Black Riders Liberation Party Members Arrested

From: Michael Novick

Please forward widely:

At least six members of the Black Riders Liberation Party, including its
leader T.A.C.O. (Take All Capitalists Out), and sisters Aryana, Nadia and
Isabel, also important leaders of the party, plus one child, were arrested
yesterday in two separate raids, one in San Bernardino County, where
sheriff's deputies arrived with warrants for a number of members of the
BRLP, and one in Los Angeles by the LAPD. Sister Aryana is being held on
$500,000 bond on a Los Angeles warrant and is to be transferred to L.A. from
San Bernardino. Sister Nadia Shakur has a court appearance scheduled for
Friday in San Bernardino and has the possibility of being released on her
own recognizance at that point. Two of those arrested in Los Angeles have
already been released, but T.A.C.O. is being held on $50,000 bond at the
Century Detention Center near the LAX Courthouse.

Legal, material and other forms of solidarity are needed immediately and
urgently! The Black Riders immediate priority is to obtain T.A.C.O.'s
release on bail, which requires both cash for the bond (at least a
substantial portion of the $5000 - ten percent) and people willing to act as
guarantors or cosigners on the bond. The members of the Black Riders who
would have been in a position to do that are in custody themselves. Most of
those out on the street and dealing with the situation are young and poor;
they need a co-signer on the bond note. I can put up a significant amount of
the cash for the down payment on the bond, as I have done before, but I am
not in a position to co-sign. The current bail on Aryana is totally
prohibitive and legal assistance is needed there and with the other cases as
well, including T.A.C.O. James Simmons, who had frequently represented
members of the Black Riders on previous cases of repression and harassment,
is not practicing law currently. Other lawyers are needed. Folks with stable
housing and resources are needed. Financial donations large and small are
certainly needed. Political support is most definitely needed.

These arrests are not new, but their scope and the high bails are a measure
of the growing impact of the Black Riders not only locally but around the
state of California and beyond. The BRLP led two recent news-making
demonstrations in Leimert Park; one at the head of the Unity Mission to Free
the SF Eight, the former Black panther Party members and associates who have
been charged with conspiracy in a 35-year-old case based on torture. As
T.A.C.O. said at the time, the SF Eight is an attack not only on the elders
and the legacy of the BPP, but on the current forces struggling for Black
liberation and self-defense, such as the BRLP. They were also involved in
the self-defense of the Black community in its opposition to the provocation
by the Minute-klan anti-immigrant, pro-police forces fronted by Ted Hayes.
The BRLP has recently been building chapters and making contacts in San
Diego, Sacramento and the Bay Area. As their recognition and support in the
Black community of south L.A., Crenshaw, Watts and the Inland Empire has
grown, the police have grown more intent on disrupting their activities.
These latest raids and high bails are further proof that the system hates
and wants to destroy organized resistance among Black and other colonized
and resisting people. The BRLP in particular, which has worked on both
truce-making among Black youth and Black-Brown unity against the empire and
repression, have become prime targets and must be a prime rallying-point for
solidarity.

You can call ARA-LA at 310-495-0299 to offer your support; send funds (cash
or checks made out to cash, or US POSTAL money orders only made out to
Boxholder) to Black Riders, PO Box 8297, Los Angeles CA 90008.