User:Ahwoooga/Anarchist Defendants in the United States

NOTE ABOUT THIS DRAFT

 * Whenever possible, maintain chronology.
 * When cases are better collected under one heading, but jump around the timeline, put the heading between the two points in the timeline which BEST describe when the associated movement was most active.
 * Try to summarize each case within one paragraph, prioritizing information about the defendants role within a case being made against them: the charges, their reaction to the charges, relevant public statements regarding the charges, time served, any relevant prison writings, and any interesting statements made condemning/condoning them or the actions for which they are accused.
 * For extremely notable cases/defendants, less should be said summarizing them, and more concentration should be devoted to the role of the state's prosecution.
 * Wherever a decent article exists on the trial or incident, include a "main article" link.
 * Almost all of the text in this article needs to be made into a more accurate summary of the associated case/situation.
 * Sources need to be pulled from source entries.

I'm going to try to enclose many of the individual cases within associated movements and eras, with short descriptions of each person followed by "see full article" links. Those defendants who don't fit within a larger section will be placed between them chronologically. Also, see the bottom of the article to add to or review an unorganized list of anarchist defendants.

Collaborators and Informants
Throughout the history of Anarchism in the United States, there have some who identify as anarchists who have cooperated in investigations against other anarchists. (Some information outlining various anarchist perspectives about informants). (Anarchists often make a clear distinction between cooperators and non-cooperators, etc.). The question as to whether or not they are "real" anarchists remains open to interpretation. However, history has shown that once an anarchist collaborates with state investigations, the likelihood that they offer any contributions to the school of thought or its various struggles seems non-existent. (etc.)

= The Haymarket Anarchists =

The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) was a demonstration and unrest that took place on Tuesday May 4, 1886, at the Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a rally in support of striking workers. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of eight police officers, mostly from friendly fire, and an unknown number of civilians. In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were tried for murder. Five men were convicted, of whom four were executed and one committed suicide in prison, although the prosecution conceded none of the defendants had thrown the bomb.

The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant for the origin of international May Day observances for workers.

Eight people connected directly or indirectly with the rally and its anarchist organizers were arrested afterward and charged with Degan's murder: August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden and Oscar Neebe. Two other individuals, William Seliger and Rudolph Schnaubelt, were indicted, but never brought to trial. Seliger turned state's evidence and testified for the prosecution, and Schnaubelt fled the country before he could be brought to trial. The jury returned guilty verdicts for all eight defendants – death sentences for seven of the men, and a sentence of 15 years in prison for Neebe.

The case was appealed in 1887 to the Supreme Court of Illinois, then to the United States Supreme Court where the defendants were represented by John Randolph Tucker, Roger Atkinson Pryor, General Benjamin F. Butler and William P. Black. The petition for certiorari was denied.

On the eve of his scheduled execution, Lingg committed suicide in his cell with a smuggled dynamite cap which he reportedly held in his mouth like a cigar (the blast blew off half his face and he survived in agony for six hours).

The next day (November 11, 1887) Spies, Parsons, Fischer and Engel were taken to the gallows in white robes and hoods. They sang the Marseillaise, then the anthem of the international revolutionary movement. Family members including Lucy Parsons, who attempted to see them for the last time, were arrested and searched for bombs (none were found). According to witnesses, in the moments before the men were hanged, Spies shouted, "The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!" Witnesses reported that the condemned men did not die immediately when they dropped, but strangled to death slowly, a sight which left the spectators visibly shaken.

The trial has been characterized as one of the most serious miscarriages of justice in United States history.

The police commander who ordered the dispersal was later convicted of police corruption.

= Anarchist Exclusion Act =

The Immigration Act of 1903, also called the Anarchist Exclusion Act, was a law of the United States regulating immigration. It codified previous immigration law, and added four inadmissible classes: anarchists, epileptics, beggars, and importers of prostitutes. It had little impact and its provisions related to anarchists were expanded in the Immigration Act of 1918.

John Turner was the first anarchist to be deported under this act.

= Emma Goldman =

(Emma Goldman Brief Description). Goldman was arrested numerous times in the United States. (Describe, briefly those times she was arrested but not charged). Her total time in prison. Pictures of her should be specifically relevant to the cases (no room for pleasantries!)

causes for arrest: + Inciting the Assassination of President McKinley September 10, 1901

Goldman is arrested in Chicago under suspicion of having something to do with President William McKinley's assassination in Buffalo, New York, four days earlier. She had met assassin Leon Czolgosz at one of her lectures. The Chicago police interrogate Goldman and her bail is set at $20,000 (over $400,000 in today's dollars).

She will be released two weeks later, and the case will be dropped for lack of evidence. + Being a Suspicious Person January 27, 1903

The year after New York passes an anti-anarchism law, Goldman and Max Baginski are arrested in New York City for being "suspicious persons." They are questioned and released. + Incendiary Articles and Incitement to Riot October 30, 1906

Along with nine other people, Emma Goldman is arrested in New York City for articles published in her Mother Earth magazine, and for inciting to riot.

She pays the $1,000 bail for her release, and pleads not guilty to charges of criminal anarchy. On January 9, 1907, a grand jury dismisses the case. + Public Expression of "Incendiary Sentiments" January 6, 1907

New York City's Anarchist Police Squad arrests Goldman during a public lecture on "False and True Conceptions of Anarchism." The case will later be dismissed. + Attempting to Speak December 13, 1908

Seattle authorities arrest Goldman after someone breaks in to a locked lecture hall to allow the room to be used for a meeting with Goldman. The police release her on the condition that she leave town. + Planning to Speak December 14, 1908

With her reputation preceding her, Goldman is arrested in Bellingham, Washington, before she can deliver a planned lecture. The next day, authorities send her away on a Canada-bound train. + Conspiracy Against the Government January 14, 1909

After two weeks of uneventful Goldman lectures in California, San Francisco police arrest Goldman with Ben Reitman and charge them with conspiring against the government. Supporters who protest the arrest are disbanded by police the next day, but Goldman remains locked up until January 18. On the 28th, authorities drop the charges against her. + Speaking early April, 1910

In the midst of a large, successful national lecture tour, Goldman and Reitman arrested by police in Cheyenne, Wyoming during an open-air meeting. + Arrival in San Diego May 20, 1913

A year after being attacked by vigilantes when they arrived at the San Diego train station during a battle over free speech there, Goldman and Reitman return to the city -- only to be arrested as soon as they arrive. Police send them on the afternoon train to Los Angeles. + Distributing Birth Control Information August 6, 1915

In Portland, Oregon on her annual lecture tour, Goldman is arrested with Ben Reitman for distributing information on birth control in defiance of the Comstock "Chastity" Laws. A friend posts the $500 bail; the next day, Goldman and Reitman pay a $100 fine and resume lectures in that city. + Lecturing on Birth Control February 11, 1916

Goldman is arrested in New York City for delivering a January lecture on birth control. She is tried in April; after being convicted, she opts to spend fifteen days in the Queens County Penitentiary instead of paying a $100 fine. + Distributing Birth Control Information October 20, 1916

Emma Goldman goes to court in New York City to testify on behalf of a fellow birth-control advocate, and is arrested herself. She is released on a $500 bond and will be acquitted of the charge on January 8, 1917. + Conspiracy to Violate the Draft Act June 15, 1917

The U.S. enters World War I in April 1917; since then, Goldman has been lecturing against military conscription and the war. The same day that President Woodrow Wilson signs the Espionage Act, which in part prohibits interfering with the draft, federal agents arrest Goldman and Alexander Berkman in New York City. They are later indicted for conspiring to violate the Draft Act.

Goldman pleads not guilty and is freed on $25,000 bail; rumors spread that her bail has been paid by the German enemy. In early July, she and Berkman are both found guilty and sentenced to serve two years in jail and pay a $10,000 fine. Goldman is incarcerated in a federal penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri. When her case is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Goldman is returned to New York City and again released on bail.

After losing her appeal in January 1918, Goldman is returned to Missouri to serve her two-year sentence. + Questionable Immigration Status September 12, 1919

Federal officials review Goldman's immigration status and decide she can be deported legally. They serve Goldman with a warrant for her arrest and deportation while she is serving the final few weeks of her prison sentence in Missouri. After a bond of $15,000 is posted, Goldman returns to New York to organize her appeal.

In October, Goldman claims U.S. citizenship from her brief marriage to Jacob A. Kersner in 1887. But Labor Department officials order Goldman's deportation in late November, and in early December she and Berkman are held at Ellis Island in New York harbor, and on the 21st of that month they board a Russia-bound ship.

ALL ARREST INFO TAKEN FROM: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goldman/sfeature/sf_arrests.html

Goldman's Riot (1893)
With the nation in a deep economic depression, Emma Goldman is arrested and charged with inciting a riot during a New York City speech to unemployed workers on August 21.

Goldman is tried, found guilty, and sentenced to one year in the Blackwell's Island penitentiary -- on the island today known as Roosevelt Island, in New York's East River.

Her story of prison life is published in the New York World a day after her release on August 17, 1894.

When the Panic of 1893 struck in the following year, the United States suffered one of its worst economic crises ever. By year's end, the unemployment rate was higher than twenty percent, and "hunger demonstrations" sometimes gave way to riots. Goldman began speaking to crowds of frustrated men and women in New York. On August 21, she spoke to a crowd of nearly 3,000 people in Union Square, where she encouraged unemployed workers to take immediate action. Her exact words are unclear: undercover agents insist she ordered the crowd to "take everything ... by force", while Goldman later recounted this message: "Well then, demonstrate before the palaces of the rich; demand work. If they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both, take bread." Later in court, Detective-Sergeant Charles Jacobs offered yet another version of her speech.

A week later she was arrested in Philadelphia and returned to New York City for trial, charged with "inciting to riot". During the train ride, Jacobs offered to drop the charges against her if she would inform on other radicals in the area. She responded by throwing a glass of ice water in his face. As she awaited trial, Goldman was visited by Nellie Bly, a reporter for the New York World. She spent two hours talking to Goldman, and wrote a positive article about the woman she described as a "modern Joan of Arc".

Open-Air Speaking (1897)
September 7, 1897 Goldman is arrested in Providence, Rhode Island, when she attempts to speak in public, after the mayor has warned her not to deliver any more open-air speeches. She has been traveling to speak on anarchism, women and marriage, Spanish political events, and Alexander Berkman's imprisonment for the murder of Henry Clay Frick. After keeping Goldman in jail overnight, the Providence authorities order her to leave town or face a three-month prison term.

Goldman & Berkman Oppose WW1 (1917)
On June 15, 1917, Goldman and Berkman were arrested during a raid of their offices which yielded "a wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda" for the authorities. The New York Times reported that Goldman asked to change into a more appropriate outfit, and emerged in a gown of "royal purple". The pair were charged with conspiracy to "induce persons not to register" under the newly enacted Espionage Act, and were held on US$25,000 bail each. Defending herself and Berkman during their trial, Goldman invoked the First Amendment, asking how the government could claim to fight for democracy abroad while suppressing free speech at home:

"We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged? Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world?"

The jury saw it differently, and found them guilty; Judge Julius Marshuetz Mayer imposed the maximum sentence two years' imprisonment, a $10,000 fine each, and the possibility of deportation after their release from prison. As she was transported to Missouri State Penitentiary (now Jefferson City Correctional Center), Goldman wrote to a friend: "Two years imprisonment for having made an uncompromising stand for one's ideal. Why that is a small price."

= Leon Czolgosz =

Leon F. Czolgosz was the assassin of President William McKinley. In the last few years of his life, he claimed to have been heavily influenced by anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.

A grand jury indicted Czolgosz on September 16 with one count of first-degree murder. Throughout his incarceration, Czolgosz spoke freely with his guards, but refused every interaction with Robert C. Titus and Lorin L. Lewis, the prominent judges-turned-attorneys assigned to defend him, and with the expert psychiatrist sent to test his sanity.[19][page needed] A prison guard later came forward claiming that Czolgosz confided in him that because he claimed himself to be an anarchist, he would not talk with any people he viewed as related to authority which included his lawyers or any presiding trial judge.

The district attorney at trial was Thomas Penney, assisted by a Mr. Haller, whose performance was described as "flawless".[20] Although Czolgosz answered that he was pleading "Guilty", the presiding Judge Truman C. White overruled him and entered a "Not Guilty" plea on his behalf.

Czolgosz was electrocuted by three jolts, each of 1800 volts, in Auburn Prison on October 29, 1901.

His last words were: "I killed the President because he was the enemy of the good people – the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime." As the prison guards strapped him into the chair, however, he did say through clenched teeth, "I am only sorry I could not get to see my father."


 * a review of The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists, and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth, Pantheon Books...

= Alexander Berkman =



(During the homestead strike) - On July 23, Berkman went into Frick's office armed with a gun and a sharpened steel file. He shot Frick three times, then grappled with him and stabbed him in the leg. A group of nearby workers came to Frick's rescue and beat Berkman unconscious. He was convicted of attempted murder and given a twenty-two-year prison sentence.

Berkman served 14 years of his sentence and was released from prison on May 18, 1906. Goldman met him on the Detroit train platform, but she found herself "seized by terror and pity" at his gaunt appearance. During his prison term, he had become Americanized, but Berkman struggled to readjust to life as a free man. A lecture tour produced anxiety and stress, and he purchased a handgun in Cleveland with the intention of killing himself. Instead, he returned to New York, where he learned that Goldman and other activists had been arrested at a meeting concerning Leon Czolgosz. This violation of freedom of assembly moved him to action, and he declared "My resurrection ... I have found work to do" as he worked to secure their release.

= The Influence of Luigi Galleani (1914-1920) =

(Short paragraph about Galleani)

Alfonso Fagotti
On December 6, 1916, the Galleanist Alfonso Fagotti was arrested for stabbing a policeman during a riot in Boston's North Square. The next day Galleanists exploded a bomb at the Salutation Street station of the Boston harbor police. Fagotti was convicted, imprisoned, and later deported to Italy.

Cronaca Sovversiva, Publishers
In February 1918, U.S. authorities raided the offices of Cronaca Sovversiva (Italian: Subversive Chronicle), suppressed publication, and arrested its editors. Although a staff member hid the subscription list, officials gained more than 3,000 names and addresses of subscribers from an issue already prepared for mailing.

Gabriella Antolini, Courier
On January 17, 1918, a 19-year-old Galleanist, Gabriella Segata Antolini, was arrested for transporting a satchel filled with dynamite, which she had received from Carlo Valdinoci. When questioned, Antolini gave a false name and refused to cooperate with the police; she was imprisoned for fourteen months before being released. While in prison, Antolini met the noted anarchist Emma Goldman, with whom she became friends.

The 1919 Bombings
Main Article: 1919 United States Anarchist Bombings

The April Packages
In late April 1919, approximately 36 dynamite package bombs, all with identical packaging and addressed to a cross-section of politicians, justice officials, and businessmen, including John D. Rockefeller, were sent through the mail. An early lead to the identity of the bombers was revealed when one package bomb was found addressed to a Bureau of Investigation (BOI) field agent, Rayme Weston Finch. Finch had been tracking several Galleanists, including Carlo Valdinoci, and the agent's successes, such as leading the raid on Cronacca Sovversiva and his arrest of Raffaele Schiavina and Andrea Ciafolo, were well known to Galleanist militants.

8 in June
In June 1919, the Galleanists managed to explode eight large bombs nearly simultaneously in several different U.S. cities. Targets included the homes of judges, businessmen, a mayor, an immigration inspector, and a church. The new bombs used up to twenty-five pounds of dynamite packed with metal slugs to act as shrapnel, all contained in a cast steel pipe. Among the intended victims were politicians who had endorsed anti-sedition laws and deportation, or judges such as Charles C. Nott, who had sentenced anarchists to long prison terms. The homes of Mayor Harry L. Davis of Cleveland, Judge W.H.S. Thompson, Massachusetts State Representative Leland Powers, and Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, already a previous target of a Galleanist mail bomb, were attacked. None of the officials was killed, but the explosions killed William Boehner, a seventy-year old night watchman, who had stopped to investigate the package left on Judge Nott's doorstep, as well as one of the most wanted Galleanists - Carlo Valdinoci, a former editor of Cronaca Sovversiva, and a close associate of Galleani, who blew himself up as he laid a package bomb at the door of Attorney General Palmer's home.

Though not injured, Palmer and his family were shaken by the blast and their house was largely destroyed. The blast hurled several neighbors from their beds. Valdinoci either tripped over his bomb, or it went off prematurely as he was placing it on Palmer's porch. The police collected his remains over a two-block area. All of the bombs were accompanied by a flyer that read:

"War, Class war, and you were the first to wage it under the cover of the powerful institutions you call order, in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed; we will not dodge; there will have to be murder: we will kill, because it is necessary; there will have to be destruction; we will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions."

Police eventually traced a flyer accompanying the bombs to the print shop where Andrea Salsedo, a typesetter, and Roberto Elia, a compositor, were arrested. Salsedo was questioned intensively (some say tortured) by federal agents. After providing some information, he was said to become increasingly distraught. He died after jumping or being pushed by his compatriot Elia out of the 14th-story building where he was being held. Although Salsedo had admitted he was an anarchist and had printed the flyer, no other arrests for the bombings followed. The police lacked evidence and other Galleanists refused to talk. Elia was deported; according to his lawyer, he turned down an offer to remain in the United States if he would deny his connection to the Galleanists, asserting that his refusal to talk "is my only title of honor".

After Valdinoci's death, Coacci and Recchi appeared to have taken more prominent roles in the group; both were bombmakers. Recchi lost his left hand to a premature explosion, but he kept making bombs.

incorporate the following, move it to "palmer act", or get rid of it.
With the public and the press clamoring for action, US Attorney General Palmer and other government officials began a series of investigations. They used warrantless wiretaps, reviews of subscription records to radical publications, and other measures to investigate thousands of anarchists, communists, and other radicals. With evidence in hand and after agreement with the Immigration Department, the Justice Department arrested thousands in a series of coordinated police actions known as the "Palmer Raids" and deported several hundred of them under the Anarchist Exclusion Act.

Following Galleani's deportation and the indictment of Sacco and Vanzetti for murder, more bombings occurred in the U.S. Followers of Galleani, especially Buda, were suspected in the Wall Street bombing of 1920, which killed 38 people and severely wounded 143. In 1927 more bombings were attributed to Galleanists, especially as several court and prison officials were targeted, including Webster Thayer, the trial judge in the Sacco-Vanzetti case and their executioner, Robert Elliott. In 1932 Thayer was a target again; the front of his house was destroyed by a package bomb, and his wife and housekeeper were injured, but he was unscathed.

Sacco & Vanzetti (1920)
Main Article: Sacco and Vanzetti Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted of the murders of Frederick Parmenter, a paymaster, and Alessandro Berardelli, a security guard, at the Slater-Morrill Shoe Company factory, on Pearl Street in Braintree, Massachusetts, during the afternoon of April 15, 1920. Robbers had approached the two men as they were transporting the company payroll into two large steel boxes to the main factory. Berardelli, who was armed, was fatally shot as he reached for a gun on his hip; Parmenter, who was unarmed, was shot fatally. The robbers seized the payroll boxes and escaped by climbing into a waiting getaway car, a stolen dark blue Buick, which raced off with the robbers firing wildly at company workers nearby. There is a highly politicized dispute over their guilt or innocence, as well as whether or not the trials were fair. The dispute focuses on contradictory evidence. As a result, historians have not reached a consensus.

= First Red Scare (1920) =

Palmer Raids


During World War I, officials at the Department of Justice were frustrated in the attempts to suppress anarchist activity by their inability to convict even self-professed anarchists under current legislation, notably the Immigration Act of 1903 and the Immigration Act of 1917. U.S. authorities in the Wilson administration determined that their best opportunity to detain and remove foreign-born anarchists, antiwar protesters, and members of radical labor unions such as the I.W.W. from the United States lay in the authority of the Department of Immigration to deport individuals under an extremely broad definition of anarchism, this time using administrative procedures that did not require due process.

Working together, officials at the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Immigration drafted legislation designed to remedy the defects in current legislation by defining anarchism broadly enough to cover all forms activity related to its advocacy, including membership in or affiliation with any organization or group that advocated opposition to all forms of organized government. The new legislation removed the removed the provision in prior law that aliens who had resided in the United States for more than 5 years were not subject to deportation. The bill passed the House of Representatives quickly. While waiting for the Senate, representatives of the two sponsoring government departments held meetings to develop a strategy for handling the "disposition of cases of alien anarchists, some of whom are Italian anarchists and others Industrial Workers of the World and Russian Union workers, now pending."

Senator Borah of Idaho was one of the few opposed, but he was not prepared to try to prevent a vote. When the bill passed, it included additional punishment for anyone deported who returned to the United States. The punishment for that was a prison term of 5 years followed by deportation once again.

=(1920-1980)=

Anarchists fell from visibility following the Immigration Act of 1918 and after the [Sacco and Vanzetti]] trial. Following the movement for civil rights in the 1950s and 60s, anarchist politics re-emerged in various student struggles and social movements. Although many of the historic movements in the United States which occurred during the 1960s and 70s drew influences from anarchist politics, few explicitly anarchist figures found themselves in facing the kind of state repression seen before and since. Due to the more authoritarian leftist movements happening around the world, many of the anarchist influences of leftist social movements in the states were overshadowed by the communist values established by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and Mao. Despite this, anarchists can be found within many of the active protest groups of the period.

Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers
(Explicitly anarchist group -- were there any arrests? what about Black Mask? .... Valarie Solanis definitely doesn't qualify for this list [although, maybe she should be mentioned in the paragraph.])

Stonewall Riots
(lots of associations with anarchists in NYC, but were there any arrested?)

Chicago 8
Following the 1968 Democratic National Convention, eight activists &mdash; Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, and Bobby Seale &mdash; were charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot, and other charges related to the protests that took place in Chicago, Illinois. Abbie Hoffman, co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), claimed to be an anarchist.

=(1980)=
 * 1) Bill Dunne (1983)

"those persons incarcerated as a result of political beliefs or actions consciously undertaken and intended to resist exploitation and oppression, and/or hasten the implementation of an egalitarian, sustainable, ethical, classless society, predicated on self determination and maximization of all people's freedom." Bill Dunne, on the notion of anarchist POWs.

=Radical Environmentalism (1990-2003)=

Earth First

 * 1) Jeff Luers
 * 2) Tre Arrow

Operation Backfire

 * 1) Rod Coronado

Operation Backfire, known by its opponents as "the Green Scare", was a multi-investigation effort led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation against the radical environmentalist movement, particularly driven by statute of limitation requirements which were coming to a close on many of the Earth Liberation Front actions. (Note the critical role of informants and cooperators).


 * 1) Eric McDavid
 * 2) Daniel McGowan
 * 3) Marie Mason
 * 4) Joyanna “Sadie” Zacher
 * 5) Nathan “Exile” Block
 * 6) Justin Solondz
 * 7) Grant Barnes
 * 8) Walter Bond
 * 9) Michael Sykes

=Anti-Globalization Protests (1995-2004)=
 * 1) Andrew Mickel (2005)

Miami
=(2005-2010)=
 * 1) RNC8

Brandon Darby Incident
David McKay was born in Midland, Texas in 1986. Prior to his attempted protest of the 2008 Republican National Convention David was not an active protester.

In 2008 he and several friends constructed several improvised shields and planned to travel to the convention and use them to block traffic, shield themselves from tear gas and bean bag guns, and in general to disrupt the convention. After they traveled to Minneapolis for the gathering their shields were stolen from a storage shed. In an outrage and persuaded by then fellow activist Brandon Darby the small group of 8 including Bradley Crowder then constructed several firebombs. David did not know that Brandon Darby was working as an FBI informant; the house where they were staying was raided, the bombs seized, and the group arrested. Brandon Darby publicly revealed his role as an informant and testified against the small group. David McKay and Bradley Crowder both accepted plea bargains and served several year long incarcerations. David McKay is scheduled to be released in 2012.

Property Destruction Scapegoat
Approximately $50,000 worth of damage was caused to area businesses, with $20,000 worth being attributed to one individual, David Japenga, accused of breaking 20 windows and doors in Oakland on Thursday night.

Use of Twitter
New York City activist Elliot Madison used Twitter to report an order to disperse message from the Pittsburgh police during the protests. Police raided Madison's hotel room, and one week later Madison's New York home, Tortuga House, was raided by FBI agents. Police claim Madison and a co-defendant used computers and a radio scanner to track police movements and then passed on that information to protesters using cell phones and the social networking site Twitter. Madison is being charged with hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility, and possession of instruments of crime. All protesters that were arrested were processed and held at the State Correctional Institution - Pittsburgh. During the case, Madison was featured in Wired Magazine -- http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/twitter-anarchist/

Jeff Monson
On January 14, 2009, Monson was charged with First Degree Malicious Mischief, for vandalizing the Washington State Capitol by spray-painting "an anarchy symbol, a peace symbol and the words 'no poverty' and 'no war'" on the large columns at the front of the building. A warrant was issued by a Thurston County Superior Court Judge after pictures of Monson committing the crime were printed in ESPN magazine.

On July 29, 2009 Monson plead guilty to malicious mischief and entered an Alford plea for graffiti. In October 2009, he was sentenced to 90 days of work release and ordered to pay $21,894 in restitution. The price of the fine has since accrued interest, with the current amount being $24,749.80. . As of January 2011, he had only paid $421 of his court-ordered restitution.

(note accusations about abusive behavior towards women)

Mt. Hope Infinity
Stuff.

=Contemporary (2011-)=
 * 1) Casey Brezik

Asheville 11
Stuff.

Jeremy Hawthorne
Jeremy Hawthorne, arrested September 5th, 2011 while on a Copwatch patrol, is going on trial before a jury for allegedly slashing 7 tires on Virginia Commonwealth University vehicles, including two police cars. The charge is Destruction of State Property > $1,000, a Class 6 Felony. The case is clearly politically motivated; as a part of Richmond Copwatch, Jeremy is one of several who have been targeted by Richmond police in past months for their work against police brutality and poor jail conditions in the city. The notoriously heavy-handed RPD and its officers, ever the subject of much controversy, have bristled and taken a particularly antagonistic attitude with activists, protestors, and copwatchers, reacting in a consistently aggressive, violent, and reckless manner. Accountability, on the other hand, has been elusive. The “evidence” used to indict Jeremy is insubstantial, and many details surrounding testimonies evidence gathering, and the circumstances leading to Jeremy’s arrest, are questionable at best.

Commonwealth Attorney Christopher Toepp is handling the case per his personal request, intent on a full conviction. Toepp has had a long year of high-profile cases, having been on the prosecution for the Monroe Park Occupation, and the African burial ground demonstration. If Chris Toepp has his way, Jeremy would face 5 years in prison. The description of the person depicted in the so-far unreleased surveillance footage is incredibly mundane: a beard, a hat (maybe camo, brown, or black?), tattoos, a black sleeveless or rolled-up shirt, a bag, and a step-thru frame bike. In Richmond, this could easily be thousands of people. The alleged acts occurred on August 23rd, the Monday proceeding Best Friends Day, meaning hundreds more out-of-town hipster look-alikes were wild in the streets.

=Contemporary Anarchist Organizing Against Prisons=

New Years Eve Noise Demonstrations
= Recommended Reading = (ideas?)

= See Also =
 * Prison abolition
 * List of notable Prison Riots
 * Operation Backfire / Green Scare

= External Links =
 * 1) greenisthenewred
 * 2) ABC
 * 3) prison books

= Content Notes =

= Sources =

Unorganized List of Cases and Individuals
The following people have stood trial as anarchists, but have not yet been added to the continuum of this article. If you noticed a case/person missing from the article, but don't know where exactly to put it, just list it here and hopefully someone will add to it before this draft gets set loose into the wild.
 * 1) Miguel Balderos
 * 2) Roger Clement
 * 3) Scott DeMuth