His name was Johnny Gammage

jefgodesky — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:43:14 -0800

"Keith, Keith, I'm only 31!" Those were the last words of Johnny Gammage, a black motorist who died just inside the city limits of Pittsburgh, when he was pulled over by police from from some of the Steel City's wealthiest, whitest suburbs, some time between 1:47 and 2:10 AM, 10 years ago today. It made national headlines at the time, but now you won't even find "Johnny Gammage" in Wikipedia--and while the nation fixes on a more recent incident, even the city that was torn apart by the scandal of it is passing the tenth anniversary virtually unnoticed.

The Politics of Dance

loquacious — Tue, 23 Aug 2005 00:22:14 -0800

Pump up the volume: Utah, 8/20/2005. A small fully permitted outdoor Drum and Bass gathering called "Versus 2" was the scene of a surreal amount of excessive force and tactics of cultural intimidation. Approximately 60 armored, helmeted and camouflaged Utah County Sheriffs officers armed with Police dogs, Tasers, MP5 submachine guns, rifles, batons and tear gas stormed the DJ booth and the dance floor. Still and video camera operators were singled out for abuse, police violence and confiscation of image recording devices. At least one video clip has made it to the net, helping spread the news globally within the Electronic Dance Music community within 24 hours. (Video Links: please use the torrents here or randomly choose one server here (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ) to help spread out the bandwidth costs.) Flashback to 6/31/2005 in the Czech Republic. Flashback to 70 years ago. More coverage: Daily Kos - Utah Indymedia - Drug Policy Alliance - Democracy Now (Audio) - more.