More than a dozen people were taken into custody during a protest at Brooklyn College on Thursday.
The NYPD said seven people were arrested, and seven others were issued summonses.
Video showed demonstrators on the school’s quad near eight tents. The protesters had Palestinian flags and several banners, including one reading, “Stop cop city. Free Palestine.”
The protest happened one day after dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested after occupying a room in Columbia University’s Butler Library.
On Tuesday night [April 15] we punctured tires on 8 NYPD cars and sprayed “PIG” all over them at the 88th precinct right under their stupid noses. When the pigs are too complacent then collectively we are doing something wrong.
The 88th precinct is known for it’s tyrannical rule over both local community and new migrant neighbors. It famously collaborated with ICE during the 2020 George Floyd uprising by using ICE to guard their precinct building besieged by massive protests.
Five years later and where are we now? Every day another human being murdered in custody, through neglect or savage beatings. Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi. Five people have died at Rikers just this year. Two died in nyc holding cells just in the past month before even being arraigned.
Every day another neighbor disappeared into some far off prison, never to be seen again (look up CECOT). Every day another student kidnapped by ICE. Every day another community invaded by fascists demanding papers and hunting Black and Brown people for sport.
Every day another family incinerated by USA-made bombs in Palestine and Yemen.
When will it stop? We must come to a point where we realize that NOTHING WILL STOP if we don’t MAKE IT STOP. No amount of appealing to politicians, to cops, to institutions like Columbia, will help us. Let go of that, and we free ourselves.
The Empire must fall. Strike where you are, at whatever institution you can that upholds this whole stinking pile of dogshit. Every strike against the NYPD is a strike for communities both here and all over the world. May the strength of revolutionaries who have lived and died for liberation be with you.
The NYPD is searching for the vandals who carved a swastika on a parked Tesla in Brooklyn.
It’s part of a growing number of attacks against Teslas amid CEO Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency and the slashing of thousands of federal jobs.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is now investigating the Cybertruck that was vandalized in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Video released by the NYPD shows one suspect crouch down next to the Cybertruck and allegedly carve a swastika and the word “Nazi” onto the door while another suspect looked on.
It happened on Monroe Street early Thursday morning.
Another incident was reported Thursday, which happened on March 13.
A 38-year-old man found a sticker with a swastika and “Musk” written on it affixed to the driver’s side rear bumper of his Tesla sedan, parked at Hawthorne Street and Rogers Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn.
This follows another similar act of vandalism in the city. Police say two suspects painted a red swastika on a Cybertruck near the intersection of Rivington and Chrystie streets on the Lower East Side.
It happened on March 6 after 10 p.m. The Hate Crimes Task Force is also involved in that investigation.
In South Jersey, neighbors are on alert after they say a man aggressively pursued several Tesla owners over the weekend.
This was in the Cherry Hill neighborhood Saturday evening, when the driver of a red Acura SUV was spotted antagonizing Tesla drivers.
“He was driving on the wrong side of the road and driving very erratically,” a victim said. “The person driving the red SUV blocked us from pulling out of the driveway, rolled down his window, and said, ‘You know why, right?’ And flipped us the middle finger.”
Since NYC power brokers have decided that they would rather build jails to lock up New Yorkers than invest in our communities, we’ve decided to issue our own stop work order on the Brooklyn jail construction site.
We clogged the locks of construction site entrances with cement, smashed their card readers, and locked the gates at multiple locations operated by the jail’s concrete supplier, SRM.
The $3 billion Brooklyn jail is part of the city’s $16 billion borough-based jails plan. In addition to Brooklyn, new jails are being built in Manhattan, Queens, and The Bronx. The city is propagating the lie that in order to to close Rikers by 2027, it needs to open four new jails. Given that the city has already admitted that it can’t meet its legally mandated deadline, that the building plans for these new jails already anticipate overcrowding, and that the number of people arrested by the NYPD has doubled since 2020, we’re calling their bluff. More cages won’t close Rikers or make our communities safer. If they build it, we will burn it!
We act in solidarity with abolitionists inside and outside of prison walls, with those who riot against corrections officers and ICE, and with those trying to save their family members state-sanctioned premature death. Every struggle against racism, fascism, zionism, colonialism, xenophobia, and cisheteropatriarchy must also be a struggle against the carceral state.
To the city: decarcerate now, and build affordable housing instead. Do something that will actually benefit our communities.
To SRM Concrete: drop your contract for the borough-based jails now.
To our fellow New Yorkers: join us in action and make your voices heard. No new jails. No more deaths at the hands of the state.
Last night, some people with consciences painted the front of Brooklyn Navy Yard red with fire extinguishers, and spray painted “Evict Easy Aerial” and “Evict Crye Precision” on its columns. Brooklyn Navy Yard houses Easy Aerial and Crye Precision, which make drones and equipment for the Zionist military, as well as the US military and the NYPD. They have no place in our city or our world. We act in support of Demilitarize Brooklyn Navy Yard. Their demands are the bare minimum, and painting is a relatively moderate action. Death to the war machine. Free Palestine. Free Turtle Island.
New York City police are searching for a group of people they say took a subway train on a joyride.
The department released images and video Wednesday of six individuals who they say commandeered an unoccupied “R” train over the weekend.
Surveillance video from inside the train shows the group, who all wore jackets with their hoods up, as they exited the conductor’s compartment and walked through the otherwise empty car.
A video of the group on their joyride was also shared on Instagram.
The clip shows one of them seated at the controls while another appears to be sitting on the outside of the car, their legs dangling over the edge.
“Cover your faces. Cover your faces,” one of them says on the video as the train accelerates through the tunnel.
The department said Thursday that they believe the joyride occurred around 10 p.m. Saturday at the 36th Street and 4th Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn.
Police and transit officials have not said how long and how far the suspects travelled in the stolen train. They said the suspects damaged glass panels on the train’s camera.
The group fled on foot, according to police. No injuries were reported.
Spokespersons for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said they are working with police on the investigation.
Police in September said two teens took an empty subway train in Queens on a brief joyride before crashing it and fleeing.
Activists vandalized the outside of @miriamrest , a disgusting genocide supporting israeli restaurant in Brookyln. Not only was this act condemned by pig mayor Erikkk Adams and zionist senator Chuckkk Schumer, but “pro-Palestine” mayoral hopeful Zohran Kwame Mamdani decided to join in on the disavowal. Zohran was infamously arrested outside of Schumer’s house at a protest, but here it looks like they agree that fighting genocide supporters outside of “permitted” protests is too far. A supposedly socialist mayor denouncing some red paint and playing into antisemitism accusations is too far, but Mamdani’s dedication to the cause was already in question because no true supporter of the liberation and resistance would ever run for a state-elected position. No more wheatpasting or support for this fuck!
Found on social media.
The attack went down just before 3 a.m. Sunday morning, with three vandals sneaking up on the spot under the cover of darkness with their faces hidden behind hoods and masks.
One of the vandals served as a lookout, while the other two hurriedly marred Miriam’s windows before scurrying off into the night, security footage obtained by [news source] showed.
“It’s just a sad thing, you know, I don’t know what people, why they’re so angry about a restaurant in Brooklyn,” said Rafael Hasid, who’s owned the restaurant for 20 years.
“I’m Israeli, like, ‘I’m sorry I was born in Israel?’ I’m not stealing anybody’s food, not doing anything. I don’t know what people, what do they want from me, what did I do?”
The incident was the second time his restaurant was targeted by anti-Israel agitators. About two years ago, Hasid’s Miriam location on the Upper West Side was similarly vandalized.
He’s also been subjected to numerous threatening phone calls, while he said random people who have never eaten at his restaurants have blanketed him with negative reviews online.
While he has everything he needs to clean the paint off his glass, Hasid decided to open his doors Sunday without cleaning it off.
And he said the public’s response has been inspiring, with people stopping by to eat who otherwise hadn’t planned to, some offering to donate to help with the clean up, and others sticking their heads in the simply offer their support and condolences.
US Sen. Chuck Schumer even stopped by to place an order and show his support, the owner said.
Police are investigating the incident, and have have posted officers to stand watch nearby.
January 18 is the Day of the Forest Defender, honoring the life of Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, who was murdered by Georgia State Troopers two years ago while protesting the construction of Cop City in Atlanta, and everyone else who has given their lives in the fight against those who would render the earth uninhabitable in the course of their pursuit of profit. This year, a call circulated for people to organize festivals of resistance in their communities on the weekend of January 17-19. Here, we share reports from some of these events.
The situation is grim. Despite acknowledging that Trump represents fascism, Democrats have nonetheless welcomed the arrival of despotism, dutifully voting for new legislation targeting immigrants and doing their best to keep protesters out of the streets. Tech CEOs have followed suit, pouring millions of dollars into his inauguration and crowding into St. John’s Church to worship at the feet of their new master.
Elon Musk made the Nazi salute twice from the podium during the inauguration, leaving only just enough plausible deniability to confuse the most naïve. Musk has posted fascist dog whistles on Twitter before, even before he purchased it in order to reintroduce Nazis to the platform, ban anarchists, and promote the fascist agenda.
From this point forward, nothing should surprise us. The incoming government has made it clear that they intend to inflict as much harm as possible on those who are vulnerable while concentrating as much money as possible in the hands of the ultra-rich. These are the central points of their agenda. Attempting to spread information about their misdeeds in order to provoke popular outrage is a waste of time. From here out, all that matters is developing the capacity to defend each other from their attacks while preparing to go on the offensive as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
The faces of the oligarchy looked craven and servile as they lined up at the inauguration to toady to Trump. Capitalism concentrates power in the hands of the most rapacious, but they can only hold on to power by being completely subservient to its demands.
Fortunately, not everyone is taking this sitting down. Anarchists around the country called for “festivals of resistance” the weekend before the inauguration in order to bring communities together prepare to resist. Here follow reports from a few of these. You can read the original call to organize festivals of resistance here, along with a list of dozens of events around the country.
January 11
Sacramento, Chicago, and a few other locations hosted events a weekend early, building up momentum.
Sacramento, California
On Saturday, January 11, well over 600 people came together in downtown Sacramento for a community gathering at a local Methodist Church featuring workshops, skillshares, info-tables, and a key-note address from anarchist author and mutual aid organizer Dean Spade. The previous night, people had gathered to write letters to political prisoners. On the day of the event, hundreds streamed into the building, dramatically outnumbering the nearby Trump rally at the capitol, which brought out only a hundred people.
The workshops included basic first aid, tenant organizing, food autonomy, anti-fascist organizing, community self-defense, and mutual aid. Dean Spade spoke for over an hour on mutual aid organizing with the recent fires in Los Angeles in mind, and also talked about how we need to change the broader culture in our movements, bringing in more people and creating a home for people to grow in through different cycles of struggle.
The event featured a well-organized security team and several zine tables and distros. No major problems occurred. So much pizza was ordered from a local business that the owner told one organizer, “This is bigger than Dave Matthew’s Band.” Crash into this, Dave!
January 17-19
Over two dozen cities hosted Festivals of Resistance this past weekend.
Brooklyn, New York
From noon until after 10 pm, the Interference Archive hosted a marathon of presentations and skillshares aimed at bringing people together and building capacity within New York City’s radical communities. The Archive collects and displays ephemera from social movements; it was covered in banners, posters, communiqués, and other material from the Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest movement as part of its ongoing exhibit, “This is Not a Local Struggle.”
The event opened with a moment of silence for Tortuguita. Then, over a dozen local groups and autonomous organizers gave trainings on topics including tenant and union organizing, protest and jail support tactics, and proposals for peoples’ assemblies and other new political formations, coalescing into a conversation about how to oppose the city’s prison expansion plan. The event ended with a community dinner, followed by a screening of several short documentaries about land defenders in Atlanta and Louisiana.
Elsewhere in Brooklyn, people courageously redecorated a billboard. Here follows their statement.
Today, thousands of people across the world organized events and took collective action in honor of Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, who was murdered by Georgia State Troopers two years ago while protesting the construction of Cop City in Atlanta. Tortuguita died defending the Weelaunee Forest. January 18, the Day of the Forest Defender, commemorates their 26 years on this earth and their steadfast commitment to collective liberation. Their spirit is alive in our resistance.
We, the writers of this message, took over a billboard on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, one of NYC’s largest highways, used by 130,000 vehicles daily. We covered a CopShot police billboard—that recruits informants with a $10,000 bribe—with a tribute to Tortuguita and all land defenders. In the context of a city that spends $29 million dollars a day on policing, off the side of a highway that displaced thousands of families with a stroke of a pen, we replace the state’s cowardly propaganda with a commemoration of land defenders’ sacrifice and struggle. Collective memory animates our will to destroy this empire that is killing us and our planet. As the US funnels billions into building Cop Cities across the country in its latest attempt to repress us, they concede what we already know—that rebellion is inevitable.
Viva Tortuguita and all land defenders. We will destroy this empire, with Earth as our witness.
The billboard before it was improved.
Cleveland, Ohio
In Cleveland, dozens of people gathered in a snowstorm to occupy a park and demonstrate our determination to build a world that works for everyone. Gathering around a banner reading “No matter who is in power, we keep us safe,” we held space near a busy intersection where people freely shared their experiences of a failed system and imagined the better world that we can build. This occupation was preceded by an indoor direct action training, allowing folks to hone the skills required to move forward. After the occupation, members of the community gathered indoors to discuss our collective needs and ongoing efforts to meet them, forming new connections and deepening existing ones. The day concluded with a documentary screening by the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World].
These events were organized by a newly formed group of anarchists that includes both experienced folks and individuals new to the movement. While the formation of this group was occasioned by calls for a Festival of Resistance, those involved are determined to cultivate the connections formed, building a group that fosters ties within the community and facilitates future actions, building our capacity for future resistance.
A projection at the entry to the Festival of Resistance in central North Carolina.
Durham, North Carolina
The weekend opened with a concert and dance party on Friday night. On Saturday, the Festival of Resistance in Durham, North Carolina drew 300 people for four hours of workshops running two or three at a time. Visitors could take their fill of free material from a dozen literature tables representing various mutual aid and community defense groups; some of those have been around for years or decades, while others emerged out of the assemblies that followed the election in November. Food Not Bombs provided a full hot meal, there was a busy childcare space.
The events continued on Sunday with four more hours of workshops in Chapel Hill, followed by a screening of a film about Rojava that concluded with a discussion featuring the director.
Gary, Indiana
Following up outreach events in Chicago, more than 75 people gathered outside the Gary/Chicago International Airport to demonstrate against the role that it plays in deportations, which Trump has been threatening to ramp up as part of his program of doing harm to undocumented people.
You can read one report on the action in Gary here:
The Gary/Chicago International Airport has been used since at least 2013 to fly deportees out of the region. GlobalX, an airline company based in Miami, FL, subcontracts with ICE to deport people every Friday from Gary/Chicago airport to Kansas City, MO before taking them out of the country. More than 19,000 people were deported out of Gary between 2013 and 2017 according to public records obtained through a Freedom of Information request by a local organizer.
Demonstrators were leaving the airport on foot Saturday morning when around two dozen Gary police officers descended on them. Officers grabbed and arrested two protestors who were in the process of complying with police instructions. A photojournalist was also seized and arrested by the officers while documenting the other arrests, in what amounts to a violent attack on the freedom of the press.
The march, held two days before Donald Trump takes power for a second time, represents the Gary community’s commitment to their immigrant neighbors in the face of state violence, but builds on the diligent work of community organizers over the years. Since 2017, interfaith groups, immigrant rights activists, and rank-and-file union workers from East Chicago and elsewhere in northwest Indiana regularly held prayer circles and other peaceful protests, but had not been met with significant repression.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
About thirty people attended a movie screening of Fell In Love with Fire, including many new faces. In the discussion following the film, many participants related their experience in the George Floyd Uprising to the uprising in Chile, reflecting on how to fight the new Trump regime. The evening concluded with writing letters to prisoners. People were very engaged and took a lot of zines and posters.
Oakland, California
About 150 people, mostly anarchists, marched to an abandoned OUSD [Oakland Unified School District] building, broke in, and held an assembly in a courtyard inside the premises. A dozen people spoke about various existing projects and how to get plugged in. Then, there were six breakout groups to discuss strategic horizons related to
Antirepression 2, International Solidarity
Housing
Immigration
Community resiliency/disaster relief, and
Other.
Afterwards, at 5 pm, a dance party got underway at the amphitheater at Lake Merritt, and people reconstructed the George Floyd memorial there.
Olympia, Washington
In Olympia, a coalition of local organizations and people from different political scenes organized a big-tent “People’s March.” The more anarchist contingent within the group advocated to attach a Festival of Resistance directly after the march. Dozens of organizations sponsored the events.
The event was diverse, well-attended, and notably intergenerational. The rally before the march drew about 1000 people. There were several speakers, including a speaker for Palestinian liberation, a recorded speech from local incarcerated pan-Africanist Tomas Afeworki, and a speaker and translator from La Resistencia, the group dedicated to shutting down the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center. There was also a moment of silence for a beloved long-term organizer, a participant in the organizing group behind the event, who passed away a week earlier. The march began with a local Indigenous activist performing a drum song; in the back, a marching band kept time.
Because of the ties between anarchists and other local activists, there was a lot of good faith participation. It appeared that the black bloc of about 20-30 people designed its splinter march with consideration for the family-friendly march, diverting police attention elsewhere. A little vandalism and graffiti occurred, to only a few people’s dismay; most in the march seemed unconcerned.
The march ended at the capitol, where people promoted a brand-new announcements-only Signal thread modeled on Austin’s Sunbird. A couple more speakers closed out the march.
The Festival of Resistance started immediately afterwards at a location only a few blocks away. The building was packed from the beginning. Probably 150-200 people circulated through it. This was the real aim of attaching the two events. Food and drinks were served. Several organizations set up tables—letters to prisoners, the Emma Goldman Youth and Homeless Outreach Project, zine distros, and the like—and people mingled and ate for an hour before the sessions. Then, there were announcements, a toast to our dearly departed, followed by two rounds of discussions and workshops. The workshops included direct action 101 (with a local history flipbook collecting printed communiqués), resisting repression, and the history and culture surrounding the local Artesian Well and the struggle against its enclosure. There were topic-based facilitated discussions, as well.
Many people expressed the desire to keep the ball rolling and repeat this model in order to try to continue the conversations rather than having to begin again from scratch. In retrospect, it would have been ideal to have already planned a future event that people could put in their calendars, or an activity that could facilitate people generating something like that together.
Providence, Rhode Island
Following the Providence Festival of Resistance and words from Tortuguita’s friends and comrades, some people marched to the Atwells Avenue overpass and hung a banner over I-95 reading “Revenge for Tortuguita—No More Presidents.”
Richmond, Virginia
Up to 500 people attended the Richmond Festival of Resistance in the course of the day. Many contributed names, remembrances, or tokens of other martyrs to the altar honoring Tortuguita.
In addition to celebrating grief together, Richmond’s “Festival of Resistance,” advertised locally as the inaugural “People’s Assembly,” included a full day of tabling, workshops, panels, and free food. The gathering launched a new initiative, the People’s Assembly, a recurring venue for citywide coordination and strategy building.
The idea is to hold citywide assemblies in each season, building from the neighborhood assemblies that many people left this gathering inspired to begin.
Tucson, Arizona
Less than a week in advance, a handful of friends decided to hold a humble “Parade of Resistance” on the Day of the Forest Defender. With only three days’ notice on a busy weekend, 30-40 people gathered in a park while members of a local brass band played a short set.
The parade then took a one and a half mile route through the part of town with the most pedestrian traffic. The sound system was bumping a cumbia mix made by a comrade who recently passed away. The vibe was fun and playful, and generally very well received by bystanders, some of whom joined in, dancing in the street for a block or two. The cops arrived about halfway through, but people ignored their orders to vacate the street, and they resigned themselves to redirecting traffic for us. Their investment in a “progressive” image often complicates their efforts to assert control.
The messaging was an experiment in vagueness. The only banner read “Towards a Free World”; it was accompanied by colorful butterfly puppets. A few paraders distributed pamphlets with accessible language calling for revolutionary action and transformation. On the back, a flier promoted an upcoming “Festival of Rebellion” on February 15.
The march ended at sunset at a classic spot for punks and train kids. Across the tracks, there was graffiti honoring Tortuguita and our dear friend who has just passed away. The dance party continued into the night with a bonfire and more graffiti.
Ultimately, it was a nice morale boost and very worthwhile, considering what a light lift the organizing was. It gave some of us a chance to get out in the streets without demanding a bunch of work from an already overloaded network. Definitely better than doing nothing. Hopefully, it created some momentum to carry forward.
WHAT: Noise Demo WHEN: 9:00pm, Tuesday, December 31st WHERE: Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC, the federal prison in Brooklyn); 29th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, Brooklyn, New York 11232 (D/N/R to 36th Street or R to 25th Street). BRING: Noisemakers, air horns, drums, anything that is loud!
On the noisiest night of the year in New York City, come help us remind folks locked up that they are not alone. NYC Anarchist Black Cross, in response to an international call for noise demonstrations outside of prisons, is asking folks to join us outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Come, not to appeal to authority, speak truth to power, or any other contrivance, but rather to stand with comrades, at a safe distance, and show direct solidarity to those on the other side of the wall.
The state, writ large, is targeting anarchists all across the United States and abroad. This will be both protest and celebration.
