Special District Attorney Goudy told defense attorney Guillermo

Suarez, "You're lucky I wasn't here when you asked for reduced bail

for (Black Rider Liberation Party member) Aryana Gladney (a motion

which was denied by the judge, who left bail at half a million

dollars). I was planning to ask for an increase." Goudy went on to

get bails of $1 million each on two other leading members of the

Black Riders, General T.A.C.O. (Taking All Capitalists Out) and

comrade Stress. The three appeared briefly on Monday Dec. 3 in two

different courtrooms of LA. County Criminal Courts, on weapons

conspiracy charges. Aryana and Stress were in Div. 38 for a

preliminary hearing, where the judge agreed to a postponement until

Wednesday (the D.A. had asked for an additional week). T.A.C.O. was

brought separately and individually into Div. 30 for an arraignment,

where a deputy "alternate public defender" read him the charges

against him, and he pleaded not guilty. T.A.C.O. was manacled at the

waist and his wrists were shackled to the waist chain, and was

guarded by two armed deputies on his right and left.



He is under a "keep away" order, isolated from all other general

population prisoners, even while being brought into court. He is

being held under conditions of solitary confinement in a security

housing unit near the Twin Towers jail in downtown L.A. The LA

Sheriff's Department "accidentally" recorded his name wrong on his

booking so that friends and supporters could not find him in the

system for nearly a week until he was brought into court for the

arraignment. Aryana was moved around and ended up in the sheriff's

Lynwood jail, and Stress is being held up in Santa Clarita. The three

co-defendants have yet to be able to meet together. Stress was told

by his public defender that he might not be brought down for

Wednesday's court appearance, but only be shown the proceedings over

closed circuit TV. The preliminary hearing will probably result in

another postponement (just what the D.A. wanted), because T.A.C.O.'s

attorney will not have had any time to prepare.



Despite the seriousness of the felony conspiracy charges, which also

include a "gang enhancement," (even though the Black Riders are not a

gang but work with "gang" youth to defuse internecine violence), and

the extraordinarily high bails, neither the D.A.'s office nor the Los

Angeles Police Dept. have made the case or the charges public. They

are attempting, under the cover of a media white-out and the

separation and the isolation of the defendants, to carry out a

railroad and disrupt the efforts of the Black Riders to build gang

truces, Black-Brown unity, and a campaign to free political prisoners

like the San Francisco Eight (for Black Panther Party members and

associates). Separately, another leading member of the BRLP, sister

Nadia Shakur, is being held in San Bernardino County on weapons

charges that were filed and once dropped stemming from a raid of a

house in Highland, CA last summer. Nadia and T.A.C.O. had been

arrested in Pinole, CA, near Oakland in northern California on the

same day that Stress and Aryana were picked up on the streets of Los

Angeles. Nadia is not due to appear in court until Monday, December

10. A number of other members of the BRLP are also doing time or

facing less serious charges due to the constant criminalization and

harassment of the Black Riders as revolutionary community organizers

and street activists.



The state's case against T.A.C.O., Aryana and Stress, which T.A.C.O.

described as "b.s." to defense attorney Guillermo Suarez, are based

on the testimony of an undercover cop who alleges he approached the

Riders pretended to be Lebanese and connected to freedom fighters in

the Middle East. He claims that the three were involved in a plot to

take possession of weapons and protective vests he claimed to be able

to provide them. The charges are so specious that the D.A. filed an

amended complaint on Monday claiming only "attempted possession" of

automatic weapons (since there were absolutely no grounds presented

for the original charge of 'possession' -- no weapons were ever

involved). So, like the warrant on the San Bernardino raid (an event

which is wrapped into the narrative of the criminal complaint here),

these charges are essentially for a "thought crime" -- allegedly

conspiring to attempt to possess weapons. The actual crime of the

Black Riders are their actual thoughts -- revolutionary minded

advocacy of Black liberation and anti-capitalism. As the LAPD says in

the summary of their "investigation," "The BRLP, self-described as a

revolutionary communist organization out of South Central Los Angeles

... is known to be anti-government, anti-police and pro-Black unity.

BRLP members believe that the Black community would be better served

if they governed their own people. They also believe that the system

of capitalism is oppressive and dehumanizing to the Black community."

Of General T.A.C.O., the LAPD says: "He believes that instead of

rival gang members fighting each other, they should turn their anger

and rage at the real enemy, the oppressive state and the police." A

fairly accurate summary of the Black Riders' believe, and damning

admission of the true reason the state and the police are trying to

lock them up.



It's no accident or coincidence that the arrests took place while

several of the Black Riders were up in northern California building

support for the SF8 political prisoners, or that they were scheduled

to appear in court on December 3, the same day as a hearing was

scheduled in San Francisco on the SF Eight. The state is threatened

by the revolutionary example of the elders and the revolutionary

energy and commitment of the youth in the Black liberation struggle,

and seeks to disrupt their unity and the efforts of the BRLP to

develop struggle to free all political prisoners in the Black

community. It is also not coincidental that this attack takes place

after the BRLP helped lead a successful and widely publicized

Black-Brown mobilization against the white supremacist Minuteman

organization in Leimert Park. The L.A. Sentinel had just run a

feature-length article and interview with the Black Riders in the

wake of that demonstration. The attack on the Riders is an attack on

the Black community as a whole, on conscious activists seeking to

defuse Black-on-black violence and Black-Brown tensions, and on all

committed to liberation for oppressed people or freedom for political

prisoners.



The Black Riders Liberation Party can be contacted, and donations can

be sent to: Black Riders, P.O. Box 8297, Los Angeles, CA 90008.



Jericho Amnesty Coalition to Free All Political Prisoners is planning

a meeting on Sunday at 1:00 in the downtown area to map out a

campaign around this case. If you are interested in getting involved,

call 310-495-0299. We will have an update on what occurs in court on

Wednesday, and hopefully perspectives and participation from the BRLP.