M15 Sonoma County Prisoners Freed in SF

Omar Malik and Mitzila Valdes, two Sonoma County students and activists were arrested during a run at the Breakaway on Saturday in San Francisco.

The police, after separating these two prisoners of conscience from the general population, lost their paperwork. This paperwork was to be released no later than 3:30pm on Sunday, 24 hours later, so that the ORP and National Lawyers Guild could begin to deal with their cases and they could go about their lives.

Mitzy was held in solitary confinement during the duration of her stay, while Omar was, in fact, allowed into general population, but both were denied Vegan diets and kept generally to their cots and cells.

On Monday, a group of concerned friends and activists from Sonoma County went to the arraignment to pressure the situation. The group of sixteen submitted a statement of support and respect for Omar and Mitzy to the D.A.'s office, who sent down an order for the SFPD to "find" and submit the police reports.

Six hours later, the two were released.

During their stay, the SFPD passed misinformation to the On Recognizance Project and the National Lawyers Guild and played with Mitzy and Omars charges, raising them from felony Assault to misdemeanor battery and back again. The current charges are misdemeanor battery and their court date is April 1.

If you have a case from M15, an eyewitness account of Mitzy and Omar's arrests, or (better) a video or picture of the event, please e-mail it to the attached email account.

Mitzy and Omar, pillars of their activist communities, are both people of color. Mitzy is Panamanian-American and Omar is Pakistani-American, possible reasons for their persecution at the hands of the soiled SFPD.

Power to the People,
Bursts O'Goodness