12160 - Resisting the New World Order: August 2014

Activists in Oakland picketed the city's busy port for five days starting August 16, preventing longshore workers from unloading the Zim Piraeus, one of 89 ships in the Zim fleet. Oakland, CA, August 16, 2014. (Photo: Alex Chis)
Israeli-owned shipping company Zim, the target of recent port blockades organized by Palestinian solidarity activists in California, is importing millions of rounds of small arms ammunition into the United States each year.
Pro-Palestinian activists in California stopped Israeli-owned cargo ships from unloading olives, wines and ceramics at busy marine terminals in Oakland and Los Angeles last week. Import records show, however, that Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., the Israeli company that was the target of last week's "port blockades," is also delivering millions of rounds of Israeli-manufactured small arms ammunition to the United States each year. Zim also delivers weapons systems components for the Israeli and Greek governments to contractors in the United States for repairs and upgrades.
Activists in Oakland picketed the city's busy port for five days starting August 16, preventing longshore workers from unloading the Zim Piraeus, one of 89 ships in the Zim fleet. The Zim Haifa was scheduled to dock in Long Beach on Saturday, August 23, but protesters there said they delayed its unloading, too. In Washington, protesters rallied at the Port of Tacoma where another Zim ship was scheduled to arrive on August 25.
Bills of lading for the vessels that docked in Oakland and Long Beach show mostly agricultural goods and building materials were carried in the ships' containers.
But on August 15, just a few days before the blockade of the Zim Piraeus in Oakland, the Zim Constanza arrived at the Port of Savannah, along the Atlantic coast of Georgia, laden with millions of rounds of Israeli-manufactured 5.56-millimeter rifle bullets destined for sale in the United States. Records show that the Zim Constanza was also carrying 1.3 million rounds of 9-millimeter Luger bullets.The ammunition was destined for Federal Cartridge of Anoka, Minnesota. The company (which also operates under the name Federal Premium Ammunition) sells rounds of these exact specifications to the public, but also to the US military, and federal and local police agencies. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25844-israeli-company-targeted-by-oakland-blockade-imports-ammunition-into-us

Police in a West Virginia city altered video evidence in the death of a mentally ill black man who was shot and killed last year during a confrontation with officers, a lawyer for the victim’s family said on Thursday.

Sherman L. Lambert Sr., an attorney representing the estate of Wayne A. Jones, filed a legal motion on Wednesday in a $200 million lawsuit against five Martinsburg police officers. The lawsuit accuses the officers of using excessive force in the March 2013 shooting.

The officers were cleared of wrongdoing in a report from West Virginia State Police investigators in April. Last October, a grand jury found their actions to be justified.

“We question the authenticity of the DVD police provided,” Lambert said. “One of the main issues in the case was whether police used excessive force.”
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of family members in June 2013, will go to trial on Oct. 28 in the U.S. District Court of Northern Virginia.

Across the country, video evidence is playing an increasingly important role in such cases.

Two deaths this year — the shooting on Aug. 9 of a black teenager by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and the July 17 death of a New York man after police used a choke hold on him — gained national notoriety in part because they were recorded on mobile phones.

Jones, a 50-year-old who took schizophrenia medication, was shot by officers 23 times, according to the autopsy report.

The motion filed by Lambert claims there were four videos of the shooting, taken from dashboard cameras of police cruisers on the scene, and none shows what occurred before Jones was shot. Only the shooting itself appears on the recording, said Lambert.

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