by A
Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007 at 9:36 AM
At least six members of the Black Riders Liberation Party, including its leader T.A.C.O. (Take All Capitalists Out), and sisters Aryana, Nadia and Isabel, also important leaders of the party, plus one child, were arrested yesterday in two separate raids...
Please forward widely:
At least six members of the Black Riders Liberation Party, including
its leader T.A.C.O. (Take All Capitalists Out), and sisters Aryana,
Nadia and Isabel, also important leaders of the party, plus one
child, were arrested yesterday in two separate raids, one in San
Bernardino County, where sheriff's deputies arrived with warrants for
a number of members of the BRLP, and one in Los Angeles by the LAPD.
Sister Aryana is being held on $500,000 bond on a Los Angeles warrant
and is to be transferred to L.A. from San Bernardino. Sister Nadia
Shakur has a court appearance scheduled for Friday in San Bernardino
and has the possibility of being released on her own recognizance at
that point. Two of those arrested in Los Angeles have already been
released, but T.A.C.O. is being held on $50,000 bond at the Century
Detention Center near the LAX Courthouse.
Legal, material and other forms of solidarity are needed immediately
and urgently! The Black Riders immediate priority is to obtain
T.A.C.O.'s release on bail, which requires both cash for the bond (at
least a substantial portion of the $5000 - ten percent) and people
willing to act as guarantors or cosigners on the bond. The members of
the Black Riders who would have been in a position to do that are in
custody themselves. Most of those out on the street and dealing with
the situation are young and poor; they need a co-signer on the bond
note. I can put up a significant amount of the cash for the down
payment on the bond, as I have done before, but I am not in a
position to co-sign. The current bail on Aryana is totally
prohibitive and legal assistance is needed there and with the other
cases as well, including T.A.C.O. James Simmons, who had frequently
represented members of the Black Riders on previous cases of
repression and harassment, is not practicing law currently. Other
lawyers are needed. Folks with stable housing and resources are
needed. Financial donations large and small are certainly needed.
Political support is most definitely needed.
These arrests are not new, but their scope and the high bails are a
measure of the growing impact of the Black Riders not only locally
but around the state of California and beyond. The BRLP led two
recent news-making demonstrations in Leimert Park; one at the head of
the Unity Mission to Free the SF Eight, the former Black panther
Party members and associates who have been charged with conspiracy in
a 35-year-old case based on torture. As T.A.C.O. said at the time,
the SF Eight is an attack not only on the elders and the legacy of
the BPP, but on the current forces struggling for Black liberation
and self-defense, such as the BRLP. They were also involved in the
self-defense of the Black community in its opposition to the
provocation by the Minute-klan anti-immigrant, pro-police forces
fronted by Ted Hayes. The BRLP has recently been building chapters
and making contacts in San Diego, Sacramento and the Bay Area. As
their recognition and support in the Black community of south L.A.,
Crenshaw, Watts and the Inland Empire has grown, the police have
grown more intent on disrupting their activities. These latest raids
and high bails are further proof that the system hates and wants to
destroy organized resistance among Black and other colonized and
resisting people.
You can call ARA at 310-495-0299 to offer your support; send funds
(cash or checks made out to cash, or US POSTAL money orders only made
out to Boxholder) to Black Riders, PO Box 8297, Los Angeles CA 90008.