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Raising Ariel Attack–Denver Anarchist Black Cross promoted march; woman charged with attempted murder, arson

by | 4:34 pm, May 12, 2011 | 2 Comments

Developing . . .

Ariel Attack–meet Amelia “Jane Doe” Nicol.

Nicol, who participated in a march last Friday promoted by the Denver Anarchist Black Cross group, has raised the stakes in anarchist circles:

A 20-year-old woman accused of hurling a fire bomb at Denver police officers during a protest last week faces two counts of attempted murder and other charges, prosecutors said Thursday.

Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey formally charged Amelia Nicol with the attempted murder counts along with two counts of assault and single counts of use of explosives, possession of explosives, arson, inciting a riot, resisting arrest and criminal mischief.
. . .
“March against police terror!” said an announcement for the protest on the Facebook page of a group called Denver Black Anarchist Cross.

Nicol is associated with Denver Anarchist Black Cross, who posted this note on their Facebook page (screencap here):

Friday, May 6 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Sunken Garden Park
8th and Speer
Denver, Colorado

The police are at war with the people. It’s time for the people to be at war with the police.

9 months ago, jail guards in the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center in Denver, murdered a homeless street preacher, Marvin Booker. Videotape of his brutal murder exists, but has never been made public. The Denver District Attorney declined to file charges against the deputies responsible.

No one has faced any justice for Marvin’s murder.
…
On May 3rd, Denver will host city wide elections for a new mayor and new city council members. Though most of the mayoral candidates have promised a change in the local police forces, the results of this election will change nothing.

No matter who is elected, the police will still terrorize our communities.

High profile cases of police violence fill the headlines of local media. Officers beat, taze, and pepper spray residents of the Denver Metro Area with impunity. Though several tolkeinized terminations have recently taken place, these firings will ultimately not stop the police terror raging in our neighborhoods and streets. In Aurora, police execute Russian migrant youth merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Denver, police raid homes and beat whole families.

This isn’t a case of a few bad apples. The whole orchard is diseased and rotten.

As the U.S. military occupies countries across the world to maintain control over a global economy that impoverishes billions, police forces across the United States occupy neighborhoods to maintain a social order that impoverishes millions in this country.

The poor and working class are beaten, murdered, imprisoned, evicted, raped, abused, and tortured in Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. soldiers and in Denver by local police officers and other state agents.

We’ve marched three times in the last year, and our rage has become something that cannot be dismissed.

On May 6th, on a weekend that will see celebrations honoring the memories of struggles, revolutions, and people’s victories from centuries ago, we will fill the streets.

Whoever is elected on May 3rd, they will understand the power of the people they hope to control and govern after May 6th.

May 6th- Into the streets!
For Marvin Booker!
For Oleg Gidenko!
For all of us!

In 2009, Ariel Attack, a transgendered anarchist who had done canvassing for Democratic candidates in the 2008 cycle, vandalized the Democratic Party headquarters in Denver during the contentious summer townhalls. Democrats, including then-state chairwoman Pat Waak, initially denounced Tea Party activists as the culprit. Within hours, due to the pioneering work here at People’s Press Collective and other local blogs, Democrats were forced to acknowledge the association between Ariel Attack and Dem-funded groups like Colorado Citizens Coalition, which had ponied up the money to pay the $500 for canvassing. The fund was endowed by Pat Stryker, Tim Gill, the AFL-CIO, and NARAL.

Here are excerpts from the Denver Anarchist Black Cross site, in praise and in support of Ariel Attack:

Today in Denver, we have cause to celebrate as one warm body became secure in its relative freedom–the sort of freedom that reminds us of what we still must do in order to be free. Yesterday morning Ariel Attack plead to Class 2 Misdemeanor (Criminal Mischief) in return for the dropping of the original Felony charge, and the court set the sentence at 11 months (?!?) of unsupervised probation and full payment of $5,600 restitution, allowing Ariel to stay on the streets and in the arms of friends. This is much better than the possible 2-6 year bit they were facing. The restitution had to be paid in full and up front (by taking out a loan) for the deal to go through.

A year unsupervised is not a bad deal considering the circumstances of Ariel’s arrest and their refusal to name the ‘accomplice’. In case you’re just tuning in, Ariel was involved in an attack against the Colorado Democratic Party Headquarters in August by means of hammers and the resulting media clusterfuck. We feel there has been a lot of luck mixed up in this situation, but we’ll publish a narrative of the events so that anarchists out there can see if there’s anything they can learn. Look out for that in the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, friends close by and far away are feeling the cold grip of state repression, and the struggle continues. There are two Denver-based activists facing felony charges and massive legal fees, and we extend our solidarity to Jeff and Noah, along with Carrie and Scott, David Japenga, the RNC8, all of our imprisoned comrades; the list is far too long to finish.

While Ariel’s legal battle has wrapped up, we are making one last request for donations to help cut away at Ariel’s debt–about $6,000–and we still have some of these fly Hammer Time t-shirts to move. Friendsofariel@riseup.net to get hooked up.

A brief message from Ariel: “To everyone who has had my back these past months, with everything from letters and cash to screenprinting, fashion advice, words, and all of that intangible “i got your back” stuff, Thank you! And, yeah, it was fun.”

Freedom, however, is not something stable on which we can place our feet. It is a struggle we fight day by day. Yesterday was not a shallow victory–there is nothing shallow about the warmth of friends’ arms, the taste of good food, the drag of fingernails across skin. Still, this sense of freedom is nothing compared to what we will experience when we destroy the prisons.

Oh, all the court fashion photos are here: http://boulevardier4eva.wordpress.com/?s=court+ariel

In solidarity,

Friends of Ariel, Attack!

winter solstice 2009

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Category: Colorado Politics, Moonbattery, PPC

Comments

  1.   RIght Said Fred
      May 12th, 2011 @ 9:30 pm

    Um – “tolkeinized terminations?”

    Either ‘Denver Anarchist Black Cross’ has been partaking overmuch of the ol’ pipeweed, or that’s one helluva classic autocorrect ‘epic fail.’

    Jeez, these nutters are giving the rest of us ‘anarchists’ a bad name!

  2.   Todd
      May 17th, 2011 @ 7:22 am

    Amelia Nicol suffered a severe brain injury years ago in a skateboarding accident. She may not be competent.

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