[UPDATED BELOW] Yesterday the NYPD raided 13 Thames, a Bushwick-based art and performance space, arresting at least two residents/members of the Independent Anarchist Media (I AM) Collective, according to Free Williamsburg. The NYC Anarchist Film Festival is just days away, and that group has been holding up at 13 Thames organizing the event. Those involved posted the below video and statement:
Two plainclothes detectives entered first, followed quickly by a Lieutenant and vans full of blue shirt officers. After corralling everyone present in the back room, they searched the space and detained two members of the collective. The I AM collective was preparing for the NYC Anarchist Film Festival, a showcase of resistance movements and insurrectionary events from around the world presented from an anarchist and anti-authoritarian perspective.
And the show will go on! The group says that "the voice of decentralized creative communities will not be silenced by police repression. They cannot raid us, because we are everywhere." And this Friday, "everywhere" is really just Judson Memorial Church, where the fest will take place.
We've contacted the NYPD press office to find out more details... but did that anarchist videotaping seem a little too shaky, and the cop seem a little too nice? Is it possible this is all part of the film festival that you never heard of until now?
UPDATE: Sgt Carlos Nieves at the NYPD tells us, "On April 13, 2010 two individuals were arrested for outstanding Criminal Court summonses at 13 Thames Street."
