A few hundred people showed up last night to hear Dr. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka themselves at an event at Hostos College in the Bronx to learn more about the progressive Green Party platform.
The mainstream media has tried to suppress the Green Party and they were excluded from the Presidential Debates, so they brought the campaign straight to the people!
WHEN: Wednesday, October 12th. Doors opened at 7pm, event began at 7:30pm
WHERE: Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture (Hostos Community College), 450 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10451. Half a block from the 4/5 trains.
Akeem Browder, brother of Kalief Browder, who was picked up by NYPD for allegedly stealing a backpack, and taken to Rikers Island for 3 years, was never charged with a crime and spent 2 of the 3 years in solitary confinement. Kalief was also beaten by guards and inmates and refused to take a plea of guilty when he knew he didn’t commit any crime. Kalief committed suicide after being released due to the trauma he suffered. Akeem started the Campaign to Shut Down Rikers, We call on you, Mayor de Blasio, Governor Cuomo and Department of Correction Commissioner Ponte to immediately shut down Rikers Island. It is a factory of human rights abuses that cannot be reformed. The Department of Correction has created a system that enables widespread physical and sexual assault of detainees. Correction officers routinely use solitary confinement as a tool of punishment. Approximately 85% of those incarcerated, including large numbers of adolescents and people with mental illness, have not been convicted of any crime, and many remain incarcerated because they cannot afford bail. Rikers is a potent symbol of a racist criminal justice system that has waged a war on Black, Brown and low-income people. Rather than policies that criminalize and incarcerate, we demand funding for community-based social services, mental health care, rehabilitation, and due process protections. #ShutDownRikers #BlackLivesMatter 7 Reasons to #ShutDownRikers 1. Rikers is racist -90% of people held on Rikers are Black or Latino/a. 2. Rikers punishes poor people -79% of people on Rikers are there because they couldn’t afford to post bail during arraignment. 3. Rikers breeds physical and sexual violence -In 2014, correction officers on Rikers used physical force 4,074 times. -Sexual victimization occurring on Rikers is reported almost three times as much as the national average (8.6% vs. 3.2%). 4. Rikers abuses children and people with mental illness -Federal investigators found that 43.7% of teenage boys on Rikers were subjected to staff use of force on at least one occasion. -40% of people held on Rikers suffer from mental health issues and make up 75% of injuries sustained during staff use of force. 5. Rikers acts as a prison, not a jail -85% of people on Rikers have not been convicted of a crime and are held there during court proceedings. Court cases linger much longer than the 6 months stipulated by New York’s speedy-trial law, the “ready rule”. 6. Rikers is a waste of public spending -It costs $112,665 to detain a person on Rikers for 1 year. -Over $1 billion is spent annually to keep Rikers open. 7. Rikers is a torture chamber -Bradley Ballard, who suffered from schizophrenia and diabetes, was locked in a cell on Rikers for 7 days, deprived of food, water, medication, and health services. Staff deliberately neglected his deteriorating health until it was too late. Naked, covered in feces, and sexually mutilated, Bradley was removed from his cell but died shortly afterward. His death was ruled a homicide. This is just one of dozens of deaths resulting from systemic abuses on Rikers. https://www.change.org/p/bill-de-blasio-andrew-cuomo-joseph-ponte-shut-down-rikers
Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, who was killed after being placed in an illegal chokehold by NYPD cop Daniel Pantaleo and 5 other cops piled on top of him while he pleaded, “I can’t breathe” 11 times, July 17th 2014, thanked Jill and Amaju for her being there the, thanked everyone. “The curtain is being pulled back on both political parties for us to see who they really are. We have seen what a Clinton Administration means for poor, and especially, black lives”. “TONIGHT I SAY WE VOTE WITH OUR CONSCIENCE Which doesn’t involve Democrats or Republicans”.