"Anaheim"

“Anaheim” James

Rag readers will recall “Anaheim” James, who was arrested last year by the Fullerton Police Department, who sent six officers all the way to Pasadena to apprehend him for failing to disperse from a protest. Below, Fullerton resident and occasional Rag guest author Stephan Baxter describes the scene of a protest following the “not guilty” verdicts in the case of two former Fullerton Police Department officers charged in the death of Kelly Thomas. Although none of the officers were ever convicted in the killing, several protesters have been charged and jailed. Make sense to you? (Warning to sensitive readers: Bax drops the F-word a few times…).

 

“My friend Anaheim James, is one of the most peaceful protesters I know, he was in fact wearing a ‘no violence’ sign on his back when a little over a year ago a police car, filled with soft, slow, angry officers, tried to run him down at a protest we held after the verdict in the Kelly Thomas case came in. Thankfully AJ is swift of foot, he leaped over the hood of the cop car, and as these photos show, dispersed the scene like the fucking wind. Despite all evidence showing James out dispersing overpaid, and overfed fullerton officers, he was arrested 3 months later and charged with … Get this… “FAILURE TO DISPERSE A RIOT”. AJ along with Patti Beers, Juan Zuleta and Adam Adler, all friends of mine, and all equally unjustly charged, will go on trial at north court on March 11th and they are all facing six months in jail if found guilty. According to the 170 page police report, 47 uniformed officers, and multiple plain clothes officers were there to keep the peace on the day of the protest. I was there as well, and there was No fucking Riot. If there had been a riot, you know like every ordinary 2am on a Friday night, it would be the incompetence of this department which should be on trial as they outnumbered us 3-1 by the end of the day.

When the district attorney’s office goes to such great lengths, and is finally tenacious about a prosecution, in order to prosecute protesters, who like AJ, were doing nothing more than filming the police, and they do so at a protest which only came about because this same DA’s office was so incompetent and unmotivated that they could not get guilty verdicts in a murder that a nation watched unfold on national TV, there is something seriously sinister with the OC judicial system. I contend in fact that every single charge against every single protester, represents one more blow, one more boot, one more taser shot, and on moe gloved fist to the legacy of Kelly Thomas.
AJ, Patti Beers, Juan Zuleta and Adam Adler, deserve and need your support, their legal costs are mounting and the press is mostly absent on this story. Please get involved!! One victim in this case is more than enough. More info on how to donate will be posted shortly.”

Stephan Baxter, Fullerton, CA

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Disperse like the wind…(Photo from OC Weekly)