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From: DV Henkel-Wallace <gumby at henkel-wallace dot org> Date: June 26, 2005 2:07:19 AM EDT To: David Farber <dave at farber.net> Subject: A firm, but small, nip upon the buttocks of the first amendment.
Dave,
I'm not really sure if this meets the definition of the subject of the IP list (is there even such a definition?), but certainly a significant majority of the list members are quite familiar with Palo Alto, and might be interested in what transpired this evening.
We went out for dinner. We had a nice meal, but the evening was otherwise unremarkable. But then, as we put our little boy to bed, he was awoken by the continued noise of a helicopter. I went out and heard a voice barking indistinctly from the sky. So naturally I put on
my jacket and walked the three blocks downtown. As a child my mother instructed me very firmly that if I heard any such commotion I should lock the doors, stay away from the windows and in _no_ case should I even _look_ at a policeman. But I figure that I now live in the USA so why not go check it out?
As I got closer in I could make out the Voice From Above. The helicopter was repeating "This is the San Jose Police Department. You are part of an unlawful assembly. In the name of the People of California I instruct you to disperse."
Now I do remember that the first amendment includes the right to assemble freely, but I myself wasn't really "assembling." In fact it was not possible at that point for me to follow these instructions since, a block from downtown, I could not see another person on the block from whom I could "disperse"! All I could see was the normal crowds through the windows of the restaurants and bars and the usual Range Rovers and Mercedeses driving down the street.
Yes, there was a small demonstration of kids planned for the evening. And in response, the police forces throughout the county seemed to have arrived. I later counted police from at least five other cities, plus the county sherriff and the Palo Alto force itself, and I didn't cross University to see the other side or check out who had blocked off El Camino.
Ironically as the heard the words of the helecopter I was at that instant receiving a call on my mobile and was talking to a friend -- herself a downtown merchant -- who was shocked. Her shock? She had meant to bring her kids to see the demonstration.
The scene was quite surreal. Another block up the street was "barricaded" (as the cops put it -- it was just a sawhorse) and guarded by cops from another town. They continually repeated that the street was closed and not to enter but I (and a stream of other people) just ignored them. At the end of the block, on University, was a crowd of folks watching the action. Families were out, kids on shoulders, many of us taking photos, although it was getting dark.
We in fact couldn't move forward. There was a line of cops in riot gear, one with a big machine gun. He kept telling people to move to the sidewalk but nobody was paying any attention. I photographed a bunch of badges -- these guys at least were Palo Alto cops. But behind them was a line of mounted police. Then another line of _very_ serious-looking riot cops _ran_ forward towards the "demonstration", to the excitement of the crowd, but then just formed a line behind the horses and stopped.
I could not actually hear the demonstrators over the drone of the cops. The 'copter was gone (much to my disappointment as I've been paying for it with my property taxes for all these years).
As I wandered around I got to see lots of equipment I hadn't realised was available: light motorbikes, heavy motorbikes, Tasers, different kinds of billy clubs and guns both long and short. It's hard to say how seriously the cops took things though; some barked orders officiously, but others seemed rather half-hearted: I heard one griping that his wife would be annoyed that he wasn't home and I heard one mother talking about how she and her daughter had been stroking the horses and admiring the eye-protection gear they wore.
But I have lived in Paris where _manifestations_ are a regular occurrence and a scheduled part of city life. This was thin gruel by comparison. All in all it was a huge load of nonsense (speaking of nonsense there were many piles of it in the street from the horses -- who's gonna clean that up?). At least I got out in the evening, saw the neighbors, and caught up on the neighborhood gossip, but I could hardly see the demo for all the cops. In fact though the demonstrators _did_ seem to outnumber the cops, it was close. But I am sure I saw more people in the street the last time Apple released a new OS, but no extra cops.
I took lots of (terrible) photos. Only one cop objected ("Hey I don't think you'd want _me_ taking _your_ picture") so I handed him my camera so he could take a picture of me next to his bike (he declined).
At least the city had put up big signs saying "Welcome to Palo Alto" welcoming the alleged protesters. After all, the bars were full. But I think this money could better have been spent fixing the storm drains.
Regards, d Begin forwarded message:
From: Tim O'Reilly <tim at oreilly.com> Date: June 27, 2005 2:52:29 PM EDT To: Dave Farber <dave at farber.net> Subject: Re: [IP] A firm, but small, nip upon the buttocks of the first amendment.
Dave,
I forwarded this item to my brother, who lives in Palo Alto, to find out if he had heard anything about this. His comment:
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>Yes. The police put on a big show because the last time this
>happened, the kids ("anarchists" the papers called them but I think
>they are mostly teenagers and 20-somethings with nothing to do),
>they smashed a lot of windows and turned over cars, stuff like that.
>
>Of course had the police not done much, they would have been
>excoriated for being ill-prepared. They prepared for a lot of
>trouble, there wasn't any, and so they are ridiculed for being
>members of the police state.
>
So it sounds like it was not as much out of the blue as one might expect, if there was a bad experience with the same event the previous year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------- Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly Media, Inc. 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 707-827-7000 http://www.oreilly.com (company), http://tim.oreilly.com (personal)