San Francisco—When San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown testified against the three homelessness activists who threw pies at him last November, he repeatedly urged the court to make an example of the defendants. (See FE #352, Winter 1999.)
The trial ended in a split verdict for members of the Biotic Baking Brigade (BBB), Rahula Janowski, Justin Gross, and Gerry Livernois. Jurors deliberated for over nine hours, finally acquitting the defendants of the heavier charge of assaulting a public official, while convicting them of simple battery.
City Judge Ernest H. Goldsmith complied with the Mayor’s demand, sentencing all three pie-throwers to the maximum penalty of six months in the county jail. Even Janowski was sentenced to six months despite testimony from a mayor’s aid that he tackled the pie-thrower, snapping her collar-bone and causing a permanent disability.
Before sentencing Gross said, “Poverty is violence.” Livernois spoke about the disastrous impact of the Mayor’s policies toward the homeless community.
The underground BBB remains undeterred by the outcome of the case. Agent Apple, speaking for the BBB General Command, Ecotopia Division, issued a communiqué in response to the harsh sentences: “The pie is cast. We shall not rest until justice, as well as dessert, is served.”
To show it will not be intimidated, the Ecotopia Cell of the BBB swung into action March 10 in its first post-Cherry Pie 3 sentencing action, delivering just desserts in the form of three pies to the head (quite literally, as well as the suit and tie) of Chevron CEO, Kenneth T. Derr.
The latest pastry incident at the Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, came shortly before Derr was to give a corporate greenwash speech to kids at the school’s “National Engineers Week” program. BBB Agent 3.14 launched the first strike after saying to Derr, “Do people really kill Nigerians for oil? People Do,” in reference to Chevron’s “People Do” ad campaign. The multiple pie-throwers successfully tossed three pies, and then disappeared without a trace.
The BBB targeted Derr because it believes in thinking globally and acting locally. Abroad, Chevron engages in destruction of indigenous cultures and ecosystems, murder of nonviolent activists in Nigeria, obstruction of meaningful efforts to address global warming, and repeated labor violations. Closer to home, Chevron is one of the worst corporate polluters in California.
BBB Agent Blueberry of the Cherry Pie 3 Solidarity Committee, said, “From the forests of Columbia to the platforms of Nigeria down to the waters and workers of our own Bay, large petrochemical corporations display callous disregard for human life and the future of this planet.
“We have witnessed toxic spill after toxic spill,” Blueberry continued. “We have seen our fellow workers perish in refinery ‘mishaps,’ and watched oil companies take off their gloves and get directly involved in the murder of indigenous peoples the world over. To their lies, we respond with pies.”
This action comes in light of new information about direct collaboration between Chevron and Nigerian security forces in the continuing repression of protesters in Nigeria’s Delta region.
Contact the BBB at 415-626-4942; via email at bbb_apple@hotmail.com or Friends of the BBB: 3288 21st #92, San Francisco, CA, 94110.