Denver, CO – On July 12, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) Denver was joined at the Union Station by members of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Black Student Alliance of MSU Denver, and other members of the community. They staged a speak-out demanding that the politically-motivated charges against the Tampa 5 be dropped.

July 12 marked the day that the Tampa 5 made their second appearance in court.

Paul Nelson, member of the Denver SDS connected the Tampa 5 to the broader progressive movement, saying, “This is about more than just the Tampa 5. What’s at risk here is right to protest. The right to dissent. The right for progressive people’s movements to try to do something differently. To try and say that the way we’ve been doing things is broken, it isn’t working, things need to change. Or at the very least, resist attacks to drag us back from where we have progressed.”

An organizer with Freedom Road Socialist Organization remarked on how he knows Chrisley Carpio, one of the Tampa 5, saying, “Chrisley doesn’t deserve this! She deserves better! She deserves to live in a world that's fair; a world where speaking up for justice is not punished!.”

Organizing for the Tampa 5 has been an ongoing and urgent task since March 6, when SDS Tampa held a protest against legislation aimed at eliminating ethnic studies. At this protest, four students were brutally arrested by police, with video bearing witness to the police slamming protesters into walls and on the ground, groping these women, and placing them in chokeholds. These students were charged felonies as a tactic to intimidate. Protesters arrested that day were Chrisley Carpio, Gia Davila, Laura Rodriguez, and Jeanie Kida with one additional student, Lauren Pineiro, being charged later. Most of those charged are facing ten years in prison.

To show solidarity in these efforts, please consider donating to the Tampa 5 and signing yourself and/or your organization onto this petition to free the Tampa 5.

#DenverCO #StudentMovement #SDS #PoliticalRepression #Tampa5