User:Hardindr/sandbox/Jason Flores-Williams

Jason Flores-Williams is an author, political activist, and civil rights attorney. He is best known for his legal work on behalf of death row clients, political protesters, the homeless population of Denver, and his suit to have the Colorado River recognized as a legal person. He was also a lead organizer of the protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention. He lives in Denver, Colorado.

Biography
Jason Flores-Williams was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1969. His parents are Camille Flores, a New Mexican journalist and newspaper editor, and Drake Williams, a CPA and small business owner. He was raised in Texas outside of Houston. In the early 1980s, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico with his family. There, his father was convicted along with his twin brother of involvement with illicit drug trafficking and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. After his father's conviction, Flores-Williams dropped out of high school and moved to Washington, DC, where he self-educated at the Library of Congress and got his GED while high on psilocybin mushrooms. He spent the late 80s living in Harlem across from the Apollo Theater, and graduated from Hunter College at CUNY with an honor's degree in Philosophy. He spent the early 90s in Prague where he wrote and worked as the first pizza delivery boy in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. He later moved to San Francisco to focus on writing. He is the grandson of William Flores, one of the founding fathers of League of United Latin American Citizens.

Literary Career
After moving to San Francisco, Jason Flores-Williams' first book was End of the West. Published in 1996, it descibes his bohemian lifestyle in the city. His follow up novel, Last Stand of Mr. America was a called "a ferocious portrait of a San Francisco public relations yuppie who lives a double life in underground sex clubs seeking salvation and meaning" and Flores-Williams was called "an all-American outlaw and edge-walker in the tradition of Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and Biggie Smalls" by novelist David Gates. After traveling to Scotland to get a 2nd edition of the novel published in 2004, Flores-Williams moved to New York where he became the political reporter for High Times.

Activism and Legal Career
In the September/October 2004 edition of High Times entitled, How to get Arrested, Jason Flores-Williams wrote the lead article entitled, A Call to Resistance, a guide for people looking to protest the 2004 Republican National Convention  In May 2004, he was arrested leading a  die-in staged on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to protest the  invasion of Iraq by the US. . After the convention protests, Flores-Williams became disillusioned with  protest politics and completed his law degree at Rutgers Law School.

After graduating from law school, Jason Flores-Williams worked for the Capital Appeals Project representing indigent clients on death row in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. He moved back to Santa Fe, and represented US fugitive from justice and former Republic of New Afrika member Charlie Hill in his attempts to prevent his extradition from Cuba to face murder charges for the alleged killing a police officer. Hill was eventually allowed by the Cuban government to remain in the country and not extradited to the US. He also represented a Vietnam Veteran suffering from PTSD who was denied benefits from the Veterans Administration because he lived in Cuba, which the veteran eventually lost.

After moving to Denver, Jason Flores-Williams represented a group of homeless people living in Denver in a class-action lawsuit seeking an end to the city's practice of confiscating their property and the clearing their encampments from the city streets. It was alleged that the city had used flamethrowers to burn the homeless people's possessions after the raids and held a BBQ where the sweeps had occurred. Class-action status for the homeless people suing the city was ultimately denied. Three of the homeless people who were a part of the lawsuit were convicted of violating the city's ordinance on camping. .

After the mass arrests at the DisruptJ20 during the Inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2017, Flores-Williams was the attorney for the first three defendants facing charges of property destruction or assaults on police.

In September 2017, Flores-Williams filed a controversial lawsuit on behalf of the Colorado River claiming that the river is a legal person and suing the state of Colorado and current Colorado  Governor John Hickenlooper "for violating the river’s 'right to exist, flourish, regenerate, be restored, and naturally evolve.'"  The lawsuit was eventually dismissed with prejudice by Flores-Williams due to the threat of legal sanctions from the Colorado Attorney General's Office who stated, "the case itself unacceptably impugned the State’s sovereign authority to administer natural resources for public use, and was well beyond the jurisdiction of the judicial branch of government." Flores-Williams stated regarding the dismissal, “Situations change, and what is best for the rights of nature movement is not to get involved in a lengthy sanctions battle, but to move forward with seeking environmental justice.”

In January 2018, Jason Flores-Williams filed a lawsuit on behalf of the family of accused Bloods gang member Keith Roberts who died after being shot and killed by Denver Police after a high-speed car chase.

Further Reading by Jason Flores-Williams

 * Farewell to CBGB's, The Brooklyn Rail


 * Still Standing: Jason Flores-Williams and the American Condition, Flavorwire


 * In the Battle of the Open Heart, The Brooklyn Rail


 * My Wounded Constitution, The Brooklyn Rail


 * The Funny Thing About the Rise of Fascism, Westword