May 19th, 2021 IRC Meeting

Projects

Outreach

Leader: Malt

• Community Organizing Discussion, 5/22, 4-6pm
• Date for next Pirate Moot?
• Setup local video meetups by region with people who said they were interested in organizing a local chapter
• Organize candidate trainings

Video Newsletter/Podcast

Leader: Joseph

• Pirate news recording scheduled for Sundays, 7pm with go-live at 7:30pm. Unless changed

Boston Pride Festival

Leader: jokeefe

While in-person events, including outdoor events, are on hold until COVID-19 numbers go down, we should plan for our table at the Boston Pride Festival. Festival is on hold, likely for the year.

Tasks:

• setup signup sheet
• Announce
• Need to purchase insurance
• Need volunteer sign up form
• Tie to an activity, mapping the CCTV cameras in Boston or along the Pride parade route?

Other To Do

• Application to PPI

Upcoming On-line Events

• Every Tuesday, 7-9pm, Mass MeshNet Tech Meeting, on-line
• Sat., 5/22, 4-6pm, Pirate Moot, on-line
• Sat., 6/5, 11-1pm, Tech Meetup, on-line

Participants

• jokeefe: James O’Keefe, Somerville
• malt: sam capradae, worcester

Observers

• davidd
• Deffy
• hvxgr
• Mikaela
• mikey
• slerman

Summary

Drafted statement:

 

Police Camera Accountability Now!

The prosecutorial arm of the American legal system is not impartial, and it does not seek justice. Prosecutors are an extension of the policing arm of the Prison-Industrial Complex. They actively withhold exculpatory evidence and imprison innocent people in pursuit of a "tough on crime" cult mentality. 

The tragic police murder of Andrew Brown Jr. proves that the use of police cameras do not serve the public interest solely by their use.  In that case, the judge limited access to the four or more body/dashcams to only one lawyer for the family. What the lawyer could see was heavily redacted, but it still demostrated that police fired at Andrew Brown Jr. before he fled from them by driving backwards away from them and that he had his hands on the car wheel where police could see them. Just like in the George Floyd case, the police's initial story is contradicted by video evidence they only released under protest.

The police benefit from a system where it is their word versus ours. They know they are afforded undue trust by an uninvolved public. As long as police and prosecutors are able to pick and choose what footage to release, they will only ever release the barest minimum required for them to fabricate probable cause for their murders. 

Police lie. Prosecutors lie. As long as the ability to withhold exculpatory evidence is yeilded to the Prison-Industrial Complex, innocents will suffer. We cannot trust that those with a professional, financial investment in imprisonment are neutral arbiters of guilt. 

The prison system is as integral a part of capitalism as apprenticeships and student work-study. It provides human chattel labor to industries too crucial to pay workers a living wage. It is the cudgel that enforces compliance with the wage-slave system.

The Pirate Party will require that all police recordings are available to family and their legal representatives in their full, unedited form. We will put video archiving systems in place so the public can be sure that the videos were not tampered with. Ultimately, police recordings are public recordings and must be available through freedom of information requests while maintaining the privacy rights of those in them who are not public servants. Yet privacy rights should never be an excuse to keep secret the wrong doings of police. State agents cannot expect a right to privacy when they are acting as representatives of the state, especially when those actions harm others.

Cameras are by no means a replacement for police abolition and their replacement with community-centered response teams, but as long as we have them, and as long as public funds are spent on their purchase, they should serve the public good, NOT the prison-industrial complex. 

Minutes

 


[9:05pm] jokeefe: Agenda: https://masspirates.org/wiki/May_19th,_2021_IRC_Meeting
[9:05pm] jokeefe: ids
[9:05pm] jokeefe: James O’Keefe, Somerville
[9:06pm] malt: sam capradae, worcester
[9:07pm] jokeefe: anything to add to the agenda?
[9:08pm] jokeefe: Police killing of Andrew Brown Jr. and Transparency
[9:08pm] malt: i don't think i've heard of this one
[9:08pm] malt: there was a teen girl killed in mass and the police refused to investigate, also
[9:09pm] malt: i think
[9:09pm] jokeefe: yes, declared a suicide when it looks very suspicious
[9:09pm] jokeefe: I was listening to https://www.npr.org/2021/05/19/998137124/prosecutor-deputies-were-justified-in-fatal-shooting-of-andrew-brown-jr
[9:10pm] jokeefe: the issue for us seems that we don’t have transparency with body cam recordings.
[9:10pm] malt: yeah, the police get to decide what footage to release?
[9:11pm] malt: maybe we can find some sample legislation for a better system and agitate for that
[9:11pm] jokeefe: they let only one defense attorney see a redacted version of all the video they had
[9:11pm] malt: the fact that prosection gets to CHOOSE what evidence to release
[9:11pm] malt: i hate that
[9:11pm] malt: probably top 5 things about america
[9:12pm] malt: we could make a lot of hay about that
[9:12pm] jokeefe: agreed. was thinking we should make a statement
[9:13pm] jokeefe: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/AndrewBrownJrStatement
[9:23pm] malt: you're lucky i'm in my cups, because i am typing STRAIGHT FIRE tonight
[9:26pm] jokeefe: ++excellent
[9:38pm] jokeefe: I don’t understand “Cameras are by no means a replacement for abolition and  community-centered response teams,”
[9:41pm] malt: state support for police cameras  came about as a response to initial demands for police abolition
[9:42pm] malt: as a way to redirect public demands for abolition into empty reform
[9:44pm] malt: i think that's a fine statement
[9:45pm] jokeefe: What about “Cameras are by no means a replacement for police abolition and  their replacement with community-centered response teams”
[9:49pm] malt: that works better yea
[9:50pm] jokeefe: Are you find with that change and how the whole statement reads?
[9:53pm] malt: that last sentence could be punchier
[9:53pm] malt: yea there we go
[9:54pm] malt: A OK on my end!
[9:54pm] jokeefe: we good?
[9:55pm] malt: yuup
[9:55pm] jokeefe: great!
[9:55pm] jokeefe: Will post tomorrow. Thanks. looks great
[9:55pm] jokeefe: what should we title it as?
[9:56pm] malt: Police Camera Accountability Now!
[9:56pm] jokeefe: great!
[9:57pm] jokeefe: Will you be able to be at the Saturday organizing meeting? 4-6pm?
[9:58pm] malt: Yes!
[9:58pm] jokeefe: cool. will send an email reminder for tomorrow.
[9:58pm] jokeefe: thanks
[9:59pm] jokeefe: Sunday pirate news good?
[10:01pm] malt: yup!
[10:02pm] jokeefe: wonderful.
[10:02pm] jokeefe: shall we adjourn?
[10:04pm] malt: sure!
[10:04pm] malt: 2nd
[10:04pm] malt: see you saturday!
[10:04pm] malt: and sunday
[10:04pm] malt: night!