January 22, 2017

A man who has not been identified was found dead outside in North Berkeley’s popular Gourmet Ghetto neighborhood Sunday morning, authorities report.

Berkeley Police Lt. Andrew Rateaver said a man was found dead, but that no further details about him could be released pending the ongoing coroner’s case.

Rateaver said authorities were called at 9 a.m. to offer medical aid to someone at 2044 Hearst Ave. Police and firefighters responded. But when they got there, they found that the person who reportedly needed help had already died.

The investigation is going, Rateaver said.

The coroner’s office said Sunday afternoon that the man has not been identified so no further information was available.

It may, however, be the latest in a series of troubling deaths outside of people sleeping on Berkeley streets.

Last weekend, the body of a 55-year-old woman was found in the yard of a home on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Homeless activist Mike Zint said Tuesday at a vigil for her that the woman was the ninth homeless person who had died outside in the East Bay in the past few months. He said four were in Oakland, and several others were from Berkeley. Zint said their long years in the elements had contributed to their deaths.

One of those individuals was Roberto Benitas, who died in September in the doorway of the old U-Haul business on San Pablo Avenue and Addison Street.

In mid-December, a man may have died after having a medical issue outside the McDonald’s at 1998 Shattuck Ave. (The coroner’s office had no information on the man identified by the community as the victim when Berkeleyside called to check in December. The Berkeley Fire Department said a person was transported by ambulance from that location but could provide no further information due to privacy laws.)

That same week, according to reports from the First They Came For The Homeless activist group, other Berkeley fatalities included a man known as “Caveman” who died after being in the hospital for several weeks, and “a homeless woman new to housing.”

In the last month or so, Berkeley has doubled the number of shelter beds it offers by opening three emergency warming centers in addition to its regular shelters. The newest one, at 1231 Second St., can accommodate dogs and large amounts of gear. Berkeley even opened two places that people can stay during the day, but they are not being well-used and are being phased out, according to a staff report.

Note from Mike Zint:

The fatalities are occurring frequently. Two in one week in Berkeley. Have enough died, or do you want more?

BREAKING:

Chelsea Manning Freed

By President Obama

TYT Politics Reporter Jordan Chariton (https://twitter.com/JordanChariton) did a Facebook Live report on the breaking news that President Obama is to commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence.

First They Came for the Homeless (FTCftH) decries the loss of yet another life on the streets of Berkeley – ‘Body of homeless woman found near Berkeley High’, reported in Berkeleyside 1/15/17. People without shelter and without hope is the mark of a failed society, one that will likely fall even further over these next four years as tolerance and compassion continue to lose ground to bigotry and mean-spiritedness.

FTCftH will be holding a press conference, followed by a 24-hour vigil commencing at 5:00 PM, Tuesday, January 17th on the grounds of Berkeley’s New City Hall in memory of lives lost needlessly – in Berkeley, San Francisco, in Portland, OR, Denver, CO and all across the country.

Mike Zint, an organizer with FTCftH, said

“A tent is not a permanent solution. Housing is. But with no housing available, a tent in a sanctioned tent city would provide shelter, storage, security, privacy, and most importantly, stability. And stability is what will help the most. Give people time without harassment, hours, abuse, or rules that don’t fit in with life.”

FTCftH once again calls on the City of Berkeley to stop using police to terrorize homeless people, to stop confiscating the possessions they need to survive, and to stop dismantling the small, supportive communities they establish. Protecting and serving means all the people of Berkeley, not just the housed. In the absence of a place to call her own, would a tent and companions have saved this woman’s life? We don’t know. COULD a tent, companions and shared food saved this woman’s life? We think that’s a good possibility.

For more on our thoughts on homelessness please see http://tinyurl.com/jmqp4kj

October 27, 2016

When Donald Trump says, “This election is rigged”—he should know. His buddies are rigging it.

Rolling Stone investigative reporter Greg Palast busted Jeb Bush for stealing the 2000 election by purging Black voters from Florida’s electoral rolls. Now Palast is back to take a deep dive into the Republicans’ dark operation, Crosscheck, designed to steal a million votes by November.

Crosscheck is controlled by a Trump henchman, Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State who claims his computer program has identified 7.2 million people in 29 states who may have voted twice in the same election–a felony crime. The catch? Most of these “suspects” are minorities—in other words, mainly Democratic voters. Yet the lists and the evidence remain “confidential.”

Palast and his investigative side-kick Badpenny do what it takes to get their hands on the data, analyze it and go find some of these 7.2 million Americans tagged “suspects” and “potential duplicate voters” whose votes are threatened this November.

They hunt down and confront Kobach with the evidence of his “lynching by laptop.” Then they are off to find the billionaires behind this voting scam.

In this interview, Greg talks about his new film, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy”. Called “The most important investigative journalist of our time”, Palast has been working for the BBC for 20 years and writes for the Guardian and the Rolling Stone.

See also: GregPalast.com

October 17, 2011 (theuptake.org)

“Sometimes politicians don’t see the light until they feel the heat,” Congressman and Chair of the Progressive Caucus Keith Ellison told The UpTake yesterday during an interview about the growing Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

(Watch OWS protests from around the world here)

Ellison fully supports the spontaneous demonstrations, doesn’t believe they are leaderless, and doesn’t think politicians should get in their way or try to co-opt the movement.

Haru is an 89 year old American woman of Japanese heritage who grew up in Riverside, California. She recalls how her family was put on a registry and incarcerated in an internment camp where they were forced to remain for four years. Then Haru stops talking and does something unexpected…

Executive Produced by Katy Perry

Made possible in part by
Visual Communications – www.vconline.org
Alterian, Inc. – http:/www.alterianinc.com
The Local Skill – @thelocalskill
Coyote Post – www.coyotepost.com

Photo Credits:
Haru as Young Girl – Haru Kuromiya

Evacuees of Japanese ancestry entraining for Manzanar, California – National Archives and Records Administration

Manzanar Internment Camp, California – National Archives and Records Administration