January 2017

For various personal reasons I was unwilling to risk arrest at the J20 inaugural festivities, but I couldn't stand to miss the action altogether. I compromised by trailing in the wake of the black bloc march, far enough behind to be safe, but close enough to make some pertinent observations.

A lawyer who was providing legal support to Inauguration Day protesters in Washington sued police Friday over claims the authorities responded disproportionately with mass arrests, pepper spray and batons in response to the unrest that swept across downtown. The lawsuit was filed in Washington federal district court just hours after President Donald Trump took the oath of office. The inaugural ceremony kicked off a wave of protests and vandalism across downtown Washington.

Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Park Police officers, according to the lawsuit, surrounded a crowd near 12th and L streets and made arrests “without warning and without any dispersal order.” Benjamin Christopher Carraway, a Colorado criminal defense attorney, was the named plaintiff in the class action. The suit was filed on behalf of protesters, attorneys, legal observers, journalists and medics who, according to the complaint, were “subjected to this outrageous conduct by the defendants for no legitimate law enforcement reason.”

National Law Journal: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202777311810/On-Inauguration-Day-Suit-Alleges-Police-Abuses-at-AntiTrump-Protest?cmp=share_twitter&slreturn=20170025120024

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/01/inauguration-protests-police-lawsuit-233942

https://twitter.com/georgejoseph94 is reporting evidence that police are using cell phones stolen from activists caught in the mass arrest at DisruptJ20 to log into email accounts of activists. Anyone with such an account needs to change their passphrase and lock out their former devices, and may want to close and replace the offending accounts RIGHT NOW if possible.

In one of his very first acts in office, Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer hinted Trump plans to proceed with the Dakota Access Pipeline. Shortly before 10PM on Jan 23, Trump's White House confirmed this plan. The Environmental Impact Statement process is now underway, buying time for the #NoDAPL campaign to target and drive away banks and investors funding the project. Trump will probably attempt to short-circuit this review with some kind of fast-track process.

On the 20th of January, Breitbart news editor and alt-right(neo-nazi) leader Milo Yiannopoulos had a speaking event at U-WA disrupted by anti-Trump/anti-fascist protesters. A 50 year old Nazi turned shot one of the protesters, who is now in critical condition at a hospital with a gunshot wound in the abdomen. The police chose to neither identify the shooter nor file charges according to Twitter reports.