#i fought the law
it’s kind of established that there is no “get out of a beatdown” role you can take other than being a cop yourself, right? media, medics, lawyers, all fair game.
Turns out that cops are just dudes who really like beating the shit out of defenceless people. There’s really no other qualification.
For those who hate lawyers I do want to point out that legal observers are sent by the National Lawyer’s Guild, which is the primary organization providing pro-bono legal defense to protesters and black community leaders who have been jailed to try to derail the movement. So, these are not the lawyers you hate.
Just to reiterate: the entire point of NLG legal observers is to deter unlawful or improper behavior on the part of the police / law enforcement personnel–and to document such behavior, if they aren’t successful in deterring it. In the U.S., they have to be trained and certified. Their job is to help you protest to the full extent of your constitutional rights and with minimal interaction with the criminal justice system. I cannot stress the extent to which they are on your side.
The National Lawyer’s Guild’s motto is “human rights over property interests” and was created as a direct fuck you to conservative and exclusionary bar associations. Their dues are way cheaper than other bar associations and you can join even as a jailhouse lawyer (a prisoner who teaches themselves the law to advocate for others).
And just because this is literally my job: your negative perception of lawyers is literally propaganda. The portrayal of defense attorneys as evil for defending criminals, the idea that suing people is something only rich or very greedy people do, the complete erasure of legal aid as a thing that exists, are all designed to make you afraid to advocate for your legal rights.
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