Protesters thrilled, put off by WTO riots By DIANE DIETZ The Register-Guard
It was the window smashing that made her feel alive.
Eugene resident Jasmine Cameron was running down the streets of Seattle, at the back of a line of black-clad anarchists.
She was wearing an oversized black sweatshirt and heavy-soled shoes, a bandana over her face and ski goggles on her eyes - much like her companions - when somebody at the head of the line smashed a bank window.
"It was a rush," she said. "It's like a small group of people could start a revolution. It felt like a war."
A little later she was separated from the group, she said, and three plainclothes police officers grabbed her from behind, cuffed her and whisked her from the scene.
Cameron believed in anarchist causes through high school, joined tree sit-ins in Washington and Oregon, pedaled her bicycle amid the chaos of Eugene's June 18 riot. At age 19, she had dedicated her life to the cause - and last week in Seattle that meant going to jail.
She was one of at least a half-dozen Eugene residents among the 570 arrested last week during a massive protest against the World Trade Organization.
More local names may emerge as court officials sort through 300 arrested protesters who didn't initially give their names. They were listed in court records as John WTO or Jane WTO, and released on bail after signing a promise to return to court.
The court process was excruciatingly slow, those arrested said. It took 14 to 16 hours to make a first phone call; lawyers weren't allowed to see them for days.
Some protesters remained in jail for four or five days on minor charges, such as failure to disperse, that usually carry no jail time.
Among those jailed were a University of Oregon student, a Santa Clara farmer and a 22-year-old man who listed a Eugene post office box as his address, although police were unsure of his true identity.
Cameron and Kevin, the Santa Clara farmer, went to Seattle for far different reasons, but both got caught up in the mass protesting seldom seen these days in an American city.
Kevin, 34, asked that only his first name be used. He was among those listed on court records as a "John WTO." He said he didn't give police his name because "I don't trust our government not to single out individuals."
He said he went to Seattle to demonstrate against international agribusiness and the corporations that support it. He's a partner in a low-tech, community farm that provides produce to dozens of shareholders through the summers.
The farm is strictly organic and he delivers the produce by bicycle only, so the market is restricted to about 12 miles, or about as far as the grower and shareholder can comfortably pedal for pick-up.
Kevin contrasts this with the normal practices of corporate agriculture, which he says seek out the cheapest labor and the most expedient technology, without care for worker rights or damage to the environment.
Before Seattle, he said, he had little experience with demonstrations, except rallying for Jerry Brown's presidential candidacy in 1992.
The only reason he got involved this time was because activists asked him to lead a "teach-in" on organic farming at the UO in October, he said. He met members of the Direct Action Network there, was impressed by their organization and decided to join them in Seattle, he said.
The first day, he said, he marched with the Jubilee 2000 group, which is trying to get First World countries to forgive Third World debt. On the second day, he linked arms with other protesters and blocked an intersection in downtown Seattle.
He said he saw the black-hooded protesters. He didn't join them, but said he couldn't condemn them, either.
"To break a window in a retail facility in downtown Seattle is nothing compared with what some of these CEOs are doing daily," he said.
On his third day in Seattle, police cracked down. He was standing with about 300 others downtown. Police closed in on the group, saying anyone who didn't want to be arrested should move to the side. Kevin said he was among about 80 people who did move aside, but police arrested them anyway.
At the processing center, he decided to help with an effort to paralyze the booking process so police could arrest fewer people.
For instance, when jailers switched the protesters' plastic handcuffs from the back to the front, they slipped their bound hands over the body of the person in front to form a tight and immovable chain, which jailers had to slowly disentangle. Later, he was among those who went limp when an official asked them to move.
"They pulled me by my hair and by my arms and started to twist my arm," he said. The arm twisting was part of a "pain compliance hold," he said, and three of the fingers on one of his hands are still numb because of it. He said he complied because he needs his body for farm work.
After four days in jail, he was released on a $250 bond. Like most of those arrested during the protest, he faces a misdemeanor charge of failure to disperse, which can bring 90 days in jail upon conviction, but first-time offenders generally get no jail time, said Dan Donohoe, spokesman for the King County prosecutor.
In the week after his release, Kevin said the sum of his experience was "completely inspiring." He was astounded by the strength and organization of the protesters. "I grew stronger and stronger in my convictions," he said.
Years younger, Jasmine Cameron had been headed for radical political activity in high school, but hadn't been jailed - until last week in Seattle.
She grew up in Eugene, and describes her father as an "old hippie" who also protested in his day. She attended Sheldon High School until she tired of the social games at regular high school, she said, and switched to the Opportunity Center, a Eugene alternative high school, where she graduated last June.
She got interested in the operations of the national meat and dairy industries, and committed herself to vegetarianism and then veganism. She said she joined up with Red Cloud Thunder, a group of tree-sitting forest defenders.
She's earning her living by producing and selling clothing patches, including one that features Winnie the Pooh in the forest and the words "visualize industrial collapse." Only 5-foot-2 and slender, Cameron has a shaved head, except for an inch-long swath of hair on the back of her head.
She said being arrested was an ordeal. Police didn't identify themselves to her or read her her rights, she said. In jail, time passed slowly, and she didn't know when she'd get out. She said she saw a woman bloodied in a scuffle with jailers. "Cops are real brutal, and they don't care who they're hurting in the process," she said.
Still, she said, she'd do it again. "It didn't affect my views and who I hang out with," she said. "Just because people are doing property damage isn't going to stop me from standing up for what I believe."
Cameron said she ran through the streets with her friends in black when they stepped over the line of civil protest, but it wasn't just people from Eugene. "Everybody was doing it: people from Seattle, people from here, people from California - people from all over," she said.
She said she didn't like it when peaceful protesters screamed "no violence" at those breaking windows. "I wouldn't do it personally, but I don't think violence towards buildings is violence," she said. "The only one who was violent was the police."
She was upset later when some protesters tried to keep her from cooperating with the jailers. Unlike the others, who faced misdemeanor charges, she was in jail on suspicion of malicious mischief, a felony.
Police suspect she was spray painting and damaging property, said an official in the King County prosecutor's office, but no charges have been filed. "The police are still working on it," Donohoe said.
Cameron denies spray painting or damaging property. She suspects she was arrested because she was standing near someone smashing a window when police marked them all with invisible dye. She said it got on her, even though she was doing nothing wrong.
First-degree malicious mischief is a class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, but the standard sentence falls between zero and 90 days, Donohoe said.
After four days, Cameron was released from jail. The protests continued then, but she said she wasn't interested. A friend wired her a ticket, and she boarded a Greyhound bus for Eugene.
"I just didn't want to go back to Seattle again," she said. "It was really bad luck for me there."