Bay Area movement: ‘Mass releases, not mass deaths!’
By Judy Greenspan posted on February 3, 2021
Oakland, Calif.
In a demand for prisoner release during COVID, a caravan of 200 cars occupies the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Jan. 21.
Jan. 31 Today as a plane pulled a banner, “Newsom: Free prisoners 2 stop Covid deaths,” through the sky over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, protesters held signs against “State execution by COVID 19” and dropped banners from the bridge pedestrian path on the East Span. Simultaneously, a caravan of more than 200 cars which started earlier at the Port of Oakland drove onto the bridge. Advancing very slowly at 5 mph, lead cars fanned out to fill all five lanes of traffic, so that the caravan took at least an hour crossing the bridge.
Residents demand Newsom grant mass releases as COVID-19 deaths surge in California prisons
January 28, 2021
Protesters all over the country began demanding major prisoner releases – mass decarceration – since last April, when this protest was held outside Northern Correctional in Somers, Conn. Not a single governor has complied. Prisoner supporters must “remember in November”! – Photo: Cloe Poisson, CTMirror
Community members plan to rally and car caravan urging prisoner releases, starting with elderly, immunocompromised and trans prisoners
by Courtney Morris, No Justice Under Capitalism; Mohamed Shehk, Critical Resistance; and Barni Qaasim, CURYJ
Oakland – On Sunday, Jan. 31, Californians will hold a car protest across the Bay Area to demand that Gov. Newsom grant mass releases for the state’s prison population. Formerly incarcerated leaders, families and friends with incarcerated loved ones will gather with other activists at 11:00 a.m. at Middle Harbor Shorelin
Demonstrators besiege California prison HQ: ‘Mass releases now!’
By Judy Greenspan posted on December 24, 2020
Sacramento, Calif.
Dec. 17 Under the banner “From Balloons to Bullhorns,” an angry group of protesters converged on the steps of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to demand mass releases of incarcerated people due to the COVID-19 epidemic. The vigil and rally organized by Sistas With Voices began with 104 seconds of silence to symbolize the 104 prisoners who have already died inside California state prisons from COVID-19.
Protesters gather in front of the California Department of Corrections at the end of the rally. Credit: Judy Greenspan
San Quentin prison staff forcing prisoners to accept liability for their own deaths from COVID-19
December 10, 2020
This tranquil scene of San Quentin State Prison, the oldest prison in California, on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, was taken on June 25, 2020, as COVID-19 exploded inside, turning the entire prison into death row. – Photo: Paul Chinn, SF Chron
by Courtney Morris and Richard Tan, No Justice Under Capitalism
San Quentin, Calif. – Prisoners at San Quentin State Prison are reporting that, over the past week, San Quentin medical staff have been pressuring prisoners to sign waiver forms accepting legal responsibility for their own deaths from COVID-19.
this is different from th many allegations we ve heard. to say to a 20-year-old intern to invoke a dead intern to an intern that you re hitting on suggests you re a psychopath. i don t think he s a psychopath. i can t explain his statements. again, i wasn t there and thisnk was a long time after i worked with him. i will say that he is unusual in how he talks a lot of times and sometimes, there seem to be inconsistencies in things he ll say. it s hard to envision exactly what happened.he tucker: you consider him capable of this? i don t consider him remotely capable of killing anybody, no. tucker: of saying this. no, i don t know. i never heard him say anything remotely like this, but i m not challenging courtney s experience or what she heard. i don t know.