The Daily GRRR! - December 19th, 2014 - Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio

Welcome, I am your host Dan Kellar and you are listening to The Daily GRRR! Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio, on 100.3fm, CKMS in Waterloo, Ontario. Soundfm.ca on the web, today is Friday December 19th, 2014.

We are broadcasting from the centre of the Haldimand Tract, the occupied Grand River Territory of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations).

The Daily GRRR! is a project of the Grand River Media Collective; and is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS.

The clip that kicked off the show is from Mumia Abu-Jamal with his piece entitled http://prisonradio.org/media/audio/mumia/making-torture-legal-234-mumia-... . Check prisonradio.org for more of Mumia’s podcasts.

Today’s feature is a reading of an article anarchist organiser, theorist, and author Peter Gelderloos with a piece from CounterPunch.org entitled, The Nature of Police, the Role of the Left.

Now we will start with today’s headlines:

The Daily GRRR!
HEADLINES for December 19th, 2014 
1. Canada’s Jails Filled With Legally Innocent People
2. #SuperJailFail - Ontario’s New Jail Put Sick In Solitary
3. Grandmother Exonerated In Assault Police Charge That Left Her Crippled
4. RCMP Officer Tackled Wet’suwet’en Elder
5. UK Activist Wins Settlement Over Undercover Fathering
6. Pennsylvania Cops Angry At University Presidents Over Anti-Police Violence Protests
7. Petition to Block Criminal Cop From Getting Promotion in Edmonton

1. Canada’s Jails Filled With Legally Innocent People
In a guest post for fairtrials.org, Abby Deshman of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote of the need for Canada’s legal system to return to a presumption of innocence, especially when it comes to bail hearings. More than 25,000 people are in Canadian jails at any given time, and the majority of those people are waiting for a bail decision or their trial.

Noting that “Canada’s crime rate and violent crime rate have been in long-term decline.” Deshman added “But our pre-trial detention rate has nearly tripled in the past 30 years; 2005 marked the first time in Canadian history that our provincial institutions were primarily being used to detain people prior to any finding of guilt, rather than after they had been convicted and sentenced.”

A July 2014 study from the CCLA found that “almost everyone who is processed through Canada’s bail courts is being released under onerous bail conditions. Indeed, out of 196 bail releases observed across the country, not a single person was released unconditionally.”

Deshman added “Pre-trial detention is widely recognized as one of the harshest forms of incarceration, and is frequently characterized by overcrowded cells, high security, regular lock-downs, and little to no education or programming.”

Is the presumption of guilty until proven innocent now the norm in the Canadian legal system? Deshman argues that many of those arrested are being set up to fail if they do manage to get bail due to strict bail conditions. Deshman wrote “Canada’s bail courts also order alcoholics not to drink, and tell homeless persons that they must reside at specific addresses. Violating any of these conditions is a criminal offense – even if the person’s actions would not otherwise be illegal.”

Deshman also wrote that pre-trial detention costs Canadians at many levels due to lost work, family disruption and over $850 million dollars spent per year, “even though the majority of people who are jailed upon arrest are facing non-violent, minor charges.”

2. #SuperJailFail - Ontario’s New Jail Put Sick In Solitary
The Toronto South Detention Center has been operating for nearly a year without an infirmary or the mental health unit the government was showing off in pre-opening press tours.

The health centers did not open along with the jail, and they sit empty as sick inmates including those with physical injuries, and infectious diseases, along with those experiencing mental distress are being held in solitary confinement. In solitary, prisoners are isolated 24 hours a day with 23 hours of that day locked in a windowless concrete box.

The situation is aggravating everyone, even the guards, with the Toronto Star quoting the guards union rep "We have all these facilities there that are supposed to make things better for the inmates and for the staff and that hasn't happened because nothing has opened.”

3. Grandmother Exonerated In Assault Police Charge That Left Her Crippled
After finishing a shift at Tim Horton's in 2013, 48 year-old grandmother Maria Farrell scared off a man attacking a women behind her work, then was brutally assaulted by a responding OPP officer, leaving her with what a judge called "catastrophic injuries".

After shattering the womin’s knee and tibia with a kick, OPP sergeant Russ Watson, then hammer-punched Maria’s face and left eye and knocked out a molar. Maria was then arrested for assaulting a cop. She now lives with her parents as she is unable to work or pay rent.

While the police watchdog, the SIU, claims to have investigated the case, they note Watson did not share his notes, as is his right. The SIU decided not to seek further action against the cop. However, justice George Beatty exonerated Farrell, calling her a “Good Samaritan” and noted that Sergent Wilson did not use his training and that “he suffered no injury and her injuries were catastrophic."

4.RCMP Officer Tackled Wet’suwet’en Elder
A 61 year-old elder of the Wet’suwet’en nation was violently taken down by an RCMP officer outside a store in downtown Smithers after she refused to ID herself.
Irene Joseph suffered bruising from the tackle which the cop initiated because Joseph, who was not being detained or arrested at the time, failed “to comply with verbal direction."

The cop was called in about a possible theft in the store and approached Joseph asking for her name and the name of the person she was speaking to inside. Joseph refused to identify herself, started for her walker, and was then tacked by the cop. The RCMP officer then searched her bag and retrieved her ID.

5. UK Activist Wins Settlement Over Undercover Fathering
A now 54 year-old UK womin has been awarded 450,000 pounds sterling after suing London’s metropolitan police for the personal trauma associated with creating a child with an undercover police officer after their meeting in 1983.

Using the name Jacqui to protect her identity, the woman, now a lecturer at university, was involved in the animal liberation movement in the 1980’s when the UK government used agents to infiltrate and topple resistance organisations. Undercover cop Bob Lambert, using his van to drive her home from protests actively pursued a relationship with the womin, only to disappear in 1987 after he was involved in a successful action which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

As vice news reported Jacqui has been fielding offers from Hollywood for her story, which includes a break-down after the discovery of the identity of the father of the child, and that she now teaches “young people, and I try to teach them, especially young women, about the autonomy of their bodies, and the ways they're portrayed and I think there is a message I want to get across to young women: don't let this sort of thing happen to you.”

Earlier this month the UK police watchdog announced that 1229 undercover officers are currently operating in 43 units across England and Wales. Earlier this year, the MET said they will continue to use sex as a tool of investigation in ‘legitimate’ situations.
ntinue to use

6. Pennsylvania Cops Angry At University Presidents Over Anti-Police Violence Protests
The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State took part in separate protests against police brutality, and now the police want them to apologize. The two administrators, Amy Gutmann and Eric Barron, had both taken part in recent protests around the police shooting of unarmed black youth Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

Gutmann joined a 4.5 minute die-in at the holiday party she was hosting after protesters crashed it, and Barron put his hands in the air during a protest in the “hands up, don’t shoot” pose. While Barron has been asked to apologize for his actions, police union chief Eric Rohrback said that Gutmann gave in to the “uninformed mob mentality.” And he called the action a “slap in the face.”

7. Petition to Block Criminal Cop From Getting Promotion in Edmonton
The Edmonton police force in being targeted in a surging petition to undo the promotion of officer Mike Wasylyshen, who was promoted despite having an extensive criminal record.

The text of the petition continues:
He has pleaded guilty to two counts of assaults committed while he was off-duty as well as found by a judge to use excessive force when he tasered an already passed-out teenager. He has also been found guilty for willfully deceiving a judge for a search warrant. Officers need to be held accountable for their actions, not granted promotions. In the future, an officer's criminal record should be a bigger factor in determining whether or not an officer is promoted. Tell Edmonton Police Force to Create a Policy Not to Promote Offices Who Have Criminal Records!”

As of thursday night, the petition was on its way to 11,000 signatures.
- You can sign it here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/128/442/676/edmonton-dont-promote-police-...

Thats all for the headlines, now for some
Midway Musichere is Sole and DJ Pain 1 with the tune Fire The Police

And we are back, you just heardSole and DJ Pain 1 with the tune Fire The Police.

You are listening to Waves Through Walls edition of The Daily GRRR! Today is December 19th, 2014, my name is Dan Kellar and we are now moving into the feature portion of our broadcast.

Today’s feature is a read of an of article from anarchist organiser, theorist, and author Peter Gelderloos with a piece from CounterPunch.org entitled, The Nature of Police, the Role of the Left.

That was Peter Gelderloo’s recent article from CounterPunch.org called the Nature of the Police, the Role of the Left.

This has been the The Daily GRRR! for December 19th, 2014. We are on weekdays from 9-10am on 100.3fm CKMS in Waterloo region, and http://soundfm.ca on the web. Check out all our past shows and other Grand River Media Collective work on our webpage http://grandrivermc.ca

The Daily GRRR! is supported by the Community Radio Fund of Canada and CKMS.

Stay tuned in for more Grand River Radical Radio after we close the podcast.

Thanks for Listening.