The four arrested during October’s squat raid had court on Thursday, November 30th. Three of the accused, Jonathon, Victor (recently released after a stint on a concealed weapons charge) and Sam all saw their charges dropped from felony 2nd degree burglary to misdemeanor trespassing offenses. Amelia Nicol was not present for the hearing. Jonathon is still being detained on prior legal offenses.
Ignite!
denver's anarchist newspaper
Tag Archives: protest
Anti-capitalist Christmas – The Elf Revolt! December 17th 3PM
Call-Out posted to Colorado Indymedia:
Hello all our dear elf friends! Tired of Santa getting all the profit from our handiwork?
Hello all our dear elf friends! Tired of Santa getting all the profit from our handiwork?
The holiday season is rapidly approaching and some of us elves couldn’t help but think that with all this Occupy business happening across the U.S., maybe it was high time we occupy something ourselves! Santa has commodified and profited from our jolly nature and nimble hands long enough. So, we invite all of you to join your elven friends and comrades on December 17th, 2011 at 3PM in Hungarian Freedom Park (Speer & Downing) where will we gather and then proceed to march directly to where Santa resides next to the beating heart of capitalism and consumerism.
We’re elves right? So bring your holiday spirit, magic, and mischievous nature!
Our demands are simple: Elves desire everything for everyone. We desire liberation. We will stop at nothing to gain it.
Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination of the humans for the last two months. There have been moments of inspiring victory, like the General Strike in Oakland, and then moments of gut wrenching repression, like the lethally armed eviction of the Occupy squat in Chapel Hill. Victories and losses. Steps forwards and steps back. This is the nature of the social war for humans and elves alike. Our collective capacity to dream outside of our own alienation and commodification is awakening from a long slumber!
Capitalism is taking its dying breaths. These are the death rattles our fallen comrades dreamt of years ago.
There are some who refuse to awaken their humanity and instead choose to continue their participation in systems of oppression and state funded violence. Some of those people might be just a moment away from opening their eyes and waking from the nightmare that is the American dream. Others may be all too blinded by their addiction to the crisis and that which they can gain from it.
Elves and humans are not so different from one another, though those who hold us in subjugation would have us believe otherwise. Our differences are our strength! Regardless of whether you’re a self-proclaimed anarchist elf or a human who voted for Obama and is feeling regretful, you are welcome here! Elves from the North Pole refuse to believe that elves from the South Pole are illegal and stand in solidarity with their migrant elven comrades! Those in power wish to divide us and segregate us from one another. They use false divisions like species, race, sexuality, gender, and others to dismantle our collective power. No more! We will break our own chains by dismantling the lies we’ve been fed our whole lives. We will create a liberated world of equality.
Join others in solidarity against capitalism. December 17th, 2011 at 3PM. Hungarian Freedom Park. Downing and Speer.
Bring signs, banners, voices, jingle bells, and big dreams of liberation ready to become a lived experience!
Issue #3 – November 2011
Ignite! #3 is finished, printed, and circulating Denver as scheduled. Including reports on Denver’s rowdy O22 demonstration, a squat raid, more #OccupyDenver coverage than you can shake a stick at, local underground action communiques, and a piece on anti-fascism and freedom of speech. This issue is 16 pages which is way longer than we ever though Ignite! would be. Might have to switch to a bi-weekly format…
Big thanks to The Hammer for reviewing our second issue here. This is also the last issue that will look this shitty. We are learning and probably getting better. #4 is gonna look fly as fuck. Submission deadline, once again, is going to be the 28th. Get those texts and pictures to IgniteDenver@riseup.net for publication. Also, keep your eyes and ears peeled for a potential meeting in December to draw more people into the paper’s creation.
Anti-Capitalist Dance Party Saturday at Noon
A call out for an anti-capitalist dance party at noon on Saturday during the weekly Occupy Denver march was posted to Colorado Indymedia. It is awesome and goes as follows:
A! Anti! Anti-capitalista! The Revenge of the Dance Party.
Last week amidst the speeches and mic checks there erupted from the crowd of 2,000 folks the sounds of pure awesome. The march kicked off with “Kiss Me Thru the Phone,” playing in front of the jail while a black flag was placed at the top of the metal sculpture in the courtyard. The dance party made flashy appearances throughout the march as it snaked through downtown. Beastie Boys “Fight For Your Right to Party,” echoed between the 16th St. Mall buildings while boring and pointless speeches occured. Apparently those people didn’t get the memo that capitalism is dying and it is time to dance on its goddamn ashes!
That being said, Denver, it is time to shake your anti-capitalist asses once again! The playlists are set, the banners are at the ready, and this Saturday at noon the Occupy Denver march will once again become a space to sassily dance out your rage against systems of violence and oppression. How about we take the old “who’s streets?” chant to the next level?
There are some real debbie downers out there at Occupy Denver who seem to think it is a great idea to start doxing or snitching on anyone who doesn’t fit the feel-good liberal, upper-class, boring-ass agenda of non-resistence. There is a campaign to start doing this at Occupy Denver to anyone who is confrontational with the state. Apparently dance parties are confrontational. Well, Occupy Denver, dance parties should be confrontational! Expect to see ass shakin’ and booty bumpin’ all up and down that riot line!
One last note, this week the Occupy Denver-ites have voted to have this march be in honor of “fallen heros,” and veterans of the U.S. military. Yeah, you read that right. The only veterans us anti-capitalists support and honor are those that have quit the job, resisted, fought back against the imperialist and colonialist agenda of the military, or since leaving the military have dedicated themselves to an end of war and exploitation. There will be bumpin’ and grindin’ for THOSE vets no doubt!
Alright, you get it. We’re dancin’ in the streets again!
Meet at the Federal Reserve (we didn’t pick this lame spot) – 12PM – Saturday, November 5th.
UNTIL ALL ARE LIBERATED! EXPECT US & OUR DANCIN’ SHOES!
The Terry Merrorista Brigade Attack Bank, Cop Shop, Issue Communique
A communique was posted to Colorado Indymedia on Thursday, October 26th. The action and communique are commendable, a gesture of solidarity to the Oakland Commune, Atlanta occupiers, and the squatters arrested in Denver last weekend. Titled “Escalation”, we are posting it in full:
“Last night, under the cover of the season’s first snow, a bank and a cop shop (snitch station) were attacked by masked individuals in the Five Points area of Denver. This action was taken in soldiarity with the Oakland Commune and Atlanta under siege, with Denver squatters, and with occupiers everywhere. The banks are an obvious target, as too should be the lapdogs of The Capitalist State, the Police Department. Their days are numbered so long as our resistance intensifies. Revolt, Occupy, Fight Back! Smash all banks and all borders, no love for snitches!
With Love,
The Terry Merrorista Brigade”
Report from Denver’s O22 Demonstration
by Ignite! Collective
The second annual October 22nd Anti-Police Terror Demonstration in Denver was a priority when Ignite! first began publication. Receiving coverage in October when it was announced, it was a notable action due to the history of five demonstrations preceding it in a coordinated campaign utilizing a plethora of tactics and strategies to engage the notoriously brutal and repressive Denver Police Department. Up to this point, Denver has seen rallies, vigils, unpermitted street marches, vandalism, brawls, court campaigns, press conferences, and many other events in the context of the anti-police struggle. O22 in 2011 was shaping up to be a pivotal and defining action.
Set with a backdrop of a $365,000 effort to monitor and suppress the Occupy Denver satellite protest which has been ongoing since the end of September, O22 gathered at the entrance of the Denver Zoo at 6PM on the 22nd as promised. Fifty arrests had taken place the weekend before, straining the resources of local radical legal support collective the Denver Anarchist Black Cross. Regardless, a crowd of around 100, mostly donning black, listened to a short speech before merging between four banners held alongside the entire demonstration and flanked by several bike riding/walking protesters and two drummers. The National Lawyers Guild brought legal observers and the Colorado Street Medics had a much-appreciated presence as well. Taking the streets in plain view of a half-dozen police cars and nearly twenty cops on bicycles, the march took East 23rd Avenue towards York. Early chants resembled past demonstrations: “From Denver to Greece, Fuck the Police” and “Oink! Oink! Bang! Bang! Every Day the Same Old Thing!” were standards the crowd returned to whenever things got quiet.
Despite the police tail and blocked intersections, the march stayed tight, snug in between the banners, until it reached the main thoroughfare of Colfax Avenue, where the crowd massed to 150. Riot cops riding on the outside of SUVs began a circle of the neighborhood while the bike cops tried to confine the march to just the westbound lane of Colfax. One of the police officers was overheard saying to a colleague that they were afraid of being pushed into traffic by protesters shortly after several people holding banners rebuffed bike police intimidation by pushing the banner outwards.
There are several things to be said about the tactical overlay of this march as compared to the last two. In May, the strategy of wrapping the demonstration in banners to protect participants from being picked off by the police was employed more or less successfully other than an arrest after the dispersal. In July, however, this wasn’t employed as strictly and three demonstrators were arrested early in the protest despite a brave fighting effort on behalf of members of a small black bloc that day. At O22, this was emphasized before the march and largely followed by everyone in the streets that night. The police had a very hard time pressing the demonstration even though the protest was unpermitted and shutting down major streets for upwards of an hour and a half. This march, although not defined by its radical participants, was definitely noteworthy in its export of radical Black Bloc tactics and anti-capitalist sentiment to a more generalized crowd. More than 80% of the crowd was dressed in black and/or masked, marching with their arms linked, and between anti-police slogans the demonstration had spirited “anti-capitalista” and “the US government is illegitimate” chants. Another favorite was “the police are the army of the rich,” which was featured on stickers passed out to the crowd and chanted in defiance of the city’s previous dialogues on the issue.
Unbeknownst to organizers more than six weeks ago, when fliers for O22 were starting to circulate around town, Occupy Denver and lesser so the annual “Zombie Crawl” sapped a lot of the police department’s resources. Riot cops had been deployed earlier in the day to police a large but completely peaceful Occupy Denver weekend march, as well as monitor the roadside encampment which hardly does anything to merit police action any since last weekend’s arrests. The 16th Street Mall crowd on Saturday night, swelled by “zombies” and regular nightlife types, played directly into the O22 demonstration’s aims of direct action and confrontation.
After making a loop around the Civic Center Park, picking up a few dozen Occupy Denver protesters and several zombies, the march hopped through 15th and Cleveland, the site of the 2008 DNC Black Bloc arrests, and made their way to the 16th Street Mall. Some in the crowd, thinking the march was over and preparing to disperse within the teeming horde of the mall, began to meld into the crowd. Much of the march, however, kept going. The police began to back off, although it is unclear why. While they kept their distance at about a half-block behind the march, someone(s) sprang into action and dropped an American National Bank window. The cops had no reaction; they hardly even got closer to the demonstration.
The march kept picking up more people (upwards of 600) and began zigzagging down different roads between 16th Street and 15th Street, roaming down the street spraying graffiti, putting up anti-police stickers and smashing several more bank windows. There was one arrest, for defacing/destroying public property, which is from putting up stickers like the arrests in July. Early (likely panicking/ratings hungry) media reports also claimed that trash cans or dumpsters had been set on fire, but at this point it is unconfirmed. The march erratically made its way back towards the park to debloc and join the occupation, confusing and frustrating a police department that has thus far covered all sides of these demonstrations very vigilantly. After observing their tactical short-comings and lack of willingness to engage the crowd physically (especially considering crowd cover on the 16th Street Mall, limiting chemical and other “less-lethal” forms of suppression), it may mean they were running short of resources due to the uptick in social movement activity during the last month.
O22 was a success for a movement that has seen a number of them lately. All defendants captured during previous marches have beaten their cases or walked away with miniscule charges and no further involvement in the legal system. Police were outmaneuvered and outsmarted several times during the course of the evening, a trend that has continued since agitators behind the issue originally took the streets. It is unclear where the movement will go presently, as it is too early to expect demonstration to be called, but the police haven’t gotten any better behaved. Because of this, it’s doubtful those filling the streets to confront the police department will taper their behavior anytime soon, either.
Round Six
from Ignite! #2:
The anti-police resistance movement brewing for more than a year is gearing up for a third 2011 demonstration. Aiming to mark the International Day Against Police Brutality (renamed by local organizers as the International Day Against Police Terror), October 22nd is set to be the sixth round of street protests in a year.
Last year’s O22 protests were particularly eventful, seeing Denver take the streets without a permit for just the second time since the 2008 Democratic National Convention. During the march, a police car was attacked and the cops didn’t dare attempt to attack the angry, largely working-class or houseless crowd. There were no arrests. Since then, several more protests have ended in barricades, scuffles with police, and five arrests. The fliers and posters circulating around town urge prospective particpants to converge at the main entrance of the Denver Zoo at 6pm. The call is as follows:
“Over the past year and a half a growing movement against police terror has spread throughout Denver. Although a wave of police firings briefly created an illusion that the heinous abuses of the police may be handled by those in administrative power, the recent rehirings of police officers who have admittedly brutalized local residents has illustrated that those in power will not be the ones who fix this problem. While folks have petitioned, held meetings with public officials, sued the police and administrations, and used every other method through the usual “legitimate” channels to effect change, the police still murder and attack us on a daily basis. Justice will only come from us, when the police know that the people will fight back in a literal, and not just figurative sense, then they will back down.”
Due to the extraordinary loss in court by the city and police department in the case of Amelia Nicol, this year’s O22 demonstration is shaping up to be very interesting. The police, thus far, has been unable to prosecute anyone they have arrested at recent anti-police protests. This is largely because of most defendants’ stance on refusing to negotiate with the State. Mass arrests have also been very difficult for the cops to arrange, likely because of lawsuit implications, the experience of the DNC’s mass arrest, and the ferocity and militancy of the demonstrators. Ignite! will be covering the march later this month with live updates on Twitter. Follow us @ignite_denver.
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