Cops In the Act

An infuriating story from the poor, black Miami Gardens, where 28-year-old Earl Sampson has a 38-page rap sheet from being stopped by police 258 times in four years. He's been arrested 62 times for one offense - trespassing - oddly, always at the same location: the neighborhood convenience store 207 Quickstop. Where, it turns out, he works. And often takes out the garbage. And is, then, arrested. Over and over and over. Fed up with his customers and employees being thus routinely harrassed, store owner Alex Saleh finally installed 15 video cameras to document the abuse. Now he plans to file a federal lawsuit against police. May he, Sampson and all the rest prosper.

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It's All One Justice: Rev. Billy and the Golden Frogs Vs. JP Morgan

While marauding banksters trashing the environment and global economy have yet to see a day in jail, climate change activist Reverend Billy faces a year in prison for a recent "extinction resurrection" performance by his Church of Stop Shopping Choir, dressed as now-extinct golden frogs, at a NYC branch of JP Morgan Chase, the world's top investor in global warming projects. For their performance of "We Surround You," the City charged the frequently arrested Reverend, aka Bill Talen, with riot, menacing and disorderly conduct. Talen gets the threat they pose - "It's a very sensitive thing for a corporation to have activists come in. We're more dramatic than they are" - and he plans to keep it up before big banks and heavy industry "drain all life from the planet." There's a petition to get him off. "In America we’ve never changed without casualties....The Earth leads, we follow."

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