Rodney Reese, 18, was arrested on February 16 for walking in the road in Plano, Texas
Someone called 911 to report a Black man stumbling along in the middle of a snow-covered street wearing a short-sleeve shirt and they requested a welfare check
Reese repeatedly told officers he was fine and he was walking home from work, police continued to follow him for two-minutes despite denying any aid and then told him he would be detained
Officers accuse Reese of resisting arrest but elected not to charge him, and instead charged him with a misdemeanor, being a pedestrian walking in the roadway and arrested him
The acting police chief had the charges dropped, saying officers had no cause to stop or detain Reese based on the reason for the call and his response.
PLANO, Texas — A misdemeanor charge has been dropped against a Black man who was arrested last week for walking home on a street during a snowstorm in Texas.
Rodney Reese, 18, was arrested Feb. 16 in Plano and charged with being a pedestrian in the roadway, news outlets reported.
[SEATTLE] – (MTN) Superior Court Judge Judith H. Ramseyer rejected the City of Seattle’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit for wrongful death, personal injuries, and civil rights violations. Attorneys from Stritmatter, Kessler, Koehler, and Moore, and co-counsel Cedar Law PLLC filed the suit last fall on behalf of more than 60 plaintiffs who participated in Black Lives Matter protests. The plaintiffs, including the survivors of Summer Taylor, claim that policing decisions were based on discriminatory practices and negligence causing injuries and death.
In court today, lawyers representing the city argued that the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) is only applicable for employer-employee law. Lawyers representing the city stated that applying WLAD to this case would be a “radical departure of the law” and represented a new legal theory. “We’ve seen the difference between how the police have handled other protests such as the women’s march and blue lives matters protests versus those for Black lives,” said attorney Sarah Lippek of Cedar Law, PLLC. “We think the differences in treatment are discriminatory.”
The city’s argument was, in part, that since protesters are not city employees, the protesters were not protected by WLAD even if the city behaved in a discriminatory way. Karen Koehler argued that protesters of all races advocating on behalf of Black lives and then brutalized by police due to their advocacy should be covered under the non-discrimination law.
Judge Ramseyer sided with the plaintiffs and upheld the claim that authorities’ actions over the summer could be considered discriminatory under WLAD. “The judge upheld our cause of action that protesters of all races advocating for Black lives could bring discrimination claims against the police for their brutal and disproportionate response,” said attorney Lara Hruska.
Another finding in today’s case is that the streets are “places of public accommodation” protected under WLAD. In 2019 the Washington State Supreme Court found that places of public accommodation are broadly defined as facilities or businesses used by or open to the public. Judge Ramseyer’s decision expands that protection. “The court decided that the streets are an area of public accommodation, and the police can’t discriminate against protesters on those streets,” said Lippek. “I mean, what is more public than the streets?”
DISCLOSURE: Renee Raketty, field editor for Malcontent News is a plaintiff in this case.
Activists question tactics in hotel raid over the weekend
WARNING: This report shows scenes of protest and police action against children. Viewer discretion is advised.
[OLYMPIA] – (Malcontent News) On the surface, the story is altruistic, and the visuals awful. Following in the footsteps of activists in Tacoma, an organization calling itself Oly Housing paid for 17 rooms on Saturday to place unhomed persons at a Red Lion Hotel in Olympia, Washington. Just as in Tacoma, the plan was to pay for one night and demand that city and county officials continue to pay for the rooms. On Sunday evening, a massive police response met activists where families, including small children, were removed by SWAT officers who threw flash-bang grenades into hotel rooms. As time has gone by, a clearer picture has emerged, raising questions from all sides.
On Saturday, activists engaged with some of the local unhomed in the downtown Olympia area to have them occupy the rooms. Thirty-three people, including children, agreed to accept the offer. Being unhomed is a challenge any time of the year, but rain, cold, harassment, and rats have made the encampments in Olympia untenable.
As checkout time came and went on Sunday, the property appeared calm. Protesters made demands for better sanitary facilities at encampments, permanent government housing solutions for those making less than $26,200 a year, for Thurston County to use available FEMA dollars to continue paying for the hotel rooms, and an end to sweeping homeless encampments. In a report from the Olympian, about a dozen people were sitting in the hotel’s lobby looking at their phones and reading magazines.
By the time sunset arrived, something had gone wrong. At about 6 PM, hotel staff called the police, reporting they had locked themselves in a basement room, were in fear for their safety, and armed protesters had taken over the lobby. There were unconfirmed reports of blacked-out windows and mattresses used for barricades. At 6:30 PM, Capitol Way in Olympia was closed, and SWAT teams rolled in with a heavy police presence. Law enforcement swept the hotel floor by floor, deploying multiple flash-bang grenades and making seven arrests. Video from the scene showed a woman with her two children, one swaddled in blankets, leaving the hotel under police guard while activists taunted officers.
On Monday, a press conference about the events wavered between reality and absurdity. Officials initially danced around the police tactics questions until finally admitting the use of “a couple” of devices to clear the hotel. Eyewitness reports, including reporters on the scene, reported more than a “couple” of blasts coming from inside the hotel. The statements of blacked-out windows and mattress barricades didn’t materialize in the conference either (nor were they denied).
What has emerged in the 48-hours since the raid is universal outrage. Local advocates for the unhomed are outraged over the tactics of Oly Housing. Supporters of Oly Housing are outraged over what they perceive as a false narrative aligned with the police and mainstream media and a lack of focus on tactics. Some of the unhomed are outraged, feeling they were used and weren’t fully informed of the legal jeopardy they could face. City and county officials are frustrated because the FEMA dollars for emergency housing were just made available by the new Biden Administration, in place for less than two weeks, and they were already in the process of applying for the money.
Right-wing groups are outraged at the perception of “Antifa” (an ideology and philosophy, not an organization) going unchecked and police not responding with enough violence against protesters. Many are questioning the police response to unhomed persons taking over a hotel, in contrast to the police response on January 6, when about 100 right-wing protesters stormed the broke through a gate, assaulted a state police recruit on live television, and stormed to the front door of the governor’s mansion. No one has been arrested in that incident despite overwhelming evidence of multiple crimes.
Long time Thurston County area advocate Renata Rollins lamented the fallout in a Facebook post. In her post, she called out activists within Housing Oly who were arrested on Sunday being represented by private attornies, while public defenders represented the unhomed. Working for over a decade in housing, she pointed out that Olympia had ended sweeps of homeless encampment like those done in Seattle and Bellingham two years ago, and the county already provides trash dumpsters and sanitary stations at the encampments. Trash pickup and dumpsters are not offered to the unhomed in cities like Seattle. While recognizing not enough is being done she wrote, “The group’s demands made no sense. They read like they were copy-pasted from some other community’s struggle because whoever penned them had no concept or context for what’s actually going on in Olympia and Thurston County.“
In contrast, activists engaged in direct action believe that not enough is being done to support the unhomed, which has grown in 2020 due to COVID and living in conditions that only further spread the disease. They believe the government establishment serves corporate America and the wealthy and views the unhomed as disposable. Representative of the political horseshoe formed versus a straight line, some within the direct action groups believe that only the use of force will change the system.
Established activists in the South Sound have expressed growing frustration with direct action groups’ tactics in January. A protest led by outside groups in Tacoma over a police cruiser driving through a group of people earlier in the month led to broken windows and graffiti in a Black neighborhood. In that incident, local activists blamed outsiders from Seattle, Olympia, and Portland for the damage.
The challenges facing the unhomed are undeniable. The failures to address homelessness at federal, state, county, and local levels should not be thrown at local activists’ feet. Further north in King County, enough private and public funds are spent addressing houselessness to solve the problem, with little effect. The connections of addiction and mental illness to homelessness are undeniable. Despite campaign promises from the Trump Administration to address the opioid epidemic, 34-million Americans abuse or are addicted to dangerous drugs. King County just experienced its highest number of overdose deaths ever. Washington state continues to be one of the worst states in the country for mental health treatment.
What is reality is that most of the 33 people who occupied hotel rooms on Saturday night are back out on the street, living in squalid conditions with minimal support.
Our live webcast from the Seattle Anarchist Jurisdiction
WARNING: This episode includes videos of police violence, child abuse, protest, and discusses domestic violence in detail – viewer discretion is advised.
The show from February 1, 2021, featured David Obelcz and our co-host Jennifer Smith.
Rochester, New York Police pepper-spray a handcuffed 9-year-old child – community outrage explodes as body camera video becomes available
Malcontented Minutes – our new speed round of news
The state of Texas has things go very wrong when they issue an Amber Alert for Chucky – yes the murderous horror movie doll Chucky
Redditors go after silver commodity trading as a new tactic in their fight against hedge funds
Missouri Museum of history launches an online exhibit of LGBTQIA history in the state of Missouri
Jason Raantz (Seattle) goes on a racist rant about how BLM education during Black History Month in Seattle schools is instilling the fear of police into a new generation of children
David Bell, a Black man, dies in a hospital parking lot in Missouri after emergency room physicians refuse to treat him on his third trip for breathing problems
President Biden replaces Andrew Jackson’s portrait with a Native American sculpture
The National Zoo in Washington D.C. releases a video of a panda playing in the snow
LGBTQ activist Carmen Vasquez, 72-years old, dies of COVID-19
Data breach exposes the private personal identification (PII) of 1.6 million Washingtonians who have applied for or received unemployment for almost all of 2020, including bank account numbers and ID information
Birth certificate controversy over Archie, the child of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle explodes in tabloid press
Chad Wheeler domestic violence assault update as his victim faces him in court for the first time
COVID-19 Five Fast Facts
Reading recommendations for Black History Month
David and Jennifer provide their insurrection update
Outrage over the pepper-spraying of a restrained 9-year old grows in upstate New York
WARNING: This report shows violent actions against a child, domestic violence, and abuse. Viewer discretion is advised.
[ROCHESTER] – (Malcontent News) Accusations of domestic violence and child abuse flew in Rochester, New York on January 29, as police arrested, and then pepper-sprayed a restrained 9-year-old child in the back of a police cruiser. Police were called about an incident involving the child, where she initially reported to officers that her mother had stabbed her father.
During the incident caught on multiple police body cameras, the mother of the child verbally and physically assaulted the restained juvenile, before police ordered her to go into her home. They attempt to take the child into custody, after telling her she wasn’t in any trouble, and then wrestle her to the ground and handcuff her. The child refuses to put her legs into the police cruiser and begs for a female police officer on video.
As a female officer attempted to deescalate, the other officers involved only made the situation worse, until the female officer also joined in, and ultimately pepper-sprayed the handcuffed 9-year-old in the face. She was then locked in the police cruiser while begging for her eyes to be wiped.
The police union on Sunday, January 31, 2021, attempted to defend the actions, stating policing is a hard job, labeling the pepper spray as an “irritant,” and talking about the trauma of day-to-day police work. The mayor and interim police chief could find no word to defend the actions.
On Monday, February 1, 2021, it was announced an unknown number of officers have been suspended, with pay, pending an investigation. The mayor of Rochester indicated that this was the only action they can take due to the police union contract and New York state law. Despite allegations of assault and child abuse and the abuse caught on camera, after taking the nine-year-old child to the hospital, she was released back to her family. The child is black, all 9 officers who were at the scene were white.
Protesters in Portland and Seattle broke windows, sprayed graffiti, and engaged with police officers on Inauguration Day leading to arrests in both cities. Malcontent News has learned that the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) is investigating police officer conduct for one of the arrests.
On Wednesday, January 20, a smaller group of protesters splintered off from a peaceful group and broke windows at a Chase bank, a courthouse, and a Starbucks location in historic Pike Place Market. Seattle police took a person into custody, and during the arrest, a police officer was observed and photographed with their knee on the neck of the suspect.
Additionally, during the arrest, an officer energized a taser, holding it close to the face of the suspect. The taser was not used on the suspect, and Seattle police defended the action as a de-escalation technique. In an interview with Brandi Cruze on Fox Q13 today, Chief Adrian Diaz indicated that the individual was facing a misdemeanor charge, although did not state the specifics.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”20″ gal_title=”Inauguration Day Protests”]
The OPA reached out to Malcontent News indicating an investigation has been opened up over the conduct of officers during the arrest and requesting additional video content if it was available. The available video and photographs of the arrest are fully published, and that was indicated to the OPA.
The opening of this investigation is in addition to five officers being investigated for their involvement during January 6, 2021, insurrection, and SPOG president Mike Solan under investigation for his Twitter behavior.
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