Rad groups coordinate 'outrage' at upcoming trial of R68! member

This stupid blog seems to have become all Recreate68!, all the time, but you got to do the stories as they come along.

In a concerted propaganda effort, Ward Churchill and Benjie Whitmer's filthy Try-Works blog, the emotional adolescents at the "marxist youth organization" F.I.S.T. (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together), the Workers World Party and several other organizations, including the apparently interchangable International Action Center and Action Center for Justice, are running more or less the same post: "Drop the Racist Frame-up Charges Against Larry Hales NOW!

Hales, a Denver-area professional victim and troublema--er, activist--who writes frequently for Workers World and apparently belongs to most of the radical groups in Denver, including F.I.S.T, the Troops Out Now Coalition, Denver Copwatch and (here's where it gets interesting) Recreate68!, faces a preliminary hearing today and trial March 12 on charges of interfering with a police officer. Here's how the Cornell Daily Sun (why?) recounted the incident:

Last November, Denver police, without warrant or permission, broke into the home of anti-police brutality and anti-war activist Larry Hales, who was attacked and promptly arrested for “interfering with the police.” The police knocked on his door, looking for a man on parole who was temporarily staying with Hales and his partner Melissa Kleinman. Hales answered the door, asked for their business cards, which the police must surrender upon request according to a Denver city ordinance, and told them the parolee was not home. Ignoring Hales, the DPD proceeded to barge in, grab him by the neck, twist his arm, rip out some of his dreadlocks, tear his shirt and throw him down the stairs and into the street before punching him in the stomach and throwing him into a cruiser. [And through all that they were ignoring him!] He spent a night in jail. In the meantime, the police officers handcuffed Kleinman to a chair and proceeded to ransack the couple’s home.

Sounds like a bloodbath. But after all that, and as the Denver Post noted at the time:

Hales said he would not seek legal action against the police department but wanted the charge dropped and the officers involved to be suspended.

No lawsuit. Odd that a founder of Denver Copwatch would be so forgiving. You just know he could have sued the pigs to Jesus if he'd wanted to. And amazingly, the officers involved weren't even suspended.

Anyway, the "line" being pushed by Try-Works et al. is that Hales' arrest and upcoming trial constitute Denver's first power play in its effort to illegally and brutally suppress dissent during the Democratic National Convention. In other words, they're trying to get the punks pissed off and in a mood for confrontation. There will, of course, be much more of this as the convention approaches.