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Scott Hechinger

Jan 1, 2022 • 16 tweets • 13 min read • Read on X

NOW PRESENTING: A *short film festival* right here on Twitter for New Year. A collection of some short films & other story-telling projects my team & I produced in support of our local allies. Range of justice issues. All over country. First hand accounts. Thread w/ selections:

Still in Prison: On how a law passed by the KKK 80+ years ago to maintain white supremacy keeps disproportionately Black people locked up in Oregon. How a jailhouse lawyer got the case to the Supreme Court. And how to topple this monument to racism. Watch:

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1396934976466210824

More on the ongoing fight for fairness in Oregon and what you can do to help in this thread and on the campaign site: stillinprison.org.

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1396934976466210824

“In Louisiana”: After every natural disaster another disaster for justice awaits: people lose their right to public defense. Louisiana funds defense near entirely off fines/traffic tickets of those who cant afford a lawyer. Disasters dry up those funds.

https://twitter.com/scotthech/status/1290856856756289538

For more on how to help the ongoing fight to fund public defense & end the racist & outrageous “user pay” system forcing people who can’t afford a lawyer to pay for their public defender w/ unaffordable fines read this thread and visit the campaign site: forthesixth.org.

https://twitter.com/scotthech/status/1290856856756289538

“Need to Talk”: Put up a billboard in the heart of Times Square. Across from NYPD station. Message: “Hey NYPD. It’s us. NYC residents. The ones who pay your salary. We paid $300 million to settle your lawsuits. You paid nothing. We need to talk.” Watch:

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1304044679848235010

For more on the project and how to promote the limitless better investments we could make that could actually improve public health & safety instead of policing, read this thread and visit the site: need-to-talk.com.

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1304044679848235010

“Silenced”: 100 people caged in Michigan solitary confinement wrote letters to share their experiences. Allies in Michigan collected them. Artists interpreted them. Coders organized & filtered them. The result: A digital archive of first-hand accounts. Overview video:

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1392823626920079362

For more on the horrors and torture of solitary and what you can do abolish it, please read this thread, bear witness to the stories, and visit the site: silenced.in.

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1392823626920079362

“Gasping.”: “I have a disease. But it’s not like I volunteered for this.”

Fiona Apple is one of over 60 advocates, artists, academics who got the courageous, painful words of dozens suffering in PG County, MD jail to be heard. GaspingForJustice.org

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1380510446634086400

For more on how you can volunteer to CourtWatch in PG County, MD to hold power to account and more from people in pretrial cages who risked retaliation to share their stories read this thread and visit: GaspingForJustice.org.

https://twitter.com/ScottHech/status/1380510446634086400

“132 Calls”: Thats how many times Cassandra called a Chicago jail to try to save her husband. No masks. Soap. Crowded. Others coughing on food. He got sick. She was ignored. He died. “Morning never came for my husband.” More: 132Calls.com.

@TxJailProject

“To me ya'll the same in this jailhouse." What a guard told Willie while assaulting him. Caged pretrial in Texas for *over 3 years.* Tortured. Denied medication. Just 1 of 90 audio accounts w/ @TxJailProject in digital archive: sheddinglight.in.

“Witness”: Charles Hobbs was suffocating in a cell infected w/ COVID in a Miami jail. Other men tried saving his life. Guards ignored them. He died. Those men spoke out. “I went to sleep w/ tears in my eyes. Grabbing my bible.” These are their voices:

So many people & so many organizations put so much into these films. Artists. Social justice organizations. Defenders. Teachers. Civil rights lawyers. Organizers. Currently & formerly incarcerated people. Here’s a running & ongoing list of organizations you need to follow:

@TxJailProject

@TxJailProject
@theRAMOSproject
@CivRightsCorps
@Dreamdefenders
@releasemd
@courtwatchpg
@BwayAdvocacyCo
@endmoneybond
@AFSCMICJProgram
@ACLU_OR
@ColorOfChange
@svdebug
@MediaTankFilm
@VariantStrateg1
@Cactus_Is
@OpenMIDoor
@UnlockTheBoxNow
@ChiBondFund

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More from @ScottHech

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

May 11

Wow. Fiona Apple is a real one. Watch this video. Calling for donations to bail out Black mothers for Mother’s Day. Her fans already came through w donations & spreading the word. Over $30k! Let’s “fetch the bolt cutters” & support even more. I just gave. givebutter.com/nHSrnp

Two years ago, Fiona Apple popped up on a zoom call to get trained by local organizers to Court watch. Dedicated ever since. Her work has led to freedom, lawsuits, accountability.

The stories all here in this short video. She wrote & performed the score:

Be like Fiona Apple. Volunteer to CourtWatch. Visit this campaign hub, learn more, connect w/ a local courtwatch program, &/or learn how to start your own.

Injustice happens in empty courtrooms. Which allows police brutality to continue outside of them. Courtwatch.org

Read 10 tweets

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

Mar 18

“No judge has ever lost their job setting bail on someone.”

A NYC judge whispered that. To a public defender. Before depriving their destitute client of freedom. This happens every day. Judges are intimidated to throw poor people in cages.

Thread on a history of intimidation:

Public defenders @elizaorlins & @APetrigh tell about the open secret of "justice" throughout the country People are deprived of liberty, not based on merit. But judicial fear of negative press.

Story is paywalled. So Im transcribing it here:nydailynews.com/2024/03/15/int…

"The NYPD’s recent social media attack against a judge who released a defendant under supervision instead of setting bail and detaining them. The case drew headlines because the NYPD’s aggressive social media posts were full of misinformation, including misidentifying the judge."

Read 11 tweets

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

Feb 17

How copaganda works. Police, prosecutor, & prison interests use media to exaggerate & lie about "sensational" cases. Amplify them on repeat. Create the *perception* that "crime" or "migrants" are a "Crisis!"

Perpetual anger/fear buys votes & public opinion. Facts be damned.

How copaganda works. Police release a highly edited video that doesn't include their unprovoked, violent, & unjustified attack on a migrant. Manufactured "outcry" ensues. Lawmakers call for sweeping policy changes. New video later released. It's too late. Profound damage done.

How copaganda works. Even after previously withheld police footage showed the "attack on police" in Times Square was the opposite: An unprovoked attack *by police* on innocent people, reports continue only center the lie.

None (that I've seen) report on the overt police lie.

Read 12 tweets

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

Dec 4, 2023

An interesting story for you. Was catching up w/ a friend at coffeeshop. The mother of her friend walked by & joined us briefly. She’s from Chicago. She told us a story about talking to a Chicago police officer. Thanking him for his service.

What he told her will surprise you.

As quick background, she is a white woman. In her 60s. Well off. Grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Now downtown. Forever Dem. Supported the end of cash bail. But is “fed up” w/ “all the violence.” Thinks “something has to be done.”

She saw a cop the other day & went up to him.

She told the cop how scared she was by everything she was reading in the news. Couldn’t imagine how tough things were “for him” given the “crime rates.” (Note: Homicides are down significantly in most of Chicago, but violence remains a scourge).

The cop told her to “buy a gun”

Read 17 tweets

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

Sep 18, 2023

Extraordinary work again from @TeenVogue -- the best justice journalism outlet in the country. On the day that cash bail is finally eliminated in Illinois, they release a critical explainer on "Copaganda."

How to identify & respond to lies & fearmongering about safety. Watch:

Must watch. The week that cash bail is finally eliminated in Illinois, local experts debunk harmful myths that the media peddles about bail reform. In this @TeenVogue video explainer.

"This fear has been built up & stoked by media misinformation. A refrain. A scapegoat " Watch:

Last year: Artists, survivors of violence, organizers, entrepreneurs, public defenders, policy experts, restorative justice practitioners, and system-impacted people sat for a series of conversations while exploring a groundbreaking exhibition on torture and incarceration.

Read 9 tweets

Scott Hechinger

@ScottHech

Aug 4, 2023

Teen Vogue out again w/ the best in political commentary, justice journalism & truth. A compelling & easily digestible explainer on "Abolition."

New vision of safety: "If policing prosecution & incarceration created safety, we'd be the safest country in the world." Watch. Learn:

When people hear the word "abolition" they think 'crazy leftist.' 'Idealistic.'

In reality: "We're the clear eyed ones. We have the whole history of the world to let us know what were doing now is not sustainable. We want a world where violence isn't the norm." Part 2: