Oaxaca: When one falls, let 50 step forward...

Indymedia videographer Brad Will was recently killed in Oaxaca, while filming the People's struggles in that embattled Mexican city. IP #230 starts with the last thing Brad Will saw before dying. We bring you about 10 minutes of footage taken from his video camera. He was filming the moment he was shot. To keep this from being any more gruesome than it needs to be, there is no on-screen notice at the moment of impact. We bring you this footage as part of our commemorative to him--he died to get these shots--but also because it is exactly what we have always promised, "televising the revolution." This piece is grainy, it was transmitted by way of the internet, but profound. There are some interviews with citizens of Oaxaca, describing the terror they have been living with, and then Brad moves closer, to a battle between gun-toting thugs, and a community whose weapons are firecrackers and slingshots. It is a peephole into what happens if a community can't just call the police when a man with a gun starts shooting. If you don't have guns, how do you stand up to an armed aggressor? Brad Will was there, and because of him, we all get to see. This piece is raw, and instructive.
The second segment was filmed in Seattle, and is a demonstration in support of the People of Oaxaca, and a commemoration of the 17 martyrs, known to have been murdered during the recent upheavals in that city. Brad Will is the most recent name to be added, but his is not the only name on the list of the dead.
The final segment of "IP #230" is a piece sent to us by Indymedia videographer Flux Rostrum. About the time we covered the demonstration in Seattle in support of the People of Oaxaca, a similar demonstration took place in New York. But in New York, there was civil disobedience, and the police attacked Flux Rostrum and stole his camera while he was filming the event. Another videographer captured the whole thing and we bring you that piece. If you haven't yet noticed, Indymedia videographers are on the barricades and in the streets, getting the shot, sometimes even getting shot, brave in the face of danger. When one falls, let 50 step forward...

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News & Politics

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• Brad
• Will
• Mexico
• Oaxaca
• media