Brad Will

Bradley Roland Will (June 14, 1970 – October 27, 2006) was an American activist, videographer, and journalist. He was affiliated with Indymedia. On October 27, 2006, during a labor dispute in the Mexican city of Oaxaca, Will was shot twice, by government-aligned paramilitaries, resulting in his death.

Early life

Will was born in Evanston, Illinois, and raised in Kenilworth. He graduated from New Trier High School in 1988, then attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he earned a B.A. in English.

Will was a proponent of anti-corporate media, and he hosted his own program on Steal This Radio, a Lower East Side-based pirate radio station.

In 1998, he and partner Hazel spoke at the Ecosaloon, a weekly activism forum held on Tuesday evenings at the Wetlands Preserve nightclub. Their presentation connected the struggle to defend the forests of the Pacific Northwest with the fight against the gentrification of Manhattan's Lower East Side. After helping to organize Buy Nothing Day and a Reclaim the Streets protest in Times Square, Will traveled to Seattle for the 1999 WTO protests, and was a longtime participant in Direct Action Network (DAN) and the Independent Media Center (IMC) of New York City. In August 2001 he joined participants for a roving exploration of usable food found in Tribeca dumpsters; they were accompanied by a TV crew from PBS's Life 360. In his later years, Will began recording documentary videos, releasing them on the internet through the Indymedia network of websites. During the summer of 2006, Will continued videotaping demonstrations, including a June 15 protest at the Mexican Consulate in response to a police incursion into a teacher's plantón (encampment). On June 29 he video-recorded and helped organize a protest against Victoria's Secret at the Manhattan Mall in response to the resources used to print the high volume of mail-order catalogs which the company mails out. He also filmed a street theater performance by the group A for Anarchy, organized in response to the release of the film V for Vendetta. At the time of his death, he was working on a documentary about folk punk music.

International In 2000, while visiting the Czech Republic Will attended a protest in Prague against the International Monetary Fund Summit. He later traveled through South America while participating in anti-globalization. He reached Ecuador, Argentina, Chiapas and Brazil in that trip.

Death Traveling under a tourist visa, Will arrived in Oaxaca in early October 2006 in order to document and film the teachers' strike. On October 27, he was videotaping near a barricade erected by pro-strike protesters when he was shot twice. In the last few minutes of the video; Will filmed before being shot, voices speaking in Spanish are heard demanding that filming be stopped and cameras be turned off. In the final seconds of the video a voice in Spanish reprimands Will for not having turned off the camera. In the middle of this statement a gunshot is heard, there is a scream, the camera pans down to the ground and the video ends.

Will died while being carried from the area in search of medical help. Two others, Esteban Zurita López and teacher Emilio Alonso Fabián, were also killed. Several others were injured. 26 protesters were ultimately murdered during this mobilization. A truth commission later classified his death as an "extrajudicial execution".

During a news conference on October 29, 2006, Oaxaca mayor Manuel Martínez said that four men, all local public officials, were being detained in connection with the shooting. A participant in the teachers' strike was arrested in 2008 and accused of Will's murder; on appeal, he was cleared of the killing and released in 2010. In late May 2012, based on forensic evidence and witness interviews, a new suspect was arrested. The government claimed that the Federal Police that entered Oaxaca were unarmed.

Demonstrations at Mexican consulates On October 30, more than 200 protesters convened outside the Mexican consulate in New York City to deplore the killing of Will and others and to demand an end to the violence. The protest was organized by the grassroots group named in his honor, The Friends of Brad Will.

Committee to Protect Journalists The Committee to Protect Journalists sent an open letter on October 30 to the Mexican attorney general calling on the Mexican government to launch an investigation into Will's death. The statement said that David Vega Vera, special independent prosecutor, had begun gathering information related to the case.

Commemoration and memorial

On November 11 and 12, 2006, Friends of Brad Will organized a gathering in New York City to commemorate Will's life. The event included a memorial service at St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery attended by 250 people, as well as speeches and concerts. Outside the church was an array of freegan food as well as a pile of Will's personal possessions, from which attendees were urged to take. It was followed by a procession through the East Village described by The Villager as "jubilant and rowdy" and culminated in marchers breaking into the former Charas/El Bohio, inside which they briefly cavorted, scrawled graffiti, twirled fire bolas and cycled.

Brad David Rovics wrote a song about his life and death, titled 'Brad'.