Police/Legal/Prisons

Civil Rights Group Challenges Buffer Zone that Restricts Free Speech at New Trump International Hotel

A section of Pennsylvania Avenue, a National Historic Site that runs from the White House to the Capitol, will be turned over for the use of the Trump Organization along with the large (7,000 square foot) previously public plaza that features an 1889 Benjamin Franklin statue and that abuts the soon-to-open Trump International Hotel at the Old Post Office, as well as a portion of the sidewalk space abutting the Avenue.

The turnover of these spaces creates a “buffer zone” that appears to suppress or extinguish free speech in proximity to the building leased by Trump, restricting access to priority or exclusive use of the Trump Organization.

Update August 6: A/C still not working 4 days after contractors worked on it in front of protesters-they need to finish the job!

On the 14th of July, "LT" Leslie Irby died from the effects of extreme heat in the DC Jail. The air conditioning system has been broken since before that time and inmates have reported temperatures as high as 100F in their cells. On the 3rd of August, Cease Fire: Don’t Smoke the Brothers and Sisters led a march on and around the jail demanding repairs and an end to the baking hot cells. On the very day the protesters arrived a crane was set up, with a new condensor section for that HVAC system being slung to hoist to the roof where maintainance crews were finally at work. The odds that this is a cooincidence are low, given that the system has been broken for many weeks.

Video including (near end) confrontation with senior jail official who retreated from protesters

Ongoing coverage from the Cleveland GOP Convention.

The Cleveland pigs have decreed that things like gas masks, food coolers, bicycle locks, and squirt guns are banned in a huge "event zone" covering a good part of downtown Cleveland during the Repugnican National Convention. Squirt guns are banned but due to the state's "open carry" law REAL guns cannot be banned. This provides leverage for protest organizers.