Occupy Chapel Hill/ Carrboro endorses this march and will be participating.
At 5:30 meet @ the Plaza we will discuss talking points.
Meet at 6pm @ the Plaza to gather for the march. (Bring signs, banners, drums and noise makers)
People who want to join, but can not participate in the march, may meet us at town hall before 7pm.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Residents To Protest Review Endorsing Violent
Police Action
CHAPEL HILL – On January 6, Chapel Hill Town Manager Roger Stancil
presented a review of the November 13 police raid on the occupied building
formerly housing the Yates Motor Company that praised the conduct of the
police. In response, at 6 pm on Monday, January 9, Chapel Hill residents
outraged by the report’s legitimization of police violence will gather at
Peace and Justice Plaza on Franklin Street. The Chapel Hill Prison Books
Collective and Croatan Earth First!, two grassroots community
organizations and and Occupy Chapel Hlil/ Carrboro endorse this protest as a necessary response to this reckless sanction of heavy-handed repression.
The report demonstrates that the Town government is dangerously out of
touch with the people of Chapel Hill. The report minimizes the widespread
outrage and condemnation of the police response, referring to it only as
“interest,” and refuses to endorse an independent review of the incident
or to apologize to the reporters detained during the raid. Town Manager
Stancil alleges that “there were two unsuccessful attempts to communicate
with those inside the building,” but fails to show that anyone was ever
asked to leave the building before the SERT raid, as recommended by
policy. He claims that this action was executed with consideration for
the surrounding population on Franklin Street, while the police report
states “that bystanders immediately adjacent to the building could not be
disregarded and would, therefore, be detained until the entire area was
declared secure and they could be identified.” This attempt to whitewash
an outrageously inappropriate police action, following on the heels of an
alleged incident of racial profiling by Chapel Hill police, shows that
local residents can expect no accountability from local government.
This review sets a dangerous precedent for Chapel Hill police responding
to creative civil disobedience with potentially lethal force. Indeed, as
the report indicates, a SERT team was deployed against peaceful occupiers
at an anti-war protest at Congressman David Price’s office in 2002,
revealing a pattern of threatening extreme force against unarmed
protestors. Furthermore, the report indicates that Chapel Hill police
collaborated with other NC law enforcement in targeting activists for
surveillance on the basis of their political beliefs. The Town Manager’s
statement confirms what the conduct of the police already showed: for the
government of Chapel Hill, property rights are more important than human
life. Is it better that people risk death from exposure or the bullets of
militarized police than that anyone challenge a landlord’s right to keep
vast buildings empty in the midst of an economic crisis? Unlike the town
government, the people of Chapel Hill will unite Monday evening to say no.
###
Contact:
Lucy Parsons (Chapel Hill Prison Books Collective)
Sarah Connor (Croatan Earth First!)
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