Kristopher ” Joey ” Waller, the NYC Student and Youth Coordinator is facing unjust and bogus charges for organizing to Drive Out the Bush Regime. Waller’s trial is on Jan.23rd and your voice is urgently needed to demand these charges pressed by Hunter College, Columbia University and the City of New York be dropped immediately.
Read the statement below, sign it, and circulate it widely.
( NOTE: Waller’s trial has been postponed to March 6th.)
Kristopher ‘ Joey’ Waller is a Student and Youth Leader in the movement to Drive Out the Bush Regime and has emerged as a visible symbol of a generation fighting for a radically different future. For that he has faced an unrelenting series of political attacks; including being jailed, beaten, hospitalized and banned from Universities. These are not just a ‘string of arrests’, but a concerted effort to silence a powerful voice of opposition to the Bush Regime.
Waller has been targeted for arrest and brutalized by the NYPD and Campus Police 5 TIMES in the past 3 months! Campus police at Hunter College and Columbia University have carried out repeated attacks on Waller due to his leading role in organizing for the Nov. 2nd protests that launched a movement to Drive out the Bush Regime.
* When thousands of poor and Black people were left stranded to die on rooftops and the National Guard ran ‘ shoot to kill’ missions in New Orleans ; Waller distributed flyers opposing the Bush Regime’s criminal neglect in New Orleans at Columbia University, only to be handcuffed, arrested, and banned from Columbia’s campus.
*As the U.S military dragged detainees down long corridors to torture chambers at Guantanamo Bay, Waller was beaten and arrested by campus police at Hunter College for symbolically wearing a black hooded mask & orange jumpsuit in protest of the Bush Regime’s immoral and illegal torture of detainees.
*On Nov.2nd, while leading the crowd in chanting, undercover police rushed Joey and proceeded to arrest him and anti ( police brutality activist Juanita Young. While in police custody, Juanita Young was denied medical attention during an asthma attack and police viciously assaulted Waller during the march. (Kristopher was recently cleared of all charges stemming from his arrest on Nov.2).
A dangerous precedent cannot be set when the administration of Columbia University can arrest and ban people from campus for handing out flyers exposing the Bush Administration’s criminal neglect in New Orleans and racist treatment of poor, Black people as wholesale cargo and criminals.
The outrageous attacks by campus police at Hunter and Columbia University represent an escalating climate of fascistic police-state measures under the Bush Regime and the attacks on critical thought and dissent in academia. As events unfold around a President who openly admits to committing impeachable offenses and we face a historic moment ripe with both danger and possibility for change; it is crucial that those on the frontlines of the movement demanding Bush Step Down be defended when under attack and serve as inspiration for all those yearning for a future without the Bush Regime. The words of Pastor Niemoller “First they came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I wasn’t a Communist…” describing the stages of persecution and silence during Nazi Germany, underline the need to defend those who come under attack for their political views like Kristopher Waller who has been targeted by the authorites for being a member of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.
A few days after Waller was cleared of all charges stemming from his arrest on Nov.2nd, he was attacked again by the NYPD for protesting the opening day of the confirmation hearings for Alito to the Supreme Court. The police first charged Kristopher with a ‘park violation’ for temporarily hanging a donation bucket on a park’s pole, then they switched their position with a fabricated claim that he had an outstanding warrant, then when that did not hold up they switched their position again to charge him with disorderly conduct. This is a mockery of a travesty of a sham. These Orwellian measures reflect the very draconian and repressive world represented in Alito that Waller was protesting.
We, the undersigned, demand that Columbia University and Hunter College drop all charges against, cease the political harassment of, and apologize to Kristopher Waller! Waller must not be convicted of the bogus charges for protesting Alito! The ban prohibiting Kristopher from organizing on Columbia University’s campus must be lifted! We also call on students at campuses nation-wide to send statements of support, and to join, support and demonstrate their demand: Bush Step Down and take your program with you, the night of the State of the Union Address and the following Saturday (Feb.4th) in Washington D.C.
Kristopher faces trial for his arrests at Hunter College and Columbia University on March 6th and Feb.8th for the Alito Protest. Please sign this statement and demand that Kristopher Waller be cleared of all charges and intimidation and punishment for student activism stop. Call the Dean of Student Life at Hunter College 212.772.4876 and Alan Brinkley at Columbia University 212-854-2404 to demand charges against Waller be dropped.
Signed,
Brian Ellis, Department of Anthropology, UCLA
Christopher Evans, Cleveland Plain Dealer*
Larry Felson, Oakland High teacher and Oakland Education Asssociation Site Rep.
John Fessel
Adam Klein
Allen Lang, National Student and Youth Organizer, World Can’t Wait
Caleb T. Maupin
Bryan Ogilvie, activist-Hampton University Student
Ashley Owen
Michael Peters,Vice President Gay, Lesbian, and Straight alliance,Cleveland State University*
Miles Solay, Outernational*
John Stevenson, Columbia College-Chicago*
Angela Vannucci Rome, Italy
Flood the Manhattan D.A Office with calls demanding these bogus charges be dropped immediately -Manhattan D.A Office (212) 335-9000
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