UNICORN RIOT Profile picture
Jan 11, 2022 15 tweets 7 min read Read on X
“I personally think he was too good for this Earth” said Justine Crook, who celebrates her 30th birthday today but for the first time without her twin brother, Justin, who was one of at least 10 people who died last year in Pima County Jail.

Full story: unicornriot.ninja/2021/the-death… Image
In late May 2021, Justin Crook (J-Mac Tha Coldest) had a seizure in a Lyft on his way home from work. The Lyft driver called 911. Tucson police arrived & beat, tased, & arrested Crook. Less than 24 hours later, he was found dead in a Pima County Jail cell. unicornriot.ninja/2021/the-death…
10 people died in Pima County Jail in 2021—more than in any single year in at least the last decade, acc. to info released by the Pima Co. Sheriff’s Dept & a @Reuters investigation. Families have come together in support & to push back on the violence inflicted on their families.
After his death in jail, Justin Crook's mother, Jennifer Graham, said Pima County Jail officials and the sheriff “acted like it was my fault that my son was dead.”

She's since filed a $10 million medical neglect claim against the Pima County Sheriff's Department. Image
In Tucson, Arizona on November 27 & December 31, 2021 groups of dozens of family members and their supporters gathered in front of the Pima County Adult Detention Complex to hold vigils in memory of their loved ones and to demand change.

Full story: unicornriot.ninja/2021/the-death… ImageImageImageImage
As is the case with most people who die within this country’s sprawling apparatus of jails, prisons & detention centers, the details of Crook’s death remain opaque-the role of government agents in his death obscured behind legalistic & bureaucratic jargon. unicornriot.ninja/2021/the-death… Image
The autopsy report in Crook’s case found evidence of numerous “blunt force injuries” that substantiate Crook’s statements to medical staff about having been beaten by TPD officers during his arrest. Details of his arrest are uncertain and TPD refused to release information. Image
Justin Crook’s family members report that when he had seizures, he would come out of them disoriented and upset, a situation that could contribute to a dangerous encounter with the police if they respond, as they so often do, with aggression rather than medical care. Image
The medical examiner’s autopsy & toxicology reports state Crook’s body contained many times the average single dose of methamphetamines - According to the findings, Crook consumed enough meth for the medical examiner to rule that he died of “acute methamphetamine intoxication.” Image
The Pima County Medical Examiner ruled Crook’s death an accident. His mother doesn’t accept that explanation: “How do you overdose from methamphetamine intoxication when he was on their property for 30 hours? That makes no sense.” She doesn’t think the jail’s story adds up. Image
Nearly a year before Justin Crook died in Pima County Jail, he punched a guard and was subsequently beaten. This is video of Crook punching the guard and the guards reactions. The video also features Crook's interview with a deputy after the incident. vimeo.com/658911301
[CW: Violence] Justin Crook's mother believes that her son’s death in Pima County Jail in 2021 may be related to Crook being beaten in the jail in 2020 after he punched a guard in the face.

“They ended up beating the crap out of my son...Put him in the hospital” said Crook's mom Image
Crook punched the guard because he disrespected his friend Anthony Garrett [pic] who was killed by security guards in '19.

Crook said to a deputy: “I miss my friend. I’m not gonna be cool with nobody disrespecting his presence. I’m willing to die for that. OK? So I almost did.” Image
As a result of the altercation at the jail, Crook was charged w/ “Aggravated Assault on a Corrections Employee,” a class 5 felony.

In December 2020, Crook pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of “Attempt to Commit Aggravated Assault on a Corrections Employee,” a class 6 felony. Image
“He could just sit there all day & read a book,” said Justine Crook, Justin's twin sister. “He was the smartest person I’ve ever known.”

“I feel like God took him because he was way too good to walk this Earth.”

Justin Crook would have turned 30 today.

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More from @UR_Ninja

Aug 12
8 years ago today: A coalition of neo-nazi groups held the so-called "#UniteTheRight" rally in Charlottesville, VA - after planning online for months to carry out racially motivated violence.

The even ended early after being outnumbered by militant antifascists.
Police stood down most of the day as fascist groups openly carried out attacks while using slurs. After the rally was shut down, one neo-nazi ran into protesters with his car, killing Heather Heyer.

(The cop keeping the road closed had been allowed to leave her post earlier.)
Virginia State Troopers monitoring protesters discussed wanting to mass arrest anti-racists - who they called "motherfuckers" - shortly before the car attack.

(See our 2019 story: "Neo-Nazi Gets Multiple Life Sentences In Federal Prison for Charlottesville Car Attack") James Alex Fields marching at Unite The right in Charlottesville alongside other violent neo-nazis including Identity Evropa member Taylor Wilson and disgraced podcaster Mike Peinovich aka Mike Enoch. Photo copyright Sandi Bochom, used with permission.
Read 8 tweets
Jun 19
During the first Trump administration we obtained hundreds of pages of special agent manuals from ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in full - we released w/o redactions. It includes everything from denaturalization, to 'special response teams' to undercover operations: Image
Image
Image
Icebreaker Pt 1 – Secret Homeland Security ICE/HSI Manual for Stripping US Citizenship
unicornriot.ninja/2018/icebreake…
"...denaturalization efforts are in line with the Trump Administration’s policies stripping DACA and Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been contributing to this country for years." — Jennifer Chang Newell, managing attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project
Icebreaker Pt 2 – Confidential Homeland Security Asset Forfeiture and Search and Seizure Handbooks
unicornriot.ninja/2018/icebreake…
"the [handbooks] ... exposes the inner workings of an extrajudicial system that has destroyed people’s lives without due process. This shadow system skirts the checks and balances that have traditionally staved off at least some abuses of power and gives the elite who run this country the unfettered ability to manipulate outcomes.” – Michelle Gross, Communities United Against Police Brutality
Read 9 tweets
Apr 23
NEW: Chuds on Parade – Meet Trump's Cabinet

unicornriot.ninja/2025/chuds-on-…
Current DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has often espoused racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric tied to the neo-nazi-originated “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and embraces adopting anti-LGBTQ policies. Oh and she shot the family dog. Kristi Noem wears a white shirt, gold wristwatch and ICE baseball cap standing in front of CECOT detainees with shaved heads behind prison bars. The crowd of prisoners Noem is posing in front of fades into a mass of tormented naked people crowded together making various wild vestures. Some kind of medieval contraption is seen below Noem, to her right a fanged inhuman creature with pink skin is perched on the ground wearing a hat kind of like if a wizards hat didnt stand upright and also had feathers. From in between its jaws, we can see the inside of its mouth is smooth except for four fang...
Mike Huckabee is Trump's ambassador to Israel.

He's rubbed elbows with actual white supremacists (Council of Conservative Citizens, pro-segregation), demonized gay people, and claimed "there's no such thing as a Palestinian." Mike Huckabee's head with inflamed looking skin super imposed into a skinny blue skin monster eating a pale-skinned human head first as he sits on a round yellowish chair with a blue egg with people imprisoned or frozen inside under his chair. The blue Huckabee hybrid creature is wearing green shows that are possibly also coffee mugs. To the viewer's right and behind the Huckabee-hybrid's chair an army of what appear to be nuns are peeling back a curtain possibly attached to the chair. The butt naked victim being devoured by Huckabee has black colored birds flying out of their butt. Some ki...
Read 15 tweets
Jan 24
During his three-minute speech at President Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration, Elon Musk performed a Nazi salute multiple times while emphasizing how this election “really mattered” and thanking the crowd “for making it happen.”

Full story: unicornriot.ninja/2025/elon-musk…
While some news outlets avoided describing the clear gesture as a Nazi salute, various scholars and activists named it as such, describing the nod to fascist propaganda as a grim signal of what Musk and the incoming administration hope to accomplish in this country.
“We need to state the obvious, of course: it was a Nazi salute,” Cindy Barukh Milstein told Unicorn Riot. Milstein is a diasporic queer Jewish anarchist, writer, and longtime organizer.
Read 24 tweets
Dec 17, 2024
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.
Read 12 tweets
Oct 23, 2024
🧵: 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:

unicornriot.ninja/2018/prosecuto…
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.
Read 5 tweets

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