sharp contrast to the protections most Americans believe are enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. Surely the Founding Fathers did not intend to create a system that results in tens of thousands of innocent people incarcerated annually and—in a few cases—being put to death.
Our system is so bloated and so prone to mistake and frankly, prosecutorial misconduct, that today there are enough people convicted of a crime who were later determined to be wrongfully convicted that they have an annual conference. In 2016, one such gathering, the Innocence Network Conference held in San Antonio, attracted 500 attendees.
In a piece published by Mother Jones magazine entitled, “How Many Innocent People Are in Prison?” writers Beth Schwartzapfel and Hannah Levintova admit that answering that question definitively is almost impossible. But they say,
“Extrapolating from the 281 known DNA exonerations in the US since the late 1980s, a conservative estimate is that 1 percent of the US prison population, approximately 20,000 people, are falsely convicted.”
Several studies by respected institutions support this estimation—some believe the number is higher. So the question is what can be done?
The bullets below are a small sample of suggestions I’ve found searching the web. Using sites like the Equal Justice Initiative, the Innocence Project, the Sentencing Project, and the Prison Policy Initiative I cobbled together a small sampling of actions average people can take:
•Get rid of the money bail system. The money bail system is used in just two countries—the United States and the Philippines. Every year thousands of people in the U.S. are jailed while they await their trial simply because they can’t afford to post bail. These people are technically innocent. Recent research found that, compared to people who are released sometime before their trail starts, people held in jail the whole time before their trial were four times more likely to be sentenced to jail and three times more likely to be sentenced to prison. There are alternatives to this system that have a proven track record of success.
•Support Alternatives-to-Arrest and Alternative-Incarceration Programs. Fifty years ago the U.S. incarceration rate in the United States was on par with similarly situated nations. Over the past four decades, changes in law and policy have resulted in the prison population ballooning by 500%. This growth has outpaced the crime rate and research suggests over the long term, that it has actually increased the crime rate.
•Support Laws That Reduce Overly Harsh Sentences. People are serving life sentences for non-violent drug offenses. The United States is unique among countries in the “civilized” world to handle these types of offenses this way. Clearly this method is not producing the desired outcome as is evidenced by our high recidivism rate. We should work on eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and cut back on excessively lengthy sentences by using an alternative to incarceration for these types of offenses.
•Hold Prosecutors and Police Responsible for Deliberate Misconduct. Police and prosecutors who deliberately engage in misconduct are rarely held accountable for their actions—actions like hiding or destroying evidence that could clear the accused of charges, or fabricating evidence to make a defendant appear guilty, or relying on testimony that is known to be false, or obtaining and then using coerced confessions. A policy of liability for deliberate misconduct could make those state actors think twice before they play fast and loose with people’s lives.
•Require All States to Provide Compensation to the Exonerated. Only 30 states, plus Washington D.C., have laws that provide compensation to the wrongly convicted. Some of these laws provide only token support to the exonerated, while 20 states provide no compensation at all. When the criminal justice system makes a grievous mistake by sending an innocent person to prison, the state has a moral and ethical responsibility to make amends by providing adequate financial support, counseling, educational and job training, and housing. If your state doesn’t have a law, ask your legislator to pass one.
•Reform or abolish Plea Bargaining. Timothy Lynch of the Cato Institute has presented a strong argument in favor of abolishing the plea bargain system. He believes it is unconstitutional because the plea bargaining system encourages the government to pressure an individual to waive a Constitutional right and then punishes defendants who chose to exercise their Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.
•End the Death Penalty. Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit called the death penalty “arbitrary, biased, and so fundamentally flawed at its very core that it is beyond repair.” The number of innocent people exonerated who were on death row continues to grow and, according to the American Bar Association, in 96% of states where there have been reviews of race and the death penalty there was a pattern of either race-of-victim or race-of-defendant discrimination, or both. Few countries continue this barbaric practice among them are the United States, China, North Korea and Pakistan.
Over the past 40 years we’ve witnessed a prison population explosion of unparalleled proportion in the U.S.. Social scientists and other scholars can give you a laundry list of reasons. Most striking is that missing on those lists is a need to increase public safety. Most experts agree that the U.S. locks up more of its citizens than any other nation at great expense with little impact on public safety.
Criminal Justice SystemOne contributing factor that doesn’t get discussed enough is the public’s naive belief in the fairness of our justice system. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that the United States has a legal system that dwarfs that of every other nation—but calling it a justice system seems to be a stretch.
If, at any point during the judicial process, actual innocence is deemed to be irrelevant, how the hell can we call what we have a justice system?
Sharon Kyle
Copyright 2017 LA Progressive
May 2, 2017 15:21:08 #
(Main)
S. Maturin wrote:
Do yourself a huge favor and read over what you wrote. Think about it.
No....YOU do THAT.............
May 2, 2017 15:15:35 #
(Main)
S. Maturin wrote:
Here we go! I pushed that response button, did I?
Here we go! I pushed that response button, did I? Nah....all of you country ass hick motherfkers together don't even make me blink...ao and others are trying really hard...but a bunch of grown ass men ganging up talking about my education, where I live and lies about where I live, visiting me, talking to my employers, calling me names really lets me know that I have talked enough shit to hurt a bunch of sissy-men's feelings and now you all have all become obsessed with ne to the extent you all have to gang up and try to hurt the feelings on mine that are not there. I told you all long ago I'm a Spock type of brother...between being a realist and a scientific thinker, I very seldom embrace emotions because they are the basis for illogical thinking. I mean look at OPP now...I am in command to the extent that I have grown ass emotional men in a group acting like little girls. I'm a non-emotional brother who never gave a fk what racist ass whites think as they try to shape my self-perception using their cracka ass white trash, jim-crow era upbringing modus operandi (M.O.)..........not working for you all at all....so listen to ao create his own stories about me so he can turn you all into some stupid ass backwoods inbred fkers, just like him.
May 2, 2017 13:48:38 #
(Main)
S. Maturin wrote:
You're just riled up because you think Trump might be living Obama's dream 8-year existence. That only demprogs have the right to hoodwink and steal from the general populace.
I have nothing to be riled up about., I have three degrees, a six-figure income and six-figure pension with life medical when I choose and a second career teaching graduate school online since 97 with other universities courting me because of that many years experience. I am waaay better off than many of you trump supporters who will be hurt by his budget and program cuts that will give bigger tax breaks to the rich and make your healthcare get taken away or become way more expensive.. I'm the one in the driver's seat. What do I have to be mad about?
May 2, 2017 13:21:06 #
(Main)
Woman to appeal Trump U deal
She wants to sue the president individually, which could delay payout to thousands.
SHERI B. SIMPSON is entitled to more than $15,000 in a $25-million settlement with President Trump’s defunct “university.” She wants at least four times that. (Alan Diaz Associated Press)
By Kristina Davis and Greg Moran
SAN DIEGO — A woman who was the only official objector to the $25-million deal to settle three Trump University lawsuits said Monday that she would appeal the settlement, a move that could mean months of further litigation and delay any payout.
Sheri B. Simpson filed a formal notice of appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The move was immediately criticized by the lawyer for the other 3,700 or so class members who are eligible to get up to 90% of what they spent on President Trump’s defunct real estate success program.
Gary Friedman, the lawyer for Simpson, said the appeal will be based on the argument that a San Diego federal judge who approved the settlement on March 31 erred because class members were not given a second chance to opt out of the case.
“The class members had a right to opt out of the settlement,” Friedman said. “The notice they received from the court promised them in no uncertain terms they had that right. Then, once the defendant got elected president, it became inconvenient to honor that promise.”
Rather than take the more than $15,000 she would get in the settlement, Simpson wants to take the president to trial individually and seek an award four times that amount or more, Friedman said.
Lawyers for the class members said Simpson and her lawyer mischaracterized language that went out in the class notices, which — when read in the correct context — stated that participants could opt out of receiving a portion of the settlement, not leave the case entirely. By staying in the case, Simpson is bound by the settlement, they argued.
Jason Forge, one of the main lawyers in the class-action suit and settlement, said that the decision to appeal is wrong and could hurt other members of the class who will have to wait to collect their money from Trump.
“It’s the wrong fight against the wrong people for the wrong reason,” he said Monday. “My only real concern is we won’t have enough time to make it right for everyone. We have a number of senior citizen students here waiting for their money. And given the length of time that appeals can take, we may not be able to get that money to them before they die.”
The class-action lawsuits — two filed in San Diego and another in New York — contended Trump University misled students into thinking it was an accredited university and conned people into signing up for the $35,000 “Gold Elite” program. The elite status paid for a yearlong mentorship and exclusive access to Trump’s resources, which students said were not provided for the most part.
Trump defended his program, saying it provided valuable training and garnered a 98% approval rating among students.
Friedman said Simpson regretted holding up settlement payments. “We feel terribly about the delay,” he said. “But she is not going to be guilted into changing her position.”
He said he planned to ask the appeals court for an expedited hearing schedule.
kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com
greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
Davis and Moran write for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
She wants to sue the president individually, which could delay payout to thousands.
SHERI B. SIMPSON is entitled to more than $15,000 in a $25-million settlement with President Trump’s defunct “university.” She wants at least four times that. (Alan Diaz Associated Press)
By Kristina Davis and Greg Moran
SAN DIEGO — A woman who was the only official objector to the $25-million deal to settle three Trump University lawsuits said Monday that she would appeal the settlement, a move that could mean months of further litigation and delay any payout.
Sheri B. Simpson filed a formal notice of appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The move was immediately criticized by the lawyer for the other 3,700 or so class members who are eligible to get up to 90% of what they spent on President Trump’s defunct real estate success program.
Gary Friedman, the lawyer for Simpson, said the appeal will be based on the argument that a San Diego federal judge who approved the settlement on March 31 erred because class members were not given a second chance to opt out of the case.
“The class members had a right to opt out of the settlement,” Friedman said. “The notice they received from the court promised them in no uncertain terms they had that right. Then, once the defendant got elected president, it became inconvenient to honor that promise.”
Rather than take the more than $15,000 she would get in the settlement, Simpson wants to take the president to trial individually and seek an award four times that amount or more, Friedman said.
Lawyers for the class members said Simpson and her lawyer mischaracterized language that went out in the class notices, which — when read in the correct context — stated that participants could opt out of receiving a portion of the settlement, not leave the case entirely. By staying in the case, Simpson is bound by the settlement, they argued.
Jason Forge, one of the main lawyers in the class-action suit and settlement, said that the decision to appeal is wrong and could hurt other members of the class who will have to wait to collect their money from Trump.
“It’s the wrong fight against the wrong people for the wrong reason,” he said Monday. “My only real concern is we won’t have enough time to make it right for everyone. We have a number of senior citizen students here waiting for their money. And given the length of time that appeals can take, we may not be able to get that money to them before they die.”
The class-action lawsuits — two filed in San Diego and another in New York — contended Trump University misled students into thinking it was an accredited university and conned people into signing up for the $35,000 “Gold Elite” program. The elite status paid for a yearlong mentorship and exclusive access to Trump’s resources, which students said were not provided for the most part.
Trump defended his program, saying it provided valuable training and garnered a 98% approval rating among students.
Friedman said Simpson regretted holding up settlement payments. “We feel terribly about the delay,” he said. “But she is not going to be guilted into changing her position.”
He said he planned to ask the appeals court for an expedited hearing schedule.
kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com
greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
Davis and Moran write for the San Diego Union-Tribune.
May 2, 2017 13:16:24 #
(Main)
desparado wrote:
he's making it grate for trump selling you all the crappy hats and shirts made in china or maybe your more comfortable in one of his daughters dress made in china
They don't get it.....a con man and his family enriching themselves at taxpayers expense while not giving a damn about his moron followers...........sad indeed.....
May 2, 2017 13:14:30 #
(Main)
Rallies across the U.S.; violence seen at some
MAY DAY protesters at Union Square in New York City. One said, “We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people.” (Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times)
By Nigel Duara, Jenny Jarvie and Melissa Etehad
Portland police said Monday that numerous arrests were made during May Day protests in their city, including three people detained near Pioneer Square.
Police asked everyone to stay away from downtown as fires were being reported and fireworks, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails were being thrown at police.
There was no immediate information on whether anyone was injured.
In Olympia, Wash., police said several officers were injured when protesters threw rocks and broke windows.
Thousands of people took to the streets across the nation Monday to march in May Day rallies, calling for immigration reform, workers’ rights and police accountability.
Galvanized by President Trump’s initiatives on immigrants in the country illegally, diverse crowds of demonstrators held peaceful rallies in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Miami.
In Atlanta, about 200 rallied under gloomy skies holding “ICE Get Out” banners and “Not One More Deportaton” placards to protest recent arrests and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and to call on Atlanta officials to extend more protections to immigrants.
Aline Mello, a 28-year-old from Brazil, was among those at Atlanta’s City Hall for a May Day rally. Mello is a so-called Dreamer who received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Not long after Mello arrived for the rally, she texted her mom a photo of herself huddling under a pink umbrella and holding a sign saying, “We are Humans.”
Many demonstrators said they were concerned about Trump administration attempts at immigration initiatives such as building a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, enforcing a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries and threatening to withhold federal funds from municipalities considered “sanctuary cities.”
Outside City Hall, immigrant advocates linked up with a wide range of social justice groups fighting to raise the minimum wage, combat racism and sexism, and protect LGBTQ communities.
“We want Atlanta to be a real sanctuary city, not just a welcoming city,” Carlos Medina, a volunteer with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, told the crowd. “We want a fair salary: $15. We want the people to respect gender identity. And we want them to stop the deportations.”
After the rally, more than a hundred immigration and social justice advocates spilled into Atlanta’s City Council chamber to demand that the city raise the minimum wage to $15 and that the city comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain immigrants only when officials have a warrant.
Immigrant rights groups and labor unions organized multiple rallies across New York City, culminating Monday evening at Foley Square in what organizers said would be the city’s biggest planned rally for May Day.
Michael Bellamy was among those demonstrating in Union Square on Monday afternoon.
“We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people, and we want to celebrate those who work,” he said.
Earlier Monday, about 500 people rallied outside Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Manhattan. Twelve people were arrested for civil disobedience, said Jose Lopez of the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road, after protesters blocked the entrance to JPMorgan.
“We wanted to identify and name a number of corporate players who stand to profit from Trump’s agenda and immigration detention,” Lopez said.
In Chicago, Jorge Mujica, an organizer at Arise Chicago, said hundreds of people had gathered a few hours early in anticipation of the march from Union Park to Daley Plaza.
This year’s May Day, he said, felt different from previous years.
“Before we were not successful in pulling in other communities to join us,” Mujica said. “But Trump has united us.”
nigel.duara@latimes.com
Twitter: @nigelduara
MAY DAY protesters at Union Square in New York City. One said, “We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people.” (Carolyn Cole Los Angeles Times)
By Nigel Duara, Jenny Jarvie and Melissa Etehad
Portland police said Monday that numerous arrests were made during May Day protests in their city, including three people detained near Pioneer Square.
Police asked everyone to stay away from downtown as fires were being reported and fireworks, smoke bombs and Molotov cocktails were being thrown at police.
There was no immediate information on whether anyone was injured.
In Olympia, Wash., police said several officers were injured when protesters threw rocks and broke windows.
Thousands of people took to the streets across the nation Monday to march in May Day rallies, calling for immigration reform, workers’ rights and police accountability.
Galvanized by President Trump’s initiatives on immigrants in the country illegally, diverse crowds of demonstrators held peaceful rallies in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Miami.
In Atlanta, about 200 rallied under gloomy skies holding “ICE Get Out” banners and “Not One More Deportaton” placards to protest recent arrests and deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and to call on Atlanta officials to extend more protections to immigrants.
Aline Mello, a 28-year-old from Brazil, was among those at Atlanta’s City Hall for a May Day rally. Mello is a so-called Dreamer who received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Not long after Mello arrived for the rally, she texted her mom a photo of herself huddling under a pink umbrella and holding a sign saying, “We are Humans.”
Many demonstrators said they were concerned about Trump administration attempts at immigration initiatives such as building a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border, enforcing a travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries and threatening to withhold federal funds from municipalities considered “sanctuary cities.”
Outside City Hall, immigrant advocates linked up with a wide range of social justice groups fighting to raise the minimum wage, combat racism and sexism, and protect LGBTQ communities.
“We want Atlanta to be a real sanctuary city, not just a welcoming city,” Carlos Medina, a volunteer with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, told the crowd. “We want a fair salary: $15. We want the people to respect gender identity. And we want them to stop the deportations.”
After the rally, more than a hundred immigration and social justice advocates spilled into Atlanta’s City Council chamber to demand that the city raise the minimum wage to $15 and that the city comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to detain immigrants only when officials have a warrant.
Immigrant rights groups and labor unions organized multiple rallies across New York City, culminating Monday evening at Foley Square in what organizers said would be the city’s biggest planned rally for May Day.
Michael Bellamy was among those demonstrating in Union Square on Monday afternoon.
“We are showing how U.S. policies throughout history have created refugees and hurt people, and we want to celebrate those who work,” he said.
Earlier Monday, about 500 people rallied outside Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Manhattan. Twelve people were arrested for civil disobedience, said Jose Lopez of the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road, after protesters blocked the entrance to JPMorgan.
“We wanted to identify and name a number of corporate players who stand to profit from Trump’s agenda and immigration detention,” Lopez said.
In Chicago, Jorge Mujica, an organizer at Arise Chicago, said hundreds of people had gathered a few hours early in anticipation of the march from Union Park to Daley Plaza.
This year’s May Day, he said, felt different from previous years.
“Before we were not successful in pulling in other communities to join us,” Mujica said. “But Trump has united us.”
nigel.duara@latimes.com
Twitter: @nigelduara