The official purpose of this hearing was a Change of Plea hearing, as well as a plea agreement being entered. Before today X technically pleaded Not Guilty to all his charges, this was read out by the judge…
The prosecution read out the charges, these included the indictment from Santa Cruz (reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor), the Orlando indictment now transferred to the Northern District of California, and the failure to appear charges (all charges about a decade old)…
The judge then read the sentences to these charges, which can include several fines and years in prison. She then asked some procedural questions to X…
After that the actual “Change of Plea” began, where the judge read out the rights that X would be waiving by pleading guilty (if he had pleaded not guilty X would get a full trial with jurors from Santa Cruz)…
X answered yes to that affirming that he would be pleading guilty to all the charges.
The plea agreement was presented and read by the prosecution. The prosecution is now reading the indictments.
They’re basically just describing the actions of the People’s Liberation Front in Santa Cruz in defense of the homeless, how X left and failed to appear for a status conference relating to his charges…
And #OpOrlando, #OpCarePackage, + PLF’s activities against the City of Orlando in defense of Food Not Bombs being arrested for serving food to the homeless (which is something hearing this being read out while sitting next to @keith_mchenry)
The indictment being read that X is officially pleading guilty to also has evidence that Chris is Commander X, and proves his participation in the activities being deemed crimes by the court.
After the prosecution read all that, the judge got verbal confirmation from X that the information in the indictment is fairly accurate and that he is aware of what he is pleading guilty to.
Judge is again reading the 3 charges, this time after each of the charge X gives the “I plead guilty” statement. Says she’s awaiting the sentencing guidelines and moving on to discuss potential sentencing hearings.
It looks like June 28th at 9am will be when the sentencing hearing is scheduled to take place, X is going to stay in Santa Rita til then. The hearing ends, and while they were taking X away he gave us peace signs and fists.
This dude was doing laps around the whole civic center with the flag and Rocky music, was pretty fun to watch no cap lol. I caught him for a few seconds on his 4th or 5th lap.
Back on the ground at Echo Park as police surround the area, they’ve blocked off most roads leading here as well. There’s many more surrounding all of Echo Park Lake #EchoParkRiseUp
Police presence contd.
Protestors and media confronting some of the police here #EchoParkRiseUp
Lots of activists and media gathering in Echo Park this morning following the news that the city (@MitchOFarrell) plans to displace and fence off the community of unhoused people here #EchoParkRiseUp
Numbers have tripled since the action started at 7. A lot will stay for a while to flood the park with signs, some will come back for the night as police will probably try to displace the people of the camp when less activists/media are present #EchoParkRiseUp