>Message: 7
>Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 20:58:57 -0600
>From: Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org>
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] NYPD acts like pigs
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Message-ID: <45DA63F1.8060905 at mutualaid.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > My response is, one, her perception doesn't seem to be an accurate
> > picture of America today, where, (unlike America of the long sixties
> > or some countries where people are really fed up now), you hardly ever
> > see big, angry protests or uprisings, and two, even if some did behave
> > exactly as Liza says they often do, that's still not a crime, unless
> > in a police state.
>
>You don't get around much, do you?
>
>Angry protests and confrontations with the police are more common than
>Yoshie is letting on.
>
>I've engaged in my own share of verbal assaults against the police and
>usualy get away with it. The only time I got arrested for yelling at the
>police was back in 1986. I've been threatened with arrest many times
>since then.
>
>I've seen plenty of angry skimishes between protesters and police. Three
>years ago I saw a black bloc in San Francisco charge and overrun a
>police line. I've seen "peaceful" protesters have confontations with the
>police. There have been plenty of other confrontations at a variety of
>protests.
>
>I tell people that there is no such thing as a "safe" protest. I've been
>to "peaceful" ANSWER marches where the cops engaged in assaults and
>provocations with protesters who weren't doing anything.
>
>Chuck
You could say that the protest that videographer Josh Wolf is jailed for, would be in a category such as this. He is going to be on PBS Frontline tonight, BTW, and there have been articles in LeMonde, Der Spiegel, in the UK, NYTimes, and his mom was on Alan Colmes last night. Anyways, at the antiG8 rally where he shot his footage, there were two types of provocations. It's hard to say what would have developed, if neither had occurred. Perhaps the small subset doing petty vandalism such as overturning news racks would have committed this regardless of the structure of policing, however they did wait until 45 minutes into a march to start.
Basically, first, about 100+ police were assigned to crowd control, and the commander rode along in a Chevy Tahoe vehicle with loudspeaker. Within the first minutes, he was announcing that it was an illegal assembly without a permit, and that people would be subject to arrest. Specifically, he seemed to be saying that anyone stepping off the sidewalk and not following crosswalk signals were subject to arrest, but it wasn't really clear, because the words 'unpermitted' and 'illegal assembly' were used. The crowd started getting skittish, with some groups of friends running ahead or down a side street. When a man was arrested for stereo noise violation, and a lot of police vehicle pulled up, this clearly caused participants to anticipate that more arrests for the unpermitted rally would occur. Sets of 30-60 people started actually running away in opposite or perpendicular directions. Then, 90% crowd control force seemed to just go away and cease monitoring the demonstration. After the stereo guy was taken away to the station, they appeared to also go to the station. Yet oddly, there were still police spaced out here and there at the subway station and at nearby blocks.
About half an hour later, people had been milling around the neighborhood, then reconverged at the subway. A few leaders started to knock newsboxes over as they walked by, or writing with paint. It's hard to say whether they hadn't been planning to do that or not. A different sort of provocation occurred when a pair of regular patrol officer came driving up upon the now smaller group of ~150-200 protesters marching on Valencia St. in the Mission, with a few people leading chants on a bullhorn. You could sort of see the officer who was driving visibly become agitated or enraged, accelerate from the red light, and proceed right where a group of at least a dozen were crossing the street. It looked like they would have been hit if they didn't leap out of the way. The newspaper reported the event as though the protesters had planned an ambush, including 'throwing a mattress in the way of the car', which didn't happen. Nobody could plan something within 3 seconds like that.
The point being, is that while there might have been some angry individuals anticipating confrontation, had the final incident not occurred, the protest organizers might have been able to make a case that their unpermitted protest had been excessively shut down during the first half hour.
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