Support & Defend Fly Benzo of Hunter's Point!!!
Police critic, Poet, Communitarian and Historian Fly Benzo aka Debray Carpenter keeps catching hell since police murder of Kenneth Harding! [link]
More info about the State security agencies targeting Black Community Leadership: [link]
"Fly Benzo for President" 2012 [northbayuprising.blogspot.com/2012/10/fly-benzo-for-president-2012.html]
2013-06: Fly Benzo, alongside the Black Riders Liberation Party and the Bay Area Black Builders, demands Local Hire to rebuild the so-called "Ghetto"! [link]
"Fly Benzo Repression and Police Harrassment"
2013-06-11 upload to Youtube [youtube.com/watch?v=Y5APtCmB5y8]:
Candidate for San Francisco District 10 Supervisor, is harassed by SFPD in front of his house in an attempt to intimidate/ silence him.
2013-05-14 update:
Fly Benzo with just a few of his friends...
At least 80 people from all over the Northern California Bay Area packed the courtroom April 20, 2012 in support of Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, unjustly convicted for exercising his First Amendment right to photograph the police and organize for justice after the SFPD murder of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. on July 16, 2011. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
Fly Benzo lets the community know that police are retaliating against him. This is Mendell Plaza, the central gathering place in Bayview Hunters Point.
Fly Benzo rides the T-Train, the light rail line that connects downtown San Francisco to Bayview Hunters Point, Fly’s lifelong home. The T-Train has been central to controversies over the community’s exclusion from construction jobs when it was built and, since then, over police abuse of passengers who cannot show them a transfer as proof they’ve paid their fare. Police murdered Kenneth Harding, 19, on July 16, 2011, for lack of a $2 transfer.
This is how copwatcher Fly Benzo is treated by SFPD – in full daylight in Mendell Plaza in full view of a crowd of community residents. – Video frame: TryntaGetIt
This is the incident that led to Fly Benzo currently facing four years in prison. Readers are urged to pack the courtroom for his trial, beginning on Friday, Jan. 6, 9 a.m., at 850 Bryant St., San Francisco, in Department 22.
Note by mezkillercop -
The day after this event (to announce the annual October 22nd Protest Against Police Brutality), Fly Benzo was beaten and arrested by the police. … After most of the speakers spoke, the police came and told us to shut off the sound system because we did not have a permit. One of the more vocal people who spoke up was Fly, who pointed out the pettiness of the police action when there were unsolved murders in the neighborhood. Note the passive aggression being displayed when the officer’s hand is playing around with his gun when Fly was speaking out. Fly’s arrest is police retaliation plain and simple. It’s unjust and corrupt.
Just like the unsolved murder of Tupac Shakur, whose mother was a Black Panther, the “powers that be” like to shut up popular music artists who people can rally around. This is the same thing. Fly Benzo is a talented hip hop artist who has a future. He also speaks out about the police repression in his community, San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point. The “powers that be” who tell the police what to do want to silence him.
This serene scene is Mendell Plaza as it should be used. Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter) is at far right; his father, contractor and community leader Claude Carpenter, teaches drumming to a youngster in the foreground. Too often, however, SFPD destroys the peace by barging in and harassing, beating and arresting people without provocation.
2011-11-24 "Police critic Fly Benzo keeps catching hell since police murder of Kenneth Harding" by Minister of Information JR from "San Francisco BayView" newspaper
[http://sfbayview.com/2011/police-critic-fly-benzo-keeps-catching-hell-since-police-murder-of-kenneth-harding/]:
The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe,” both available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com.
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You are listening to the Minister of Information on Hard Knock Radio (broadcast on KPFA Nov. 17, 2011). Today we’re going to be talking to San Francisco activist DeBray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo, as he’s known on the streets and in the rap world, about what’s been going on with police terrorism in Hunters Point.
Fly has been very active and his family has been very active in the Hunters Point community. He has been one of the frontline soldiers in this fight for justice in the case of Kenneth Harding, an unarmed 22-year-old Black male who was murdered in Hunters Point by the San Francisco PD over a muni transfer. Fly, what’s happening with you?
Fly Benzo: What’s up?
M.O.I. JR: Can you tell the people a little bit about your history in activism? Can you tell people how did you get active and a little bit about your family and who they are in Hunters Point?
Fly Benzo: My father has been an activist for a long time; his name is Claude Carpenter. My mom (Barbara Banks), she was the first female contractor in San Francisco and she was African American. I really started with my activism when they built the T-Train Line on Third Street around 2003 and I was too young to even work but I was fighting for my people’s rights because it was none of my peoples working that T-Line.
M.O.I. JR: Well, for people who don’t live in San Francisco, what is the T-Line and why was it important for people to work?
Fly Benzo: The T-Line is basically a train, it’s kind of like BART, it’s kind of like the subway in New York. We never had trains that went to Hunters Point. We had trains that bring goods but we never had passenger trains that come to Hunters Point and they’re basically trying to integrate the City. They’re trying to gentrify Hunters Point and make it easier for people to get to Hunters Point on the train.
M.O.I. JR: But the other thing that was important about it was like a hundreds of millions dollar project that the community didn’t get hired to build. People outside the community got brought in and made the money.
Fly Benzo: Yes, sir, and even when we did get some kind of cut, the only jobs we got was stop sign jobs, holding up stop signs – and that’s all you’re going to see. You go to any of these construction sites, you’re going to see a whole lot of people holding stop signs and then once the job is over they don’t need them for nothing, nowhere. They don’t need stop sign holders on every job.
M.O.I. JR: So basically what you’re saying is that they were not trained to do any of the high level jobs that would be transferrable at other places of employment or other construction sites. What are some of the other movements that you got involved with before you got involved with this Kenneth Harding case?
Fly Benzo: Another movement would be the Deshon Marman case, where he was arrested for sagging on a US Airways plane. They have no dress code and they let another man fly in nothing but a bikini, nothing but panties and a bra, when they arrest this Black man for sagging and he’s a college student. He only came to San Francisco because his friend was murdered. He was going to the funeral and on his way back he got arrested and taken to jail and he had to get bailed out. Just like me, he has all these false charges. They dropped his charges but he had to bail out of jail.
M.O.I. JR: This was at San Francisco Airport?
Fly Benzo: At San Francisco Airport, and San Francisco police patrol the San Francisco Airport, but they took him to San Mateo County Jail and then they sent the transcripts or whatever to Redwood City, so it was a whole bunch of controversy with that case.
M.O.I. JR: Yeah, that was in 2011, right?
Fly Benzo: That’s right.
M.O.I. JR: What ended up happening with that case because I did hear about that?
Fly Benzo: Yeah, the case was dropped and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with the legal aspects of the case. I heard they were offering some free flights.
Then after that I spoke, well, during that, I spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting, and I spoke about how we get criminalized in the Bayview on the T-Train and the police chase people down because they don’t have a transfer on the T-Train while the murderers and the rapists and the robbers get away. I mean we got over 1,000 unsolved homicides in San Francisco. I mean Sharmin Bock (candidate for district attorney) said in her campaign we have 1,000 unsolved homicides – and they chase people down for transfers in Bayview Hunters Point.
M.O.I. JR: Well, for those of you who are just tuning in, we are talking to activist Fly Benzo right here on Hard Knock Radio with the Minister of Information JR. Fly, can you tell the people a little bit about the Kenneth Harding case? Kenneth Harding was somebody who was recently murdered by the police in San Francisco, but can you tell them a little bit about the case specifically for the people who have never heard that name?
Fly Benzo: Like I was saying about the Deshon Marman thing, when I spoke before the Board of Supervisors meeting, a couple of days later Kenneth Harding was shot down, and a lot of people in the community know me as an activist so they hit my phone immediately. They was telling me, like, the police killed somebody and then somebody else came up to me and showed me a video and I ran down there as fast as I could from the Monte Carlo. That’s about 8-10 blocks.
M.O.I. JR: And what happened?
Fly Benzo: He was out there bleeding. They had a bunch of cops out there. It was like a big standoff with the police. They had a large area taped off and it was whole bunch of police out there looking everywhere but by where dude was shot for a gun. They’re going up on rooftops and they were looking everywhere for a gun that obviously wasn’t there.
Kenneth Harding was bleeding on the ground. I think they had taken him off by that time, but then we walked around because they had the area taped off. So we walked all the way around the block the other way so we could get to the news reporters and tell them the community’s side of the story, because this Kenneth Harding incident isn’t an isolated incident.
It’s been women that have been beat up by the police for not having a transfer on the T-Train, and I put it on my show. I broadcast it on Channel 29 public access in San Francisco, and my show is called “It’s Really Real TV” and it comes on late night. A lady got beat up for not having a transfer on the T-Train.
I basically ran from the police and I didn’t have a transfer, but I’m thinking they’re not going to chase me for a transfer but they actually called backup to take me down for a transfer. This is basically criminalizing poverty.
The African American youth in San Francisco have a 70 percent unemployment rate, so our population is rapidly decreasing. It’s going to continue to decrease when the police are criminalizing our poverty in San Francisco. They are already tearing down our low-income housing.
M.O.I. JR: Didn’t you catch a number of cases for being on the front lines and representing the Hunters Point community against police terrorism? How does that tie in?
Fly Benzo: I caught a whole bunch of cases. I spoke on Sharen Hewitt’s show on Channel 29. The next day the police must have seen the show and they arrested me on sight – narc cars and a black and white – and they all hopped out and came straight to me with the handcuffs dangling and arrested me and told me, “You’re not getting cited out this time.” And I was in jail for about five days with resisting arrest charges.
M.O.I. JR: For it to be resisting arrest, what was the initial arrest for?
Fly Benzo: There was no reason to arrest me.
M.O.I. JR: So they arrested you for resisting arrest?
Fly Benzo: Yes, and I didn’t even resist. That’s the cold part.
M.O.I. JR: But I’m saying like how can they get on a charge of resisting arrest when they had no probable cause to arrest?
Fly Benzo: It’s crazy; it’s police misconduct.
M.O.I. JR: OK, what’s the second time?
Fly Benzo: This latest time, a cop pulled out his video phone and started videotaping me after he had unplugged the radio (in Mendell Plaza at Third and Palou, where playing music is commonplace), and the community didn’t like it. He started videotaping me and I’m doing no crime.
So I pulled out my phone and I started videotaping him and obviously he felt that a threat to his job or his position or him getting a promotion or whatever – and he wanted to try to knock my phone out my hand. So I told him not to touch me and I recorded him again and he did it again and he tried to grab my arm and tried to put me under arrest.
I wasn’t trying to get arrested because I just got out of jail for five days for nothing, but I know what happens. I mean I was just coming from school, just got to Third Street and Palou.
I saw my brother, I stopped, and I mean they started harassing me as soon as they came to Third Street – like Black people aren’t welcome in San Francisco. If we’re not welcome on Third Street, what makes you think we’re going to be welcome on Market Street? If we’re not welcome on Third Street, what makes you think we’re going to be welcome in Chinatown or Koreatown?
Why can’t African Americans have a cultural mecca in San Francisco? How come every other culture is San Francisco is celebrated in San Francisco? That’s the kind of thing we need to speak on.
M.O.I. JR: So to get to the point where they racked you and your brother up?
Fly Benzo: So they took us, they grabbed my arm and tried to put me under arrest. And by this time, backup was coming and a whole lot of cops were on me.
They tried to charge me with assault on an officer and resisting arrest causing serious bodily harm, but I mean, is videotaping a cop a crime?
M.O.I. JR: Where did the assault charge come from? What had happened?
Fly Benzo: I have no idea. I assaulted no one. I didn’t let them just arrest me because I had committed no crime, but I mean at first all they were trying to do was take my phone.
But they put me under arrest, they beat me up. I was hospitalized, and I was put in jail. They gave me $95,000 bail and I had to come up with $7,600 to get out and I’m out on bail right now and I owe the bail bondsman.
We’re selling T-shirts and I have a Facebook account, Free Fly Benzo. Look it up and you can buy T-shirts. We got all kinds of different designs. Look up my video, “Fly Benzo, War on Terror.” And we have some raw and uncut footage on there and you can check it out.
We have an entrepreneurship program we’re checking out and working on, I Too Have a Dream. We have a club at City College, Black Star Line Coalition. I mean, man, we’re pushing.
I was getting straight As. I was going to court every time. I had a bail reduction hearing. I had letters from my teachers, and the judge refused to reduce my bail.
And this child molester coach from Penn State, his bail was $100,000 and he touched six kids. He’s accused of touching six kids and his bail was only $5,000 more than mine and all I did was videotape a crooked cop. And I’m facing four years in the state pen for videotaping a cop.
M.O.I. JR: One last time, your email address or where people can find you online if they want to get directly in contact with you?
Fly Benzo: Yes, on Facebook, Fly Benzo, or on Twitter, @Fly Benzo.
Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter), a straight-A student at City College and lifelong resident of Hunters Point, has been beaten and jailed repeatedly since he spoke out against the police murder of Kenneth Harding over a $2 T-Train transfer. Fly is currently out on $95,000 bail, still owes the bail bondsman $4,000 and is raising funds by selling T-shirts.
This serene scene in Mendell Plaza, in the heart of Hunters Point at Third and Palou, with DeBray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo (far right) and his father, Claude Carpenter (center), and other residents enjoying community solidarity, is where police have been beating and arresting Fly.
Fly Benzo’s mother, Barbara Banks, the first woman contractor in San Francisco, spoke at the annual October 22nd Coalition rally against police brutality. – Photo: Mesha Irizarry
Contractor and lifelong community advocate Claude Carpenter, Fly’s father, also spoke at the October 22nd rally on Third Street at Palou. – Photo: Mesha Irizarry
Fly spoke passionately at the press conference and rally held by the community on July 18, two days after police murdered Kenneth Harding over a $2 T-Train transfer. The rally was held at Third and Oakdale in Hunters Point, on the sidewalk where Kenny was allowed to bleed to death while police trained their guns on him and the horrified crowd. – Photo: Bill Carpenter
DeBray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo, speaks at his press conference July 28 after his release from jail the first time he was arrested for speaking out against the police murder of Kenneth Harding. – Photo: Brant Ward, SF Chronicle
"War On Terror"
by Fly Benzo, from "It's Really Real TV" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1H8Q2DENr0]:
Music Video Filmed, Directed and Edited by Phil Jackson.
Black Power... United We Stand... Divided We Fall... STOP THE VIOLENCE, START THE HEALIN'!!
"Picture Perfect"
by Fly Benzo, from "It's Really Real TV" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm7gRW5BOGE]:
Music Video Shot by Kevin Epps (@KevinEpps) (Straight Outta Hunters Point) & Phil Jackson (@PhilipsDrunk). Edited by Phil Jackson.
2012-05-29 "Fly Benzo fights bans from Mendell Plaza and West Point"
by Earl Black from "San Francisco Bayview" newspaper [http://sfbayview.com/2012/fly-benzo-fights-bans-from-mendell-plaza-and-west-point/]:
Earl Black, Bay Area-based photojournalist, videographer and member of the Oscar Grant Committee, can be reached at ephilipblack@netscape.net.
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Pack the courtroom Wednesday, May 30, 1:30 p.m., San Francisco Superior Court, 400 McAllister St., Dept 514
The restraining order barring DeBray (Fly Benzo) Carpenter from the Cahill construction site and the stay away order barring Fly’s presence at Mendell Plaza are SFPD examples of this nation’s conspiracy to mass incarcerate and control the lives and the deaths of the young, Black and male in America.
SFPD’S targeting and attempted criminalization of Fly Benzo boiled over when Fly stood up against racist employment and training practices at the Cahill construction site in Bayview Hunters Point and stood up against the police murder of Kenneth Harding. In the Cahill case, SFPD issued a restraining order barring Fly from the site. In the case of Kenneth Harding, SFPD ordered Fly kept under surveillance and videotaped.
The attempted pipeline to prison for Fly continued with his unlawful arrest and conviction on false charges of resisting arrest, assault on a police officer and obstructing a police officer in the performance of his duties. Following a large turnout of community supporters at his April 20 sentencing hearing, sentencing was continued to a second date, April 27, when Fly was sentenced to three years’ probation.
Probation conditions include that Fly consent to full searches of his home, car and self at any time or place, with or without probable cause or warrants, and that he “stay away” from Mendell Plaza and all of Third Street between Oakdale Avenue and Quesada.
“(P)robationers and parolees are at increased risk of arrest because their lives are governed by additional rules that do not apply to everyone else,” writes Michelle Alexander in “The New Jim Crow; Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness.” “Myriad restrictions on their travel and behavior (such as a prohibition on associating with other felons) as well as various requirements of probation and parole (such as paying fines and meeting with probation officers) create opportunities for arrest … in fact, that is what happens a good deal of the time.”
Probation is a severe penalty for standing up for one’s community rights and videotaping the police. This is what DeBray (Fly Benzo) Carpenter is fighting.
It’s not his fight alone. The system of mass incarceration and control threatens, brutalizes and represses us all. Our fight is for Fly Benzo, Kenneth Harding, Kenneth Caruthers, Antoine Thomas, Oscar Grant, James Rivera, Luther Brown, Raheim Brown, Trayvon Martin and the list goes on and on and on.
It’s not his fight alone. The system of mass incarceration and control threatens, brutalizes and represses us all. A victory for Fly Benzo is a victory for us all.
If you haven’t felt the sting of runaway police crime in your neighborhood or family yet, then God forbid it will be your husband, father, brother, son or uncle next. We say “rest in peace” to those lives taken, but to the living we say “the struggle continues; the struggle is for you and yours.”
A victory for Fly Benzo is a victory for us all. Pack the courtroom Wednesday, May 30, 1:30 p.m., at the San Francisco Superior Court, 400 McAllister St., Department 514. Occupy Fly Benzo’s courtroom for us all.
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DeBray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo, a straight-A college student, is following in the footsteps of his parents, both legendary community leaders, Barbara Banks and Claude Carpenter. – Photo: Earl Black
TaLea Monet, her baby daughter Nailah Amari Bey, and their friend Ma’at show solidarity with Fly Benzo at a recent hearing. Bayview Hunters Point is solidly behind this young freedom fighter who’s taking on the twin evils of police terrorism and economic exclusion. – Photo: Earl Black
2012-05-29 "‘That’s when all hell broke loose’: The West Point construction site; Veteran economic development advocate Claude Carpenter and his son, Fly Benzo, fight for jobs for the community"
by Claude Carpenter (transcript of video by Earl Black) from "San Francisco Bayview" newspaper [http://sfbayview.com/2012/fly-benzo-fights-bans-from-mendell-plaza-and-west-point/]:
Claude Carpenter, a retired contractor and lifelong economic development advocate who emerged as a community leader when he served as the youngest member of the Joint Housing Committee working with Model Cities in the ‘70s, was the first president of the African American Contractors of San Francisco in the ‘90s and continues today to fight alongside his son, DeBray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo, for economic equity. He can be reached at lilangeltc139@yahoo.com.
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I’d like to share one of the problems they have with DeBray [Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo]. They [Cahill Contractors, which is joint venturing with Nibbi Brothers to rebuild Hunters View, aka West Point public housing, into a “mixed-income” housing complex for The John Stewart Co.] have a stay away order on the construction site in the West Point community, where they’re building 500 houses for the people that stay in the West Point projects, which they’re not going to be able to afford.
And me and my son were on the construction site and talked to the general manager about why they’re not hiring entry level people into carpentry, and that presented a problem because it’s the beginning of skilled trades coming in. They hired people in the labor positions, but when it comes to the skilled positions, they’re supposed to be giving people that don’t have any skills opportunities to enter into the construction trades as beginners and be trained for apprenticeship programs.
So we raised concerns about why they were not hiring them, and that’s when all hell broke loose, because they knew we hit the nail on the head. What we’re trying to do is build the community up because they’re not giving the people that’s in the conditions in the projects the opportunity to raise their economic standards to be able to learn skills so they could get into career type jobs so they can establish themselves.
They’re supposed to be entitled to these jobs, but there’s no one standing up for their rights. So we continue speaking out on these issues, asking for payroll reports, asking for various things that show that we’re not given equal opportunity while dollars are being circulated. It’s about a $100 million project.
And so me and DeBray went to the construction site talking to general manager, raising these concerns. That’s when he asked DeBray to get off the property. And I’m standing right there! They’re not asking me to get off the property; they’re asking DeBray. But the questions were directed by me. I’m the one who raised the issue about what they wasn’t doing.
And the gentleman that we were talking to, whose name is Chris Parker, this is when he asked DeBray to get off the property. So me and DeBray leave the property.
DeBray did not threaten him or anything else. When they told DeBray to get off the property, DeBray responded, “Well, we’re going to get YOU out of here, because this is our neighborhood.” That’s the only thing DeBray said. And then after leaving the property, Chris calls the police and files a complaint against DeBray saying DeBray threatened him.
So what the police did is get a temporary restraining order against DeBray. But the very next time I saw Chris Parker, he told me that I can’t come to the property any more either, so if I wanted to talk to him I had to meet him downtown in one of the City offices downtown along with some other people, or whatever the case may be, for raising concerns on behalf of those residents out there.
The problem is that we know what we’re talking about, and that’s the thing that’s causing us a problem. They don’t want anybody to tell it for what it really is in terms of how they own that property or how the property managers for the City are putting money into the property or HUD is putting money into the property – $40 million is being put into that development by the Redevelopment Agency – but yet a private developer [The John Stewart Co.] is going to own it.
They are forcing low-income people out of there and they’re breaking up a large concentration of African-Americans before we can wake them up by letting them know they have rights. They have rights when it comes to jobs; they have rights when it comes to equal opportunity, which is being denied them.
They are forcing low-income people out of there and they’re breaking up a large concentration of African-Americans before we can wake them up by letting them know they have rights when it comes to jobs.
So this why DeBray is having such a problem. They’re trying to make an example out of DeBray, but yet DeBray is not the only activist that’s standing up.
A few years prior, in that same Housing Authority area, they were remodeling them 30 years ago and we stood up for those residents. I was beat by the police. I was taken to a jury trial exactly like they’re doing to my son for being a political activist and speaking out.
But the truth of the matter is we have to organize around our residents. We can’t allow what they’re doing when all of these dollars are circulating without giving these people the opportunity to upgrade their economic standards, so they can buy one of those condominiums that’s being built out there.
It’s nothing like someone wants to stay on welfare. Welfare is supposed to be a temporary situation, not a permanent one, so when the opportunity for them to upgrade off of welfare presents itself, they should be given an equal chance to go off into training programs to be able to change their situation.
The economics in the community – the unemployment in the community – is off the hook. There’s something like over 50 percent unemployment in that area and the majority of people that are unemployed stay in the Housing Authority projects.
Unemployment in the community is off the hook – over 50 percent unemployment in that area and the majority of people that are unemployed stay in the Housing Authority projects.
Not only are they going to tear those [West Point] housing projects down, they’re going to tear every project down in that community. Eight projects are going to be torn down. West Point is the first one, where building is going on now, and then it’s going to go to Alice Griffith, Oakdale, Sunnydale projects, and most likely the Potrero Hill projects.
So if we don’t stand up for what’s going on in this first project, it’s going to be like a domino effect. It’s going to be billions of dollars circulating in that community in the next 15 years. What we’re trying to do is give our people an opportunity for the jobs, the training opportunities, business opportunities, the whole 9 yards, so as the dollars are circulating they will filter down into our pockets as African Americans and we can recirculate those dollars into the community. That’s what economic development is all about.
DeBray’s mother owns a construction company, but we fought to get her into the trades as a first step apprentice. So it shows that we know how to make the process work when you can go in at an entry level and come out in four years as a journeyman and start your own businesses or anything else. So we have a clear example of how that works because we went through the process.
The only thing is that when it comes to our young people today, we want them to have the same opportunities that we had. That’s myself, that’s DeBray’s mother when she was, I think, 18 years old when she entered her apprentice program.
She was 22 years old when we started the construction company back in 1984. And [now] we also have stores, we have restaurants that are owned by us, we have janitorial services furnished by us, because this is what it takes. We’re not asking for a handout; we’re asking for a hand up. And not only are we asking, we’re demanding.
So this court procedure is next Wednesday, so we have to come to court about this restraining order. We need as many people coming out in support of what is really going on in that neighborhood [as possible] so this restraining order won’t become permanent.
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On the spot where SFPD murder victim Kenneth Harding, 19, bled to death while police trained their guns on the crowd to prevent anyone from helping him, Claude Carpenter, with his son, DeBray (Fly Benzo) at his side, spoke at a press conference called by police accountability activist Mesha Irizarry two days after the murder. – Photo: Bill Carpenter
The struggle for an equal opportunity in our HOOD
2012-05-06 "Fly Benzo is free, so why is Mendell Plaza a no Fly zone?"
by Malaika Kambon from "San Francisco Bayview" newspaper [http://sfbayview.com/2012/fly-benzo-is-free-so-why-is-mendell-plaza-a-no-fly-zone/]:
Malaika H. Kambon is a freelance photojournalist and the 2011 winner of the Bay Area Black Journalists Association Luci S. Williams Houston Scholarship in Photojournalism. She also won the AAU state and national championship in Tae Kwon Do from 2007-2010. She can be reached at kambonrb@pacbell.net.
You can help by donating at a WePay page created to raise funds for DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, who was arrested, hospitalized and persecuted for copwatching, in order to help pay bail and court fees as well as for his appeal. Go to [https://www.wepay.com/donations/freeflybenzo–debray-fly-benzo-carpenter-defense-fund].
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From Hunters Point to Haiti, Black communities are fighting with an indomitable spirit against all forms of political repression – from illegal searches and seizures to illegal housing foreclosures, land thefts, police brutality, paramilitary occupations and the continuation of forced enslavement in the burgeoning – and global – prison and military industrial complex of the U.S.
Nowhere is this fight more in evidence than in the Bayview Hunters Point community in California and in all parts north, south, east and west in Haiti. The battle rages and is being waged against the same enemy.
And in true revolutionary fashion, in both locales, Africans are fighting back against nearly insurmountable odds – with attitude, courage, dignity and absolute fearlessness.
Consider the case of DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter. He was busted on Oct. 18, 2011, by two of SFPD’s finest, John Norment and Joshua Fry, for (gasp!) participating in a community organized rally while playing a boom box in a (dare I say) “unauthorized” location – said location being a gy-normous plug attached to a tree in Mendell Plaza in the heart of the vibrant, predominantly Afrikan Bayview Hunters Point community.
Then, when said SFPD officers, following their practice of repeatedly harassing Fly, began to videotape him being arrested for playing a boom box, Fly decided that it was fitting that he record them, the SFPD, while they wasted taxpayer’s hard earned coin by harassing Black people playing music on community land.
Of course, then the oppressor became really incensed. After all, Fly is a young Afrikan Man, insisting upon his First Amendment right to assemble peaceably in a public place. Can’t have that. Perish the thought that Afrikans should get any uppity ideas about standing up and speaking truth to power.
So, comes now the brutal assault of DeBray Carpenter, in which he is arrested by the SFPD’s Norment, Fry and four or five others of their ilk, who are in fact armed and who are trespassing upon the land that Fly’s parents practically built. He is also injured, hospitalized, jailed and charged with feloniously resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, and videotaping police officers and thus interfering with them in the performance of their sworn duties – of harassing the community.
After all, they hang out in Mendell Plaza on their bicycles all day, four to six deep, every day. Explained Officer Fry at Fly’s trial, “It’s our job to be there so people feel safe.”
Now, the tree and the plaza in which it sits is so centrally located that it is half a block from the internationally renowned San Francisco Bay View newspaper building, half a block from the century old Bayview Opera House and the very public Joseph Lee gymnasium and half a block from where 19-year-old Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. was brutally murdered on July 16, 2011, for being too poor to pay the $2 light rail fare on the new T-train line that banned Black people from building it – but that passes right through the heart of the Bayview Black community, taking millions of dollars of our hard earned money while claiming to meet our transportation needs.
Fly knows this. Being an astute young man and the product of three generations of proud and fearless community organizers – from his parents Claude Carpenter and Barbara Banks, leading contractors training and hiring community workers for decades, to his grandparents and their predecessors – he knows the injustices that exist.
So, while standing on community land, doing what he was born to do, he’s busted for playing a boom box? And charged with feloniously objecting to being brutalized, beaten and busted for videotaping armed attackers after they videotaped him for peaceably assembling in public?
And then, in typical kangaroo court fashion, after a trial by a jury not of his peers, Fly is convicted of three misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest, assault upon a police officer, and that ever present interfering with said officers’ dubious duties by videotaping them in their illicit performance.
Fly’s attorney, Severa Keith, fought valiantly for acquittal on all charges. In a message to Bay View readers after the trial, she wrote:
“While the outcome could have been much worse, we wanted better. DeBray was convicted by a jury that did not have the opportunity to hear the entire story. The judge refused to allow any evidence related to DeBray’s prior interactions with these officers, which included incidents of racist acts, threatening acts, taunting and evidence that their superiors had told them to video record Mr. Carpenter.
“Evidence of DeBray’s history of community activism was also excluded. All this was excluded on the basis that it would tend to ‘confuse the issues’ in the trial. Evidence was limited to the events of Oct. 18, 2011.
“The exclusion of this important and relevant history between DeBray and the officers who arrested him was shocking to me and made an already uphill battle a mountain. It is clear from watching the video of DeBray’s arrest that the incident did not start on that day; there was a history there, and the jury did not hear it.
“Rather than confuse the issues, the history of Officer Fry’s and Norment’s outrageous conduct actually illuminates and clarifies what happened on Oct. 18. Their bias, motives and personal animosity towards DeBray were not allowed in the trial.
“The effect of the exclusion of this evidence, which was going to be presented by four willing and brave witnesses, who were willing to speak up about the officers’ conduct, even though they feared retribution, became clear during the trial. During DeBray’s testimony, several jurors asked the question of whether he had had past contacts with these officers. Their questions went unanswered.”
Orwellian? Yep. Illegal? Yep. Happen before? Of course! Jack boots in your cheerios? You bet.
And shades of Ancestor-Warrior Oscar Grant III, 22, who videotaped his killers as they killed him on Jan. 1, 2009, on the Fruitvale BART platform in Afrikan East Oakland, while he and his friends were peacefully assembled on a BART station platform, laughing, talking and on their way home.
So here’s the re-mix, the part where the people step up and fight back more strongly.
Fly Benzo is alive, and we, the true people, would like him to stay that way. We object to one of our favorite sons being snatched, stolen and harassed.
Supported 100 percent by community, friends and family Fly, being an intelligent young man, has increased his writing and speaking out, for he realizes that not only have his First Amendment rights as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution been violated, but he is now subject to enslavement via that same constitution’s illegal 13th Amendment as well.
“There have been many cases in which video evidence has contradicted an officer’s testimony and either an officer was convicted of wrongdoing or a suspect’s charges have been overturned or dismissed. With this great lack of integrity and accountability of the very ones who are paid to uphold the law, it is imperative, in the interest of justice, that civilians’ right to record police be preserved rather than criminalized,” wrote Fly in “The First Amendment Right to Record the Police.”
Thus, in a tremendous outpouring of worldwide love and community support, it seems as though half of Hunters Point, if not all of it at some point passed by Mendell Plaza, at Third and Palou on Wednesday, April 18, 2012, when 30-50 people held a press conference to emphasize that the freedom of one of its own, DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, was of the utmost importance.
And on April 20, even though Fly was not sentenced as scheduled, 80-100 people packed the courtroom and the adjoining hallways at the Hall of (in)Justice as influential members of the community spoke in court on Fly’s behalf. This is indicative of the fact that his status as a peacemaker, negotiator and mentor in the lives of many Bay Area youth and as a community, entrepreneurial and student leader and as a staunch advocate for the civil rights of dispossessed Afrikan and other communities of color is well known and documented.
So when DeBray Carpenter was sentenced on April 27, half the room was again filled with his supporters, with more on the way, and hundreds more awaited news of the outcome via blog post, email and social networking.
And by the conditions of probation imposed upon him, the courts again showed their willingness to continue violating his First Amendment rights and the rights of the entire Bayview Hunters Point community.
The court issued numerous fines and conditions that are in direct violation of his right to community activism via peaceable assembly, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. In fact, his sentence includes a “stay away” order from Mendell Plaza, the town square at the heart of Bayview Hunters Point that was a top priority community demand for decades and, since it was finally built, a place used more effectively for feeding, entertaining, educating and unifying the community by Fly Benzo than by anyone else.
Fly cannot go to court and protest the stay away order until June 8, over a month after sentencing. And in an attempt to humiliate him, the very officers who assaulted him demanded that he apologize to them for their obstruction of his lawful citizen’s right to videotape police officers performing their duties in a public space!
The following are the court ordered shackles imposed upon DeBray Carpenter as a consequence of his conviction on three misdemeanors, including “use of a cell phone to harass and intimidate officers in the performance of their duties”:
* Three years’ probation
* A jail suspended sentence of six months for each of the three misdemeanor counts of resisting arrest, placing a (cell) phone in the face of police officers, thus preventing the performance of their duties, and assault while being arrested. Counts 1 and 3 are to be served concurrently and count 2 served consecutively, so he’s under the threat of one year’s jail time if probation is violated.
* A stay away order, prohibiting DeBray Carpenter from being on Third Street between Oakdale and Quesada, i.e. Mendell Plaza and the next block south, unless passing by in a vehicle.
* Random warrantless searches and seizures of his person, property and home, to which he must consent
* A ban on weapon possession, which is a superfluous condition, since Mr. Carpenter was unarmed at the time of his arrest
* One hundred hours of community service, to be performed on weekends
* The completion of anger management classes
* An order to obey all laws and to remain at arm’s length from all officers
* Maintenance of full time school attendance and/or employment
* Participation in San Francisco’s SWAP street and sidewalk sweeping program
* Payment of nearly $1,000 in court fines and fees, including the civil liability fines to be imposed if probation conditions are violated.
Anybody who thinks this isn’t a pre-planned noose around this man’s neck, raise your hand!
The videotaping of police officers performing their duties in a public space is a right that is “unambiguously” protected by the First Amendment, the federal 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Aug. 26, 2011. Therefore, in ruling on DeBray Carpenter’s case, did retired Judge Jerome T. Benson not only deny Fly Benzo the protection of the First Amendment on last Oct. 18 but abridged and criminalized Fly’s First Amendment rights for the next three years.
So are cell phones, cameras and camcorders now deemed lethal weapons? And is the use of them to record illicit police activity now deemed a criminal act?
Is this how the courts intend to overturn our rights as demonstrated to us by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale when the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, born of the Deacons for Defense in the South, began teaching the African community to watch and record the police terrorizing our communities?
And what if, while the stay away order is in effect, some sadistic “Officer Friendly” decides to force Mr. Carpenter to sweep the wrong sidewalk? And then busts him for doing so?
Can the Orwellian jackboots of 1984 come any closer to DeBray Carpenter and his family in 2012 without causing loss of life? I think not. Do you hear the jackboots coming? Do you hear the clinking of the chains? And did you notice that the noose is always made in America?
By virtue of standing up to authority, Fly Benzo has become a hero to many, and while many alleged activists and politicians are motivated only by greed and personal gain, Fly Benzo remains of and for the people.
Therefore, the shouts of “He’s Not Guilty! He’s Not Guilty!” “Free Fly Benzo,” show a fierce outpouring of community strength, love and commitment to fight for the freedom of one of its own as expressed by multitudes from the outset of his assault by SFPD. His wrongful conviction on Feb. 22 is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
But somehow this fact got lost in the shuffle. Judge Benson chose to focus upon criminalizing Mr. Carpenter – alleging him to be the violent one – while denying crucial evidence of prior violence by police against him, thereby decreeing that Fly, a young Black man, has no rights that the judicial system of the U.S. is bound to respect. Judge Benson should have remained in retirement.
The April 27 court sentencing was the culmination of months in which Fly and the Bayview Hunters Point community took the battle for his freedom from the streets into the courts, which are just another kind of battlefield, albeit one with a pre-stacked deck.
For the reality is that DeBray has been repeatedly harassed for over a year by the SFPD for his activism as a freedom fighter analyzing the meaning and application of First Amendment rights in the context of struggle, building connections between his school and the Hunters Point community via the Black Star Liner Coalition he founded, feeding and empowering the people of his community, and demanding accountability for the murder of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr., while helping to debunk the media misinformation that sought to criminalize Kenneth Harding and seeks to criminalize all young Afrikan men.
The 22-year-old veteran community organizer has been accomplishing all of this while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average at City College of San Francisco and mentoring youth at POOR News Network.
So now, DeBray Carpenter faces three years of probation, during which time the state of California may violate him and send him to jail on the flimsiest of excuses. That’s 1,095 days and nights, until the year of his 25th birthday, with a noose hanging over his head.
And a particularly disturbing corollary to these months of proceedings is that merely being charged with a felony, despite being acquitted of all felonies, means that Mr. Carpenter is bound by law to submit DNA test results to the court to become part of a permanent state, local and federal criminal database and record against him!
That, along with the “stay away” order, is like giving Fly a felony conviction, sub rosa with the implication of drug involvement. This is outrageous and constitutes racial profiling and tracking and provides yet another way for law enforcement to escalate its harassment of him.
He is now virtually a pre-convicted felon on probation in the eyes of the state, regardless of his battle to exercise his First Amendment right to record the police. This drives home further the point of extrajudicial punishment within a systemically racist society and the fact that the police can legally operate outside of the law with impunity.
But the world now knows that the struggle continues in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. They know that Fly Benzo’s fight is also against involuntary servitude, i.e. the re-enslavement of Afrikan people that is supported by the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
This amendment states: “Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” The re-enslaving clause is highlighted.
Fly Benzo’s fight against trumped up charges is a fight for the abolition of the prison industrial complex and its practice of the forced servitude (read: enslavement) of Afrikan men and women on its plantations, as dictated by an unjust government in the 21st century.
We, as the new abolitionists, know this, for we know that the commonly held belief that Afrikan enslavement ended in 1863 is fallacious. Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow,” and the PBS documentary “Slavery by Any Other Name” bears this out.
We know that the enslavement of Afrikan men and women continues to this day, well into the 21st century, via forced imprisonment, and is legal, as is borne out by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. constitution, a law passed by the U.S. Senate on April 8, 1864, by the House of Representatives on Jan. 31, 1865, and officially adopted on Dec. 6, 1865 – a law which is still on the books without change on this day in April 2012, 147 years later, in what U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama proclaims to be a “post-racial “ America.
So that even with probation, Fly has jail time literally hanging over his head. This is the next stage of pervasive racism: being tethered by a court of “law” to an unjust system of government that is willing to convict him of trumped up charges in order to enslave him and sell his coerced physical labor to the highest bidder within the 21st century prison industrial complex.
This is a modern day form of delayed convict leasing, the system that was begun after the U.S. Civil War to provide prisoner labor to private parties, such as plantation owners and corporations like Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co. Corruption, lack of accountability and racial violence resulted in “one of the harshest and most exploitative labor systems known in American history,” according to a source quoted by Wikipedia.
For dramatic insight into the 19th century convict leasing system see the entire PBS documentary “Slavery By Another Name, at [http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758/].
Fast forward to the 21st century.
Revolutionary journalist and prison abolitionist Kiilu Nyasha writes in “Slavery on the new plantation”: “Private companies operate 264 correctional facilities housing some 99,000 adult prisoners,” as opposed to the five private prisons and 2,000 prisoners of 1995, and California is touted as its “new frontier” by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
“Employers (read: slavers) don’t have to pay health or unemployment insurance, vacation time, sick leave or overtime. They can hire, fire or reassign inmates as they so desire, and can pay the workers as little as 21 cents an hour. The inmates cannot respond with a strike, file a grievance, or threaten to leave and get a better job,” Nyasha writes.
Twenty-first century private companies including Microsoft and Wal-Mart now contract prison labor, replacing the 19th century convict leasing system – but not replacing the 19th century 13th Amendment, making the enslavement of African men and women legal.
And according to Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” more Black people are enslaved behind bars today than were enslaved on the plantations in 1850, before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
These are the punitive measures that Fly Benzo faces for “standing his ground” and exercising his First Amendment right to record the police. Trumped up charges, a trial by a jury not of his peers, witnessing vital evidence being disallowed by an ultra-conservative retired judge – just as in actual physical chattel enslavement, these punitive measures are meant to dissuade, intimidate and silence others from following in his footsteps.
But for Afrikans to resist the vast prison that is America is a revolutionary act. It is an act that carries the torch of liberation in the finest human tradition, accepting as it does the tremendous gift of freedom from chattel enslavement given to us by our Afrikan ancestors on the tiny island in the Caribbean that now encompasses Haiti.
In the battle for freedom fought between 1791 and 1804, Haiti defeated the greatest military might of that era: France twice in the form of Napoleon Bonaparte and his brother-in-law Gen. Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc; England, Spain and America via then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson’s gift of $40,000 in foreign aid to Napoleon. Napoleon’s dream of preserving the “Jewel of the Antilles” by keeping its people – Afrikan Haitians – enslaved failed.
But Haitians did not stop with freeing themselves. Haitians fought for Afrikan freedom in the U.S., fought with Simon Bolivar to free South America, sent soldiers to fight with Mexican revolutionaries, fought side by side with Ernesto “Che” Guevara to free Cuba from the brutal Bautista regime, and provided a safe haven for all who fled enslavement.
Today Haiti still battles the same Euro-American corruption and greed that saw France extort $22 billion from Haitian coffers for her audacity in freeing herself from chattel enslavement.
Just as DeBray Carpenter is subjected to the “business as usual” imposition of having to pay nearly $1,000 in fines and $95,000 bail (read: ransom) into San Francisco’s prison coffers for the dubious distinction of being placed on probation for standing up for his First Amendment rights.
It is the same battle, many fronts, from Hunters Point to Haiti.
Taken as a whole, the continued global targeting of Afrikan people in general and youth in particular, is more than a violation of their civil rights. It is a violation of the human rights of Afrikans in the world and a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights. Unlike Haiti, however, the U.S. Constitution legalizes enslavement, and criminalizes Afrikans who protest, while refusing to legitimize their right to do so.
Oh irony: that this targeting is not illegal according to the U.S. constitution, by virtue of its 13th amendment!
Yet in the face of escalating violence, Fly Benzo and others like him are courageously standing up and challenging the injustices written into the U.S. Constitution, as well as the ways in which we are attacked that are antithetical to rights supposedly guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
We, the organizers and defenders of our communities from Hunters Point to Haiti, fight with dignity the viciousness of paramilitary invasion into our communities, fight the deliberate misinformation of mainstream media by speaking truth to power, and fight with our minds and with cameras, not guns. For this we risk being murdered and/or being forced into enslavement.
But unity is being forged and battle is being waged. Despite the targeted killings of our people, attacks upon our media and occupations of our communities, Afrikan people continue to resist and stand up against 21st century attempts at our global re-enslavement.
There is a growing community awareness that is positive and supportive of its freedom fighters, an awareness that knows that DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter is not guilty! We salute our young community leaders such as he. We need them and must nurture and protect them from terrorists in blue.
Mr. Carpenter will be appealing his case on the battlefield of the courts. He and his family will continue to organize in the community and on college campuses.
As he reminded us through his rap, “My folks in Afrika need food; instead they’re sending them bombs.” He makes the vital connections and the struggle continues.
All power to the people!
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Fly Benzo, known for his mentoring of youth, holds Nailah Amari Bey, one of his staunchest supporters. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
All 64 available seats in the courtroom were filled with Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter’s supporters with dozens more in the hallway outside on April 20 for the first session of his sentencing hearing. Fly was unjustly convicted for exercising his First Amendment right to record the police and organize for justice after the SFPD murder of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. on July 16, 2011. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
Barbara Banks, mother of Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter and a contractor and community leader in her own right, is always there standing firm, side by side with her son. Here she reviews some legal documents at the initial April 20 session of his sentencing hearing. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
Elders confer outside the courtroom at Fly Benzo’s sentencing April 27: Claude Carpenter, father of DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, videographer and Oscar Grant Committee activist Earl Black and Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff. Claude had spoken to the court April 20 on behalf of his son, correcting the misinformation in the record introduced by the prosecution. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
The community gathered around DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter at an April 18 pre-sentencing press conference and rally in Mendell Plaza, where Fly was brutalized and arrested Oct. 18, 2011, for recording the police and where Kenneth Harding had been murdered by SFPD on July 16, 2011. On April 27, Fly was sentenced to stay away from the plaza, the heart of the community. From left in the back row are Archbishop Franzo King of St. John Coltrane Church, Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia of POOR Magazine, Kenneth Harding’s mother Denika Chatman, Mesha Irizarry of the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Larry Felson of the October 22nd Coalition, DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter, Fly’s attorney Severa Keith, journalist Alex Schmaus, videographer Kilo G Perry, Kenneth Harding’s uncle Marco Scott, Sharena Thomas, Fly’s cousin Kelley, writer TaLea Monet and her baby daughter; in front are activists Rebbeca Ruiz-Lichter and Kitty Lui. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
This is the box where it all started, an electrical outlet attached to a palm tree in Mendell Plaza. On Oct. 18, 2011, SFPD pulled the plug on the boom box where music was playing and people were gathering in support of community investigation into the murder of Kenneth Wade Harding, Jr. Now the box is locked, a signal, like Fly Benzo’s stay away order, that SFPD, not the people, are in charge of Mendell Plaza. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
TaLea Monet, Fly Benzo and comrades contemplate the sentence just handed down April 27. If Fly is free, then why is Mendell Plaza a no Fly zone? – Photo: Malaika Kambon
Mendell Plaza is the drumbeat and heart of BVHP. Community members meet to discuss events, share food and clothing, hear music and current news. Occasionally, it is also a hair salon! Here the son of Salahaquyya is getting his hair done by Sister Paige. Sala has a TV show. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
Fear of Afrikan people gathering together dates from slavery and prompts today’s stay away order keeping Fly Benzo out of Mendell Plaza for exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
At the Free Fly Benzo press conference and rally on April 18 were many of the people who are leading Bayview Hunters Point and the Black community generally to a new era of power, peace and prosperity: Mike Brown of Inner City Youth, Kenneth Harding’s mother Denika Chatman, Kilo G Perry of Cameras Not Guns, Fly Benzo and Kenneth Harding’s uncle Marco Scott. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
On Oct. 18, 2011, police who have been stalking Fly Benzo ever since he began protesting the SFPD murder of Kenneth Harding on July 16, 2011, viciously beat him when he video-recorded them in response to their video-recording of him. On Feb. 22, 2012, Fly was convicted of three misdemeanors for assaulting the police. Both the police murder of Kenneth Harding and the police beating of Fly Benzo occurred in Mendell Plaza, the heart of Bayview Hunters Point at Third Street and Palou. Though Fly and his supporters are relieved that Judge Jerome Benson did not deprive him of all his liberties by handing him the maximum sentence of three years in jail, his sentence does deprive him of the liberty of Mendell Plaza, the town square of Bayview Hunters Point, where Fly has long been the most effective organizer. The plaza is now a no Fly zone and a no free speech zone.
2012-04-28 "Fly Benzo and The Political Economy of Bayview- Hunters Point San Franciso's Black Community"
video by Earl Black [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjGt_JyQ9Vc]:
Claude Carpenter descibes his son DeBray (Fly Benzo) Carpenter's challenge to Baypoint Projects construction Manager Chris Parker on questions raised by Mr. Carpenter concerning Parkers failure to hire project residents for construction jobs. Following this meeting, Fly Benzo was issued a restraining order by the San Francisco Police Department
"John Stewart demands the Bay View retract the truth"
editorial by Willie Ratcliff (reprinted from the July 25, 2007, Bay View to provide more information about The John Stewart Co., the private developer that the City has chosen to rebuild – and own – what was once public housing at West Point) [http://sfbayview.com/2012/fly-benzo-fights-bans-from-mendell-plaza-and-west-point/]:
We’ve been mulling over how to respond to a letter dated June 18 [2007] from the giant law firm known as MoFo, Morrison Foerster, www.mofo.com, boasting “one thousand lawyers worldwide.” MoFo claims that “Selling off the City,” a front page story in the May 16 Bay View, “defames my clients,” The John Stewart Co. and its chairman, John Stewart, and demands the retraction of five statements in the story. Under the state law MoFo cites, John Stewart may be planning to sue us for libel.
The first statement MoFo objects to, “They were, in fact, barred from ever managing HUD-funded housing again,” deserves clarification. It was Marie Harrison’s recollections of life at Geneva Towers under John Stewart’s management that were being reported in that part of the story. She says she vividly remembers a debarment when the buildings failed inspection after inspection but that it may have been John Stewart personally and not The John Stewart Co. that was debarred. Stewart vehemently denies that either was ever debarred.
Others who lived at the Towers or supported the tenants have similar recollections. Larry Bush of HUD was unable to confirm or deny whether Stewart or his company had been debarred after checking the “Debarment” section of the HUD website, saying the records don’t go back to the years of struggle at Geneva Towers in the early ‘90s.
Our newspaper, however, has a long memory. John Stewart’s management of Geneva Towers was the subject of the lead story in our very first issue after I became publisher. In the Feb. 3, 1992, New Bayview – we modified the name of the paper to San Francisco Bay View in 1996 – the story, headlined “New Bayview Photographer Detained by Geneva Towers Guards,” tells of the detention of our first photographer, a young Russian woman named Hava Gurevich, in a jail-like cell in the Towers basement and quotes a guard explaining why: “because she has a camera.”
She was later led through the dark and muddy basement to see “‘the man in charge,’” the escorting guards stopping in the parking lot to signal to men above not to shoot. “Five or six men in business suits stood waiting, she said, glaring at her with their arms folded.” Louise Vaughn, president of the Geneva Towers Tenants Association, soon arrived, saying, “‘You have no right to detain her. She came to see me.’ Ms. Vaughn took her guest by the hand.
“As the two women walked through the complex together, Ms. Vaughn pointed out the poorly lit parking lots, the heavy doors with broken locks and the many areas where a person could be trapped and not be heard calling for help.
“‘I began to feel like in a prison camp,’ Ms. Gurevich reported. ‘Who are they protecting? They tried to stop me every time I raised my camera.’
“Responding to the New Bayview’s calls, both John Stewart of The John Stewart Co. and John Phillips, special assistant to HUD Regional Administrator Robert DeMonte, said they had heard about the incident. HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) bought Geneva Towers last June after the previous owners had failed to make repairs. HUD awarded The John Stewart Co. the property management contract. …
“Mr. Stewart volunteered that the incident should not have happened. ‘We can’t stop anyone from taking photographs,’ he said. But, he added, ‘I heard there was a very attractive young woman out there. I’m 6 foot 4 and I’m not safe there.’
“Asked by the New Bayview whether his company, as required by HUD, was supporting tenants attempting to organize, Mr. Stewart said they had ‘put together a resident management council quickly in order to get HOPE funds (federal funds that are disbursed to the tenants and spent to train the tenants to take over management of their complex).’
“When applying for the funds, they did not recognize the existing resident group, which is headed by Ms. Vaughn, he said, ‘but we consulted them.’
Although Mr. Stewart described Ms. Vaughn as being ‘at odds with other tenant groups out there,’ Ms. Gurevich observed a cordial relationship among the tenants as she walked through Geneva Towers with Ms. Vaughn. However, she said, she did not once see a friendly word exchanged between the management company’s guards or agents and the residents.
“Since HUD purchased the 576-unit complex last summer, Geneva Towers has remained federal property. Before seizing the complex, HUD gave the previous owner seven months to make repairs. According to newspaper accounts at the time, the owner, despite receiving $200,000 a month in HUD rent subsidies, failed to repair broken sewage lines, inoperative elevators and unsafe kitchens. After eight months under HUD ownership, those conditions have still not been corrected, according to tenants.
“At the time of the HUD takeover, Regional Administrator DeMonte said, ‘The intent is to make sure low-income people have decent, safe and sanitary places to live.’ Eight months later, judging from Wednesday’s incident, HUD is not yet ready to show the public whether it has achieved its goal. Louise Vaughn and Hava Gurevich of the New Bayview newspaper witnessed much room for improvement of living conditions and resident empowerment.”
The very next issue of our paper reported the eviction of a Geneva Towers family that they believed was “retaliatory. The husband, a guard at Geneva Towers since 1989, has always refused to mistreat tenants. …
“The husband, along with his wife and teenage son, a boy described admiringly by neighbors as a fine young man and excellent student, now face eviction even though the husband is one of the most experienced and highly trained guards on the Geneva Towers security force. A sergeant for two years, he trains other guards and administers the security guard license exam. …
“Contacted by phone by the New Bayview newspaper, John Stewart said that 35,000 tenants live in complexes his company manages, and he does not know this particular family. He promised to look into the situation. However, at New Bayview press time, the eviction was proceeding. The family was reluctantly moving out of their long-time home, not knowing where they will go or whether they will be homeless tomorrow.”
That reminds me of a meeting at Geneva Towers a year or two later, when tensions between Stewart and the tenants had reached a fever pitch – both the temperature and tempers in the tightly packed room blazing hot. John Stewart sidled over to my wife Mary, apparently hoping to recruit even one person to his side, and, as she recalled in our May 16 story this year, whispered in her ear, “I have 35,000 Black people under my control in San Francisco.” What sort of person “controls” 35,000 other people?
With the clarification noted above, we stand by our May 16 story, including the other four statements MoFo says Stewart objects to. We do not agree that either of these statements is false or misleading: “What they say they do is redevelop for the poor, but what they actually do is take the land, displace the people and flip the project into mixed-income market rate housing.” Thousands of low-income public and subsidized housing tenants have been swept out of San Francisco by mixed-income redevelopment scams.
What they say they do is redevelop for the poor, but what they actually do is take the land, displace the people and flip the project into mixed-income market rate housing. Thousands of low-income public and subsidized housing tenants have been swept out of San Francisco by mixed-income redevelopment scams.
The third statement Stewart disputes is a quotation by James Tracy, a former organizer with the Eviction Defense Network, recalling the redevelopment of North Beach public housing: “The development team (not just John Stewart) tried to negotiate a provision where any extremely low-income unit could be converted to a higher income ‘affordable’ unit if vacated for any reason. This would have resulted in the supply of available ELI units shrinking over time.” MoFo misquotes the beginning of this passage.
Like the James Tracy quotation, the fourth and fifth statements MoFo demands that we retract are direct quotes. The May 16 story, “Selling off the City,” was written by Olivia Colt of POOR Magazine, and in the fourth and fifth statements she is quoting two of her colleagues at POOR, Vivien Hain and Laure McElroy, who applied for housing controlled by The John Stewart Co. I’m amazed that MoFo challenges these statements in hair-splitting comparisons with Stewart Co. records that applicants would expect to be confidential.
The MoFo letter’s punch line comes at the beginning of the final paragraph: “The allegations in this article are particularly damaging given my clients’ interest in the revitalization of Hunters View,” the public housing development known as West Point that overlooks the old PG&E plant that poisoned the residents for decades. They fought it to the death – the overdue death of the plant and the untimely and tragic deaths of many tenants.
The MoFo letter’s punch line: “The allegations in this article are particularly damaging given my clients’ interest in the revitalization of Hunters View.” Stewart covets the land (public housing tenants) live on, eager to replace them with wealthier folk under cover of another mixed-income scam.
Now Stewart covets the land they live on, eager to replace them with wealthier folk under cover of another mixed-income scam. These residents, victorious veterans of the epic PG&E battle, will stop Stewart too. And we back them all the way.
Hunters Point needs to determine its own destiny, to enable its own people and businesses to rebuild and renovate. Hunters Point needs no help from The John Stewart Co., AIMCO or Lennar. We can do the work ourselves.
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Hunters View public housing, better known as West Point, wasn’t such a bleak place back in the early ‘90s during the short-lived resident management and ownership movement. Then, for a few years, with the work performed entirely by residents, the project was completely landscaped, youngsters grew food and flowers in large gardens, everyone was working and peace and prosperity reigned. This photo was taken in March 2008. – Photo: Alex Welsh
John Stewart:
2012-04-27 "Fly Benzo sentenced to three years probation" by Yael Chanoff from "San Francisco Bay Guardian"
[http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/04/27/fly-benzo-sentenced-three-years-probation]
Debray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo, was sentenced in court April 27. He received three years of probation with a long list of conditions.
Benzo, student at City College, was arrested at an Oct. 18 rally in Mendell Plaza. During that incident, police officers John Norment and Joshua Fry of the Bayview precinct apparently unplugged a boombox that they said was not authorized in a street outlet. Then, when officers began videotaping Benzo, he took out his camera phone and began videotaping them as well. He was convicted of misdemeanor assault of a police officer and misdemeanor resisting arrest by Judge Jerome Benson on Feb 22.
April 27, in a courtroom with dozens of supporters, the judge announced that Benzo would serve six months each in county jail for three counts of which we was convicted, but as the six-month sentences for counts one and three could be served concurrently, the jail time would add up to a year total.
However, these sentences were suspended, and barring a change, Benzo will not serve that jail time.
The conditions include a ban on the possession of weapons, a requirement to submit to any search and seizure by police officers with or without a warrant, an order to complete anger management classes, a stay-away order from Third St. between Oakdale and Quesada, a requirement that he be enrolled full time in school and/or work, a requirement to obey all lawful orders by a police officer as well as remain arms-length away from all police officers, and about $1,000 in fees for expenses like booking and court assessment.
The judge also ordered 30 days in country jail, although 11 days already served brought the sentence to 19. However, Benzo will likely serve those days through the sheriff’s work alternative program (SWAP)—that means 19 days sweeping up the sidewalks in an orange vest.
Benzo served the 11 days before he was released on $95,000 bail.
Judge Benson also ordered that Benzo apologize to SFPD officers Norment and Fry, although the apology is not a condition of probation.
“A true apology comes from within, and it would not be a true apology if I order it,” said the judge, who came out of retirement to preside over Benzo’s case.
Benzo’s lawyer Severa Keith stated objections to two of the conditions: the requirement to submit to searches and the stay-away order. Keith objected to the search requirement on the grounds that neither contraband nor weapons plays no part in his case, and Benzo was not in the possession of either at the time of his arrest.
The area of the stay-away order includes Mendell Plaza. An important public square in Bayview, the plaza’s meaning was given new weight when it was the site of the killing of Kenneth Harding, Jr.
Harding, 19, was killed in August 2011. Harding was leaving a T train when police asked to see his transfer. Harding presumably panicked and ran away from the police. Officers shot at him as he ran, then, in a video that has circulated widely, stood around him as he bled to death.
Mendell Plaza is directly across the street from the Joseph P. Lee recreation center and the Bayview Opera House, some of the main neighborhood venues for entertainment and community gatherings. This street that divides the plaza from the opera house and rec center- Oakdale- is the cut-off for the stay-away order, so both Keith and Benzo asked Judge Benson to specify whether these locations were included in the stay-away.
After studying a map of the area, Judge Benson concluded that the opera house and rec center are outside the bounds of the stay-away order.
“We just did an event a few weekends ago where we fed over 100 people at that location,” said Benzo to the judge. “This order will prevent me from serving the community in the way that I do, as well as providing entertainment and education for the community.”
According to Benson, there’s a chance that the stay-away condition will revoked or altered when it is brought up again at Benzo’s SWAP hearing, scheduled for June 8.
Keith said of the sentence, “It’s not bad. I was working for probation, not jail time.”
However, she still plans to appeal, in large part due to what she sees as crucial evidence that was excluded from the trial surrounding Benzo’s history with the officers Fry and Norment.
According to Keith, the jury didn’t hear evidence about “racist and unprofessional things” that the officers said to Benzo on occasions leading up to the incident.
“They deliberated for a long time- four days. And what I heard from the jury was that they though police were baiting him, and didn’t condone the police behavior, but they thought Debray’s reaction was too much under the circumstances,” said Keith.
But Keith said those circumstances include a long history of police harassing Benzo.
“It wasn’t a one-time thing," she said. "And we have witnesses ready to testify to that.”
As for Benzo, he’s relieved not to be serving jail time, but wary of many of the conditions.
“They gave me a stay-away order, which they usually don’t give unless you’re caught dealing drugs,” Benzo told the Guardian.
“It will drastically affect my life. Now I can’t even organize in the community.”
2012-04-25 "Fly Benzo does not stand alone: Occupy Fly’s hearing!" by Earl Black from "San Francisco Bayview" newspaper [http://sfbayview.com/2012/fly-benzo-does-not-stand-alone-occupy-flys-hearing/]:
On Oct. 18, 2011, police who have been stalking Fly Benzo ever since he began protesting the SFPD murder of Kenneth Harding on July 16, 2011, viciously beat him when he video-recorded them in response to their video-recording of him. On Feb. 22, 2012, Fly was convicted of three misdemeanors for assaulting the police. He faces up to three years in jail at his sentencing Friday, April 27, 9 a.m., in Department 27 or 29, 850 Bryant, San Francisco. Pack the courtroom!
We should call for everyone to “Occupy Fly’s hearing.” This young Black man is alive now. We should help him now before it is too late.
We should not just sit by doing business as usual while his freedom is about to end. We have an opportunity here to make a difference. We must mourn and seek justice for our dead, but we should just as strongly fight for the freedom of our living.
We need to own that courtroom. Occupy Oakland can do it: “Occupy Fly’s hearing.” Hundreds of people will make a difference.
This case is about Fly taking a stand. He is not a “defendant”; Fly is putting the SFPD on trial. The right to videotape police is on trial here. This case has immense educational value for all of us.
We need to own that courtroom. Fly is putting the SFPD on trial. The right to videotape police is on trial here.
“Occupy Fly’s hearing” and everybody video the police, not in the courtroom but in the hallways and outside. Occupy Oakland is organized. We can do this. “Occupy Fly’s hearing.” Bring your phones, cameras and camcorders and use them. Post this everywhere!
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Standing up for righteousness: Interview with Claude Carpenter -
Earl Black: Claude Carpenter talks about a life of “standing up for righteousness” and what that means for him, his wife and his son, Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter). As happened to his father before him, Fly Benzo faces jail time for standing up for rightousness against the police, against state repression and against housing and employment discrimination in his community of Bayview Hunters Point, San Francisco.
Claude Carpenter (video transcript): I’m Fly Benzo’s father. I’m also a political activist like my son. I’m very proud of the fact that my son chooses to stand up for what is right and yet there’s consequence that go along with that.
Whenever you are willing to stand up and tell the truth, you’re going to find a whole lot of opposition because some people just don’t want to be exposed for where they’re coming from, [especially] when you choose to stand up for righteousness like Fly Benzo is doing.
Myself, his mom, the types of examples we set as being business people but yet we come from the ghetto; we come from the projects. We just had a chance to upgrade our economic standards by standing up for our rights and not just accepting things for the way they are.
And now that my son is standing up, he’s being victimized. It’s just, you know, our young people. [Society] doesn’t give very much credit to the African American younger generation, so it takes people like Fly Benzo that’s going to stand up and speak out about injustices.
And what enables him to do this is his intelligence. He’s a very intelligent young man. I’d say he’s a chip off the old block. His mom is a very intelligent African American woman; his father is a very intelligent African American man. And DeBray is a chip off the old block.
I never thought that he would turn out to be a political activist, but I am so proud that my son chooses to stand up – and I stand up alongside him. Every opportunity he gets he stands up for me and his mom, and that is one of the most beautiful things that you can experience as a father: your son standing up for our people you know, where you can just step back.
You know, when he stands up, I step back and I let him do the talking because we have to prepare our young people to assume the torch, to be able to take over and continue to stand up for what they believe. And this is what my son does; this is what Fly Benzo does.
I experienced it myself. I experienced being taken to a jury trial just for standing up for righteousness, so I know what it’s like for my son.
It’s very difficult for me as a father to see him subjected to what this society is taking him through, but I do believe as long as we stand up with him to where he knows and this society knows he’s not standing alone.
We have to come out in force. We have to be at his sentencing hearing Friday. We have to stand up with him to let him know that he is not standing alone.
There’s people who believe in what he’s standing for that’s willing to stand up with him, so what we have to do, we have to come out in force. We have to be at his sentencing hearing when he comes back for sentencing [on Friday, April 27, 9 a.m., at 850 Bryant in Department 27 or 29], and we have to come out in numbers to let them know you just can’t make an example out of Fly because he’s standing up for what he believes.
And if we believe in Fly, we have to stand up by his side to where he’s not alone. It’s difficult to see your son when you know how decent a person he is being subjected as a political prisoner, because that’s what he is, someone that’s willing to stand up for what he believes.
They haven’t discouraged Fly, but we have to stand up with him to let him know that he is not standing alone.
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Barbara Banks, mother of Debray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter and a contractor and community leader in her own right, is always there standing firm, side by side with her son. Here she reviews some legal documents at the initial April 20 session of his sentencing hearing. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
Photographer-videographer Earl Banks completes an interview with DeBray Carpenter’s father, Claude Carpenter, who spoke to the court on behalf of his son, clearing the record of misinformation introduced by the prosecution. – Photo: Malaika Kambon
2012-04-23 "He is not Standing Alone" by Earl Black ( ephilipblack [at] netscape.net )
[http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/04/23/18711908.php]
Resistance leader in Bayview-Hunters Point, Fly Benzo is facing a second sentencing hearing 4/27 on false misdemeanor charges punishable by as much as two years jail time. This video features an interview with Fly's father immediately after Fly's first sentencing hearing. San Francisco, CA.
2012-04-20 photographs by Malaika H Kambon (People's Eye Photography) showing "Occupy the Court! Free Fly Benzo!" gathering
2012-04-20 "FLY BENZO ON RACISM, DISCRIMINATION, HIS POLICE SET-UP, & TRAYVON MARTIN"
by carol harvey [http://www.youtube.com/user/carolharveysf], posted at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef9CaOf11jM]:
On Friday, Apr. 20, 2012, the San Francisco Bayview's Fly Benzo spoke at a Redstone Building racism conference about racism, discrimination, the police setting him up on a bogus charge and Trayvon Martin. Fly is articulate and smart despite the crappy camera. My good camera's battery tanked and I couldn't leave Fly's wonderful address and his rap music unrecorded.
2012-04-18 Press conference: Why do we say ‘Free Fly Benzo’?
video by Occupy CCSF
2012-04-18 "Fly Benzo, unjustly convicted, will be sentenced Friday – press conference today... Why do we say ‘Free Fly Benzo’?"
by Alex Schmaus from "San Francisco Bay View" newspaper [http://sfbayview.com/2012/fly-benzo-unjustly-convicted-will-be-sentenced-friday-press-conference-today/]:
Pack the courtroom for his sentencing Friday, April 20, 9 a.m., in Department 27 at the Hall of Injustice, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco
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Alexander Schmaus is a staff writer at The Guardsman, the student newspaper of City College of San Francisco, where DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter is a straight-A student. Alex can be reached at alexschmaus@gmail.com or facebook.com/alex.schmaus. This story first appeared on Socialist Worker.
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A press conference will be held Wednesday, April 18, at 3:30 p.m., on the spot where Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter) was arrested in October, in Mendell Plaza at Third Street and Palou in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. Fly Benzo, Bayview Hunters Point resistance leader, emcee and City College student, is campaigning against trumped up misdemeanor charges. He faces probation or up to three years in county jail at his sentencing hearing on Friday, April 20, 9 a.m., in Department 27 at 850 Bryant, San Francisco.
Fly Benzo has faced repeated harassment from SFPD for his activism. He is well known for speaking out about the death of Kenneth Harding at the hands of the police. Twenty-four hours after publicly criticizing the SFPD on public access television last July, Benzo was approached by police and arrested. Benzo was released from jail almost four days later with no charges filed.
Unemployment, predatory lenders and police repression are pushing Black people out of San Francisco. We need to defend young leaders like Fly Benzo from unjust incarceration if we are to defend the right of all Black people to live in the city.
The murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., like the murder of Kenneth Harding and the campaign of repression against Fly Benzo in San Francisco, expose both how deep racism runs in the United States and how many people are willing to resist.
Let’s push now for justice for Kenneth Harding and Trayvon Martin and freedom for Fly Benzo!
As Benzo wrote recently: “Live ya life like a KING, don’t be the Enemy’s pawn / My folks in Africa need food, instead they sendin ‘em bombs / Don’t be blind to what’s goin on right in front of ya face / And put ya fist up in the air and middle finger to the jakes / Cause sleepin’ on the movement’ll be ya biggest mistake / That’s why you still gone see me ridin ‘til my sentencin date!”
Trial of a resistance leader -
Dozens of supporters mobilized to sit in court with Benzo during his trial. At the end, although he was convicted of three misdemeanors, he was acquitted on a felony charge of resisting arrest, and the jury failed to reach a verdict on a felony charge of obstructing police with the use of threats or violence. “While the outcome could have been much worse, we wanted better,” said Benzo’s lawyer, Severa Keith.
The charges stem from Benzo’s arrest on Oct. 18 of last year during a confrontation between a group of Bayview Hunters Point residents and San Francisco Police Officers Joshua Fry and John Norment [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4EMoxMlto0]. Bayview Hunters Point is the last largely Black neighborhood in San Francisco and one of the poorest communities in the Bay Area.
The confrontation began when Fry pulled the plug on a community boom box in Mendell Plaza, a neighborhood gathering place [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vbh28x0_E4]. Benzo was using his phone to video Fry and Norment when he was arrested.
Police pulled the plug on the sound while Benzo was performing at a neighborhood demonstration against police violence the day before as well. But according to Keith, “The judge refused to allow any evidence related to [Benzo’s] prior interactions with these officers, which included incidents of racist acts, threatening acts, taunting and evidence that their superiors had told them to video record him.”
Keith said she was “shocked” that such evidence was excluded. She said she is planning an appeal of the verdict. “It is clear from watching the video of [Benzo’s] arrest that the incident did not start on that day,” said Keith. “There was a history there, and the jury did not hear it.”
As Benzo said: “The court system cannot be trusted. There were no Black people on the jury. I was judged by my race and the way I wear my hair. Slavery and racism are alive and well.”
Benzo is known for speaking out about the July 16, 2011, death of 19-year-old Kenneth Harding, who was shot at 10 times by the SFPD as he ran away from officers through Mendell Plaza. Bullets pierced Harding’s leg and neck and entered his brain, killing him. Police now claim that Harding died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The cops were chasing Harding from a Muni transit platform for not having a transfer as proof he’d paid the $2 fare. At the time, Benzo told a local television station [http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8255383], “Regardless of if they found a gun or not, it’s the fact they chased him from the T-train over a [$2] transfer.”
Twenty-four hours after publicly criticizing the SFPD again, this time on public-access television, Benzo was approached by police and arrested July 23, 2011, near the intersection of Oakdale Avenue and Lane Street. Benzo was released from jail almost four days later with no charges filed.
Despite the hardship of $95,000 bail and time in court, Benzo is working to progress at City College. “I’m working on a paper about African heritage for my English class,” he said. “I’m not doing so well, but the teacher said it’s amazing I’ve been able to do what I have.” [http://sfbayview.com/2012/the-rich-heritage-of-africa-in-the-west/]
In Mendell Plaza, where Kenneth Harding was murdered by SFPD last year on July 16 and where Fly Benzo, one of his most vocal advocates, was arrested Oct. 18, community leaders Benzo and Kilo G Perry prepare to begin the Justice 4 Kenneth Harding March – in the pouring rain – on Jan. 22, 2012.
2012-02-24 "City College student ‘Fly Benzo’ put on trial after heated confrontation with SFPD" by Alexander Schmaus from "The Guardsman"
[http://sfbayview.com/2012/city-college-student-fly-benzo-put-on-trial-after-heated-confrontation-with-sfpd/]
This story first appeared in The Guardsman, the San Francisco City College student newspaper, where Alexander Schmaus is a staff writer. The Guardsman can be reached at http://theguardsman.com/contact-us/. DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter is a straight-A student at City College.
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Feb. 24 – Bayview Hunters Point political activist and City College student DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter was put on trial for allegedly obstructing and assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
The court case stems from an incident on Oct. 18, 2011, when two San Francisco police officers and a group of Bayview Hunters Point residents had a heated confrontation in Mendell Plaza. The incident began when officers Joshua Fry and John Norment arrived at the plaza, and Fry pulled the plug on a community boombox.
Officer Fry testified that music was playing so loudly that he could not hear the sound of his own radio or earphones. “I could have walked 20 feet away to hear, but I didn’t because that is historically a high-crime area,” said Fry. “It’s our job to be there so people feel safe.”
When asked if there was a noise ordinance that applied, Fry said, “No, it’s not applicable, because nobody complained.”
Mendell Plaza, located at Third Street and Palou Avenue, is an important public gathering place in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. “People have been plugging in that boombox right there for years,” said Benzo’s lawyer, Severa Keith. “That corner is used for everything.”
After the music was silenced, angry neighborhood residents were heard yelling, “You wouldn’t bother white people like this!”
Fry and Norment began filming the crowd with their cell phones and, in response, Benzo recorded them as well.
“They were harassing me,” said Benzo, “and Officer Fry took out his iPhone and started recording me first.” Benzo recorded Fry trying to smack the phone out of his hand.
A second video, shot by bystander Gerald Robinson, records Benzo’s arrest and can be seen on YouTube. Robinson’s video shows Norment shake his pepper spay can in front of the angry crowd.
In court, Norment acknowledged that shaking the pepper spray “may have been” perceived as antagonistic. Fry and Norment both testified that they were concerned about their own safety.
“I was afraid he was going to hit me,” said Fry, referring to Benzo. “I thought we were going to be attacked,” said Norment.
However, Benzo appears non-violent throughout the video, while Fry is shown smacking Benzo’s arm.
Benzo continued to film. Then Fry grabbed and twisted Benzo’s arm while other officers closed in and forced him to the ground.
Rodney Fitzgerald, one of the other officers involved, testified that the crowd was “yelling and screaming about police brutality.”
Norment fell and hit his head while apprehending Benzo and allegedly suffered a concussion.
He was treated at San Francisco General Hospital 10 days later for localized neck pain and a bruise on the back of his head and did not report to a doctor about suffering from headaches until nearly three weeks after the incident.
The doctor who treated him in October said it would be “unusual” for a person to feel concussion symptoms after so much time had passed.
“My theory is that the police started it,” said Keith. “An officer cannot disrespect a person and use their anger as grounds for arrest,” she said.
When asked if pulling the plug on a group’s boombox was disrespectful, Fry answered, “Depends on context and history.”
The police department’s “community policing” policy is key to Keith’s argument, and she asked both Fry and Norment whether they were familiar it. Both confirmed they were.
The policy directs officers to maintain respectful and courteous relations with community members, to practice open communication and to have knowledge, understanding and respect for the history and culture of the communities they serve.
The prosecuting attorney argued that police should be granted discretion to determine which situations require reasonable use of force.
Benzo is currently out on $95,000 bail and faces up to four years in prison.
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2012-03-07 Update by Fly’s attorney, Severa Keith, follows with instructions on how you can help
[http://sfbayview.com/2012/city-college-student-fly-benzo-put-on-trial-after-heated-confrontation-with-sfpd/]
DeBray was charged in Count 1 with a felony, resisting arrest causing great bodily injury. The jury acquitted him of that, but he was convicted of misdemeanor resisting. Count 2 was a felony, obstructing officers with use of threats or violence. The jury hung on that count, but he was convicted of misdemeanor obstructing. He was convicted of Count 3, which was assault on an officer, a misdemeanor. An appeal of the convictions is planned.
While the outcome could have been much worse, we wanted better. DeBray was convicted by a jury that did not have the opportunity to hear the entire story. The judge refused to allow any evidence related to DeBray’s prior interactions with these officers, which included incidents of racist acts, threatening acts, taunting and evidence that their superiors had told them to video record Mr. Carpenter.
Evidence of DeBray’s history of community activism was also excluded. All this was excluded on the basis that it would tend to “confuse the issues” in the trial. Evidence was limited to the events of Oct. 18, 2011.
The exclusion of this important and relevant history between DeBray and the officers who arrested him was shocking to me and made an already uphill battle a mountain. It is clear from watching the video of DeBray’s arrest that the incident did not start on that day; there was a history there, and the jury did not hear it.
Rather than confuse the issues, the history of Officer Fry’s and Norment’s outrageous conduct actually illuminates and clarifies what happened on Oct. 18. Their bias, motives and personal animosity towards DeBray were not allowed in the trial.
The effect of the exclusion of this evidence, which was going to be presented by four willing and brave witnesses, who were willing to speak up about the officers’ conduct, even though they feared retribution, became clear during the trial. During DeBray’s testimony, several jurors asked the question of whether he had had past contacts with these officers. Their questions went unanswered.
After the trial concluded, when I spoke with the jurors, the summation of their thoughts about the case was basically that none of them condoned the officers’ conduct, but they though that DeBray’s protests, words and actions were “too much.” In my opinion, they didn’t understand fully why he confronted the officers like he did or that his protest that day was not just about a boombox being rudely unplugged.
The community support in this case was powerful, as are the words and thoughts that many people have shared about the case. We will all continue to fight for justice, and it is so important for the community to continue their support of DeBray now that he faces sentencing.
Support letters needed asking for probation, no jail time
Please send letters in support of DeBray getting a sentence of probation in this matter, rather than jail time. It is important to include how you know him and a bit about yourself, if you care to include some personal details – though this is not required.
Please write about his positive impacts in the community and all his good works. Write about his successes, plans and future. Specific stories and details about when you have seen him shine are very valuable. If you know him personally, talk about your commitment to him getting through his probation successfully. Most importantly, keep it positive and write it with love and your best intentions in mind. Your letters can be emailed, faxed or mailed to me at Law Offices of Severa Keith, 179 11th St., Second Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, phone (415) 626-6000, fax (415) 865-0376.
2012-01-09 "Fly Benzo (Student, CCSF) at the San Francisco City College Board Of Governors meeting"
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap9GVFOVk78]:
Fly Benzo a student at City College of San Francisco speaks at the January 9, 2012 meeting of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges.
2012-01 message:
FREE FLY BENZO, No Jail for Copwatching!!!
The initial stages of DeBray Carpenter's trial (Fly Benzo) has begun.
Bayview-Hunters Point resistance leader, emcee and City College of San Francisco student Debray "Fly Benzo" Carpenter was wrongfully convicted February 22 on misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest, obstructing a police officer and assault on a police officer.
The charges stem from Benzo's arrest on October 18 of last year during a confrontation between a group of Bayview-Hunters Point residents and San Francisco police officers Joshua Fry and John Norment. Bayview-Hunters Point is the last largely Black neighborhood in San Francisco and one of the poorest communities in the Bay Area.
Benzo has faced repeated harassment from SF police for his activism. Last year, twenty-four hours after publicly criticizing the SFPD on public-access television, Benzo was approached by police and arrested July 23, 2011, near the intersection of Oakdale Avenue and Lane Street. Benzo was released from jail almost four days later with no charges filed.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 20. Possible outcomes range from probation to one year in county jail for each misdemeanor. Pack the hearing to demand no jail time for Fly Benzo!
Hall of "Justice"
850 Bryant Street
San Francisco, CA
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More information here: [http://sfbayview.com/2012/city-college-student-fly-benzo-put-on-trial-after-heated-confrontation-with-sfpd/]
2012-01-06 "Conscious Minds at Work" presents...
2012-01 message:
Call for a "Occupy Fly's hearing"
This young Black man is alive now. Help him now before it's too late and his freedom comes to an end. We have an opportunity here to make a difference. We must mourn and seek justice for our dead but we should just as strongly fight for the freedom of our living. We need to own that courtroom.
Occupy Oakland/San Francisco can do it.
"Occupy Fly's hearing."
Hundreds of people will make a difference.
This case is about Fly taking a stand. He's not a "defendant." Fly is putting the SFPD on trial. The right to video tape police is on trial here. This case has immense educational value for all of us.
"Occupy Fly's hearing" and everybody video the police, not in the courtroom but in the hallways and outside.
Occupy is organized.
We can do this. "Occupy Fly's hearing."
Bring your phones, cameras and camcorders and use them.
Post this everywhere!
2011-12-07 "The First Amendment right to record the police"
by Fly Benzo [http://beforeitsnews.com/african-american-news/2011/12/the-first-amendment-right-to-record-the-police-1472082.html]:
Fly Benzo lets the community know that police are retaliating against him. This is Mendell Plaza, the central gathering place in Bayview Hunters Point.
According to the United States Constitution, the First Amendment is written as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
There have been many instances when video evidence has contradicted an officer’s testimony and either an officer was convicted of wrongdoing or a suspect’s charges have been overturned or dismissed. In the interest of justice and the protection of United States citizens from abuse of authoritative power, there is no logical reason why there should be a law prohibiting the filming of police officers other than blatant governmental repression.
Gayle Falkenthal, in her Washington Times article, “All Journalism Is Citizen Journalism,” clarified that in the case Glik v. Cunniffe, the court ruled that a citizen’s right to film government officials is protected by the First Amendment. Simon Glik, a client of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), was arrested for “illegal wiretapping” after he recorded officers using force to arrest a young man on the Boston Common. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, on Aug. 26, 2011, “ruled that a private citizen’s right to videotape police officers performing their duties in a public space is ‘unambiguously’ protected by the First Amendment.”
This is how copwatcher Fly Benzo is treated by SFPD – in full daylight in Mendell Plaza in full view of a crowd of community residents. (Video frame: TryntaGetIt) This is the incident that led to Fly Benzo currently facing four years in prison. Readers are urged to pack the courtroom for his next court appearance, on Monday, Dec. 12, 10 a.m., at 850 Bryant St., San Francisco, in Department 23.
Richard Winton, in his article, “Sheriff’s Department sued over detention of photographers,” expressed the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association and three photographers who were harassed, detained and illegally searched while legally taking pictures in public places. The senior staff attorney for the ACLU declared that “photography is not a crime” and that for the police “to single them out for such treatment while they’re pursuing a constitutionally protected activity is doubly wrong.”
Thomas Clouse and Meghann M. Cuniff, in their Spokesman newspaper article, report on one case in which an officer was convicted of wrongdoing after a store’s surveillance tapes told a different story than the officer in question. Spokane Officer Karl F. Thompson Jr. claimed that Otto Zehm assaulted him in his 2006 encounter in which Zehm was beaten and tased into a coma from which he never recovered. Three years later the FBI launched a federal investigation. The jury, after review of the video evidence in contrast with Thompson’s statement, convicted him of excessive force as well as lying to investigators. This is one case in which video footage has served to ensure that justice was served and that an officer did not completely get away with murder.
Another case in which video evidence has been used to convict an officer was the 2009 shooting of BART (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit) rider Oscar Grant by former BART PD Officer Johannes Mehserle. Although many people were outraged with the verdict and the short amount of time Mehserle served in custody, it was video evidence from several onlookers’ cell phones that aided the prosecution in the historic involuntary manslaughter conviction. Johannes Mehserle was another case of a cop who almost got away with murder, as well as an officer whose testimony contradicted the videos of the respective incidents and, therefore, yet another reason filming government officials is rightfully protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
Fly Benzo rides the T-Train, the light rail line that connects downtown San Francisco to Bayview Hunters Point, Fly’s lifelong home.
The T-Train has been central to controversies over the community’s exclusion from construction jobs when it was built and, since then, over police abuse of passengers who cannot show them a transfer as proof they’ve paid their fare. Police murdered Kenneth Harding, 19, on July 16, 2011, for lack of a $2 transfer.
According to the May 27, 2011, press release of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, Officer Peter Richardson arrested Jesus Inastrilla and claimed that three undercover officers arrested Inastrilla after witnessing him spit a crack rock in his hand and sell it to Officer Guerrero, one of the undercover officers. However, video footage shows that no exchange was made. The charges were dropped after Guerrero claimed that he could not locate the alleged seized drugs in evidence.
The same day in San Francisco, 25 other cases were dropped due to lack of evidence, police credibility issues and a string of tapes with contradictory evidence to that of the statements of officers. With this lack of accountability and integrity of sworn SFPD officers, without cameras, there is no way of knowing whether or not an innocent person will be wrongfully convicted. Therefore, the protection of citizens with cameras is absolutely necessary in the best interest of justice.
San Francisco Examiner Staff Writer Brent Begin, in his article “San Francisco police to carry video cameras during arrests,” asserts that the misconduct of officers had become so prevalent and the controversy so widespread that SF Police Chief Greg Suhr proposed the idea of equipping SFPD officers with cameras to record their arrests, especially in drug cases and cases that require consent or a search warrant. These ideas come in the wake of the aforementioned string of videos. The officers involved in the arrests in question were all removed from plainclothes duty pending further investigation; however, Chief Suhr insists that the officers are innocent until proven guilty. Being an officer of the law requires a person hold himself to a higher standard and, with their superior officers brushing such violations off in such a way, justice cannot possibly be served.
By exerting such abuses of authority, officers of the law make justice unattainable without the interference of good Samaritans and “copwatchers” who record the cops’ often reckless and over the top behavior. Also, as in the cases of Mehserle and Inastrilla, the American people cannot trust officers of the law to police themselves and their fellow officers, because time and time again they have lied under oath and violated the rights of, and even killed citizens unlawfully and conspired amongst themselves to continue to sweep things under the rug.
The right to film officers while performing their duties in a public space is rightfully protected by the First Amendment and it is evident that political prisoners as well as the family members of those wrongfully killed by police officers are thankful for the court ruling that helps make justice possible for them and their respective families.
Fly Benzo, aka DeBray Carpenter, has become the Bay Area’s best known copwatcher for his monitoring of San Francisco police, especially since they murdered Kenneth Harding on July 16, 2011, and for his targeting by police for a series of retaliatory beatings and jailings. He is a student at City College and an accomplished videographer and journalist as well as a popular rapper. Bay Area residents are urged to pack the courtroom for his next court appearance – he faces four years in state prison for copwatching – on Monday, Dec. 12, 10 a.m., at 850 Bryant St., San Francisco, in Department 23. On Wednesday, Dec. 21, 8 p.m., a fundraiser party for Block Report Radio will feature performances by Fly Benzo and other rappers, including Ms. B, 5 Star Generalz and S. Venom at Twinspace, 2111 Mission St., San Francisco. Fly can be reached on Facebook or at blackstarlinercoalition@gmail.com.
2011-11-24 "Police critic Fly Benzo keeps catching hell since police murder of Kenneth Harding"
by Minister of Information JR [http://sfbayview.com/2011/police-critic-fly-benzo-keeps-catching-hell-since-police-murder-of-kenneth-harding/]:
Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter), a straight-A student at City College and lifelong resident of Hunters Point, has been beaten and jailed repeatedly since he spoke out against the police murder of Kenneth Harding over a $2 T-Train transfer. Fly is currently out on $95,000 bail, still owes the bail bondsman $4,000 and is raising funds by selling T-shirts.
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The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe,” both available, along with many more interviews, at www.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com.
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You are listening to the Minister of Information on Hard Knock Radio (broadcast on KPFA Nov. 17, 2011). Today we’re going to be talking to San Francisco activist DeBray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo, as he’s known on the streets and in the rap world, about what’s been going on with police terrorism in Hunters Point.
Fly has been very active and his family has been very active in the Hunters Point community. He has been one of the frontline soldiers in this fight for justice in the case of Kenneth Harding, an unarmed 22-year-old Black male who was murdered in Hunters Point by the San Francisco PD over a muni transfer. Fly, what’s happening with you?
Fly Benzo: What’s up?
M.O.I. JR: Can you tell the people a little bit about your history in activism? Can you tell people how did you get active and a little bit about your family and who they are in Hunters Point?
Fly Benzo: My father has been an activist for a long time; his name is Claude Carpenter. My mom (Barbara Banks), she was the first female contractor in San Francisco and she was African American. I really started with my activism when they built the T-Train Line on Third Street around 2003 and I was too young to even work but I was fighting for my people’s rights because it was none of my peoples working that T-Line.
I was too young to even work but I was fighting for my people’s rights because it was none of my peoples working that T-Line.
M.O.I. JR: Well, for people who don’t live in San Francisco, what is the T-Line and why was it important for people to work?
Fly Benzo: The T-Line is basically a train, it’s kind of like BART, it’s kind of like the subway in New York. We never had trains that went to Hunters Point. We had trains that bring goods but we never had passenger trains that come to Hunters Point and they’re basically trying to integrate the City. They’re trying to gentrify Hunters Point and make it easier for people to get to Hunters Point on the train.
M.O.I. JR: But the other thing that was important about it was like a hundreds of millions dollar project that the community didn’t get hired to build. People outside the community got brought in and made the money.
Fly Benzo: Yes, sir, and even when we did get some kind of cut, the only jobs we got was stop sign jobs, holding up stop signs – and that’s all you’re going to see. You go to any of these construction sites, you’re going to see a whole lot of people holding stop signs and then once the job is over they don’t need them for nothing, nowhere. They don’t need stop sign holders on every job.
M.O.I. JR: So basically what you’re saying is that they were not trained to do any of the high level jobs that would be transferrable at other places of employment or other construction sites. What are some of the other movements that you got involved with before you got involved with this Kenneth Harding case?
Fly Benzo: Another movement would be the Deshon Marman case, where he was arrested for sagging on a US Airways plane. They have no dress code and they let another man fly in nothing but a bikini, nothing but panties and a bra, when they arrest this Black man for sagging and he’s a college student. He only came to San Francisco because his friend was murdered. He was going to the funeral and on his way back he got arrested and taken to jail and he had to get bailed out. Just like me, he has all these false charges. They dropped his charges but he had to bail out of jail.
M.O.I. JR: This was at San Francisco Airport?
Fly Benzo: At San Francisco Airport, and San Francisco police patrol the San Francisco Airport, but they took him to San Mateo County Jail and then they sent the transcripts or whatever to Redwood City, so it was a whole bunch of controversy with that case.
M.O.I. JR: Yeah, that was in 2011, right?
Fly Benzo: That’s right.
M.O.I. JR: What ended up happening with that case because I did hear about that?
Fly Benzo: Yeah, the case was dropped and I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with the legal aspects of the case. I heard they were offering some free flights.
Then after that I spoke, well, during that, I spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting, and I spoke about how we get criminalized in the Bayview on the T-Train and the police chase people down because they don’t have a transfer on the T-Train while the murderers and the rapists and the robbers get away. I mean we got over 1,000 unsolved homicides in San Francisco. I mean Sharmin Bock (candidate for district attorney) said in her campaign we have 1,000 unsolved homicides – and they chase people down for transfers in Bayview Hunters Point.
I spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting (before the police murder of Kenneth Harding) about how we get criminalized in the Bayview on the T-Train and the police chase people down because they don’t have a transfer.
M.O.I. JR: Well, for those of you who are just tuning in, we are talking to activist Fly Benzo right here on Hard Knock Radio with the Minister of Information JR. Fly, can you tell the people a little bit about the Kenneth Harding case? Kenneth Harding was somebody who was recently murdered by the police in San Francisco, but can you tell them a little bit about the case specifically for the people who have never heard that name?
Fly Benzo: Like I was saying about the Deshon Marman thing, when I spoke before the Board of Supervisors meeting, a couple of days later Kenneth Harding was shot down, and a lot of people in the community know me as an activist so they hit my phone immediately. They was telling me, like, the police killed somebody and then somebody else came up to me and showed me a video and I ran down there as fast as I could from the Monte Carlo. That’s about 8-10 blocks.
M.O.I. JR: And what happened?
Fly Benzo: He was out there bleeding. They had a bunch of cops out there. It was like a big standoff with the police. They had a large area taped off and it was whole bunch of police out there looking everywhere but by where dude was shot for a gun. They’re going up on rooftops and they were looking everywhere for a gun that obviously wasn’t there.
Kenneth Harding was bleeding on the ground. I think they had taken him off by that time, but then we walked around because they had the area taped off. So we walked all the way around the block the other way so we could get to the news reporters and tell them the community’s side of the story, because this Kenneth Harding incident isn’t an isolated incident.
It’s been women that have been beat up by the police for not having a transfer on the T-Train, and I put it on my show. I broadcast it on Channel 29 public access in San Francisco, and my show is called “It’s Really Real TV” and it comes on late night. A lady got beat up for not having a transfer on the T-Train.
I basically ran from the police and I didn’t have a transfer, but I’m thinking they’re not going to chase me for a transfer but they actually called backup to take me down for a transfer. This is basically criminalizing poverty.
The African American youth in San Francisco have a 70 percent unemployment rate, so our population is rapidly decreasing. It’s going to continue to decrease when the police are criminalizing our poverty in San Francisco. They are already tearing down our low-income housing.
African American youth in San Francisco have a 70 percent unemployment rate, so our population is rapidly decreasing. It’s going to continue to decrease when the police are criminalizing our poverty.
M.O.I. JR: Didn’t you catch a number of cases for being on the front lines and representing the Hunters Point community against police terrorism? How does that tie in?
Fly Benzo: I caught a whole bunch of cases. I spoke on Sharen Hewitt’s show on Channel 29. The next day the police must have seen the show and they arrested me on sight – narc cars and a black and white – and they all hopped out and came straight to me with the handcuffs dangling and arrested me and told me, “You’re not getting cited out this time.” And I was in jail for about five days with resisting arrest charges.
M.O.I. JR: For it to be resisting arrest, what was the initial arrest for?
Fly Benzo: There was no reason to arrest me.
M.O.I. JR: So they arrested you for resisting arrest?
Fly Benzo: Yes, and I didn’t even resist. That’s the cold part.
M.O.I. JR: But I’m saying like how can they get on a charge of resisting arrest when they had no probable cause to arrest?
Fly Benzo: It’s crazy; it’s police misconduct.
M.O.I. JR: OK, what’s the second time?
Fly Benzo: This latest time, a cop pulled out his video phone and started videotaping me after he had unplugged the radio (in Mendell Plaza at Third and Palou, where playing music is commonplace), and the community didn’t like it. He started videotaping me and I’m doing no crime.
So I pulled out my phone and I started videotaping him and obviously he felt that a threat to his job or his position or him getting a promotion or whatever – and he wanted to try to knock my phone out my hand. So I told him not to touch me and I recorded him again and he did it again and he tried to grab my arm and tried to put me under arrest.
I wasn’t trying to get arrested because I just got out of jail for five days for nothing, but I know what happens. I mean I was just coming from school, just got to Third Street and Palou.
I saw my brother, I stopped, and I mean they started harassing me as soon as they came to Third Street – like Black people aren’t welcome in San Francisco. If we’re not welcome on Third Street, what makes you think we’re going to be welcome on Market Street? If we’re not welcome on Third Street, what makes you think we’re going to be welcome in Chinatown or Koreatown?
Why can’t African Americans have a cultural mecca in San Francisco? How come every other culture is San Francisco is celebrated in San Francisco? That’s the kind of thing we need to speak on.
M.O.I. JR: So to get to the point where they racked you and your brother up?
Fly Benzo: So they took us, they grabbed my arm and tried to put me under arrest. And by this time, backup was coming and a whole lot of cops were on me.
They tried to charge me with assault on an officer and resisting arrest causing serious bodily harm, but I mean, is videotaping a cop a crime?
Is videotaping a cop a crime?
M.O.I. JR: Where did the assault charge come from? What had happened?
Fly Benzo: I have no idea. I assaulted no one. I didn’t let them just arrest me because I had committed no crime, but I mean at first all they were trying to do was take my phone.
But they put me under arrest, they beat me up. I was hospitalized, and I was put in jail. They gave me $95,000 bail and I had to come up with $7,600 to get out and I’m out on bail right now and I owe the bail bondsman.
They put me under arrest, they beat me up. I was hospitalized, and I was put in jail. They gave me $95,000 bail.
We’re selling T-shirts and I have a Facebook account, Free Fly Benzo. Look it up and you can buy T-shirts. We got all kinds of different designs. Look up my video, “Fly Benzo, War on Terror.” And we have some raw and uncut footage on there and you can check it out.
We have an entrepreneurship program we’re checking out and working on, I Too Have a Dream. We have a club at City College, Black Star Line Coalition. I mean, man, we’re pushing.
I was getting straight As. I was going to court every time. I had a bail reduction hearing. I had letters from my teachers, and the judge refused to reduce my bail.
And this child molester coach from Penn State, his bail was $100,000 and he touched six kids. He’s accused of touching six kids and his bail was only $5,000 more than mine and all I did was videotape a crooked cop. And I’m facing four years in the state pen for videotaping a cop.
This child molester coach from Penn State, his bail was $100,000 – only $5,000 more than mine – and all I did was videotape a crooked cop. And I’m facing four years in the state pen.
M.O.I. JR: One last time, your email address or where people can find you online if they want to get directly in contact with you?
Fly Benzo: Yes, on Facebook, Fly Benzo, or on Twitter, @Fly Benzo.
(Photo: Mesha Irizarry) Fly Benzo’s mother, Barbara Banks, the first woman contractor in San Francisco, spoke at the annual October 22nd Coalition rally against police brutality. Contractor and lifelong community advocate Claude Carpenter, Fly’s father, also spoke at the October 22nd rally on Third Street at Palou.
2011-10-21 "Free Fly Benzo! Criminalizing critique, cameras and community in Bayview Hunters Point"
by Mesha Monge Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation [http://sfbayview.com/2011/free-fly-benzo-criminalizing-critique-cameras-and-community-in-bayview-hunters-point/]:
Mesha Monge Irizarry, mother of Idriss Stelley, who was murdered by San Francisco police June 13, 2001, heads the Idriss Stelley Foundation, the foremost Bay Area agency dedicated to police accountability. Contact her through the foundation’s bilingual crisis line at (415) 595-8251 or through Facebook.
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Pack the courtroom for Fly Benzo’s next hearing on Thursday, Oct. 27, 9 a.m., 850 Bryant in Department 12
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Message from Fly’s lawyer received Oct. 25; she is Severa Keith, who can be reached at severakeith@gmail.com or (415) 626-6000:
“DeBray’s next court date is Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011, at 9:00 a.m. in Dept. 12 of 850 Bryant. A large community presence will make a difference.
“I am looking for people who have been with DeBray when police have been taunting or harassing him. Please send me an email so that we can talk prior to Thursday morning. I would like to prepare people to be witnesses, if it becomes necessary.
“With your assistance, the motion I filed contained 10 strong and inspiring letters. Continue to spread the word to the community. If you or anyone is able to write a letter in support of Debray, please get it to me at the email below by Wednesday at 4 p.m. The letter should include an introduction of yourself (your connection to the community, employment, community activities etc.), how and how long you’ve known DeBray, and statements illustrating the positive impact that DeBray has had on the community. Keep the letters positive, and don’t guess about what happened that day. It’s better to focus on what you actually know about him.
“Also, continue to ask witnesses of the Oct. 18 assault and arrest of DeBray to contact me, whether or not they have videos.
“Thanks to everyone reaching out to the community, I obtained a video today of the incident, which I have reviewed and am comparing with the many inconsistencies in the police report.”
BAIL: The hearing on Thursday is on a motion to reduce bail from the current $95,000! But some bail will probably be needed. If you can contribute, click HERE [https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=N3KC4M6YKVKGC].
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Comrades DeBray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo and his brother, Tommy Clayton aka Pladee, are being choked yet again by the San Francisco INjustice system. Fly, a City College student, hip hop artist, a founder of the Black Star Liner Coalition, peacemaker, youth educator, copwatcher and Black Power advocate in San Francisco’s Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, was thrust into the international limelight three months ago with his outspoken critique of the police version of the death of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. This killing occurred on July 16, 2011, at the intersection of Third Street and Oakdale Avenue.
Fly’s arrest on Tuesday, Oct. 18, was not his first “piggy ride” with Bayview police. As a longstanding videographer of police brutality and harassment in his community, he was arrested with same day release on July 2, 2011, for exposing police brutality. In this matter no charges were formally filed.
But on July 23 when Fly was arrested again, this time a week after the horrific killing of Kenneth Harding Jr. (see video below), he was held on felony charges with no arraignment for more than 72 hours in violation of his due process rights. This arrest occurred subsequent to his appearance July 22 as the only guest on Sharen Hewitt’s “CLAER Da Corner” public access TV program, where he eloquently expounded upon the deceitful underbelly of the SFPD.
In particular he highlighted their lies whitewashing Kenneth Harding’s death – prompted by a $2 fare evasion – and promoted a boycott of the Muni T-train light rail line. On the show he also named particular officers who had harassed him in the past. After a phone blast to the D.A.’s office as well as a strong show of community force at the Hall of INjustice, all charges were once again dropped.
Two and a half months later, SFPD terror and intimidation has not abated. Approximately two weeks ago, Tommy Clayton, Fly’s brother, was arrested on trumped up marijuana charges in total non-compliance with the Lowest Priority Ordinance on Marijuana Offenses, which has been law in San Francisco since June 2007. Tommy, released on his own recognizance (OR’d), will appear in court to face these charges Friday, Oct. 21, at 9 a.m. This hearing will be held at the Criminal Court, 850 Bryant St., San Francisco, in Department 9.
The latest assault perpetrated by two police officers from the Bayview precinct against Fly and Tommy aka Pladee occurred Tuesday, Oct. 18, around 1 p.m. a block from where Kenneth Harding was killed. The incident began with the plugging of their boombox into an electrical outlet near Metro PCS in Mendell Plaza on Third and Palou. The officers told Fly his radio was too loud and yanked the cord out of the socket.
The police then began to film Fly, leading him to film them as well. According to accounts, the police asked him to get out of their faces with his camera and proceeded to knock it out of his hands twice. Fly picked it up from the ground each time.
After the second time he attempted to retrieve the camera, an officer assaulted him, pulling him by his dreadlocks and slamming him against the pavement. There were also reports of officers’ knees being violently jammed into Fly’s back and sides during the takedown.
During that interaction, the officer lost balance and hit his head against a cinder block. At some point during the interaction Tommy cried out, “Hey, that’s my brother! What you doing to my brother?” Both were re-assaulted by the officers and then handcuffed. Both were taken to San Francisco General Hospital for treatment before being booked into county jail.
The officers in question have been identified as Officer Norment and Officer Fry of the Bayview precinct. Both Fly and Tommy’s cellphones were confiscated by the arresting officers as evidence. Although a community member filmed the interaction, this person has been advised to turn the video in to the police department, so we may never see it unless it is subpoenaed by an attorney.
Also it is noteworthy that just like the video of the Samoan youngster seen on tape picking up Kenneth Harding’s cellphone from the pavement – taken off YouTube, then re-introduced a few days later showing the youth picking up a much larger object shaped like a gun – the original video of the Fly/Pladee/Bayview PD incident may be edited frame by frame to present an officially endorsed version of the “facts” by SFPD with the seal of approval of the mayor’s office.
On Thursday, Oct. 20, starting at noon, a crowd of approximately 30 community activists and family members, including the defendants’ parents, as well as Denika Chapman, mother of Kenneth Harding Jr., came to the steps of the Hall of INjustice chanting “Free Fly Benzo” and passing out fliers before going inside to Department 12 for his scheduled arraignment.
At the hearing, Fly was not arraigned – Tommy had already been released with charges pending – due to questions from Judge Y.S. Cheng concerning the legitimacy of the charges brought by the D.A. against Fly Benzo – aggravated assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest, interfering with police business and inciting riot – as well as the need to compare police reports with Fly Benzo’s school records in order to make a character determination that could influence the actions of the court.
Currently Fly is represented by Deputy Public Defender Sujung Kim, who has encouraged the community to come in numbers to support Fly Benzo at his next hearing on Monday, Oct. 24, 9 a.m., in Department 12. This hearing will determine whether or not Fly will remain in custody pending trial. His bail has been set at $73,000.
Anyone who was a witness, has information or is simply outraged by this deplorable incident resulting in the charges against Fly and Tommy should file a complaint with the Office of Citizens Complaints either in person at 25 Van Ness Ave. at Market Street, by phone at (415) 241-7733 or through their website, www.sfgov3.org/index.aspx?page=419, as per the suggestion of Fly’s counsel. Any pertinent evidentiary information should be forwarded to Sujung Kim at (415) 575-8867 or sujung.kim@sfgov.org.
Tommy, despite being free, is also facing similar charges minus the fantastical “inciting riot” allegation. The date of Tommy’s first hearing on these charges was not available at press time, nor was there any information concerning whether or not a motion would be filed to try the brothers together.
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Fly Benzo (DeBray Carpenter) is a man with a message that’s being heard in Bayview Hunters Point and beyond. His shirt is a silent protest against the Sept. 21 Georgia state murder of Troy Anthony Davis. Fly’s latest arrest Oct. 18 is probably to silence him on Saturday, Oct. 22, the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, being held this year at noon at Third and Palou in BVHP.
2011-10-20 "Fly Benzo arrested after criticizing the SFPD and its tactics on television"
by Josh Wolf [http://sfbayview.com/2011/threats-or-payback/]:
Josh Wolf, a freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker, is a recent graduate of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism with an emphasis in documentary film production. Wolf spent 226 days in a federal detention center defending the “reporter’s privilege” after the FBI demanded his source material and called on him to testify before a federal grand jury about a protest he filmed in San Francisco. He can be reached at web@joshwolf.net. This story was written for and originally appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.
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Officers from the San Francisco Police Department arrested a 21-year-old activist from Hunters Point less than 24 hours after he appeared on a public access television show where he indicted the police for a recent shooting and named officers he says have personally harassed him.
Around 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 23, Debray Carpenter, who is also known as Fly Benzo, was arrested near the intersection of Oakdale Avenue and Lane Street and booked on charges of threatening a police officer and resisting arrest. After spending almost four days in jail, the District Attorney’s Office declined to file any charges and Carpenter was released.
“If they feel like they can charge me, they would’ve,” Carpenter said after his release. “SFPD lies and that’s a fact. I just want the people to see how they lie. Just like they are lying about me, they could be lying about Kenneth Harding. Anything they say needs to be taken with a grain of salt.”
On July 16, police shot and killed Kenneth Harding Jr. while he was running from police. When officers stopped Harding at the Third and Oakdale Muni platform and asked him to produce a transfer, he bolted. The official story is that while he was running away, Harding pulled out a gun and fired at least one shot at police before they returned fire. Police later said the shot that killed him pierced his neck on the right side and was fired from his own gun; but some witnesses say that Harding didn’t have a gun and many people in the community still have doubts about what happened.
Carpenter has spoken out against Harding’s death on the TV news and he has participated in and organized protests calling for greater police accountability in the weeks following the shooting. On July 22, Carpenter appeared as the only guest on the public access program “CLAER Da Corner,” a 90-minute show hosted by Sharen Hewitt, the executive director of Community Leadership Academy and Emergency Response Project (CLAER) – an anti-violence nonprofit.
During his appearance on the program, Carpenter named several SFPD officers who he claimed had harassed him in the past. He also recounted an exchange that took place a few days earlier on July 19. It was during this encounter that police say Carpenter made the criminal threat for which he was later arrested.
The police version of the incident differs significantly from the story that Carpenter shared with Hewitt on her show before his arrest.
According to Carpenter, he was with a group of people having a casual conversation with an SFPD officer as two other officers drove up and aggressively pursued a teenager for no apparent reason. When the group asked the officers about their behavior, one of the officers explained that she’s from New York, said Carpenter.
This prompted Carpenter to bring up Sean Bell, a young man who was gunned down by the NYPD, and the officer replied, “I haven’t shot anyone, yet,” according to Carpenter.
“Y’all bleed too. Just how we bleed, y’all bleed,” Carpenter shot back.
He told the host that the officer then responded by asking, “Is that a threat?”
“No, that’s a fact,” replied Carpenter. The police then drove away, he said.
But the police say that Carpenter threatened to kill one of the officers and was aggressive from the moment they arrived.
“Carpenter started yelling at them and he said, ‘White pig bitch, I’m gonna put one in you,’” SFPD spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield told us.
“You bleed like I do. I’m gonna put one in you and show you,” Carpenter allegedly told police after being asked if his previous statement had been a threat, according to Dangerfield.
“There was a large crowd of people that began circling around the officers and they determined it was unsafe to make an arrest at the time,” Dangerfield said. “One of our rules is if you know somebody, you don’t have to make an arrest right there and cause a big scene.”
The police arrested Carpenter four days later and booked him for allegedly making terrorizing threats and resisting arrest. While in jail Carpenter told his lawyer, John Hamasaki, that he didn’t know why he had been arrested, and Hamasaki said at the time he wasn’t sure either.
“The arrest stinks,” Hamasaki told us. “Just an exercise of power by the police letting folks know if they speak up, they can be locked up.”
The District Attorney’s Office said that it declined to file charges because there was insufficient evidence to secure a conviction but declined to go into further detail.
“It is not uncommon for the District Attorney to drop charges that are against the police,” said Dangerfield, the police spokesman. “Unless there’s injuries, photos and things like that, they rarely want to prosecute a lot of threats against police officers, and even more resisting arrest, because they think that’s the type of business we’re in.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Hamasaki. “(Crimes against police are) the hardest things for us to negotiate to get them to come down. … The DA doesn’t want to upset the rank and file.”
Erica Derryck, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney’s Office, also disagreed with Dangerfield’s assessment.
“We take seriously any threats against San Franciscans whether they are uniformed sworn officers or members of the general public,” Derryck said. “We review every case on a case-by-case basis.”
Carpenter says he isn’t the only one being targeted for his activism in Hunters Point. Police arrested Henry Taylor, 54, as he was on his way to speak up at the July 20 town hall meeting at the Bayview Opera House in which Chief Greg Suhr’s appearance ignited pandemonium (see “Anger erupts over police shootings,” July 27).
Dangerfield said that police arrested Taylor for violating a stay-away order, but Taylor says that he isn’t under a stay-away order for that area and that police arrested him to prevent him from testifying at the town hall meeting.
No recordings are known to exist between Carpenter and the officer, just as no video recordings have revealed exactly what happened between Harding and the police on the Third Street Muni platform. There are several videos of the immediate aftermath, including footage of Harding writhing on the ground while police raised their weapons and denied him first aid, but apparently no video of the shooting itself.
In Oakland, all officers are now issued small cameras to wear on their uniforms that record every interaction an officer has with the public. In the case of both Carpenter and Harding, such equipment would likely provide answers to what actually transpired, but Dangerfield said the SFPD has no plans to follow Oakland’s lead.
“I know the chief of police has said he is looking into cameras for officers who do plain clothes assignments and warrant arrests and things like that. For the general patrol force, at this point, that’s not the case,” Dangerfield said. “There are some officers who do carry their own. … There’s no rule that says that can’t be done.”
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DeBray Carpenter, better known as Fly Benzo, called a press conference July 28 on his release from jail after all charges – originally making terrorizing threats and resisting arrest – were dropped. Shortly after SFPD murdered Kenneth Harding, Benzo had remarked to an officer, “Y’all bleed too.” – Photo: Josh Wolf
Fly Benzo, Kilo G. Perry and other Bayview Hunters Point freedom fighters protect the memorial created on the blood-stained spot where videos show Kenneth Harding a few days earlier writhed in agony, bleeding to death as police surrounding him trained their guns on him, making no effort to save his life and preventing anyone in the crowd from giving the 19-year-old victim any aid and comfort. Police had removed the first memorial left at spot.
(following caption by Mesha Monge Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation [http://sfbayview.com/2011/free-fly-benzo-criminalizing-critique-cameras-and-community-in-bayview-hunters-point/]) Fly Benzo (left) and comrades keep watch over the memorial on the site where Kenneth Harding, 19, lay on the sidewalk six days earlier, bleeding to death for a half hour without any first aid while police trained their guns on him and the horrified crowd. The memorial was repeatedly trashed by the police but is being rebuilt for the 16th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, which is being held this year for the Bay Area at Third and Palou.
(Photo: Josh Wolf)
"SFPD BEAT UP AND ARREST RAPPER AND COMMUNITY ACTIVIST, DEBRAY CARPENTER"
from "It's Really Real TV" by FLY Benzo aka. FLY Bentley [http://www.youtube.com/user/TryntaGetIt], originally posted at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4EMoxMlto0]:
RACIST SFPD OFFICERS FRY #656 & NORMENT #641 BEAT UP AND ARREST BAYVIEW RAPPER ACTIVIST FLY BENZO AND LIE IN POLICE REPORT AS WELL AS ON THE STAND ATTEMPTING TO GIVE HIM 4 YEARS IN THE PENITENTIARY #DropTheCHARGES
This video frame shows SFPD’s brutal assault on Fly Benzo last Oct. 18, yet he was convicted of assaulting the police. – Video frame: TryntaGetIt
Tommy Clayton aka Pladee stands in Mendell Plaza with a “We are Oscar Grant” sign. This is the spot where he and his brother, Fly Benzo, were most recently assaulted by SFPD, on Oct. 18. (caption by Mesha Monge Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation [http://sfbayview.com/2011/free-fly-benzo-criminalizing-critique-cameras-and-community-in-bayview-hunters-point/]):
Fly Benzo - Press Conference Speakout Protest to Stop Police Brutality 10/17/11
2011-10-19 uploaded to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vbh28x0_E4] by "mezkillercop" [http://www.youtube.com/user/mezkillercop], re-posted at 2011-10-20 "Threats or payback?" from "San Francisco Bayview" newspaper [http://sfbayview.com/2011/threats-or-payback/]:
The day after this event, Fly Benzo was beaten and arrested by the police. More info as it develops.
After most of the speakers spoke, the police came and told us to shut off the sound system because we did not have a permit. One of the more vocal people who spoke up was Fly who pointed out the pettiness of the police action when there were unsolved murders in the neighborhood. Note the passive aggression being displayed when the officer's hand is playing around with his gun when Fly was speaking out. Fly's arrest is police retaliation plain and simple. It's unjust and corrupt.
Just like the unsolved murder of Tupac Shakur whose mother was a Black Panther. The "powers that be" like to shut up popular music artists who people can rally around. This is the same thing. Fly Benzo is a talented hip hop artist who has a future. He also speaks out about the police repression in his communiity, the S.F. Bayview/Hunter's Point area. The "powers that be" who tell the police what to do want to silence him.
As Fly says at the end of the video, “Whoever stands with the police does not stand with the community, period!”
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Video caption by Mesha Monge Irizarry, Idriss Stelley Foundation [http://sfbayview.com/2011/free-fly-benzo-criminalizing-critique-cameras-and-community-in-bayview-hunters-point/]:
This video was recorded Monday, Oct. 17, at the press conference held at Third and Oakdale, where police murder victim Kenneth Harding had bled to death three months earlier, announcing that the 16th National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation would be held this year in the Bay Area on Saturday, Oct. 22, noon, at Third and Palou. Fly, who says at the end of the video, “Whoever stands with the police does not stand with the community, period!” was arrested again the next day.
2011-10-21 "Justice for Tommy Carpenter!"
(announcement published 2011-10-06) [http://www.facebook.com/events/290345767661687/]:
Friday, 9:00am until 12:00pm
In the wake of the police assassination of Kenneth Wade Harding on July 16th there has been a largely unreported continuous program of intimidation and repression directed towards Bayview residents who have had the courage to speak out. Certain people in particular have borne the brunt of this more than others. Debray Carpenter aka Fly Benzo has emerged as a prime target due to his very public and courageous presence in the fight against State abuses in the Bayview. As a result multiple members of his family have been targeted. Currently his brother Tommy is being railroaded on a bogus marijuana related charge that is obviously politically motivated. Please turn out on Friday morning in support of Tommy Clayton and send the broad and clear message to San Francisco that we support our own and will not be intimidated into silence but will continue to fight tirelessly against police terror in our communities. Do not let another one of our brothers get unjustly criminalized. Tommy needs our support now!
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2011-10-18 Update: Fly Benzo and Pladee Clayton arrested this afternoon. Charges not being released. Please call 415-553-0123 and demand that the police declare the charges and of course demand they be dropped and Fly and Pladee be released. We need to end the police occupation of the hood!
2011-07-29 “Bayview Man Says He Was Harassed By Cops For Criticism of Bayview Shooting”
[http://www.resetsanfrancisco.org/news/feed/jul-29-11/man-harassed-cops]:
About 20 people gathered outside San Francisco City Hall today in support of a man who said he was the target of harassment by police because of his criticism of a shooting that involved officers in the city's Bayview District earlier this month.
Debray Carpenter, 22, said he was arrested Saturday for making disparaging comments about police to a media outlet a day earlier.
Carpenter was arrested on suspicion of making threats on an executive officer and resisting arrest, police spokesman Lt. Troy Dangerfield said.
The district attorney's office declined to file charges against him and he was released early Wednesday.
Carpenter said, "Police have attacked me and continue to attack me because I speak up" about the death of 19-year-old Seattle resident Kenneth Harding, Jr. in the Bayview on July 16.
Harding died following a shootout with police officers who were conducting San Francisco Municipal Railway fare enforcement near Third Street and Palou Avenue earlier that day.
Police said officers shot at Harding after he fired at them, and later said an autopsy showed that the bullet that killed him did not come from a police gun, and that he appeared to have shot himself.
Today police also announced that they had found Harding's gun, which amateur video footage showed was apparently picked up by someone at the scene who walked away with it before officers could establish the crime scene.
Carpenter, a lifetime Bayview resident who also goes by the nickname "Fly Benzo," questioned the police version of the events in Harding's case, saying "police make stuff up every day."
He also denied the police version of his own arrest on Saturday.
Dangerfield said Carpenter was arrested not because of anything that occurred on Saturday, but rather for an incident on July 19 at Third Street and Oakdale Avenue, where the shooting involving Harding occurred.
He allegedly threatened the officer by saying "You white pig b----, I'm going to put one in you," and after the officer asked him if he was making threats, he said "You bleed like I do, I'm going to put one in you and show you," Dangerfield said.
Dangerfield said Carpenter "was too hostile at that point" so officers decided to wait until days later to arrest him.
Carpenter said, "I never threatened the cops, I never said anything like that," and said he did not resist arrest either.
Erica Terry Derryck, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, said the decision was made to not file charges against Carpenter because "we were unable to prove elements of the offense."
Carpenter said his arrest was an example of how youth in the Bayview are treated like criminals, and said the Muni fare enforcement operations that led to Harding's death are another example.
"On the T trains, people are criminalized for not having enough money," he said. "(The Bayview) is the only community where police hop on the train and chase people down."
Several other people spoke at today's event outside City Hall, including Carpenter's father Claude, who said city and police officials have to do a better job of working with the people of the Bayview if they want the neighborhood to thrive.
"You can't build up the community without building up the people of the community," Claude said.
Carpenter and the other speakers at the event called for the city to make several changes to its policies, including stopping fare inspection by police officers, improving schools in the neighborhood, and setting up a citizen review board with the power to indict officers for misconduct.
2011-07-28 "Press Conference to Condemn SFPD Harassment & Jailing of Bayview Youth Organizer":
(announcement made 2011-07-24)
Thursday, 12 Noon at San Francisco City Hall, Polk Street.
For more information, contact Bayview Youth Organizers Jameel Patterson [415-875-0638] [moorealtv@yahoo.com] and Debray Carpenter [415-375-1517] [flybenzo@gmail.com]
On Sunday July 23rd, in an attempt at police intimidation, a Bayview youth organizer, Debray Carpenter, was arrested at his home. Three days later, Debray was released without the police pressing charges. Debray has been a prominent and out-spoken organizer who has denounced the recent San Francisco Police Department’s violence in the city. We demand: End police terror now!
The press conference on Thursday, July 28, 12 noon at SF City Hall, will demand that the SFPD stop terrorizing and oppressing the Bayview community, especially the Black youth. For too long, the city elite have ignored the crime against Bayview residents. Schools have been neglected to the point that Bayview children must go outside of their community for a good education. Community centers are inaccessible to the people. Racist MUNI checkpoints target residents whose only crime is not having $2. Years of gentrification have given the SFPD an excuse to occupy a historically Black neighborhood. If the youth try to speak out, the police lie, intimidate, and terrorize them. All these injustices must end.
The speakers at the press conference will demand:
- Stop the fare inspection raids
- Transit should be free for all
- End police impunity for the killing of Black youth and the poor
- Compensation for SFPD crimes against the Bayview
- Better schools and community centers for Bayview
- Hands off Debray and his family
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(2011-07-28 photograph by Brant Ward from "San Francisco Chronicle", original caption: "Debray Carpenter talks about the frustration felt by people in the Bayview district.") DeBray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo, speaks at his press conference July 28 after his release from jail the first time he was arrested for speaking out against the police murder of Kenneth Harding.
This photo was republished [commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-4]:
2011-07-28 photograph by Brant Ward from "San Francisco Chronicle", original caption: "Protesters hold signs on the steps of San Francisco City Hall."
2011-07-28 photograph by Brant Ward from "San Francisco Chronicle", original caption: "Willie Ratcliff, 78, urged the crowd to bring more services to the Bayview. Youth organizers from San Francisco's Bayview District held a press conference on the steps of City Hall Thursday July 28, 2011 to discuss police brutality and the Kenneth Harding shooting."
2011-07-23 "Free Debray Carpenter AKA Fly Benzo, arrested by SFPD"
by Idriss Stelley Foundation [indybay.org/newsitems/2011/07/23/18685849.php]
Free Debray Carpenter Aka Fly Benzo arrested 2 days ago, after the Bayview Opera House forum about the SFPD Killing of Kenneth Harding. 9 police officers came to arrest him.
They charged him with threatening a Police office but really he is being targeted by the authorities for standing up for his community, as he has been a constant voice for the younger generation who no one speaks for.
Comrade Fly has been very vocal about the multiple lies and deception spun by SFPD top brass since the killing of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr. last Saturday on rd & Oakdale in SF Bayview.
A demonstration is planned tomorrow Saturday to Free him, we will post time and location below this post in comments when we find out more
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2011-07-24 "update" by nojusticenobart:
Just to be clear, Debray was arrested YESTERDAY and needs our support TOMORROW (Monday!) morning at his arraignment at 850 Bryant.
Here's a link to the facebook event: [http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=235611039806114]
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2011-07-25 "Arraignment won't likely be Monday" by Kim Rohrbach:
I understand from folks, including an attorney who has offered to represent Fly should charges be prosecuted, that the arraignment won't likely be Monday.
Tuesday is a likely date, but stay tuned.
Also, I am told by the aforementioned attorney that SF has changed the way it handles in-custody arraignments, and that misdemeanor and felony arraignments now generally occur in the afternoon—although things don't always go according to schedule.
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2011-07-25 "Tentatively Scheduled for Thursday Now..." by FREE FLY!:
Just got off the phone with the superior court at 850 Bryant. They are now saying that Debray's hearing has been tentatively scheduled for Thursday. They also confirmed the charges: two obstruction charges, one misdemeanor and one felony. See you Thursday... Fuck the SFPD
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2011-07-26 "Fly Benzo arraignment could be Tuesday, July 26th - stay tuned!" by Free Debray Carpenter!:
John Hamasaki believes there is a "decent chance" that Debray will be arraigned tomorrow (Tues.). Could be morning or afternoon. If I get any definitive word, I will pass on last-minute to the extent that circumstances allow.
As many of you are aware, activist Debray Carpenter, aka Fly Benzo, is currently in jail at 850 Bryant and is awaiting arraignment following his arrest (at his house) on Saturday. His father has asked community members to come out to show their support, whenever the arraignment takes place.
According to John Hamasaki, who has offered to represent Debray should his case be prosecuted, there is a "decent chance" that the arraignment will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, July 26, either in the morning or afternoon. Debray has been booked on Penal Code § 69* (as a felony) and Penal Code §148** (a) (1) (as a misdemeanor).
A few days prior to his arrest, Debray and many Bayview-Hunters Point residents attended a meeting at the Bayview Opera House, concerning the brutal death of Kenneth Harding at the hands of the SFPD, at which SFPD Chief Greg Suhr was shouted down.
In addition to attending last Wednesday's meeting at the Bayview Opera House, and last Monday's press conference at 3rd & Oakdale, called by the Idriss Stelley Foundation, Debray also participated in the BART action a couple of weeks ago (in response to the execution of Charles Hill by the BART police) and the march from Dolores Park last Tuesday, which culminated in some plus or minus forty arrests. Some media links are included below.
The SFPD clearly want somebody to pay for the response they received at the Bayview Opera House, and for the vehement outrage recently expressed by community members in response to police executions and brutality.
That the SFPD has chosen Debray—a young Black man not afraid of speaking his mind or crossing the social barriers that the cops reinforce with arms—should be understood as a serious attack.
The charges:
*69. Every person who attempts, by means of any threat or violence, to deter or prevent an executive officer from performing any duty imposed upon such officer by law, or who knowingly resists, by the use of force or violence, such officer, in the performance of his duty, is punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by imprisonment in the state prison, or in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
**148. (a) (1) Every person who willfully resists, delays, or obstructs any public officer, peace officer, or an emergency medical technician, as defined in Division 2.5 (commencing with Section 1797) of the Health and Safety Code, in the discharge or attempt to discharge any duty of his or her office or employment, when no other punishment is prescribed, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.
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2011-07-26 "Fly Benzo released!" by bout time:
He was released today, no charges filed.
Bullshit that the cops can throw anyone they want in jail for days on false charges.
This has to stop!!
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2011-07-27 "fly benzo HAS NOT been released yet" by reclaim UC ( reclaimuc [at] gmail.com ):
was with a number of folks hanging out at the jail this evening waiting for fly benzo to be released. the cops said over and over that he would get out at a given time, and that time would come and nothing. then they would do it all over again. AS OF MIDNIGHT FLY IS STILL IN JAIL. the pigs are now saying that he might not be released until noon tomorrow.
http://reclaimuc.blogspot.com
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2011-07-27 "finally! he's out" by stolen from fb:
fly is out. They waited til everyone left. The spiteful pieces of shit they are.
(2011-07-18 photograph by Bill Carpenter) Fly spoke passionately at the press conference and rally held by the community on July 18, two days after police murdered Kenneth Harding over a $2 T-Train transfer. The rally was held at Third and Oakdale in Hunters Point, on the sidewalk where Kenny was allowed to bleed to death while police trained their guns on him and the horrified crowd. – Photo: Bill Carpenter
2011-07-17 "Teen shot in Bayview by SFPD had felony convictions" by John Alston
[http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8255383]
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco Police say they've found the gun use by a man who was shot and killed by officers Saturday afternoon.
Crowds of angry people formed claiming the man was unarmed when he was shot from behind in the Bayview District, but police are trying to put those claims to rest.
Following the shooting, police learned there was video that showed the immediate aftermath. Police say the suspect fired at officers first, but investigators could not initially find the weapon.
Protesters mixed with police officers Sunday afternoon at the scene of the Bayview District shooting at Third and Oakdale. Service on the Muni T-Line was briefly stopped.
"We lost a life out here," said resident Pladee Clayton. "That's what everybody's upset and everything, over an African-American couldn't pay his fare."
[ ... ]
However, some residents don't agree with the shooting, even if police say it was justified.
"Regardless of if they found a gun or not, it's the fact they chased him from the T-train over a transfer, and while there's real crime going on," said resident Debray Carpenter.
[ ... ]
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