Demand Medical Care for Free Alabama Movement Prisoner Activist!

Black Autonomy Federation received this report from Ann Brooks, the mother of Spokesperson Ray.

START CALLING ST.CLAIR TODAY @7AM 205-467-6111 AND DEMAND MELVIN RAY TO GET MEDICAL ATT.

We are receiving reports from St. Clair prison that my son, Melvin Ray,[one of the leaders of the Free Alabama Movement prison organization] is ill. Yesterday after lunch, Melvin indicated that he wasn’t feeling well. (As you may know, when we went to March at St Clair yesterday, officers were already aware that we would be arriving).

At around 9 p.m., Melvin began having problems urinating and was experiencing pain in his lower abdomen and bladder. At around 11 p.m., Melvin began passing excessive blood through his urinary tract. Melvin has been in isolation since January, and we believe that someone introduced something through his food yesterday.

Melvin informed Off. Cosby of his condition and was told that the medical staff said that he should fill out a sick-call form and that he would be seen by the nurse at pill-call.When pill-call came around at 3 a.m. (4 hours later), the nurse (Holcombe) and officer refused to stop at his door. Melvin banged on his door until Officer Mackesy appeared at 3:10 and informed Melvin that he would have to fill out a sick-call slip (which Melvin had already done, but Nurse Holcomb and Off. Humphries refused to pick up), and that he could turn it in at 12 p.m. and wait to be called by the doctor.

By 12 p.m. Melvin will have been passing blood for over 13 hours with no medical attention. The shift commander was Sgt. Hamilton, who is the same officer that was presented when Melvin’s hand was slammed in a door by another officer. We are asking that you please contact St. Clair @ 205 467 6111, or dial 911 and report that we belive that Melvin’s food has been tampered with. [ NOTE: THIS IS HOW PEOPLE DIE IN PRISON, AND WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN, PLEASE HELP US WITH AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE, Call 205-467-6111, and demand medical care for this prisoner activist!

Urgent Support Needed for family of youth murdered by Denver cops!

Denver:

Donation link: http://www.gofundme.com/bm8kg8

On July 2, 2014 20 year old Ryan Ronquillo was repeatedly shot by Denver
Police in the parking lot of the Romero Family Funeral Home in Northwest
Denver during a funeral service.

While attending a friend’s funeral service, Ryan stepped out to decompress
and sit in his parked car. Police stormed the area, speeding several
unmarked cars into the parking lot. In a matter of seconds, Ryan was dead,
shot nearly a dozen times by multiple officers.

Police allege that they were in the process of serving a warrant for
“auto-theft and other felonies”, and that Ryan “started to back the car in
the direction of officers”. Statements from witnesses are at odds with the
police statements. Witnesses at the scene desribe a horrific chaotic mess.
Many in attendence did not even know who the individuals shooting at Ryan
were, let alone that they were even police officers.

Other witnesses claim that Ryan was left to die, choking on his own blood,
as police denied medical help at the scene and instead waited for
paramedics to arrive before any aid was administered.

Ryan was unarmed and suspected of participating in non-violent offenses.
Although police considered him a “flight risk”, no statements from Denver
officials or the police indicate that there was any suspicion of Ryan
being dangerous or armed.

Police claim that they had been following him all day in an effort to
serve the warrant. They claim that they chose the funeral, where dozens of
people, including many small children were in attendence, because it
proved “tactically beneficial”. In the end, instead of a peaceful arrest
anywhere else, people who were already in the process of mourning one lost
youth had to witness the murder of another.

Following Ryan’s death, his family was not even contacted by Denver police
or officials. They had to find out about the death of their son from his
friends and media reports.

As the quest for justice begins, Ryan’s family needs desperate help paying
for his funeral and burial. Any amount, no matter how large, or how small
would go a long way to beginning the process of bringing peace to his
family.

Any excess donations over the requested amount will go toward other
expenses incurred by the family, including missing work, and hiring an
attorney.

Some local media coverage:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/anger-at-vigil-for-man-shot-and-killed-by-police

Born A Suspect: Racist Hospital Threatens Mother and New Born Baby.

Written by JoNina Abron-Ervin and edited by Brianna Burton, members of the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism & Police Brutality

It is always said that babies,regardless of race, are born innocent, and should not have any racist legal or political standards applied to them. But this is not the case with black children and those of interracial couples. They are treated as criminals by the state and its police.

Your help is urgently needed to protest the use of armed security guards who threatened Kelly Stone, a new mother, at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, Ill. The baby’s father LeMar DeBooth, is a personal friend of mine and a comrade in the Black Autonomy Federation. Below is a complaint letter that we are asking everyone to email. Please feel free to reword the letter according to your own writing style. It should be sent to:

To: rose.cosme@advocatehealth.org

robert.zadylak@advocatehealth.org

donna.king@advocatehealth.org

cc: complaint@jointcommission.org

Also, on Monday, you may call the medical center’s patient relations representative, Rose Cosme, at (773)296-8217.

*************************************

To Whom It May Concern:

It has come to my attention that on July 11, armed guards at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center threatened Kelly Stone, who at the time was a patient at the medical center.

According to my information, these are the events leading up to this incident:

On July 8, Ms Stone gave birth to a male infant at the medical center. The baby was delivered by Cesarean section. After his birth, Ms. Stone and the father of the baby, Bondi LeMar DeBooth, verbally told nurses that they wanted to set up a breast feeding schedule for their son. Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth subsequently saw a nurse feeding formula milk to their son off the schedule. When they voiced their objections to the disruption of the feeding schedule, they said a medical center employee threatened to place their son in protective custody. Thereafter, Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth were were no longer allowed to be alone with their son, according to Mr. DeBooth. They were “chaperoned” at all times by medical center staff and made to feel like criminals.

On July 10, Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth filed a complaint with Rose Cosme, the medical center’s patient relations representative. The complaint charged the medical center with economic and racial discrimination. Ms. Stone, who is white, and Mr. DeBooth, who is black, are poor people.

Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth were told that their baby’s blood sugar was low. The baby was then moved to an infirmary so he could be treated. Later, while holding his son, Mr. DeBooth saw a scratch on his baby that he had not previously noticed. He asked a nurse about the cause of the scratch. The nurse said that the baby could not have scratched himself. Fearing that their son had been injured by someone on the medical center’s staff, Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth decided to file a new complaint with the patient relations representative on July 11.

While trying to leave the room in which Ms. Stone was recuperating from the surgical wounds of her C-Section, armed security guards stopped them. Afraid that Ms. Stone might be shot and killed, Mr. DeBooth stepped between her and the guards in order to protect her. When they asked why they could not leave the room to file their complaint, Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth were told by the security guards that they were not allowed to give the reason.

A social worker told Ms. Stone and Mr. DeBooth that in order for their son to be released to their care, the social worker would first have to inspect their home. This inspection could not occur until July 14 at the earliest, meaning that the baby would have to stay at the medical center at least until this date.

Under federal law, women who have C-sections are entitled to remain hospitalized for 96 hours, which would have allowed Ms. Stone to remain a patient until July 12. A patient can ask for earlier release by signing a form, which states that the patient understands that she is asking to be released before the recommended time. On July 11, Ms. Stone signed a form asking to be released from the medical center. She did so after a member of the medical center told her that by signing the form, she and Mr. DeBooth would be given a room, equipped with beds, in which they could stay with their baby over the weekend while waiting for the social worker’s inspection of their home. However, the room given to them did not have any beds. Did the medical center staff member deliberately lie to Ms. Stone?

Under the federal Patient Bill of Rights, a patient’s request for early release is not valid if the patient signed the request under duress. Based on what I have learned, I believe that Ms. Stone signed the request for release under extreme duress. This is illegal and unethical, and voids any “release form” by the hospital.

I believe that the medical center has committed major violations of Ms. Stone’s patient rights and the rights of Mr. DeBooth, the father of their son. If they were both white and middle class, I do not believe they would been mistreated. This was administrative racism. I am asking the medical center to conduct a complete investigation of this matter, and am sending a copy of this letter to the regulatory body for medical institutions, The Joint Commission and the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Sincerely,

MUST SEE!!! KANSAS CITY MIDTOWN PARTY DISTRICT REALLY RATCHET LAST NIGHT!!!! KCPD MACE CROWDS IN WESTPORT!!!

From Tony’s Kansas City

Breaking news right now from SOME OF THE MOST AWESOME TKC TIPSTERS watching and documenting Westport changes that challenge city hall propaganda and promotional media preconceptions.

To wit . . .

FIRST ON TKC: CHECK THIS VIDEO OF KCPD SPRAYING MASE ON WESTPORT CROWDS LAST NIGHT!!!

Link:

Kansas City Police Department Pepper Spray At Westport July 6 2014

This is one of the best clips we’ve seen about what’s really happening in Westport right now and these AWESOME CITIZEN JOURNALISTS are documenting stuff in a very real and grassroots way that mainstream media simply can’t capture.

Read the statement that accompanies the clip. As always, TKC STRIVES TO PRESENT ALTERNATIVE OPINIONS AND NEWS IN KANSAS CITY and then let the OUR AWESOME BLOGGY COMMUNITY decide in an open FREE SPEECH comment forum.

Check the statement:

Westport Gassing

Did Mayor James violate Kansas Citians’ Right to Assemble by ordering a chemical attack on Westport patrons Saturday night?

We are a little slow getting our video uploaded tonight. As you will notice in the very first clip of tonight’s video a cop indiscriminately sprayed tear gas up into the air in the wind so so our cameraman had to take a shower before he could get started on the footage since we were caught in the drift of the mace that was apparently sprayed to get people to leave Westport. We initially got a first hand report from someone who had moved upwind to get away from what he claimed to be police spraying mace into the air and then when they did it again, we caught it on film.

We don’t usually get into a whole lot of social commentary because we figure people are going to think what they think and they can figure things out for themselves, but cops spraying mace into the air to… to what? … Make people go where the cops want them to go? To enforce some imaginary curfew on adults? To deny us the Right to Assemble? I just can’t see how they could even remotely justify this kind of behavior.

Why do Kansas Citians accept this kind of thing either from random cops who run around doing whatever they want or from a local government directing the cops to behave like thing? Are we thinking at least they’re not spraying people directly in the face with mace? At least they’re not shooting people? At least they’re not throwing people in prison to go to work for a for-profit corporation for $0.03 to $0.70 per hour? Is it ok because some of them were probably drunk? Is it ok because it was a multi-racial crowd?

And where is this heavy handed approach coming from? Is Sly James bypassing the police force hierarchy, talking to the underlings himself, and making them think that cops who display an overly aggressive attitude will get his attention? Are the cops in competition with prison guards who are torturing people to see who is tougher on crime? Not to mention that cop cars now seem to be equipped with scanning devices that automatically run tags as the cars cruise along and spit out data on a screen so cops have probable cause to stop car after car for not having insurance or other non-moving violations. This kind of massive technological implementation surely isn’t coming from within the KCPD. Who is footing the bill for all this equipment and who is suffering as a result of the increased surveillance?

And what chemicals exactly were we exposed to? I was half a block away and got half a breath of the gas and 4 hours later my throat still hurts.

These are draconian days in the river city.
#################

That’s the video evidence and statement . . . Now it’s up to KICK-ASS TKC READERS to decide . . . WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WHAT’S GOING IN IN WESTPORT???