Jason McVetta wrote:
I encourage everyone reading this, regardless of where you live, to contact California Assemblyman David Chiu <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Chiu_%28politician%29>. Chiu is a the California state legislator for the district including San Francisco. He is a mainstream elitist/financialist Democrat, but historically he has been close to the Silicon Valley tech community.
When you call Chiu's office, explain the Murdock case if the staffer you speak with is not familiar. Politely mention that the SFPD is widely known to be corrupt. Then ask that the Assemblyman work to have the incident investigated /by an independent investigator from outside the San Francisco Police Department/. A state assemblymember does not have direct legal authority to appoint an investigator - but for sure, if an elected legislator speaks out, many people will listen.
Assemblyman Chiu's office phone number is (916) 319-2017. You can also contact him electronically thru his official website <http://asmdc.org/members/a17/>.
Some members of this list may criticize this suggestion as naively optimistic. Maybe it is; but I guess I haven't completely given up all hope for our "democratic" political institutions. Anarchists will call that foolish; the rest will, I hope, call Assemblyman Chiu's office.
On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 12:23 AM, grarpamp <grarpamp@gmail.com <mailto:grarpamp@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 2:56 AM, Mirimir <mirimir@riseup.net <mailto:mirimir@riseup.net>> wrote: > American LEA have been heavily militarized, for sure. And they've > increasingly been trained to escalate confrontations and dominate. > > Still, I find it hard to imagine how a middle-aged, upper-middle-class > white guy would have been beaten down like that.
"The police are uneducated, evil, and sadistic. Do not trust them. … The rest of my life is to fight against the police. … they are NOT friends, so don’t ever ever believe otherwise.”
Anyhow... Reddit seems to think it's some combination of pressure, health / medication, philosophy, etc yielding yet another unraveling. Reiser, Schwartz, Murdock... others... Learning from such things, were it to be, is a lucky priviledge and moment of insight.
I still think it's a med reaction exacerbated by his run in with the SFPD. What I'd really like to have examined is a toxicology report for Murdock, due to his repeated erratic behavior the SFPD 'intervened' in. You'd think they'd do such a thing, but I suspect not. At one point in my younger days I personally knew Abbie Hoffman. Later in life, and at the other end of the US I had a hard time believing the story of his suicide having always noted his maniac side but never seeing the 'down side' of his personality. I broached that on a list where someone who knew him a lot better than me posts and he went and asked Abbie's brother-in-law Wally, from his first marriage to Anita Hoffman. The response from Wally was an eyeopener. Apparently Abbie was not in very good health and had about 95% arterial blockage. Then he was feeling under the weather so the doctors prescribed Prozac for him, unknowing at the time that the combination of arterial blockage and prozac causes suicidal thoughts and tendencies. I suspect something similar happened to Ian Murdock, and the SFPD was involved, and crudely so, but unless the 'abrasions' to his head that needed stitches were severe enough to have caused his demise or exacerbated a pre-existing head injury or unknown such as potential for cerebral hemorrhage (again, this could be due to prescription meds), it just another instance of the police as insensitive abusive bureaucrats-with-guns ham-handly 'dealing' with a citizen, booking and releasing him. -- RR "You might want to ask an expert about that - I just fiddled around with mine until it worked..."