NEW: Groundbreaking for a Minneapolis Youth-Serving Community Staple
For nearly three decades, the educational nonprofit WE WIN Institute has been nomadic, serving youth in Minneapolis out of rented spaces. But that era is coming to a close — on November 19, 2024, WE WIN held a groundbreaking event for their new building in Minneapolis’ Bryn Mawr neighborhood. Unicorn Riot was there to document the historic occasion and interview board members, organization partners and a former student-turned-staff. 🧵
Founded in 1996 by award-winning educator Titilayo Bediako, WE WIN Institute has served thousands of youth in Minneapolis with in-school, after school, summer school, tutoring and more. WE WIN recently broke ground on a new building they can call home. unicornriot.ninja/2024/groundbre…
Known locally for its vivacious Kwanzaa Celebrations, large urban garden, Harvest Fest, and back-to-school and Black-authored book give-away events, WE WIN has also offered parent groups, tutoring, entrepreneurial programming, a litany of arts related programming, as well as cooking, gardening and mentoring.
UR interviewed WE WIN's founder and Ex. Director Titi Bediako during Juneteenth celebrations in North Minneapolis in 2020. WE WIN handed out 500 books by Black authors for free to the community.
🧵: Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff (now Jennifer Kerkhoff Muyskens) oversaw the failed prosecution of over 200 Trump inauguration protesters on felony conspiracy riot charges, with demonstrators and journalists facing ~80yrs for being around when others broke windows.
The #J20 case collapsed when it came to light that Kerkhoff, working with her star witness DC Police Detective Greggory Pemberton (also a police union official), had *altered and deleted exculpatory evidence* and lied about it to the court repeatedly:
The hidden evidence was portions of an undercover video taken by an operative of right-wing disinformation group Project Veritas during a planning meeting for Trump inauguration protests, which Kerkhoff said implicated all protesters present that day in a violent conspiracy.
A march of several dozen Palestine protesters is moving near the Morton Salt Shed (@saltshedchicago) which is a heavily secured location where Democratic delegates are partying on night 2 of the #DNC - an entry point to the convention is also nearby
The venue is hosting a large party hosted by the Pritzkers with John Legend reportedly performing tonight per corporate media reports - protesters chant “if we don’t get no justice, you don’t get no peace” as CPD on bikes form up to separate them from #DNC partygoers
A noise demo outside a DNC event at the Salt Shed where John Legend is performing as part of convention programming tonight - 10 Illinois State Police just turned up
On the evening of June 28, Mway and his friend were stopped by three police officers from the Utica Police Department and two Oneida County Deputy Sheriffs on their walk home from a Bible study class and a graduation party.
Body camera footage was released by UPD, but only from three of the officers who were on the scene. The footage shows a pedestrian stop, otherwise known as a stop-and-frisk — a controversial tactic of interrogating and searching someone based solely on “reasonable suspicion.”
The two French police officers who killed Nahel Merzouk on June 27, 2023 initially stated that they were in danger of being run over and fired in self-defense. However, video footage from witnesses shows a different version of the story. Both officers were standing to the side of the car as it started moving again and one of them fired the shots. The car continued to move for about 50 meters and then crashed into a pole. The driver was killed instantly, one of the two other passengers escaped and the third was arrested.
The arrested passenger in the car says one officer urged the other to shoot Nahel at point-blank range. The youth alleged that “the first officer asked Nahel to roll down the window. He told him ‘turn off the engine or I will shoot you’. And he hit him with the gun. Then the second officer arrived and stood in front of the windshield at Nahel’s height. From there, the first officer standing at the level of the window put a gun to his temple and said “don’t move or I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
He went on to report that the second officer told him “shoot him,” and when a frightened Nahel let his foot off the pedal, which was an automatic and not in a parked position, it started moving and the officer in front of the vehicle fired point blank.
The man who killed Nahel Merzouk is 38-year-old police officer Florian Menesplier. Menesplier previously served in Afghanistan under France’s 35th infantry regiment and was a motorcyclist with the Direction de l’ordre public et de la circulation (DOPC, Directorate of Public Order and Traffic). Before that he belonged to the compagnie de sécurisation et d’intervention 93 (CSI 93, Security and Intervention Unit 93), which was ordered to disband in 2020.
The unit was the subject of 17 judicial investigations for “violence, racist remarks, unlawful arrests, extortion of dealers” and more. He was also a member of the BRAV-M (Motorized Brigades for the Repression of Violent Action), a unit decried for its violence during the Yellow Vests movement, which he joined shortly after its creation on October 1, 2020.
🔎 New investigation 🔎
Cobwebs Spy Software Locks Onto Protesters:
Israeli Social Media Mining Contract with Homeland Security Revealed
Israeli Firm “Cobwebs” Linked to 2020 Protests, Provides Monitoring Services to Homeland Security for Tracking Dissenters
An Israeli spy software tech firm licenses web surveillance tools to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The software contract shows new details about this sensitive technology DHS has used to spy on activists during the last several years. Story: unicornriot.ninja/2024/cobwebs-s…
Last year, Unicorn Riot reported how Cobwebs, a privately owned Israeli spyware firm, helped the Department of Homeland Security monitor the online presences of Americans—including protesters and journalists.
[Aug 2023]unicornriot.ninja/2023/aimed-at-…