You are hereBlogs / Margaret Flowers's blog / Rally for Justice for the Cruz Home Defenders
Rally for Justice for the Cruz Home Defenders
Rally for Justice for the Cruz Home Defenders
Tuesday July 24, 2012
12:00pm until 2:00pm
Drop the charges and jail the banksters, not our neighbors!
Join us to protest the City of Minneapolis’ decision to prosecute Occupy Homes activists. During several incidents over the period of a month, 37 peaceful community activists and supporters have been arrested for defending the Cruz family home from foreclosure. Now the city is choosing to criminalize community organizing by prosecuting those who stood up for their neighbors.
In an flagrant act of intimidation, the city prosecutors have escalated charges on 14 supporters following peaceful arrests defending the Cruz family home on May 30th. After a group of peaceful protesters sat on the front stoop of 4044 Cedar Ave, linking arms, fourteen were arrested. Prosecutors at the City Attorney’s office originally charged the group of Cruz family supporters with trespassing, and have now moved to significantly more serious charges including 3rd degree riot–a gross misdemeanor which carries a sentence of up to one year in prison and a $3,000 fine.
Join us for a press conference and rally this Tuesday the 24th at 12:30pm to hold City Hall accountable!
We will rally outside the Hennepin County Jail to let the "justice" system know that this is intolerable. Speakers will include hip-hop artist Brother Ali, Rachel Lang of the National Lawyers Guild, Michael Friedman of the Legal Rights Center and Dave Bicking, formerly of the Civilian Review Authority Board. After the conference Occupy Homes activists will face the court for a pretrial hearing (they'll need you there). We invite you to support the arrestees by joining them in court.
Instead of prosecuting the criminal fraud of the bankers that crashed the economy, or working to give relief to families devastated by the foreclosure crisis, our tax dollars are being spent to evict families at the banks’ behest, and to intimidate and prosecute neighbors fighting to keep more vacant homes out of their communities.
We demand that:
-All charges against community members defending the Cruz family home be dropped.
-All police, including Chief Dolan, who used violence against peaceful protesters be formally disciplined.
-No more public resources be used to help banks evict our neighbors!
Please call the following people with the above demands:
Mayor R.T. Rybak (612) 673-2100
City Attorney Susan L. Segal (612) 673-3272
Deputy City Attorney Mary Ellen Heng (612) 673-2270
Assistant City Attorney Michelle Jacobson (612) 673-3276
Not another empty home—not another homeless family!
For more info on the arrests and charges click here: 
http://www.
Note that about a month ago Occupy Homes MN organized an national call-in day and demonstrations in over 15 cities around the country re the Cruz home. They sent a delegation to Philadelphia to the doors of the mortgage holder.
They have been successful in saving other people's homes in the Twin Cities.
For more information contact Nick Espinoza: Phone: 612-460-STAY
Email: OccupyHomesMN@gmail.com
- Margaret Flowers's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Pledge
Fair Use Notice
This website re-published copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this message for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
