Unicorn Riot recently sat down with the Poet Laureate of San Francisco & cousin of AJ Stewart, @_Tongogara_ (Tongo Eisen-Martin) for an exclusive interview about the racial politics of Stewart’s murder, Brian Kjellberg’s upcoming trial in MN & more. unicornriot.ninja/2023/family-of…
“I think it begins with this white guy sharpening a metal pipe into a shank, wrapping it with a black tape handle & ideating about murdering someone Black,” @_Tongogara_ said of Brian Kjellberg, a white military veteran who killed his unarmed cousin AJ Stewart in Dec. 2021.
On the evening of Dec. 2, 2021, Brian Kjellberg called the non-emergency number seeking to get a car ticketed & impounded for being parked on his property on the 1700 block of 7th street on Saint Paul’s eastside. ↕️
Brian Kjellberg, a white man, brought a weapon with him to confront the driver and prevent the car from leaving until the tow truck arrived. The driver, AJ Stewart, a Black man, was visiting friends and family who lived on the same block as Kjellberg. ↕️
When Stewart went outside to leave, Kjellberg escalated the situation and physically prevented Stewart from getting in his car. Stewart gave Kjellberg verbal commands to move but Kjellberg refused. This is when Kjellberg alleges that Stewart punched him in the face. Kjellberg… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Stewart’s family disputes Kjellberg’s claim that AJ punched him before he was fatally stabbed. They described the 27 y/o as “goofy” & said “he enjoyed...promoting positivity to teenagers in his free time,” which contradicts the violent behavior alleged by Kjellberg. ↕️
For killing unarmed AJ Stewart, Brian Kjellberg was charged with 2nd degree murder without intent while committing a felony, MN Statute: 609.19.2(1). If he’s found guilty, he faces up to 40 years in prison.
The murder trial for Kjellberg is scheduled to start March 27, 2023. ↕️
Brian Kjellberg is claiming self-defense & has defense attorney Earl Gray who's defended cops in high profile murder cases: Kim Potter who killed #DaunteWright, Jeronimo Yanez who killed #PhilandoCastile, & Thomas Lane who was an accomplice in the killing of #GeorgeFloyd. ↕️
AJ Stewart’s family has taken note of Early Gray defending Brian Kjellberg. Eisen-Martin told UR that: “[He’s] the same lawyer…who represented these killer cops...It’s a plain statement of where he stands and the confidence in the white supremacist nature of the system.” ↕️
Tongo Eisen-Martin, AJ Stewart's cousin, said he was hoping to have supporters & legal observers show up to the Ramsey County Courthouse on Brian Kjellberg's trial dates, which start on March 27, 2023 & help with court watch to monitor the proceedings to ensure transparency. ↕️
*Earl* Gray
AJ Stewart's cousin Tongo said that the family wasn't presenting a demand on the system, it was rather demanding the people see Stewart's killing as an "alarm" within our "society of social contradiction" and that he's hoping for unity in the end. ↕️
The family of AJ Stewart has created the Facebook page Justice for AJ to communicate with supporters and give updates on the case. ↕️facebook.com/profile.php?id…
Eisen-Martin described his cousin AJ as the rock of his family. He said AJ was his “mother’s strength” and was like a father figure to his little brothers and sisters. ↕️
Tabitha Lewis, the mother of AJ Stewart, has struggled to keep stable housing and employment since her son’s murder. The family has created a fundraiser on GoFundMe for supporters who would like to contribute. ↕️ gofundme.com/f/please-help-…
AJ Stewart's killing was just one in a string of anti-Black racially-motivated acts of violence perpetrated by white men in the U.S., said @_Tongogara_, who noted the murder came in a time of the mass shooting in Buffalo, the killing of #AhmaudArbery & the deadly Jan. 6 riots.↕️
“Just as much as religion is an opiate, you have the opiate of this white supremacist ideology – high off of that, you have at least 70 million white people that will live under any condition.” Tongo Eisen-Martin, cousin of victim Arnell 'AJ' Stewart ↕️
In December 2021, calling on Ramsey County Attorney John Choi to press hate crimes charges on Brian Kjellberg, family, friends and supporters of AJ Stewart held a press conference at the Indigenous Roots Cultural Center in Saint Paul. ↕️ unicornriot.ninja/2022/family-ca…
Supporters of AJ Stewart called Brian Kjellberg a white racist vigilante & the killing has drawn comparisons to George Zimmerman, who murdered unarmed #TrayvonMartin in 2012 & Greg & Travis McMichael, who murdered unarmed #AhmaudArbery in 2020. ↕️
Watch the full press conference from Dec. 30, 2021, featuring the mother and cousins of AJ Stewart, community organizers, and more. ↕️
Family of AJ Stewart Speak on Patterns of White Supremacy That Led to His Killing Over a Parking Spot
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-…
For 5+ hours last night in Los Angeles, pro-Israel Zionist agitators violently beat, pepper sprayed & threw fireworks at hundreds of college students & protesters as they held UCLA’s Palestine solidarity encampment while security & police stood by idly. 🧵 unicornriot.ninja/2024/masked-is…
Despite the prolonged, violent attack on UCLA students by masked pro-Israel vigilantes, the Palestine solidarity encampment stayed intact with students repelling the continuous onslaught as they defiantly chanted “we’re not leaving” & “Free Palestine.” 🧵
New story: Tech Workers Rise Up: Organizing Google’s Worldwide Worker Walkout
- 1hr video - 2018 talk w. Tech Workers Coalition @techworkersco unicornriot.ninja/2024/tech-work…
@techworkersco At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Dec. 11, 2018 an open forum titled, “#MeToo and Workers’ Power: Building Solidarity at Google and Beyond,” covered inner workings of the global Google walkout of 20,000 employees & contractors in 2018. unicornriot.ninja/2024/tech-work…
@techworkersco Hosted by the Tech Workers Coalition & MIT’s Radius, the speakers and attendees examined the truth about how Google divides its labor force between contractors and workers. 2018 saw unprecedented mobilizations against management at the biggest companies in the tech industry.