Gilman's latest on yesterday's arrests
As I was locked in SB 1070 legal hell Thursday, eyeballing the two proceedings in front of U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, I missed a lot of the action outside the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix where the hearings were taking place.
While legal beagles for Governor Jan Brewer, the ACLU, MALDEF, and the U.S. Department of Justice were fighting it out over the request that Bolton issue an injunction to all or part of SB 1070, activists were occupying the streets of Phoenix. Specifically, some blocked the intersection of Washington Street and 4th Avenue, at the northeast corner of the courthouse grounds. Seven were arrested.
Crusading videographer Dennis Gilman caught all the action, and put it to the tune of Rage Against the Machine's "Bulls on Parade." If you've been living under a cactus, RATM is playing a benefit show tonight at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles to aid groups on the ground here in Sand Land fighting 1070.
One of those groups is the civil rights group Puente, and one of the leaders of Puente, Carlos Garcia, was arrested yesterday along with the others.
"We've done more marches now in the last year," Garcia tells Gilman in the video. "Nothing has changed. The administration hasn't acted. The state has gotten worse. So we're here escalating. We're ready to be arrested."
You can expect a lot more of this in the coming week as we head toward the implementation of 1070 on July 29. When the protesters chant, "We will not comply," they ain't kidding around.
Could the activists bring Phoenix to its knees, as one of them suggests in the video? (Nonviolently, of course.) I wouldn't dismiss the possibility. And as long as they keep it peaceful, more power to them.
