Post by DAAA Collective on Oct 20, 2006 17:42:11 GMT -5
THE CAMP THAT FOUGHT BACK:
How Copwatch worked in a farm labor camp
Andres Raya shot and killed a police officer, and wounded another in January 2005 after returning from Iraq. Officer Stevenson, (the officer who was killed), it was told to us by those who lived in the community, reportedly once held Raya at gun point, and accused him of being a gang member. Raya, who was returning from a tour in Iraq, supposedly did not want to go back, and decided to end his life, and those of a few others. His life ended that January night in a blaze of gunfire, as he ran towards Ceres, Modesto, Turlock, and other local police officers in a dark alley when he ran out of ammo, and then was shot to death. Soon after Andy’s death, tags appeared such as “RIP Andy”, and there was talk of a gang truce, in order to act against police reprisals.
Soon, a crackdown began, as police went after those who knew Andy, and those who were close to him. They targeted his friends, family, and those who fit the description of a “gang member”. If you were a Chicano/a person living in Ceres and Modesto after January 2005, and you had a certain hairstyle and wore certain clothing, you were enemy number one. Police raided homes without warrants, stopped people in cars, and generally harassed various individuals, all because they had some connection to Raya, (at least according to the police). They stopped young kids on the street, holding them at gunpoint, and took pictures of them. The high school also forced his younger brother to go home right after school, even though his family was still at work.
Facing the brunt of this oppression, was the “El Campo” labor camp. The camp was a neighborhood connected by one curvy street in West Ceres, which was home to migrant farm workers and their families. It was there that Raya knew people, and where some of his friends lived. It was in that area that police stepped up their repression of the community, and it was also there that people in the community began to self-organize a Copwatch program that helped to put an end to police incursions into the neighborhood.
Copwatch in the Camp first came to the collective’s attention through community contacts in Ceres and Modesto. While some of us in the collective lived in Ceres, and had been keeping up on what was happening there, we were overjoyed to see that someone was doing projects that we shared an affinity with! Made up of community members in Ceres, Copwatchers were armed only with their eyes and video equipment. Organizing themselves into shifts, the group rotated turns in order to monitor the community on different nights. Several of those who worked and lived in the Camp also were involved in neighborhood based assemblies, and would report on what Copwatch was doing to the rest of the community, and also to see if people were having problems with the police.
When we first started meeting with the Copwatch group in Ceres, we had been doing Copwatch in the downtown Modesto area for under a year. This interested the people in Ceres, and they of course wanted to hear our experiences dealing with the police, what we had learned, and what we thought were some good ways to move forward. The anarchists involved with the collective ended up being one of the only solid groups to make a commitment to showing solidarity with Ceres Copwatch, (although there were some individuals from the community who helped greatly). While groups like the local ACLU had originally made plans to support a Copwatch type program, they ultimately didn’t help once the program was off and running, (meaning, when it actually needed solidarity). The local ACLU chapter disliked the idea of working with anarchists, (we of course weren’t thrilled to be in the company of liberals), and many of it’s members thought that community monitoring of the cops was too “anti-police” for their tastes.
In the two months that D.A.A.A. Collective participated in the Ceres Copwatch organizing, police only made their way into the community once while we were there. Police presence dropped off dramatically, and incursions into people’s homes and against youths, (at least to our knowledge), has stopped. What is most powerful of all from this experience, is the fact that is shows that a small community of people that has become fed up with police violence and harassment can come together and fight back. In the wake of increased police pressure and abuse in Modesto, the Copwatch program in Ceres shows that people can self-organize, and begin to take back their neighborhoods.
Fore more info:
Flyer on Andy Raya:
www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/02/01/17192531.php
“Living in the Wake of a Cop-Killer”:
www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2005021113183179
How Copwatch worked in a farm labor camp
Andres Raya shot and killed a police officer, and wounded another in January 2005 after returning from Iraq. Officer Stevenson, (the officer who was killed), it was told to us by those who lived in the community, reportedly once held Raya at gun point, and accused him of being a gang member. Raya, who was returning from a tour in Iraq, supposedly did not want to go back, and decided to end his life, and those of a few others. His life ended that January night in a blaze of gunfire, as he ran towards Ceres, Modesto, Turlock, and other local police officers in a dark alley when he ran out of ammo, and then was shot to death. Soon after Andy’s death, tags appeared such as “RIP Andy”, and there was talk of a gang truce, in order to act against police reprisals.
Soon, a crackdown began, as police went after those who knew Andy, and those who were close to him. They targeted his friends, family, and those who fit the description of a “gang member”. If you were a Chicano/a person living in Ceres and Modesto after January 2005, and you had a certain hairstyle and wore certain clothing, you were enemy number one. Police raided homes without warrants, stopped people in cars, and generally harassed various individuals, all because they had some connection to Raya, (at least according to the police). They stopped young kids on the street, holding them at gunpoint, and took pictures of them. The high school also forced his younger brother to go home right after school, even though his family was still at work.
Facing the brunt of this oppression, was the “El Campo” labor camp. The camp was a neighborhood connected by one curvy street in West Ceres, which was home to migrant farm workers and their families. It was there that Raya knew people, and where some of his friends lived. It was in that area that police stepped up their repression of the community, and it was also there that people in the community began to self-organize a Copwatch program that helped to put an end to police incursions into the neighborhood.
Copwatch in the Camp first came to the collective’s attention through community contacts in Ceres and Modesto. While some of us in the collective lived in Ceres, and had been keeping up on what was happening there, we were overjoyed to see that someone was doing projects that we shared an affinity with! Made up of community members in Ceres, Copwatchers were armed only with their eyes and video equipment. Organizing themselves into shifts, the group rotated turns in order to monitor the community on different nights. Several of those who worked and lived in the Camp also were involved in neighborhood based assemblies, and would report on what Copwatch was doing to the rest of the community, and also to see if people were having problems with the police.
When we first started meeting with the Copwatch group in Ceres, we had been doing Copwatch in the downtown Modesto area for under a year. This interested the people in Ceres, and they of course wanted to hear our experiences dealing with the police, what we had learned, and what we thought were some good ways to move forward. The anarchists involved with the collective ended up being one of the only solid groups to make a commitment to showing solidarity with Ceres Copwatch, (although there were some individuals from the community who helped greatly). While groups like the local ACLU had originally made plans to support a Copwatch type program, they ultimately didn’t help once the program was off and running, (meaning, when it actually needed solidarity). The local ACLU chapter disliked the idea of working with anarchists, (we of course weren’t thrilled to be in the company of liberals), and many of it’s members thought that community monitoring of the cops was too “anti-police” for their tastes.
In the two months that D.A.A.A. Collective participated in the Ceres Copwatch organizing, police only made their way into the community once while we were there. Police presence dropped off dramatically, and incursions into people’s homes and against youths, (at least to our knowledge), has stopped. What is most powerful of all from this experience, is the fact that is shows that a small community of people that has become fed up with police violence and harassment can come together and fight back. In the wake of increased police pressure and abuse in Modesto, the Copwatch program in Ceres shows that people can self-organize, and begin to take back their neighborhoods.
Fore more info:
Flyer on Andy Raya:
www.indybay.org/newsitems/2005/02/01/17192531.php
“Living in the Wake of a Cop-Killer”:
www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2005021113183179