March in memory of Sand Creek Massacre

Antoinette Red Woman walked from 15th Street to the state Capitol on Saturday to remember and honor her fallen ancestors who suffered in Colorado’s Sand Creek Massacre 145 years ago.

One hundred and sixty Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribal members were killed on Nov. 29, 1864, when the 1st Colorado Cavalry and 3rd Colorado Cavalry, under the leadership of Col. John Chivington, opened fire on a peaceful American Indian camp in southeastern Colorado.

Angry taxi drivers protest sweetheart deal

About 100 horn-honking taxi drivers encircled the Cherry Creek Mall and passed out leaflets today protesting new restrictions that give preferential access to two cab companies.

“Pretty much it was a sea of orange,” said Lisa Bolton, CWA Local 7777 president, referring to the color of one company’s cabs. “It went excellent.”

The Cherry Creek Mall is one of the prime locations in Denver for taxi drivers to find clients and Christmas is the busiest and most profitable time of the year.

But representatives from two taxi companies say the Cherry Creek Mall recently entered an exclusive deal with two competing taxi companies that denies them partial access to the shopping center.

Only Yellow Cab and Metro Taxi will be allowed to wait at taxi stands outside the mall.

Parker bank robbery

A [person] wearing a blue hoodie sweatshirt pulled out a gun and robbed a Colorado State Bank and Trust in Parker this morning.

The suspect escaped from the bank at 17821 Cottonwood Dr. on foot with an unspecified amount of money, said Sara Walla, Parker police spokeswoman.

from the Denver Post.

Gangs and Insurrection // on the occasion of the mass arrests in Denver

We don’t usually do much commentary, instead letting people’s actions speak for themselves, but there are some news stories that we absolutely cannot let go reported in the way the media would have it. This is one such story.  The following piece is not as complete and thought-out as we want; it’s a piece we’ve worked on for about a week since the news hit the press, but we’d like to work on it more.  Look for a better version in the next issue of ’til it breaks.

Last week the Denver Police Department made a mass arrest of 34 black youth and it seems like nobody has blinked an eye.

The 34 suspects were rounded up because, according to the cops, they are suspects in a series of downtown muggings.

Last we heard, 30 of those individuals have been charged with things like assault and robbery–many of them felony charges.  The police did not make it clear how they identified and rounded up the suspects, but “most of [them] told police they were associated with either the Rollin’ 60s Crips gang or the Black Gangster Disciples gang.”  The police keep dossiers on gang members; apparently they used their lists to round up individuals, throw them in jail, and begin interrogations.

All this ought to raise some kind of resistance from radicals who are also tracked by the police.

Anarchists, especially, should take notice when this shit goes down, cause we’re in gangs ourselves.  It’s true.  All it takes is a crew of folks who have each others’ backs to be a gang.  Our forms of social organization are atypical, and they are our greatest strength.

Even if you don’t think you’re a gangster, the cops already do.  The police in Denver have been using their Gang Units to track anarchists for years.  To them, we’re gangs.

Governor’s Mansion hit with TP

Colorado’s governor’s mansion has hosted dignitaries like Dwight Eisenhower in its 101-year history, but no one’s sure that what happened to the home of Colorado’s First Family over night has ever happened before.

Gov. Bill Ritter (D-Colorado) and First Lady Jeannie Ritter were awake shortly after dawn this morning looking up at numerous rolls of toilet paper hanging from trees in their yard.

from the Denver Post.

Gunbarrel ATM theft attempted

Customers hoping to use the drive-through ATM at Chase Bank in Gunbarrel will have to go inside or elsewhere to get cash for a while.

The automated teller machine is out of commission after one or several would-be thieves ripped it from its base overnight and dragged it about 20 feet before giving up and leaving the cash machine mangled on the grass, according to Boulder police.

Boulder police responded to an alarm at the bank, 6300 Gunpark Drive, about 2 a.m. Wednesday and found an uprooted ATM on the lawn, police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said.

from the Denver Post.

Boulder frat boys getting smashed a lot

Members of a Boulder fraternity are fed up with vandalism at their University Hill house, and they’re taking steps to fight back.

Matt Ullrich, president of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at 911 17th St., said Tuesday that the organization has been the target of multiple acts of vandalism in recent weeks.

“I’ve been here for three years, and I’ve never seen stuff this bad,” Ullrich said.

Ullrich, 20, said someone, either Friday night or early Saturday morning, used a rock to smash a window on the second floor of the ZBT house. The window backs up to the organization’s parking lot and a park behind University Hill Elementary School.

Boulder police are investigating a similar string of vandalism that was reported on University Hill early Saturday morning, although a police spokeswoman said no one reported the incident at the fraternity and so police are unsure if the events are related.

The weekend incident at the ZBT house is the second time in as many weeks that the fraternity has been targeted, Ullrich said. Last week, two windows at the house were broken, along with a sliding glass door that opens to a bedroom.

Earlier in the semester, the fraternity members found five cars in their private parking lot with broken side mirrors. Two cars had cinder blocks tossed through the windshields.

“A pretty serious path of destruction”

Video.

Residents in a University Hill neighborhood say vandals who left a path of destruction this weekend went way beyond typical mischief.

Boulder police received at least seven reports of vandalism Saturday morning.

Police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said someone, or a group of people, pulled out a parking sign from the First Congregational Church, 1128 Pine St., and threw it through the church’s front glass doors.

No one went into the church, Huntley said, and it appears the damage was done just for the fun of it.

Elsewhere, a motorcycle was intentionally tipped over in the 1000 block of 14th Street, and a huge boulder weighing 60 to 70 pounds was lobbed at a parked car in the 1000 block of 10th Street.

Rocks also damaged the hoods and windows of vehicles in the 900 and 1000 blocks of Lincoln Place and in the 900 block of Pennsylvania Avenue.

One homeowner’s lawn furniture was stolen in the 1000 block of Ninth Street.

The estimated damage to vehicles ranges from $500 to $1,500, Huntley said.

Investigators think the incidents happened sometime overnight Friday or early Saturday morning.

“Based on the timing and the proximity of the incidents, investigators believe this was probably a spree” by the same person or people, Huntley said.

California, Occupied

In recognition that California’s crisis is Colorado’s crisis, or more accurately that the same crises and conditions underlie all of our embattled existences; that the same forces of privatization, policing, and emptiness drive the struggle on the West Coast and the No Coast; that we have much to do and much to learn, and we may learn it within classrooms, but only if we transform them into spaces of attack on systems of education…

This is how we learn, this is how we fight.

…til it breaks brings you: California, Occupied.

This past week, a wave of student occupations and unrest surged through the University of California system as the Board of Regents were approving a 32% across-the-board tuition increase.  Santa Cruz, Berkley, LA, Davis, and Fresno all saw occupations!

The New School Reoccupied has photos and video from the occupations, solidarity statements, and communiques.  Occupy California has detailed updates on how the occupations unfolded and spread and faced repression from without and sabotage from within.  And this is our emergency brings the bold words.  Finally, support Doug Gilbert and all the 100+ arrested.

Read and learn.  Get ready to fight and learn much more.

Coming soon to an institution of higher education near you…

School vandalism in Edwards

EDWARDS, Colorado — Windows were broken, white paint was splattered on walls and other damage was done by vandals this weekend at the Eagle County Charter School in Edwards in Colorado’s Vail Valley.

from The Vail Daily.