(Source: iamafuckingladybro, via psychokosita)

tranqualizer:

HELP ME SAVE MY LIFE

[Jessica is to the left of the photo, to the right is her mother, Silvia] 

Jessica’s Story

My name is Jessica Sánchez-Rodriguez and I am an undocumented, disabled 18 year old currently living in Charlotte, NC with spina bifida and hydrocephalus. 17 years ago I crossed the border with my mother, Silvia, in order to receive life saving medical treatment. For years I was traveling to Shriner’s Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina, a two and half hour trip from my home, in order to receive medical care. Because I am undocumented and no longer a minor I no longer have access to the medical help I received before.

I have been living in the United States since I was 11 months old and have been educated here for 13 years. My parents, while undocumented, pay taxes yet I am still unable to receive government help. Access to Medicaid right now would mean that I would not have to continue to wait for an emergency surgery that would save my life.

Right now I need an emergency surgery to connect a catheter to my bladder and without financial assistance a surgery like that will cost my family $45,000 dollars.

I am starting this fundraiser because I want to do whatever it takes to get this surgery. $45,000 is not something we can afford on our own. Please donate whatever you can and help me save my life.

~Jessica

Advocates from all across the U.S are saying that 2013 is the year for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, as communities are organizing to ensure that all 11 million undocumented immigrants have a just pathway to citizenship, Jessica is one of millions of immigrants who is blocked from health services only because she lacks a social security number. Not having access to social services also means that she can’t get financial assistance to pay for a much needed, life saving surgery. Jessica cannot continue to wait.  

WHAT’S IN THE $55,000 GOAL? 

$45,000 for the surgery

$10,000 to cover specialist/doctor costs for follow ups and the fees charged by WePay/GoFundMe

Need to know more about spina bifida and hydrocephalus?

anarcho-queer:

NYPD Enters Building Without A Warrant, Breaks Landlords Leg And Handcuffs Her To Hospital Bed For 17 Days

A Brooklyn landlord says she was shackled to a hospital bed for 17 days after cops broke her leg during a wrongful arrest in the hallway of her Flatbush building.

Karen Brim, 42, claims an NYPD officer threw her to the ground, severely fracturing her left leg, after she identified herself as the owner of the Utica Avenue building and asked why the cops were there, according to a new lawsuit.

The single mother was arrested and brought to Kings County Hospital, where she needed multiple surgeries, plates and screws to fix the bones broken in a tussle with Officer Timothy Reilly.

Adding insult to injury, court papers say, was the way police restrained her for more than two weeks during her hospital stay, with one officer posted outside her room.

“She was hand- and ankle-cuffed to her hospital bed,” lawyer Marshall Bluth told The Post. “They would not allow family or friends to enter. She wasn’t presented before a judicial hearing officer for 17 days. It was pretty egregious.”

A state court spokesman said the 24-hour standard for arraignment in criminal cases doesn’t apply when defendants are hospitalized.

But Brim was conscious and incapable of fleeing because of her injuries and could have been arraigned at any point, Bluth said.

“She’s not a flight risk. She cannot run out of the hospital. There’s no need to handcuff and ankle-cuff her. Being handcuffed to a bed — it’s like being a caged animal. It’s outrageous,” he said. “It’s beyond belief. Not for one day, not for one week, but for 17 days?”

The confrontation with cops unfolded on April 30, 2012, when Reilly, Officer Ralph Giordano and an unidentified partner spotted four neighborhood teens hanging out on a roof adjacent to Brim’s building. They chased the youths into Brim’s building, entering via the roof, as Brim was mopping a hallway, according to a police source and Brim’s Brooklyn federal court lawsuit.

Brim claims things got physical when she protested that the kids were visitors and not trespassing.

Cops maintain that Brim was the violent one — swinging a broom at Reilly, smacking him in the head and putting her hand around his neck, according to a criminal complaint.

The cops arrested the teens — Brenado Simpson, Clifton Bailey, Robean Romans and Distephano Destin — for trespassing. The charges were later dropped, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office said.

Brim was charged with assault, resisting arrest, menacing, harassment and obstructing governmental administration. Her criminal case is pending.

Brim insists in court papers the cops lied.

“She’s mopping the common areas, as she does once every two weeks or so, and suddenly police officers descend from the roof into her building and proceed to beat her up, basically,” Bluth said. “No one really knows for sure why they did this. They basically stormed her building.”

The cops did not have a warrant, according to Brim, who’s owned the three-story building for more than a decade and operates a beauty salon on the first floor.

Brim is seeking unspecified damages in her lawsuit, which accuses the officers of using “unnecessary and unreasonable” force, false arrest, falsifying evidence and violating her constitutional rights.

It was the second time in a year officer Reilly was accused of being violent with the public. Brooklyn resident Samuel Semple sued the city last year after Reilly allegedly “forcibly dragged” him out of a restaurant. Semple, who suffered minor injuries, got a $10,000 settlement in January.

The city will review Brim’s allegations once it gets a copy of the lawsuit, a Law Department spokeswoman said.

(via sinidentidades)

thepeoplesrecord:

100+ Guantanamo inmates on hunger strike, possibly in grave condition
March 12, 2013

Lawyers for Guantanamo Bay inmates have claimed “all but a few men” are on a hunger strike over their Qurans being taken away. The condition of the strikers “appears to be rapidly deteriorating and reaching a potentially critical level,” they said.

Most of 130 people housed in Camp 6 of Guantanamo Bay may be involved in the strike.

“My client and other men have reported that most of the detainees in Camp 6 are on strike, except for a small few who are elderly or sick,” Pardiss Kebriaei, a New York lawyer representing Yemeni detainee Ghaleb Al-Bihanim, told AFP. Men have reported coughed up blood, lost consciousness and were forced to move to other wings of the facility for observation.

The first reports of the widespread hunger strike in Guantanamo emerged in early March.

The protest was allegedly sparked by interference with the inmates’ personal belongings.

“Since approximately February 6, 2013, camp authorities have been confiscating detainees’ personal items, including blankets, sheets, towels, mats, razors, toothbrushes, books, family photos, religious CDs, and letters, including legal mail; and restricting their exercise, seemingly without provocation or cause,” the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) said in a March letter to the US Military.

They added that men’s Qurans were confiscated in a “desecrating”manner, and that prayer time was not respected. Most, if not all, of the Guantanamo detainees come from the Middle East, and are devout Muslims.

Prison officials have acknowledged that the hunger strike is taking place. However, they deny that it is a large-scale event: Nine detainees are refusing food, five of whom are being fed through tubes inserted into their stomachs, according to Robert Durand, director of public affairs for the Joint Task Force Guantanamo.

Durand also said that the claims of desecration of the Quran were unfounded.

“To be clear: there have been no incidents of desecration of the Quran by guards or translators, and nothing unusual happened during a routine search for contraband,” he told AFP.

Guantanamo Bay is a US Military prison facility opened on the wake of 9/11, as part of the George W. Bush administration’s ‘War on Terror.’ The prison currently holds 166 people, many of whom have spent over a decade there without official charges brought against them. Washington has alleged the inmates are terrorists who plotted or acted against the American people. Guantanamo Bay became a source of heated public debate after it was revealed that US forces had tortured detainees.

Barack Obama promised to close the facility at the beginning of his first term as president, but the facility remains open.

Source

Not only has the facility remained open, Obama oversaw a $40 million renovation in July 2012. The prison has received more than $500 million in renovations since 9/11.

Also, many Guantanamo detainees had been found to be innocent over the years, even though they served many years inside the prison. WikiLeaks released military files that revealed about 150 innocent men have been imprisoned in Guantanamo in the past few years.

Most were Afghan or Pakistani farmers, drivers or working men who were arrested in an attempt at intelligence gathering & never had charges brought against them or were ever taken to court but held for lengthy periods of time.

(via colonial-mentality-deactivated2)

sentencedtolovehim:

this daddy popped out of a castle to surprise his daughter :’) children are always the ones who pay the most during incarceration! so happy this one finally has her daddy back! her words were: “DADDY YOURE HOME!!”

beautiful. 

karbelm:

Did you know that only 1 out of 4 kids in prison were locked up for a violent crime?

The Annie E. Casey Foundation put out a report last week highlighting the youth incarceration statistics in the United States. This colorful infographic highlights some of the key parts of that report.

It’s definitely an eye-opener.

Education NOT Incarceration 

anarcho-queer:

Incarceration Rate For Blacks 6 Times The National Average

The incarceration rate for American-Americans is so high that young black men without a high school diploma are more likely to go to jail than to find a job, thereby causing the breakup of families and instilling further poverty upon them.

“Prison has become the new poverty trap,” Bruce Western, a Harvard sociologist, told the New York Times. “It has become a routine event for poor African-American men and their families, creating an enduring disadvantage at the very bottom of American society.”

While few would argue against locking up murderers and rapists, many social scientists have begun to discuss the problem of imprisoning too many people – especially when those people face long sentences for nonviolent crimes. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, locking up about 500 people for every 100,000 residents, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The incarceration rate for African-Americans is about 3,074 per 100,000 residents, which is more than six times as high as the national average. Black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma are particularly vulnerable: with an incarceration rate of 40 percent, they are more likely to end up behind bars than in the workforce, Pew Charitable Trusts reports.

Since the incarceration rate is highest for African-Americans, it makes it more difficult for blacks to rise out of poverty, receive higher levels of education, and escape a life of crime.

Here are a few more facts about black incarceration taken from the New York Times:

• Among male high school dropouts born between 1975 and 1979, 68 percent of blacks (compared with 28 percent of whites) had been imprisoned at some point by 2009, and 37 percent of blacks (compared with 12 percent of whites) were incarcerated that year.
• By the time they turn 18, one in four black children will have experienced the imprisonment of a parent.
• More young black dropouts are in prison or jail than have paying jobs. Black men are more likely to go to prison than to graduate with a four-year college degree.

think-progress:

Undercover cops shoot 11 rounds and kill 16-year-old Kimani Gray in NYC. However, witnesses question the official story. 

anarcho-queer:

This is where Kimani was shot yesterday by the NYPD. Over 200 people gathered today to protest his death. Police escalated the situation and a riot broke out. Several store windows were broken and bottles + rocks were thrown at police.

Protesters will be gathering tomorrow as well, time and place is still being discussed. I’ll post an update as soon as there’s more news.