I was incredibly disappointed with the INDY‘s coverage of the Jesus Huerta vigil last publication. Lisa Sorg surprised many in the community with her second account of the protests (“Inner peace,” Dec. 26, 2013.) She already published one”A first-person account of the clash between Durham police and protestors” (News blog, Dec. 21, 2013) that was, in our opinion, very good.
That article was very good because it focused on what matters: The police teargassed people at a vigil. No matter what the circumstances of the last protest, there was no reason for that violent response.
Last publication’s article, however, did everything us in the anarchist community could have predicted: It fell prey to the police tactic of divide and conquerthat is, separate the “legitimate” from the “illegitimate” protesters, and then exclude the illegitimate ones.
Whatever Lisa’s opinions are on violent resistance doesn’t matter. The age-old argument of violence versus nonviolence has been beaten dry. Lisa’s article matters because it didn’t just offer an opinion about tactics; it aided the police in weakening a community of resistance.
It’s about time that people like Lisa accept that us anarchists are not the romanticized militants they think we arethat we have opinions on tactics too, and wish to be respected with a standard of diversity of tactics. Only by accepting this diversity of thought and potential responses against the forces encroaching on our freedom can we take down those forces.
Ei Eivy, Chapel Hill
Reading the caption to the photo of Durham police in riot gear (Year in News, Dec. 26, 2013), I was dumbfounded to read it say that Jesus Huerta died “…of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound…” There was nothing “apparent” about that gunshot wound. There is nothing “apparent” about how a young man in handcuffs, with wrists bound behind his back, can fatally shoot himselfwhile seated in the back of a patrol car, no less.
There is also nothing “apparent” about the SBI report, which unconvincingly proposes that the handgun “… apparently had not been seized by the arresting officer.” How creative. My impression is that police officers run their hands repeatedly over a suspect’s body to seize weapons. With such a fantastical fabrication I suggest we give the SBI the annual Fiction-Writing Award. And Chief Lopez the annual Rubber-Stamp Award.
While the INDY does some further bird-dogging of this story that “apparently” won’t be going away any time soon.
Sonia Katchian, Chapel Hill
