Just want to tell my story (Birmingham: law, legal, food)

[tomccc]

Can anybody hook me up with any activists, grassroots orgs, or advocate groups for music artists and targeted dissenters in Birmingham?

[raj kapoor]

Will a list of anarchists do as well?

[tomccc]

I've already been jailed twice on blatant trumped up charges. Spent 3 weeks in the Birmingham city Jail, for what the UAB cops called third degree trespassing, even though I was in a public parking lot, in broad day light, almost directly across from a police station--the one on 18st and 11ave. I was never asked to leave--just handcuffed--because I "should had known it was a UAB parking lot because of all the UAB buildings around".

According to the trespassing law, I wasn't even in a violation unless I was told to leave and refused to do so.

The other thing about the situation is that I had been sitting on that same ledge--on my way to the library--almost everyday for months. Nobody ever told me the Public wasn't allowed in that lot, although UAB cops drove up and down and sideways, before me, almost every day--a couple times, even pulled into the lot while I was sitting there.

This kind of thing was nothing new to me. I came to Birmingham, by way of Virginia, through Atlanta, and about a half dozen cities and towns in between. Was FBI and policed harassed out of all of them.

All because of my anti-war, anti-slavery, and pro-Communist, views in my music and writing.

I'm no where near as radical as even a Band like "Rage against the machine."

I have nothing on my criminal record--nothing--not even a violation.

Yet, I've been jailed, handcuffed, searched and "patted down" more times than I can count on both hands.

I've had to laptops taken from me--the latest four months ago when I went to jail. This UAB cop, took it from possession of the Birmingham jail, and it was returned to me broken. I never got the other one back at all.

I stood before a judge 4 different dates on the same charges. The Judge wanted to continue it for a fifth time but was talked out of it.

The cops never did show with their evidence against me even though they tacked on a fathom, drug paraphernalia charge against me for having a "crackpipe" after searching my packs. The "crackpipe" was some kind of lab instrument, that didn't even have a stem. A tobacco pipe was more a crackpipe than that thing was.

I don't even smoke cigarettes, or drink and never have. They knew that because They(cointel-pro) have been trying to set me up on some kind of charge--especially drugs-- for over six years.

That's why they never showed up in court. Charges against me were dropped, but not before the guy who was supposed to be my Public defender, thrust a release in my face and told me to sign it.

I took my time reading it. It said they were supposed to give me a dollar and other consideration [in hand] for the promise not to sue.

I signed it, but not before ascertaining in court, and in view of the cameras, that this was for a promise that they will leave me alone. And making sure nobody was handing me a dollar or a penny.


I spent a month in UAB hospital, for cancer, and the FBI was in there asking me questions like "Do you think you're being followed" even though I never said a single word to a soul in that hospital about being a target or anything else.

I mentioned the hospital, because if I was even a weed smoker, they would have asked me about drugs in much system, much more if I was smoking crack.

I also took a drug test when I tried to get work at a day labor place(fat chance). They knew about that too, because they used the mere fact that I applied for a job as an excuse to cut the food stamps I was surviving on. Never mind that I was never sent on the promised job, even though I showed up repeatedly on time to go to work.

The thing about that is, I went down to the place which is on second street near the Firehouse, to ask them why they reported me having worked. To my face, they said they did not, that I was not an employed there until I went on a job and made money.
Behind my back, they wrote on my report that they gave me--not a job--but a fulltime job, and I didn't want work.
Nobody forced me to go in that place and apply for a job. I wasn't in any programs. Nobody forced me to take a drug test, yet they sneaked it on my record that I didn't want to work, to cut off the stamps, which they knew was bogus, because if they believed they wouldn't have just cut the stamps for that month(they gave me $30) they would have cut the stamps permanently, which is the law if you refuse work.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to tell some of my story on the Forum.

As for your question about Anarchist...The reason I'm trying to reach out to people is because, when I'm jailed, I go on hunger strikes. I don't have family checking for me. I have yet in 6 years been able to get a single lawyer, church, rights org, or a soul to even return a request just to listen, even though I don't ask for anything but Community awareness of what is happening to not just me, but thousands like me.

With the revised NDAA bill, its a critical situation because the government has never given itself the legal right to whisk
anybody off, to anywhere, with no say or record of what the hell happened to them, are where they are--not even the fake trails they have now.

Most targets will probably tell you the same thing.

[tomccc]

Sorry for the mistakes. I was at the Library and cut off before I could proofread.