Update on those arrested on June 11 (good(ish) news).

The first of the arraignments of the 94 folk arrested on the 11th was today. This is basically where the charges are read and a plea is given. The charges were supposed to have been filed with the court like a week ago but weren't. The prosecutor asked and received a continuance until September because they were "overwhelmed" with cases - which means they have dick all. LVMPD does 187 arrests in an average day. An additional 94 is nothing. All they have to do was prove the accused was told to disperse in a way a reasonable person could understand, that the order was lawful, that the accused could disperse, and that they didn't. Easy as hell. They don't need time they need someone to fuck up that isn't them.

I should say fuck up again. They already did hard. Their order to disperse was given incorrectly. No area was defined. No safe exit route was given. And people were arrested an impossibly long distance and time away from the location and timestamp of the order, many while actively moving away from the 500 block of S Las Vegas Blvd. I'm not going to outlink here but go look up the cases of Freddy Slolina and Karlin Martinez.

A FBI complaint has been made against metro and specific officers, and I mean that's neither here nor there because of prosecutorial discretion, but basically the cop that arrested Karlin is a Sgt. that trains Metro in use of force. 15 other cops with him cooperated and did not intervene in the illegal UOF, which they are supposed to do, so theres evidence of a culture. This is not a civil suit. This is asking the government to prosecute this guy in particular - with possible jail time. Then the ones with him. Then the department who have a culture of brutality and rights violations. Long shot but basically a federal judge could slap them so hard cops go to jail, civilian oversight of the police can actually mean something, and their lil soldier toys could be taken away. Plus punitive fines, but those would go to the government. Long shot but it's fun to think about.

What's not a long shot? Civil cases. I know of a few already being pursued. They're going to settle and the settlements are going to have commas. For example - Metro has still yet to settle almost all of the cases from BLM protests in 2020, and have already spent about $20M. Of course that's taxpayer money but hey, fine.

Think of how much better activists could spend that money (should they choose) than the city or county: mutual aid, community defense, legal aid, housing assistance, education enhancement, hell - permanent infrastructure. The settlement amounts are going to be based on what the city and county think a jury would do and what they would award, which could be as low as $1. Unlikely, but possible. The threshold for juries is 9/12 to assign liability and damages.

I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. But anything you can do to destroy the cop hero myth when it comes to metro. Anything that embarrasses them - makes them look careless, undertrained, bloodthirsty, corrupt, lazy, bumbling, silly - any anti-cop sentiment that can be fomented between now and then is useful to that end. See a cop playing blockblast or swiping on tinder in their cruiser? Snap a pic. Cops take forever to respond when you call (or someone calls, because you don't call the cops right?) - get it out there. Their response times for emergency calls that aren't traffic accidents is around 90 minutes.

If you want to do some agitprop, nows the time. Well I mean it's always the time to frame cops as dopey idiots with more capacity and permission for violence they can possibly understand or use responsibly. But there's a pool party in the jury pool. Pour the Marat and take some motherfuckin tops off.