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Click to see a larger image of page 1 of Rochelle Pittman’s complaint. |
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The Los Angeles Police Department is up to its old media tricks and spin again. This time, it is targeting Jeremy Marks, his mother, Rochelle Pittman, and the rest of his family.
The LAPD and other police agencies raided Pittman’s home Gestapo-style on Jan. 26. They came in with guns drawn and tore the house apart. The pretext was to gather evidence in their then-nine-month-old case targeting Marks. He was arrested in May 2010 after witnessing and videotaping Los Angeles Unified School District police officer, Erin Robles, beating up another African American student. Because Marks was on probation at the time, the police arrested him on charges of “attempted lynching” and kept him in jail for over eight months. They later tried to claim he had gang affiliations.
The afternoon of the Jan. 26 raid, Pittman filed an official complaint at the LAPD Foothill Division station. A commanding officer assured Pittman that an internal investigation would begin.
Two months later, nothing has happened. The only thing the LAPD has done is attempt to spread lies and disinformation to the media. In a March 30 article titled, “Bottom Line: Troubling police raid, then signals are crossed” about Jeremy Marks’s case, LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese told The Los Angeles Wave:
“Mrs. Pittman came into the [Foothill Division] station on Jan. 26 upset and complaining about a police raid at her house. She said she wanted to make a complaint, that she wanted to make a statement, but she didn’t give us any details. … She said she was ‘too tired’ and left without telling us what she wants us to look at. We need to know what she wants us to do so we can investigate it.”
This statement is a lie. Members of the Jeremy Marks Defense Committee and the Party for Socialism and Liberation accompanied Pittman to the police station on the day of the police raid. There, they witnessed her filing a written complaint and, in fact, have documentary evidence that the complaint exists.
Here is what Pittman’s complaint says. It is concise and to the point:
“I am requesting an investigation by the Internal Affairs Department because my home was searched this morning 1/26/11 at 7:00 a.m. and I was not given a search warrant until 30 to 40 minutes later after the search and seizure of my home began. I repeatedly asked officers for the warrant at 7:00 a.m., one of them pretended to go and get it for me but never came back. I want all of the names and badge numbers of every officer that entered, exited, or came in or around my phone. I also want a legible copy of any and all items removed from my home. The copy I received is illegible. Also, when I asked several officers for their names they refused, laughed and walked away. And they pointed a gun and threatened my next door neighbor Jason.”
Witnesses to the filing
Civil rights attorney Ian Thompson told Liberation News, “I was there with Rochelle at the Foothill Police Station and watched as she filled out the complaint form, signed it and turned it in to the police officer at the front desk. The officer accepted the complaint. I took photographs of the complaint right before Rochelle handed it over to prevent this exact scenario from happening.”
Doug Kauffman, who was also present when Pittman filed the complaint, told Liberation News, “It’s no surprise they are trying to manipulate the media portrayal of Jeremy and his family in the weeks leading up to the trial. They don’t want people to join the defense committee. They don’t want a mass movement demanding justice to exist. Well, it does and it is gaining momentum.”
When recalling the filing, Pittman told Liberation News that the police officer at the Foothill Division desk told her that the raid was “authorized by the Los Angeles Unified School District” and that the LAPD Foothill Division was there for “uniform support.”
To Deputy Chief Albanese’s charge that Pittman said nothing on Jan. 26 because she was “too tired,” she answered: “I had been through too much to sit down for a long interview. They made me wait for nearly an hour and I told the officer in charge that everything he needed to know was in the complaint that I had filed.” She then told the LAPD officer that she would be happy to meet with someone on another day.
Albanese also told the Wave that the LAPD sent an officer to Pittman’s home to discuss the investigation of the raid on March 16. He said that an officer left his card, but that Pittman never set up a meeting with the officer. Again, this is a distortion of the truth.
The card belonged to Sgt. Arno Clair from the LAPD Foothill Area Gang Enforcement Detail, a department with which Pittman had not requested to speak. It is even more ominous since the police are attempting to slander Marks by saying he is in some way gang affiliated.
Pittman told Liberation that she was at work when the officer made the house call: “The officer that is trying to contact me is from a gang unit. I am not a gang member and neither is my son,” she said. “I am a citizen making a complaint. I didn’t file my complaint with the gang unit, I filed my complaint with the Foothill Police station to go over to the Department of Internal Affairs,” continued Pittman. “That’s who I expect to contact me.”
A representative from LAPD Internal Affairs has yet to contact Pittman or her attorney.
Instead of the LAPD treating the raid on Pittman’s home “seriously” as they claim they are, they are attempting to blame the victims, albeit in a more media-friendly tone than normal. The intention of alleging that Pittman is somehow irresponsible or unresponsive to police overtures is to undercut Pittman’s just claims that the raid was unwarranted and illegal. The LAPD spin doctors want to muddy the waters, which, in truth, are not muddy at all.
The underlying facts are crystal clear. Law enforcement, including the LAPD, LAUSD School Police and the District Attorney’s office, all want to see Jeremy Marks behind bars.
No person who believes in justice can let this happen. We have to steer through the attempted media manipulations of the police and keep our message strong and clear: Justice for Jeremy Marks! Drop all the charges now!
