Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald
Leonard Peltier is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations, an indigenous rights activist and member of the American Indian Movement
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Leonard Peltier is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations, an indigenous rights activist and member of the American Indian Movement.In 1977 he was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the murder of two FBI Agents who died during a 1975 shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Peltier had fled to Canada after the incident believing he would never receive a fair trial in the United States. On February 6, 1976, Peltier was apprehended. The FBI knowingly presented the Canadian court with fraudulent affidavits, and Peltier was returned to the U.S. for trial. Numerous appeals have been filed on his behalf but none have been ruled in his favor. Peltier is currently incarcerated at the United State Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.Peltier has been a key-figure in the movement for support of political prisoners. He is an accomplished writer and artist with the noteable work: Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance. UDATE: Leonard had a parole hearing on July,28 2009 and eagerly awaits the outcome of said hearing. www.leonardpeltier.net http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/ 1978
Luis V. Rodriguez is a Chicano-Native freedom fighter. As a youngster, he lived in Los Angeles for a period of time with a group known as the Brown Berets, a Chicano-Native American militant organization, which formed against racism and other social injustices. Luis interacted with the League of United Latin Americans (LULAC), the G.I. Forum, and other Socio-political organizations. At age seventeen, he started Atzlan, a Chicano-Native American news magazine, which focused on politics, history, culture, and ethnic awareness. He was editor-in-chief, artist, and headed a small staff of other youths. He was a counselor at an Offender Ex-Offender program in Sacramento, a counselor in Los Angeles at the AYUDATE program, and a counselors’ aide at the California Youth Authority Perkins Reception Center. Luis V. Rodriguez and his on-again-off-again girlfriend, Margaret Klaess, were arrested on December 24, 1978 in Richmond California, for the alleged homicides of two California Highway Patrolmen. The deaths occurred on December 22, 1978 at about 3:30 a.m., alongside the Interstate Freeway I-80 in Yolo County, just outside of Sacramento, California. Luis V. Rodriguez was arrested at a time when California´s Death Penalty law had become reactivated and the political terms ´War on Crime´, ´ and ‘Tough on Crime´, were on a political roll. It was during a time when racial tensions and confrontations were at a peak between the Yolo County law enforcement and Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans. Apprehended on the basis of composite drawings related to a robbery, known travel plans, and allegations from police informants; the Richmond police took them into custody. At the time of their arrest, they placed Rodriguez on the ground spread-eagle, and placed two shotguns against his head, telling him that they ought to blow him away right there and save the taxpayers some money. While being processed through the Richmond County Jail, Rodriguez was choked and beaten by officers. The police and prosecutors had set up numerous news media people outside that door to intentionally have Rodriguez and Klaess photographed and to have their identities aired broadly to expose the faces of Rodriguez and Klaess to any and all possible persons who might want to become a witness against them and for them to be able to identify the alleged suspects in these crimes, thereby tainting all possible witness identifications against them. For periods of time while in county jails, Rodriguez was held incommunicado, unable to receive visits from attorneys, family or friends and unable to correspond or receive any correspondence. He was denied telephone access, personal hygiene necessities, such as toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, comb, or even shoes. Immediately after being processed into the Yolo County Jail, Luis was deprived of sleep for almost three days while being questioned, photographed, and forced physically to submit to the takings of physical specimens, such as hair, saliva, blood, and fingernail clippings. Rodriguez´ food was brought inedible, cold, and dusty. He was taken to his arraignment within 72 hours after his arrest looking like a madman with his hair disheveled, no shoes or socks, as well as showing the effects of having been deprived of sleep and nourishment. Yet, Margaret Klaess, who had been charged with the same crimes and in the same jail, was receiving not only various cosmetics, but cigarettes and outdoor exercise, along with the privilege of taking her meals in the regular dining hall with other inmates. (Rodriguez had immediately been placed in a secluded isolation section of the jail where they had moved out all other inmates in order to completely isolate him). Additionally, Luis would later learn that Margaret had a television and radio in her cell, as well as access to newspapers. What Rodriguez didn´t know at the time was that Margaret´s attorney was already attempting to get Margaret to make statements against Rodriguez in order to implicate him in the homicides or to cast guilt upon him. On January 1, 1979, Rodriguez received a surprise visit from a women he had previously had a relationship with. At the visit, the women attempted to give Rodriguez her address so that he could write to her. The letter was intercepted and shown to Margaret. She began screaming and crying, yelling hysterically that, ´ Louis is a traitor,´ ´a lying son of a bitch!´ and stating, “He´s guilty, he killed those officers!” Officers and prosecutors were quickly there to provide Margaret with a complete immunity deal and immediate release if she would continue to say Luis had committed the murders. With access to all of documents of the investigation she fabricated quite a convincing story implicating Rodriguez as the sole perpetrator in the killing of the two officers. To cinch the immunity deal with Margaret, the prosecutors requested she take a polygraph test. The polygraph test was given to Klaess using completely erroneous dates, making the entire test invalid and worthless. Yet, prosecutors knowing this, continued on with the immunity deal and simply hid the test results from Rodriguez and his attorneys for several years, until after he was convicted and on Death Row. Margaret Klaess was released from jail on January 22, 1979, after
In July, 1979, County Jail officers allowed an incarcerated police informant (an ex-death row prisoner who had previously been convicted for various counts of child molestation against his twelve year old step-daughter and assault with a deadly weapon against his wife), to smuggle a tape-recorder into the jail in an attempt to record Rodriguez while attempting to engage him in incriminating conversations. The tape recording was fruitless and unsuccessful, the police and prosecutor still attempted to put him on the federal payroll as a federally protected witness for testifying against Rodriguez. This was not the only witness of this type that would come forward, offering false statements against Rodriguez in exchange for some type of reward, immunity, favors, or police protection. At about the same time of these fabrications in July, 1979, the County Jail officers conducted an illegal search and seizure upon Rodriguez’ confidential attorney-client legal files which he maintained within his jail cell. When Rodriguez attempted to complain about these actions, the jailers
Other witnesses described seeing a man at the crime scene whose description was completely inconsistent with that of Rodriguez. http://luisvrodriguez.com/ http://www.humanrights.de/doc_en/archiv/u/usa/luis/lr9.html Move 9
From the Move Website written by a member of MOVE- The MOVE 9 are innocent men and women who have been in prison since August 8, 1978, following a massive police attack on us at our home in Powelton Village (Philadelphia). This was seven years before the government dropped a bomb on MOVE, killing 11 people, including 5 babies. The August 8, 1978 police attack on MOVE followed years of police brutality against MOVE and was a major military operation carried out by the Philadelphia police department under orders of then-mayor, Frank Rizzo, whose reputation for racism and brutality is well known; it followed him up thru the ranks of the police department to the police commissioner's office to the mayor's office. During this attack, heavy equipment was used to tear down the fence surrounding our home, and cops filled our home with enough tear gas to kill us and our babies, while SWAT teams covered every possible exit. We were all in the basement of our home, where we had 10 thousand pounds of water pressure per minute directed at us from 4 fire department water cannons (for a total of 40 thousand pounds of water pressure per minute). As the basement filled with nearly six feet of water we had to hold our babies and animals above the rising water so they wouldn't drown. Suddenly shots rang out (news reporters and others know the shots came from a house at 33rd and Baring St., not our home, because they actually saw the man shooting) and bullets immediately filled the air as police through-out the area opened fire on us. Officer James Ramp, who was standing above us on street-level and facing our home, was killed by a single bullet that struck him on a downward angle. This alone makes it impossible for MOVE to have killed Ramp, since we were below street level, in the basement. MOVE adults came out of the house carrying our children through clouds of tear gas, we were beat and arrested. Television cameras actually filmed the vicious beating of our brother Delbert Africa (3 of the 4 cops that beat Delbert went to trial on minor charges). Despite the photographic evidence, the trial judge (Stanley Kubacki) refused to let the jury render a verdict and himself acquitted the cops by directed order. Nine of us were charged with murder and related charges for the death of James Ramp. Within a few hours of our arrest, our home (which is supposed to be the "scene of the crime" and therefore evidence) was deliberately destroyed, demolished, by city officials when they were legally obligated to preserve all evidence, but we were held for trial anyway. We went to trial before Judge Edward Malmed who convicted all nine of us of third degree murder (while admitting that he didn't have "the faintest idea" who killed Ramp) and sentenced each of us to 30 - 100 years in prison. Judge Malmed also stated that MOVE people said we are a family so he sentenced us as a family; we were supposed to be on trial for murder, not for being a family. It is clear that the MOVE 9 are in prison for being committed MOVE members, not for any accusation of crime. Three other adults that were in the house on August 8th did not get the same treatment as those that this government knows are committed MOVE members. One had all charges dismissed against her in September of 1978 with the judge saying that there was no evidence that she was a committed MOVE member when the issue was supposed to be murder. The second one was held for trial but released on bail; she was acquitted. The third one was held for trial with no bail, convicted of conspiracy and given 10-23 years; she was paroled in 1994. It is obvious that everything depended on whether or not the courts thought it was dealing with a committed MOVE member, court decisions had nothing to do with the accusation of murder. It has been 25 years since the August 8, 1978 police attack on MOVE, 25 years of unjust of imprisonment, but despite the hardship of being separated from family-members, despite the grief over the murder of family-members (including babies), the MOVE 9 remain strong and loyal to our Belief, our Belief in Life, the Teaching of our Founder, JOHN AFRICA. We have an uncompromising commitment to our Belief, which is what makes us a strong unified family, despite all this government have done to break us up and ultimately exterminate us. http://move9parole.blogspot.com/ 1979
The following was written by Bill Dunne: My name is Bill Dunne. I fell in 1979 as a result of an effort to effect the armed liberation of a comrade from jail. My politics fall in the anarcho-communist realm: radical socialism somewhere between rigid and hierarchical vanguard parties and disorganized and scattered non-parties. They aim at an egalitarian and democratic social organization in which all people will have the greatest possible freedom to develop their full human potential. I was made a prisoner of the state on October 14, 1979 in Seattle, Washington. Late that evening, I was picked up by paramedics while under the influence of police bullets near a shot-up and wrecked car containing some weapons and a dead jail escapee. According to the ensuing state and federal charges, I and a codefendant and unknown other associates of a San Francisco anarchist collective had conspired to effect a comrade’s armed liberation from a Seattle jail and attempted to execute the plot on October 14, 1979. The charges further alleged the operation was financed by bank expropriation and materially facilitated by illegal acquisition of weapons, explosives, vehicles, ID and other equipment. After long subjection to atrocious jail conditions and three sensationalized trials, I got a 90 year sentence in 1980. I subsequently got a consecutive 15 years as a result of an attempted self-emancipation in 1983… …I have contested my imprisonment legally, and recently filed another challenge. Contrary to applicable law, my federal conspiracy prosecution constituted double jeopardy, secret government information was used in imposing the sentence, and the written sentence is 50 years longer than the controlling oral sentence. That challenge languishes in federal court in Seattle. My political motivation is without reservation radical left up to and including the left of people’s revolution by any means necessary. I know of no single ideology whose name adequately defines my politics. http://www.prisonactivist.org/archive/pps+pows/bill-dunne/index.html 1981
Oscar López-Rivera was a leader in the Armed Forces of National Liberation for Puerto Rican Independence, and was sentenced to 55 years for seditious conspiracy, which included the bombing of 28 targets in the Chicago area. He was born in San Sebastian, Puerto Rico on January 6, 1943. At the age of 12, he moved to Chicago with his family. He was a well-respected community activist and a prominent independence leader for many years prior to his arrest. Oscar was one of the founders of the Rafael Cancel Miranda High School, now known as the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School and the Juan Antonio Corretjer Puerto Rican Cultural Center. He was a community organizer for the Northwest Community Organization (NCO), ASSPA, ASPIRA and the 1st Congregational Church of Chicago. He helped to found FREE, (a half-way house for convicted drug addicts) and ALAS (an educational program for Latino prisoners at Stateville Prison in Illinois). He was active in various community struggles, mainly in the area of health care, employment and police brutality. He also participated in the development of the Committee to Free the Five Puerto Rican Nationalists. In 1975, he was forced underground, along with other comrades. He was captured on May 29, 1981, after 5 years of being pursued by the FBI as one of the most feared fugitives from US justice. He was convicted of conspiracy to escape along with Jaime Delgado, (a veteran independence leader), Dora Garcia, (a prominent community activist) and Kojo Bomani-Sababu, a New Afrikan political prisoner. Oscar was one of 12 FALN Puerto Rican prisoners offered clemency by the Clinton Administration in the fall of 1999. He denied clemency. Now he faces at least 20 more years in prison. http://www.myspace.com/freeourpoliticalprisoners
Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a New Afrikan prisoner. Mutulu Shakur was born on August 8, 1950, in Baltimore, Maryland as Jeral Wayne Williams. Shakur's political and social consciousness began to develop early in his life. His mother suffered not only from being black and female, but was also blind. These elements constituted Shakur's first confrontation with the state, while assisting his mother to negotiate through the maze that made up the social service system. Through this experience Shakur learned that the system did not operate in the interests of Black people and that Black people must control the institutions that affect their lives. Since the age 16, Dr. Shakur has been a part of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. During the late sixties Dr. Shakur was also politically active and worked with the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), a Black Nationalist group which struggled for Black self-determination and socialist change in America. Dr Shakur also worked very closely with the Black Panther Party supporting his brother Lumumba Shakur and Zayd. In the 70’s Shakur became a certified and celebrated acupuncturist. From 1978 to 1982, Dr. Shakur was the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America (BAAANA) and the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture. By the late 1970's Dr. Shakur's work in acupuncture and drug detoxification was both nationally and internationally known and he was invited to address members of the medical community around the world. Dr. Shakur has furthermore been a dedicated worker and champion in the
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a renowned journalist from Philadelphia who has been in prison since 1981 and on death row since 1983 for allegedly shooting Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He is known as the “Voice of the Voiceless” for his award- winning reporting on police brutality and other social and racial injustices. Mumia has received international support over the years in his efforts to overturn his unjust conviction. Mumia Abu-Jamal was serving as the President of the Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party as a teenager. Years later he began reporting professionally on radio stations such as NPR, and was the news director of Philadelphia station WHAT. Mumia’s case has been a unifying point for many social struggles because it concentrates issues vitally important to our future, such as the rise in prison populations, police brutality, the death penalty, persecution of political dissent, and the continuation of white supremacy and racism in the U.S. From death row, Mumia has continued to speak out for all who are oppressed through his journalism. He has published four books, and his weekly columns are published throughout the world.
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