Author: lcapsv

The London Campaign Against Police and State Violence put on a monthly free film screening at “The Field” in New Cross, to provide a space where it is possible to enjoy an interesting movie but also to share and discuss experiences of violence, objectification, oppression and harassment. This could include intrusions such as constant stop and search, or physical violence, or the everyday stress of being made to feel you somehow have to account for yourself and your experiences of racism. We’re now back from our Easter break and we’ve planned a great line-up of Black British films for the spring and summer months.

We kick off this new run with Menelik Shabazz’s classic 1981 film Burning an Illusion. Burning an Illusion is about a young British-born Black woman’s love life, mostly shot in London’s Notting Hill and Ladbroke Grove communities. It was only the second British feature to have been made by a black director, following Horace Ové’s 1975 Pressure, and is described by Stephen Bourne as “the first British film to give a black woman a voice of any kind.” Burning an Illusion is notable for breaking the tradition of placing white males at the centre of the story. It is also unique in prioritizing the personal drama of a black woman over the socio-economic and political conflicts traditionally associated with such films. As Ade Solanke writes: “Like all drama, the film is about characters facing conflicts. But unlike most dramas about black people up till then, for most of the story it dramatises personal conflicts, not socio-economic or political ones.” (from Wikipedia) We’ll follow Burning an Illusion with Shabazz’s short film ‘Blood Ah Goh Run’, which documents the impact of the New Cross massacre in 1981.

Fruitvale Film Club takes place at “The Field” in New Cross on the last Sunday of every month at 3pm and will last a few hours. We’ve shown a diverse range of films so far (Fruitvale Station, Pressure, Candyman, Poetic Justice and the anti-psychiatric abuse documentary Whose Mind is it Anyway – John’s Story). Anyone is welcome at our events and anyone is welcome to suggest future films for us to show and discuss.

You can find the Facebook event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1580467362266597/

Content Note: Video footage of an aggressive arrest on a man of South Asian heritage

On Sunday 19th December, a young man of South Asian heritage is accosted by Thames Valley Police in the Buckinghamshire area.

The Police asked for his details, he was under no legal obligation to provide it unless he was driving a car. Apparently the Police forcefully and perhaps unnecessarily put him on the ground to arrest him and claimed that his refusal to identify himself was the reason for the arrest, on these facts alone, we believe this arrest is unlawful. We post the video, purely for the audio as the footage is poor and will support any further action the man decided to take against Thames Valley Police.

Watch for yourself and share this video.

By Stafford Scott

Following the fatal shooting of Jermaine Baker and with the subsequent on going homicide investigation by the IPCC, the Peace Alliance and Tottenham Rights will be hosting a community meeting to address any emerging community concerns.

This will be held at 6:30pm on Thursday 17th December 2015 at the Tottenham Town Hall, Town Hall Approach, London, N15 4RY.

The IPCC will be in attendance along with Haringey Council and the Metropolitan Police. The local MPs have been invited and will most likely be In attendance. The solicitors for Jermaine Baker’s family will be attending  and continue to urge that the media respect the wishes of the family for privacy.

This Sunday, come and join London Campaign Against Police & State Violence for end of year drinks and refreshments!

Date & Time: Sunday 13th December, 3pm – 7pm
Location: Hootananny, 95 Effra Road, Brixton, SW2 1DF
Event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/196162920722876/

All newcomers will be offered a free beverage of their choice and have an opportunity to speak with our activists and organisers.

Throughout the year, LCAPSV has continued to support several individuals who faced bogus charges of police obstruction and assaulting a Police Officer, in all of these cases they resulted in those charges being either dropped or acquitted.

We have also worked with others to lead a campaign against Operation Shield, a police pilot enabling the police to evict families from social housing on the basis of suspicion of criminal activity. Two councils since have officially claimed to have pulled out, read about that here

In May, we worked with Defend the Right to Protest and NUS Black Students Campaign to hold a vigil for Julian Cole and Freddie Gray

Below is a video from the vigil:

In August, we ran our Brixton Splash Cop Watch for the second year with volunteers and monitored police activity.

In October, we worked with Cherry Groce’s family to hold a memorial event for the 30th anniversary of her shooting and our members exposed that zero complaints about police racism were upheld over the last 12 months.

We have also worked to run lunch clubs with Housing Action Southwark and Lambeth and now our own Fruitvale Film clubs at the Field in New Cross

2016 will come with more challenges not least due to the new powers to search drivers for immigration status under the Government’s Immigration Bill 2015-16.

We hope you can join us to reflect over the year and look towards the new one!

Below is LCAPSV’s introductory text for Reclaim Justice Network’s event: Abolition or Reform? Dismantling Criminal Justice, which is next Thursday, 6:30pm at University College London. More details here: https://downsizingcriminaljustice.wordpress.com/2015/09/21/event-abolition-or-reform-dismantling-criminal-justice-19-november-2015/

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London Campaign Against Police & State Violence came together after our Chair, Steffney’s son had been Tasered, sprayed with CS gas and severely beaten for being black while in a public phone-box. Steffney made a call for a community response and people gathered to support her son’s appearance at a South London police station, as he faced charges. Eventually he was acquitted of all charges against him.

Her son’s case was a familiar one, predominately young black men being harassed, assaulted, even killed by police officers. Only for the victim of police brutality to be charged as if they were the aggressor.

We are interested in criminal justice because it directly affects us, black people are disproportionately represented at every level. This is inseparable from structural racism in housing, health, employment, education and more. Today we live in a society in which black people are the most likely to be expelled from school, become unemployed, stop and searched, Tasered, stripped-searched by police, prison staff and airport immigration, convicted and receive the harshest sentences including imprisonment.

We deem these outcomes not just as class oppression but also as white British supremacist, where white British people are at the top of a social hierarchy and the black is at the bottom. The governing structures that produce these outcomes are founded upon racialised laws and enforcement, exemplified particularly by drug laws. By racialised, we mean that power is constructed in a way that makes black life and particularly black Muslim life at the moment, targeted as suspect. It is not hoodies, nor the music that we create that criminalises us, to be black is to be regarded criminal by default.

We are for reform in the short-term and radical change in the long term, but if we eliminated these racial biases in the system, we would still be campaigning. We do not seek an equality of violence within the criminal justice system. We want to end the violence that it creates and perpetuates.