I just came home from court this morning, and finally had a chance to get my police report, detailing what I'm being charged with and what evidence is against me. I already gave them most of it in letters, blogs, and postcards about my protest. I was relieved I didn't have to actually enter a "not guilty" plea this morning, because after all that, it would seem pretty dishonest. I may have a defense against some of this, though, so I'm going to speak to the attorney they gave me at the public defender's office before digging a much deeper hole. But I still have amends to make to my neighbors, since I made such a thoughtless public display of vandalizing them. I even seemed to make light of it in the process.See, this is all about me throwing that red paint down in an alley already covered in paint during the First Friday June Artwalk. I openly admitted doing that, and committed my act of resistance in front of the graffiti detectives themselves. In the process, though, my paint splattered a few inches up the wall of the building next door, an art studio/ collective that it turns out does work with people involved in mental health programs. I'm so clueless about some of my neighbors that I had no idea they were doing that kind of work, or I would have talked to them about this all in advance, even though I had no intention of hitting the alley side of their studio wall. Instead, I learned about my neighbors from my own criminal report, listing them as my victim. I feel pretty crummy about that.
In my police report, the manager of the place said she wanted to prosecute because what I'd done would have been so upsetting for some folks participating in the programs - which I inferred was of particular concern for those folks with pre-existing psychiatric conditions. I get that - and can see it upsetting others as well. That explains to me why it was important to clean it up, without messing around with my offer to re-paint it myself - even I would have called Graffiti Busters to clean up after myself if I thought it through. It really was unintended - that doesn't mean I'm not responsible, though. I acted out without much thought for the neighbors over there, or their members and guests. That's not very excusable, given what I could have brought out for some folks with images of bloodshed across the alley, as well as the names of the dead. That's me acting out my own unresolved trauma, in part - they don't need my help with theirs.
So, this blog post will no doubt be added to the evidence they use against me in the end, but I'm truly deeply sorry for having dragged you all into the middle of my protest. You're already doing your part to protect our people from ending up in prison in the first place. I hope that if my activities ever trouble you that way - criminal or not - you feel okay contacting me.
Most people with mental illness, by the time we're my age, have already been through too much. I'm dually-recovering myself, survived a horrible, violent suicide of a loved one, and the last thing I would want to do is traumatize someone else further. We all need to feel safe in order to grow, and I undermined that for some folks, I suspect, by all my agitation and graffiti - which invited others to contribute more. I was also wrong to define the terms of resistance by my own standards without talking to others living and working around there that night, outside of what I call my own community. I thought this protest would be all about getting my message out about the state's violence, not mine. It still is, in a way, but not how I thought it would be. It's been said that the work of a true revolutionary begins in the our own communities, taking care of others. Despite all I preach about the importance of doing so if we're to really hold each other accountable and not rely on the criminal justice system for amends to be made in cases like this, when it came down to it I didn't practice that. I think this is the bigger lesson in all this - it's for me, not for the cops. I understand why people get upset about graffiti, now. My total lack of concern for the effect of my actions that Artwalk on the people right next door is my real crime, though - even if I hadn't even touched their property.But an apology alone is not an amends. I'm inclined to think that only those folks - and perhaps the participants they were concerned about - can say what they feel justice would be, having been harmed in some way by me - and I respect it if they feel the criminal justice system is the way to get that, and to restore their own sense of safety and order in their community. I'd have a pretty hard time pleading not guilty to that charge, after all this. The charges filed about city property, though, I'll probably fight. I think I just threw myself at the mercy of the court - or my victims, I'm not sure which. I guess now I should wait until I talk to an attorney before commenting much further on all this. Thanks to my friends for showing their support today. I really think I need to reconsider some of my tactics...Peg--
Margaret J. Plews, Editor
Arizona Prison Watch
P.O. Box 20494
Phoenix, AZ 85036
480-580-6807
"Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness, and our ability to tell our own stories..."
- Arundhati Roy Prison Abolitionisthttp://prisonabolitionist.blogspot.comArizona Prison Watchhttp://arizonaprisonwatch.blogspot.comArizona Juvenile Prison Watchhttp://azjuvenileprisonwatch.blogspot.comHard Time Alliance - AZhttp://hardtimehepc.blogspot.comSurvivors of Prison Violence
I met the Graffiti Detectives Friday evening in my back alley, which is along the main drag for the Phoenix Artwalk on the First Friday of every month. A few friends and comrades showed to cop-watch from the sidelines; most of my friends are on probation or parole, however, and couldn't afford the risk involved in being as criminally disobedient as I have been in recent days, so they were excused from showing for the action.
A few folks have rightfully asked me to explain what I'm doing and why a little better. Among other things, I've been trying to force a more animated and engaging public dialogue about the prison deaths, free expression and resistance, and Arizona's tendency to prioritize property rights over human rights in our legislative practices. There are a host of intersecting issues affecting human rights in this state, beginning with a flawed value system. Here it's "criminal damage" to block access for livestock to water supplies - a felony - and yet guaranteeing access to water in the desert for people is prosecuted criminally as littering. As a manifestation of our collective social values in Phoenix, the city's response to my solicitation to resist the status quo through possible criminal activity turned out a whole squad of cops to protect an alley from art, but no one in this state will initiate an investigation into all the suicides and homicides at the AZ Department of Corrections. What gives? I can't even count how many cops I've reported the state's crimes too, but no one seems to feel responsible for intervening themselves, or even calling in the feds.
An argument can be made that my chalk - and now paint - on the ground invites graffiti on the walls and "blight"; there was some new artwork done the night before they arrived Friday, specifically a message to them:
The images that bug me the most, frankly, are not graffiti per se, but from the advertising I can't avoid looking at everywhere I go - especially those faded, aging political signs like the ones outside of Tom Horne's old campaign office on 7th Ave and McDowell - boy that place is looking trashy. Bottom line is that if you have money you can ram your politics down everyone's throat with fear, racism, sexism, homophobia - the list of ugly manipulative strategies we're subjected to each political season goes on.Then we must respect the "rights" of people who just want to make a buck from us to advertise their garbage - from fast food joints to casinos to strip clubs and the state's lottery system, as long as they have the money to buy or rent space they can push their products and messaging all over our everyday landscape. But if an impoverished citizen objects to the way our government is being run and puts up their own highway signage to express objection to the wars, for example, it's considered a crime.
Only property-holders and lawmakers can color and abuse our public horizon that way, it appears. All public space should be safe for free (unpaid) political expression, but none is really protected by our laws in meaningful places, quantities, or ways - if anything, it's discouraged by the privatization of so much community space (done to give police departments and businesses the leverage to criminalize homelessness and hassle the poor riff raff busking on "their" sidewalks).I can only guess who made those kinds of laws, and who they serve most today - I'm fairly sure they weren't designed to empower The People, though. Law is mainly made to maintain the social order, after all - which is inherently heirarchical, capitalist, racist, misogynistic, and anti-democratic in America - especially Arizona...
Anyway, as I said, I met the Graffiti Detectives (Diane Rowe and her partner, whose name I keep forgetting) in my back alley Friday in time for my planned protest. It quickly became clear that they wouldn't be arresting me - I think they mainly just didn't want to become players in my street theater any more than they already had to be.
Detective Rowe took issue with my characterization of cops picking on teenage taggers - they feel as if they try to help the kids they arrest, in particular. They also argued that there really aren't that many youth being charged as adults or even sent off to child prison for graffiti alone. They see writing as being like a "gateway" drug, so the youth getting into real trouble may face burglary and other charges by the time they get busted for tagging...
So, the Graffiti Detectives are really here to help wayward youth, not control and punish budding revolutionaries. Right. Regardless, we never would have had the conversation we did if I was a teenage Latino male chalking the public walks in the middle of the night instead of a middle class white woman calling my vandalism "politics" and "art"...which is what this protest was really about - my own privilege. In a year and a half of chalking the walks of Power, how is it that I've never been arrested, assaulted, or shot by a cop in this town? Not that I WANT any of those things to happen, mind you - but I see them happening to people of color and those in poverty all around me, and can't help but wonder why I get a pass, if not for the intersections of my gender, age, race and class...That I am particularly privileged by the status quo in Arizona today is fairly disturbing - and the cost of accommodating my comfort, and that of my class, compels me to resist with everything I have. I may not be the most brilliant organizer or political strategist - some folks really doubt my sanity given my engagement of the police in confrontations - but I have yet to hear one good reason why not to tackle this head-on, at every level of law enforcement.
Anyway, I talk to cops more than real anarchists do because I want them engaged in the struggle of prisoners - they're the ones doing them the "favor" of arrest and confinement to get them off the streets, give them "3 hots and a cot" (which are really two bag lunches and a "boat" on the floor) - like everyone did to help Marcia Powell and Shannon Palmer, lucky them. That's a reminder that even the best intentions can still hurt a lot of people, especially if the police are brought into the mix as partners or "helpers". Their primary job is to maintain the order of the state, not promote the liberties and rights of the people - no matter how friendly they may seem.
But the cops didn't come to chat about my politics. Detective Rowe and I talked about all those issues for half an hour or so before I finally threw my red paint down and slapped my palm print up on the side of one of the dumpsters in our alley, irritated by the show of police force to discourage such activity. In the end I was yelling, I think, about how property rights trump human rights in this town as they all showed up to fight "vandalism" but I can't get anyone to follow up on serious abuse complaints against cops.
That's bullshit, frankly. So I've asked the Phoenix Graffiti Detectives to help me get the DOJ out here - we'll see if they bother to do that much. That might be too much like ratting out their own to internal affairs - that's how creeps like Gerster, Keesee and Chrisman stay in positions of power, though.
As for my criminal damage - I was the only one to handle the paint Friday night, since my friends don't need to be harassed any more than they already are - I can expect them to catch up to me with criminal charges and a bill for restitution and clean-up, on their own schedule. They aren't about to accommodate mine. I'll keep you all posted on how that unfolds; I expect it will give me plenty to write about, if nothing else of value.
Thanks for all your support, by the way, folks. You all rock!
