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Cover your forehead! (and other lessons from Pax)

Thu, 01/03/2013 - 10:52 -- Anonymous (not verified)

On May 3rd, our friend Pax was arrested on 36 felony charges of criminal mischief and 36 felony charges of conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. This was dropped down to 5 counts of each after their arraignment, and Pax took a plea deal in October for 3 counts of felony criminal mischief. A number of people have asked how Pax got caught up in legal trouble for allegedly smashing banks and a police substation. It has come to light in the last few months that the FBI has been actively monitoring Portland anarchists since at least early April, though to what extent it is not clear. We now know there was federal involvement in the raid during which Pax was arrested in May. Because the federal investigation is ongoing, there may be crucial pieces of information relating to Pax’s arrest that we don’t know about yet. With that in mind, here are some tips for staying safe when you’re angry in the streets, compiled by some friends who looked through the Discovery.

1. Cover your face! Is your forehead part of your face? Cover that too! Surveillance video from a US Bank ATM that was smashed showed a tall person with the lower half of their face covered, but a tuft of hair and broad forehead uncovered, using a rock to break the screen of the ATM. Police claimed to recognize the broad forehead and tuft of hair as Pax’s. When looking for anonymity, a lot of people seem to go for a hoodie and a bandanna. That’s not good enough. Your forehead should be covered all the way down to your eyebrows. A beanie and balaclava combo does the trick nicely. Leave just enough of a slit to see out of.

2. ATMs have really high-quality cameras. If you’re doing anything in front of an ATM make sure you don’t have any easily visible distinguishing characteristics. Is your height distinctive? Your clothing? Especially if you’re a well-known anarchist in town with a long arrest record, you should expect that the cops know your face, height, body type, etc. If one were to attack an ATM, it would be prudent to first disable the camera in some way.

3. Sign with your right hand! The police also claimed to recognize Pax’s “left-handed throwing technique” from surveillance video. The police corroborated this with video of Pax signing a piece of paper with their left hand during booking. Simple solution: sign everything with your right hand if you’re arrested.

4. Choose your outfit carefully! Surveillance video showed that the person who smashed the ATM was wearing a jacket with shoulder flaps that matched a jacket the police observed Pax wearing coming out of their house at a later time. The police also seized a white studded belt from Pax, which, they claimed matched a belt from surveillance footage. When planning what to wear, go for plain black hoodies, plain black gloves, and plain black pants with no accessories, patches, embellishments, or other distinguishing features. If you do choose to wear something with a distinguishing feature, use it once and get rid of it IMMEDIATELY. If you can, make sure your clothes are loose enough to conceal your figure. Surveillance video from the PCC police substation showed a person in shorts and a t-shirt throwing a rock through the window. Pax was later arrested at that march in a similar outfit. Remember: covering your face is not enough! Your entire outfit needs to make you anonymous! It should go without saying by now, but shorts and a t-shirt, even with leggings and a long sleeve shirt underneath, won’t keep you safe. The goal of blocing up is to look the exact same as everyone else. Again: loose plain black sweatshirt, loose plain black pants, plain black shoes.

5. Your phone will snitch on you. The police obtained Pax’s phone records and noted a lot of activity right before a bank was smashed, then the phone went dead for a couple hours, then there was a lot of activity immediately following the bank being smashed. The police weren’t able to read Pax’s text messages, which were encrypted with a program called TextSecure, and as far as we know they didn’t have recordings or transcripts of phone conversations. But we shouldn’t completely rule out the potential of conversations being recorded, and the police still got access to the log of which numbers were called and when. Either leave your phone off all night, or leave it on all night somewhere far away from you.

6. Glass doors are a lot more expensive than windows. In the repair receipts provided in discovery, the banks claimed thousands of dollars of damages for glass doors versus hundreds for windows.

Category: 

Comments

Submitted by Red n' Wack (not verified) on

This sounds really unusual. Either parts of this article are a joke or this Pax person is not too bright or psycho. I know they (Pax) have shown really extreme behavior with people that they disagree with...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Plus Pax is vegan... soooo privileged! They need to check themselves.

Submitted by Nikki (not verified) on

You don't play in some shitty emo folk band do you? Make comments about the legitimacy of a womans sexual orientstion or not? Look like some dipshit anglo white hillbilly? Annnoying vapid boring fucking music....awful, awful. Fuck the politics you're just an awful musician....the worst... Just thinkijg about it makes me want to listsn to arcade fire and drink PBR

Submitted by No way (not verified) on

Speaking of not too bright, you don't shit talk or discuss people's personality flaws on the internet. Period. You don't spread rumors on the internet, you don't try to get people not to like someone on the internet, you don't bring up stuff like this on the internet. And you sure as fuck cannot resolve problems on the internet. This type of criticism should be spoken about face to face, in whatever passes for a community over there, or there is no point. People need to stop tossing this shit out into the pseudo-community of the anarchyworld internet clique. It's high fucking time the iPhone generation put an end to this kind of stupid and dangerous behavior.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

^manarchist

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat moonbat

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

"The police also seized a WHITE STUDDED BELT from Pax"

I bet they also found empty PBR cans and an Arcade Fire poster on the wall. Take note anarchy-fags: make sure to not wear your horn-rimmed glasses and to cover up your handlebar mustaches before you go out to "stick it to the fuzz".

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

2005 called; it wants its tired litany of stereotypes back.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

^hipster

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

This is cool. It should become more common place for people to print tips and war knowledge gleaned from discovery. There is so much information from the RNC cases that really should be made public.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Agreed.

Submitted by Trouble (not verified) on

I thought this analysis was quite good. I've known of people who made one or a few fatal mistakes, such as wearing something that easily draws attention. Being a good activist does mean accepting the fact that one could get arrested and be in prison. But it doesn't mean that one should allow themselves to be marked.

Pax may have fucked up, but it wasn't because he was stupid. He made mistakes that many other people make. Comrades need to be applauded for fighting, even when they made mistakes that get them caught, or even had tactics that are really bad, not just because some might disagree, weather it is a busted window, or even assassinations, but because the effect can vary, or even backfire.

I make the last reference because the McKinley assassination hastened crackdowns on anarchist, but that was probably a matter of time. This is not to allude that I am advocating anything.

I think this analysis is actually a must read for any activist.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

I don't know, but I wonder if this all points to the fact that breaking things as a tactic needs to become obsolete in all but the choicest circumstances, fast.

how much energy are we spending on breaking things, trying (and usually failing) to convince others that we are not monsters for breaking things and that they too should join us and break things, and the legal and financial fallout of people getting caught for breaking things?

breaking things is fun, cathartic, etc. for myself, i'm sure it's worth it anymore. i'm willing to be convinced otherwise. what do you think?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

I think this was probably a case of an anarchist who was well-known to police and part of a milieu that's recently experienced an unusual degree of surveillance. Then he didn't take some rather basic precautions. Even still, he's alleged to have done a lot of damage before getting arrested. And I think for every arrest, there are a lot of saboteurs who never get caught. Breaking stuff is still worth it in my opinion. For the catharsis, but also to let the capitalists know that there is real anger out there. The day is probably not too far off when rioting rocks the US, and targeted property damage paves the way for people to get used to the idea that banks should be burned down.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

It's not about "breaking things" and no, the tiny pockets of militant anarchism that actually involve semi-regular property destruction are not a massive misuse of energy. They represent any willingness to fight whatsoever (which is patheticly low).

If you want to engage or don't, fine. But the dialogue should be about why people are angry enough for violent tactics, not the pointless semantics of exactly what constitutes violence or the hippy moralism whether it's ever legitimate.

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