[FlyingBrickAnnouncements] Solidarity with Jeremy Hawthorne! Calling all Beards!

[Nathan Stickel]

Current Flying Brick resident, Jeremy Hawthorne, needs your help! Please
read this and forward it to anyone who might be interested!

Jeremy Hawthorne, arrested September 5th, 2011 while on a Copwatch patrol,
is going on trial before a jury for allegedly slashing 7 tires on Virginia
Commonwealth University vehicles, including two police cars. The charge is
Destruction of State Property > $1,000, a Class 6 Felony.The case is
clearly politically motivated; as a part of Richmond Copwatch, Jeremy is
one of several who have been targeted by Richmond police in past months for
their work against police brutality and poor jail conditions in the city.
The notoriously heavy-handed RPD and its officers, ever the subject of much
controversy, have bristled and taken a particularly antagonistic attitude
with activists, protestors, and copwatchers, reacting in a consistently
aggressive, violent, and reckless manner. Accountability, on the other
hand, has been elusive.

The “evidence” used to indict Jeremy is insubstantial, and many details
surrounding testimonies evidence gathering, and the circumstances leading
to Jeremy’s arrest, are questionable at best.
Commonwealth Attorney Christopher Toepp is handling the case per his
personal request, intent on a full conviction. Toepp has had a long year of
high-profile cases, having been on the prosecution for the Monroe Park
Occupation, and the African burial ground demonstration. If Chris Toepp has
his way, Jeremy would face 5 years in prison.
The description of the person depicted in the so-far unreleased
surveillance footage is incredibly mundane: a beard, a hat (maybe camo,
brown, or black?), tattoos, a black sleeveless or rolled-up shirt, a bag,
and a step-thru frame bike. In Richmond, this could easily be thousands of
people. The alleged acts occurred on August 23rd, the Monday proceeding
Best Friends Day, meaning hundreds more out-of-town hipster look-alikes
were wild in the streets.

We encourage all those who think they may roughly fit this description to
come to the hearing, inside the courtroom and out, as part of a “beard
bloc.”

Folks who wish to come out in support- the hearing will be in courtroom 305
of the John Marshall Court Building, 400 N. Ninth St., Richmond, Virginia;
9:30AM Wednesday, February 1st.

For more information, you can contact rvaabc at gmail.com and check
richmondlegalsupport.wordpress.com for updates.
We ask all to donate to his legal fund, via the Richmond Anarchist Black
Cross (2005 Barton Avenue, Richmond, VA 23222).

 Our friends Eric Scott and Hunter Singleton also really need help with
their legal fees after their arrests in a November Occupy Richmond march.
Visit richmondlegalsupport.wordpress.com for more information.

Please share far and wide!


-- 
Always with Solidarity

Nathan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/flyingbrickvolunteers/attachments/20120119/c5d00618/attachment.htm>