Videos show attacks on street medics and journalists at Republican Convention

Update - Portland Street Medics Arrested at the Republican National Convention
by street.medix@portland-or.net

AP photo/St Paul Republican Convention

Wednesday, Sep. 3rd, 2008
In between explosions of concussion grenades and teargas clouds in Minneapolis-St. Paul, volunteer Street Medics from all over the country who have assembled there are continuing to provide much needed first aid and medical care to injured and frightened people everywhere in the city where lawful and peaceful assemblies, passersby, journalists and bystanders are getting attacked indiscriminately and without provocation by Police, National Guard and teams of unidentified Federal Agencies without badges or numbers.
Two raw, unedited video items that were just published provide an excellent documentation of the level of unprovoked and indiscriminate violence targeted against peaceful non-violent assemblies, against Street Medics, against legal observers and journalists:
-- Rubber bullets fired directly into a small crowd of peaceful people; Street Medics attacked:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OnnUTK7QjI
-- Independent journalist caught in the middle of panic and mayhem during an attack with concussion grenades and teargas against a peaceful march:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6L8J3L-2Kw
Starting at dawn on Tuesday, Portland Street Medics who were arrested while treating injured people at the RNC were being released one by one by the illegitimate authorities who had seized them. One of our colleagues is still in jail and has not yet been charged with anything. All of the arrests of Portland Street Medics are entirely illegal.
We have confirmed information that additional unidentified Street Medics have been seen in jail by other people, but no details about who they are or why they are being held.
The Portland Street Medics who were released are well, except for tiredness. We are not able to communicate with the one of our members who is still in jail to ascertain wellness - our colleague is being held in a situation where legal observers have repeatedly confirmed that people are being denied access to medical care and targeted with selective abuse. {Please see the statement from our lawyers below, titled "Over 300 Protesters, Bystanders, Medics and Media Arrested: Update from Coldsnap Legal Collective".}
All of the arrested Street Medics' personal items, money, medical supplies and tools were confiscated and are still not being released by Police despite repeated requests, even though the items in question are not relevant to any legal proceedings (they are not being held as evidence, nor are they proscribed materials). Seizure of these materials is an illegal tactic to prevent our members from providing first aid and medical care to the people who are now in the streets and parks in Minneapolis-St. Paul. This is in direct violation of the US Constitution which in the Fourth Amendment provides protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. {Please see the Constitutional reference from the Cornell Law School below.}
We are still in need of funds for bail, and for replacing lost medical supplies and tools for our volunteers. If you are able to give, please consider donating through this page (every little bit counts!):
http://www.portland-or.net/street-medics/Donations-Portland-Street-Medics.htmlor, please write to us about making alternative donation arrangements here:street.medix@portland-or.net
Some details
The Portland Street Medics who were arrested include a long-time Queer liberation and radical performance artist; two trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs), one of whom is also a Wilderness First Responder; and a Nurse Practitioner in training, who is also an Herbalist with more than fifteen years clinical experience.
It's plainly obvious to everyone that our members, sworn to the primary directive of all healthcare workers to "First, Do No Harm", should have never been arrested and must be allowed and supported to return to their duties immediately without any interference whatsoever.
Contacting the authorities..has proven to be very difficult. As one of our supporters reports here,
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/379093.shtml#315129
phone calls to the Ramsey County Jail, the Sheriff, and Mayor Coleman, are being redirected through a maze of sometimes incompetent, sometimes purposefully dysfunctional routes and individuals who are making the process of leaving messages and official complaints nearly impossible.
Still, we are asking people to please call these (new) numbers and to politely ask that:o- all Street Medics be released immediately and allowed to resume duties;o- all people who were arrested and are not being charged, to be released immediately;o- all personal items and medical supplies and tools that were confiscated from Street Medics to be returned immediately so that our teams can provide much needed care for injured and ill people in the streets and first aid stations all over Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Please call these numbers:St. Paul Police chief:651-266-5588
Help line:651-266-9333
Please send letters to:St. Paul Police Department
Chief John Harrington367 Grove Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
Ramsey County Jail
Sheriff Bob Fletcher425 Grove Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
Please keep distributing and re-publishing our updates
We really are grateful for all of your letters and phone calls of support. Without your love and care, none of our work would have been possible.
Portland Street Medics
http://portland-or.net/street-medics/
Resources and Related Materials
"Over 300 Protesters, Bystanders, Medics and Media Arrested: Update from Coldsnap Legal Collective"
http://twincities.indymedia.org/2008/sep/over-300-protesters-bystanders-medics-and-media-arrested-update-coldsnap-legal-collective
" US Constitution - Amendment IV:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html
Our previous Communique:
http://seattle.indymedia.org/en/2008/09/268617.shtml

Tohono O'odham District official orders life saving water tanks removed

Tohono O'odham official orders life saving migrant water tanks removed
Tohono O'odham Mike Wilson to hold press conference
By Brenda Norrell
SELLS, Ariz. -- A Tohono O'odham district official ordered Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham, to remove his life saving water tanks in the Baboquivari District, near the US/Mexico border on Saturday. Baboquivari District Chairwoman Veronica Harvey ordered Wilson to halt and banned for life a group of visiting seminary students.
"Who will speak for the dead?" says Wilson, in response to the latest order. This is the latest attempt to halt Wilson's efforts and follows years of his water containers being slashed and vandalized.
Wilson, undaunted, will hold a press conference in Tucson on Thursday. "No one should die for a drink of water," says Wilson. The press conference is at 1 p.m. on Thursday, September 4, 2008 at the First Christian Church, on the corner of East Speedway and North Euclid in Tucson.
A high percentage of the migrants who die each year, die here in the Baboquivari District of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Many of the dead are Indigenous Peoples. An increasing number of the dead are Indian women walking with their children from Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guatemala, struggling to survive as corporations seize their land for industry and NAFTA cripples economies for the poor.
The Arizona Daily Star describes the order to remove the tanks:
http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/255748

Reservation ban of water for migrants is reported
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 09.03.2008
A Tohono O'odham tribe member who has been putting water in remote desert areas for the past seven years for the benefit of illegal immigrants says he has been told to stop.
The order was given Saturday morning while Mike Wilson was southwest of Sells on the reservation showing 11 non-tribal guests one of the four water stations he operates, Wilson said.
A Tohono O'odham police officer approached Wilson and said the district chairwoman, Veronica Harvey, had instructed her to tell Wilson to take down the water station and escort his guests off the reservation, Wilson said. He didn't take down the two 55-gallon water barrels but left with his guests, he said.
Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris Jr. confirmed Tuesday that Baboquivari District leaders asked Wilson and his guests to leave, but he said he has no knowledge of the request to remove the water station.
Phone calls to Harvey requesting comment were not returned.
The tribe has a standing decision not to allow humanitarian groups to place water on the reservation. Norris, who became chairman after that decision was made, has said the decision falls to the reservation's 11 districts because it's a matter of local concern. He said the same thing about the reported decision to ask Wilson and his guests to leave on Saturday.
"The tribal constitution authorizes each district to govern themselves on issues of local concern," Norris said. "This, in their view, is an issue of local concern."
Wilson gave the following account of Saturday's events:
Early that morning, Wilson and the group were at one of his water stations east of the village of Topawa on Federal Route 10, commonly known as Fresnal Canyon Road. He was talking about the history of his work in maintaining the water stations to eight seminary students from Denver, their professor and two retired Tucson pastors, the Rev. John Fife and the Rev. Gene Lefebvre.
A tribal police officer drove up to the group and told Wilson that she had received a complaint about non-tribal members being in the Baboquivari District. She told him that the Baboquivari District is a restricted district, which means O'odham are required to notify the board and get permission before bringing in any non-tribal guests, the officer said.
Wilson said he had never heard of the rule.
Fife said the officer told them she needed to check on the matter with the district and waited for 15 to 20 minutes before delivering the order to remove the station and to leave. She told the group that the seminary students were banned for life, Fife said.
After Wilson refused to take down the water station, the officer told Wilson that the district would do it. But as of Sunday, all the water stations were still up, Wilson said.
He said he believes he upset Harvey by bringing out such a large group of visitors.
The seminary students and their professor had been in Southern Arizona for about a week studying border issues, Fife said. They went with Wilson to learn more about the illegal-immigrant deaths on the reservation, he said.
Fife, the retired pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church and a leader in the old Sanctuary Movement, doesn't understand why the Baboquivari District kicked the group off or why it asked Wilson to remove the water station.
Fife has spent time on the reservation in his many years involved with border issues, including an internship on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in 1963.
Wilson's four water stations are in the Baboquivari Valley, which is the deadliest corridor for illegal immigrants in the United States.
The corridor had claimed the lives of 229 border crossers from the beginning of fiscal 2000 through November 2007 — more than three times the average number of deaths in other segments of the U.S. Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, according to the Arizona Daily Star's analysis of 1,156 deaths recorded by the federal agency. Most immigrants died from the heat.
Seventy bodies of illegal immigrants were recovered on the Tohono O'odham Reservation in 2007, and 83 were found from Jan. 1 through June 12 of this year, the latest numbers available.
Wilson has experienced problems with his lifesaving efforts in the past.
From 2001 through 2003, the water jugs he placed in the desert were slashed by vandals on a continuous basis, he said. In September 2003, nearly a quarter of the 4,000 gallon jugs of water were slashed in one rash of vandalism.
Around 2003, he switched from water jugs to 55-gallon water barrels. In 2006, all eight barrels at the four stations were stolen.
"I'm upset that the Tohono O'odham Nation would continue in this — what I consider a crime against humanity," Wilson said. "That they would take down my water stations."
● Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com

ww.azstarnet.com/metro/255748

(Photo: At the Indigenous Border Summit of the Americas II, Mike Wilson, Tohono O'odham shows the places on the map where migrants have died on Tohono O'odham land, primarily in Baboquivari District. Water jugs, slashed on Tohono O'odham land, are to his left. Photo by Brenda Norrell)

Riding out Gustav, message from Houma Chief Robichaux

Message from Brenda Dardar Robichaux,
the Principal Chief of the United Houma Nation
(a State recognized Tribe with communities within Terreboone and Lafourche parish).
9/1/08
About 20 of my family and friends has chosen to ride out Hurricane Gustav with us at our home in Raceland. Our home is on a high ridge right across from Bayou Lafourche. Last night was a relatively calm night with little wind and rain. But that soon changed. We lost electricity at 6:05 AM and are using batteries and a generator to stay in touch with what is happening throughout our communities. The wind has picked up considerably here to about 85 MPH. Some of us are sitting on the back porch watching in amazement how huge oak trees can bend and not break while magnolia tree branches fall. Others are glued to the TV listening intently for word of where Gustav is headed and the impact he is having. The latest update is my worst fear for the Houma People as it is learned that he is approaching the bayous in Terrebonne and Lafourche parish. I feel we have done our best to make sure everyone has evacuated safely. The rest is out of our hands.
Hurricane Katrina and Rita left Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes with barely a home left standing or livable. It has been a challenge to assist our People in these communities when there is nothing left to start with. Some are still living in FEMA trailers, with family and friends and a few are finally returning to a home. Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes have been on the road to recovery for the past 3 years with lives just getting back to normal. My fear for the past three years has been "What if Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes suffered total devastation as Plaquemine and St. Bernard Parishes? These are the communities with the highest concentration of Houma People. How would we recover knowing the challenges we still face in Plaquemine and St. Bernard?" I am paralyzed in fear that this is what is happening. The great people of the Houma Nation that I am so honored to represent, who have faced many challenges over the years are about to face one of our greatest challenges.
As I sit and write the winds are blowing and Gustav is approaching. I pray for protection, strength and courage to face what lies ahead.
United Houma Nation20986 Highway 1Golden Meadow, LA 70357Office: (985) 537-8867Fax: (985) 537-8812 Email: bdr@unitedhoumanation.org