[Ppnews] Protesters Demand: Drop Charges Against JR Valrey

[Political Prisoner News]

Protesters Demand: Drop Charges Against JR Valrey!

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/12/08/18631845.php
by Chris Kinder, Labor Action Com

Tuesday Dec 8th, 2009 5:17 PM
Protests build against the prosecution of JR Valrey on bogus charges 
of felony arson. JR Valrey reports for the SF Bay View and Block 
Report Radio, and he is heard on Flashpoints on KPFA. Valrey's real 
"crime" was to be a truth-telling reporter about police violence in 
Oakland. He reported on the street protests over the police murder of 
Oscar Grant in January, and was arresrted and beaten at the scene.

"Oakland DA is nothin' but a liar, she knows JR didn't start no fire"

Protesters Demand: Drop Charges Against JR Valrey!

by Chris Kinder

Oakland, Dec.7th 2009 -- Some 25 protesters gathered outside the 
Alameda County Courthouse on Fallon Street today to defend journalist 
JR Valrey, of the SF Bay View and Block Report Radio. Currently out 
on $10,000 bail, Valrey faces bogus charges of felony arson, for 
allegedly having started a fire in a barrel on the street. His real 
"crime" was reporting on the January street protests over the New 
Years-day police killing of Oscar Grant.

The demonstrators chanted, "Oakland DA is nothin' but a liar, she 
knows JR didn't start no fire," to rhythmic percussion provided by 
the Brass Liberation Orchestra, which provided some music to call 
attention to the event (as they have done at protests of hearings on 
the SF 8 case earlier this year). Signs read, "Defend JR Valrey," and 
"Drop All Charges Against Protesters of the Police Murder of Oscar 
Grant." Many attended the hearing, in which a discovery motion was 
discussed. The beginning of JR's trial was put over to February 22nd.

Starting at just after 8 AM, protesters passed out information on the 
case, and got a good reception from many going into court. South Bay 
friends of death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal came up from 
San Jose for the protest, while others represented Critical 
Resistance and All Of Us Or None. Still more responded to flyers and 
emails put out by the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Raised in East Oakland, JR Valrey courageously pursues a dangerous 
career in the inner city--that of honest journalist. While the 
mainstream media is fully "embedded" in a racist and corrupt 
capitalist system, reporters like JR seek out the truth about the 
murderous brutality that accompanies the police occupation of the 
black community. As such, they are singled out and targeted by cops 
and courts. Of the dozens of professional journalists covering the 
January 7th street protests of the murder of Oscar Grant, JR was the 
only one to be arrested; he was also the only one to be tackled and 
thrown to the pavement!

Oscar Grant was a young black retail grocery worker and father of a 
young daughter. He was shot in the back at point blank range by a 
BART cop as he lay face-down on the Fruitvale station platform on New 
Years Day. Strikingly clear cell-phone videos were taken of the 
incident by numerous witnesses on the station platform, and this is 
the only reason that the cop, Johannes Mehserle, has been charged 
with murder. (In hundreds of police shootings of young black males in 
California, only one other cop has faced murder charges.)

Outrage over this blatant execution of an innocent man (who was not 
resisting arrest) spread through the community. Protesters closed 
three BART stations, attacked police cars, and a thousand protesters 
marched on city hall. As JR reported, the march was composed of "an 
almost equal number of Blacks, Latinos, Asians and whites. In a phone 
call that evening, he said he'd never seen such solidarity. 
"Everybody's got everybody's back,' he said." (SF Bay View, Jan 9th 2009)

Over 100 protesters were arrested in police actions that tried to 
paint the people, rather than killer cops, as the problem. Meanwhile, 
BART officials failed to interrogate Mehserle for a whole week after 
the incident, while Oakland Mayor Dellums seemed much more concerned 
about street protests and broken store windows than he did about 
police brutality and shootings of young black men.

Mehserle quit the police force, moved to Nevada and began cooking up 
a defense before prosecutors finally decided that the cell phone 
videos, which were all over the TV and internet, had forced their 
hand. Other cops who were on the platform with Mehserle, 
however--particularly Officer Pirrone, who clearly inflamed the 
situation--have not been charged. Still, one killer cop facing a jury 
composed of members of the community he was supposed to "protect and 
serve" is more than the system can bear. Mehserle's trial has now 
been moved to Los Angeles.

The vital role of the witnesses with the cell phones at the shooting 
of Oscar Grant can't help but remind us of how the Black Panther 
Party for Self-Defense got started. Acting in the tradition of Robert 
F Williams, Deacons for Defense and Justice, and other heros of armed 
self defense of black communities, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale stood 
armed nearby police actions in the black community, to warn people of 
their rights and protect them from serious abuse, by their presence 
as witnesses. The cell phone witnesses couldn't save Oscar Grant, but 
they did use the weapons they had to provide unavoidable evidence of 
a police crime as it happened.

JR Valrey, the minister of information of the Prisoners of Conscience 
Committee (POCC), continues the same tradition with his journalism. 
The similarities between JR's case, and that of Mumia Abu-Jamal--who 
was known as the "voice of the voiceless," are striking. Jamal was 
fingered for a cop killing by police, who knew him for his earlier 
struggles against the notoriously racist Philadelphia police, in 
particular his biting exposure on local radio of a brutal assault on 
the living compound of MOVE, a local black community group.

-- Chris Kinder, is a member of the Labor Action Committee To Free 
Mumia Abu-Jamal




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