My pal Kevvy writes a great post looking back on the protests of March 20, 2003.

Oh the good times! Being threatened by officers donned with clubs! Trampled by horses in broad daylight, and to a good soundtrack even!

This was one of the first flashmob protests too! Even we didn't know where we were going until the people that had text messaging/blackberries told us :-)

This will still always be the most frightening cilp i think. (blog entry that goes with it)
(But that's only because I never got the horse trampling footage up.)

So what's changed between now and then? Not a whole hell of a lot, except we're not in the streets anymore. What the hell's up with that? We're spending billions of dollars a day on this fucking war, and it has all played out just like we said it would - corrupt war profiteering businesspeople and politicians have openly traded blood for oil -- which was why we were protesting in the first place, but somehow, when what we said was gonna happen, happened, we got discouraged and just... I dunno... just gave up I guess. It's pretty lame.

There was a pathetic little protest in Berkeley today, and they couldn't even agree whose turn it was to speak -- I mean they were arguing about it. And I didn't know which was worse, that their protest was so pathetic, or that I had the nerve to call their protest pathetic, when I was even more pathetic for not having gone to a protest in years. (Years!)

And then Kevin sent me this link, and I realized that five years had gone by since I cared enough to stand up against this war, and then I realized that, over the last five years, since the war has actually started, I don't feel like I've done enough, not nearly enough, to try to stop this war.

Damn.

Thanks Kevin! For the Reminder! Let's rekindle
our protest tradition soon!

And please protest organizers! Let's make sure we have good DJs and musicians for the protests ok!?

I'll do my part to help out with that, I promise. Email me and I will hook you up with great talent - free of charge!! I know lots of great musicians/artists/djs that are ready to come together to make a difference!

That's why this protest was so cool, for instance...

Time constraints prohibit me from elaborating on this. Read for yourselves :-)
(Thanks, Kevin.)

Help Free The Berkeley 3!

11-17-03- Drop All Charges Against The Berkeley 3!

Free speech at Berkeley is under attack. Anti-war student organizers need your immediate help.

Call, email or write to: Asst. Chancellor John Cummins Office of the Chancellor 200 California Hall #1500 Berkeley, CA 94720-1500 jcummins@uclink4.berkeley.edu 510-642-7464

**Please CC your emails to the administration to: DefendBerkeley3@aol.com

Dean of Students Karen Kenney turned the clock back decades by approving sanctions against three Berkeley students for their part in a peaceful on campus sit-in on March 20 (for more details go to www.antiwarnetwork.org). The protest was organized by the Berkeley Stop the War coalition and involved 4,000 students at a rally with 400 participating in the sit-in. Rachel Odes and Snehal Shingavi face 20 hours of community service and a letter of reprimand permanently placed on their academic record. Michael Smith faces 30 hours of community service, plus a stayed suspension for one semester. Outrageously, Smith will be forced to submit to "anger management" at the university's infirmary. If he completes that "successfully," his suspension might be commuted to a letter of reprimand. This use of psychological treatment as punishment for a political activity recalls the classification of dissent as a "psychiatric disorder" in Stalinist Russia. Dean Kenney's actions mock Berkeley's reputation as a haven for freedom of speech and progressive political action.

Besides the obvious chilling effect on student's exercising their civil liberties on campus, the university continued its disregard for due process procedure in sentencing the students. For example:

*Chair of the Disciplinary Hearing Board Prof. Robert Jacobsen arbitrarily ruled that only 25 members of the Berkeley campus community could attend the hearing, despite repeated requests on the students' part that the hearing be open. At least 15 university police and private security guards barricaded the entrance to the hearing site to enforce this decision.

*Jacobsen missed the university-mandated deadline for issuing the disciplinary report.

*The university provides only unpaid undergraduates "advocates" to help with the defense. When the three students obtained legal representation on their own initiative, Jacobsen announced that he would allow the lawyer to participate only marginally in the hearings at his discretion as chair.

Following the hearing, the university announced that it would eliminate students' right to legal counsel so as to make the process more "educational." The Berkeley Daily Cal student newspaper editorial board correctly noted that: "To suggest students have something to learn from defending themselves already assumes their guilt." (http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=13525)

Perhaps the most shocking component of the administration's prosecution stemmed from its conception of "progressive discipline." Under this theory, students who take part in more than one political protest face harsher and harsher punishments. So, for instance, the university based its argument to prosecute Shingavi, at least in part, on the fact that he was the "point person" for a previous protest conducted by the Students for Justice in Palestine. Although he was not arrested or charged in connection with that protest, his association with that organization and protest helped single him out for "progressive discipline." This legal theory of "guilt by association" led the Daily Cal to editorialize that "by picking out only three, the message sent from the university seems to be that free speech includes the right to participate in a protest, but not the right to organize one." (http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=13176)

As the Bush administration carries out unprecedented attacks on hard won civil liberties, the Berkeley administration is shamefully jumping on the band wagon. Now that Dean Kenney has rubber-stamped Jacobsen's verdict, the last appeal goes to Asst. Chancellor John Cummins. He will issue his final decision within 15 days.

Ironically, on November 20, Amy Goodman from Pacifa Radio's "Democracy Now!" will receive the Mario Savio prize for free speech at a mass meeting on campus. The Berkeley Stop the War coalition plans to work with her to make sure that Asst. Chancellor Cummins hears the support for the Berkeley 3 loud and clear. We urge everyone who cares about free speech, the right to protest and academic freedom to take immediate action, by calling, emailing or writing to Cummins this week to demand that he drop all charges against the Berkeley 3. Especially, the frightening and irresponsible use of psychological "treatment" as a punishment for political activity.

We thank you in advance for you solidarity,

Todd Chretien Committee to Defend Student Civil Liberties

PS Many of you generously sent contributions towards the printing of a full page ad in the Daily Cal defending the Berkeley 3. That ad ran on October 27 and we believe it played an important part in forcing the university to back down from even harsher punishments for the students. (It can be viewed at www.antiwarnetwork.org) Some of you may have had your checks returned to you. That is because after the university found out that the Berkeley Stop the War coalition was soliciting defense donations, they took the unprecedented action of freezing all mail to that on-campus address. We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you. If you'd like to re-send your contributions (or send one for the first time), you can send them to: BSTW PO Box 4001 Berkeley, CA 94704-0001

At this point, the protest had pretty much deteriorated into a game of cat and mouse with imaginary rules that changed whenever the cops wanted them to. Let's face it, they had the clubs. And they could take us to jail. Those were the important rules, as far as I was concerned.

That said. I stuck around to see what would happen. I mean I really wanted to leave. So did Kevin. Neither of us wanted to get arrested. And we were getting bitchy with each other and arguing about what we should do, until we realized it and took a couple deep breaths and decided what to do.

I decided that I felt like, if we left, I'd be letting you guys down or something. Kevin felt the same way. So we decided to stick around for a little longer.

At first, it seemed that the only behavior that the police had a problem with was people blocking the intersections when cars were trying to drive by. However, soon it wasn't okay to stand on certain sidewalks either. The cops obviously wanted us to just go home, which, of course, didn't make any sense to us, since many of us had just gotten there.

But soon, the sidewalks weren't OK either. Then, depending on your timing, some sidewalks were OK, but only until they weren't, and the cops started systematically crowding us off of them.

(I'll include a complete instance of this later on video for those of you who are interested and link to it from here.)

In the first shot, Kevin climbs up on the outside of the BART entrance and grabs a long shot and some close ups for me (I was afraid of falling). It was pretty incredible the number of people there at that time. Wow.

Next is a shot of some graffiti: "The Best Vacation Is Revolution." You can see me and Kevin in the reflection.

Followed by a clip of a tap dancer tapping for peace.

Then the cops start building up again. The crowd starts chanting "Whose streets? Our streets!" and acting a bit defiant.

The cops form a line across a third or so of the intersection at 4th and Market, so that cars can go by. Which is fine by the crowd. And that goes on for a while.

Then someone starts playing an awesome beat-driven soundtrack. And the horses arrive...

Day After/Day Of Adventure - Part 7 of ? (Small - 11 MB)
Day After/Day Of Adventure - Part 7 of ? (Hi-res - 94 MB)

Dissent Is Patriotic
By Teofilo Reyes.

A jog down the road people made a B-line for Michigan Avenue – Chicago’s fabled Magnificent Mile. This is where the cops drew their line in the sand. By now a few hundred of those entrusted to serve and protect OPProperty had gathered, and they were well positioned in front of Chicago’s gucci shops and sweatshop retailers. They were deaf to the crowd’s chants of “Let us Shop,” but they did put away their gas masks to the chant of “No Chemical Weapons!” A few smiles must have cracked that wall.

The crowd eventually marched back down Lake Shore before dispersing, but not before over 600 people were arrested when a march tributary tried to veer back towards Michigan and was corralled-off by police.

Dozens more were arrested the following day at die-ins sponsored by Iraqi Peace Pledge. That Friday evening thousands again gathered to march, but this time under a tight and strict police escort. The march was literally surrounded by a line of cops and quickly became a forced march for anyone who wanted to drop back. Once in the march there was no way out – all the beat cops from around the city made sure of that.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://sknkwrks.dyndns.org:1957/writewiki/wiki.pl?Dissent_Is_Patriotic

[Home]Dissent Is Patriotic
Ypsilanti Eyeball | RecentChanges | Preferences
by Teofilo Reyes for Vivos Voco

March 27, 2003

The war is in full swing now, but things don’t seem to be going as planned. Well prepared militias are putting up an unexpected fight, and US supply lines are stretching thin. Here in the US, thousands have been arrested protesting the war in Iraq. And the protests continue.

San Francisco was shut down for days, as well organized protesters engaged in massive civil disobedience that shut down over 30 city intersections to express their opposition.

Seemingly staid Albuquerque, New Mexico erupted in violence as riot police used tear gas to subdue a crowd of demonstrators.

Hundreds of thousands marched in New York, And daily blockades of intersections occur throughout that city.

In Chicago, massive crowds took to the streets in uncharacteristic defiance.

I had the pleasure of speaking out in Chicago, where thousands gathered Thursday to protest the first bombs raining on Baghdad. Protest organizers had finagled a permit for 3,000. The final count was closer to 15,000. The police were outnumbered and ill-prepared.

I was at the back of the rally when the back of the crowd surged out onto the street. There was a rumor that the police weren’t letting people march out the front of the rally. Before long there were thousands of people streaming behind us. A few blocks later and we were on Lake Shore Drive – one of the main thoroughfares out of downtown. A handful of police tried to stop the crowd, but it easily veered around them. Rush hour traffic rushed nowhere.

Police intermittently set out lines of cops to break the tide, but it was too large. Protesters had now taken over both directions of Lake Shore and were streaming through the idling cars. Amazingly, (miraculously?, expectedly?) a chorus of honks rose with the crowd. Many commuters were pissed, but many others put down their cell phones to honk incessantly, flash peace signs, high-five the peds, hold impromptu boogey sessions, and greet the inconvenience warmly.

A jog down the road people made a B-line for Michigan Avenue – Chicago’s fabled Magnificent Mile. This is where the cops drew their line in the sand. By now a few hundred of those entrusted to serve and protect OPProperty had gathered, and they were well positioned in front of Chicago’s gucci shops and sweatshop retailers. They were deaf to the crowd’s chants of “Let us Shop,” but they did put away their gas masks to the chant of “No Chemical Weapons!” A few smiles must have cracked that wall.

The crowd eventually marched back down Lake Shore before dispersing, but not before over 600 people were arrested when a march tributary tried to veer back towards Michigan and was corralled-off by police.

Dozens more were arrested the following day at die-ins sponsored by Iraqi Peace Pledge. That Friday evening thousands again gathered to march, but this time under a tight and strict police escort. The march was literally surrounded by a line of cops and quickly became a forced march for anyone who wanted to drop back. Once in the march there was no way out – all the beat cops from around the city made sure of that.

Along with all the anti-war protests, many cities held fairly large pro-war rallies brought to us by [Clear Channel Communications], a close ally and funder of the Bush administration and owner of over one thousand radio stations across the country. The company used its vast network of radio stations to organize support for the war, much as it uses it now to squeeze profits from the music industry and ensure a bland and tepid rock and roll (in a nut shell, we listen to what record execs are willing to pay Clear Channel to play.)

As expected, “Love It or Leave It” signs were abundant at the corporate sponsored rallies. At one rally, a stack of the Dixie Chicks’ latest CD was crushed by a bulldozer in retaliation for the group daring to cast aspersions on our Generalissimo Bush. There was all this talk about how radio stations had pulled Dixie Chicks off their play lists – not hard to do if one corporate office gets to call the shots. This is the same company that sent its affiliates a long list of verboten songs after September 11th. The real story is that the Chicks’ tune Travelin’ Soldier is continuing its climb up the charts.

The stakes for dissent are high: careers have been threatened; anti-war Iraqi Americans have been called in for FBI interviews; [lone dissidents have been summarily arrested]; authorities are trying to charge protest organizers for police overtime. Most established institutions want you to rally round the flag and marginalize dissent. The road to “Iraqi freedom” runs ram shod over ours.

At this point only visible and constant dissent will ensure a political cost for the administration’s neo-imperial adventures. The natural and patriotic groundswell of support for troops does not translate into a visceral belief in this war. The rationale for war is paper thin and getting thinner: Iraq has so far failed to use any chemical or biological weapons, and popular resistance to the US invasion force seems to grow on a daily basis. The more visible dissent, the more people will gird their loins and speak out.

The good news is that opposition in the US remains strong – students keep walking out of classes, protests have been held in over [60] big and small towns across the country, protesters are diversifying their tactics, the cathartic demos at deadline were well received by local media, even the threatened Hollywood black-list didn’t affect the anti-war tone on Oscar night.

Now more than ever dissent is the republican thing to do. We do not want a post-cold war empire. If you love this country defend it, dissent.

Part 5: More cops. Every so often they cops would bring an Ambulence into the crowd just to make them move of of the street, and, sometimes, the sidewalk too.

Day After/Day Of Adventure - Part 5 of ? (Small - 8 MB)
Day After/Day Of Adventure - Part 5 of ? (Hi-res - 79 MB)

Day After/Day Of Adventure - Part 6 of ? (Small - 8 MB)
Day After/Day Of Adventure - Part 6 of ? (Hi-res - 84 MB)
Part 6: I took some shots of a lovely artsy theatre group that were posing as dead bodies in a human sculpture of sorts on the sidewalk, and one of them tries to move and is stopped by photographers that hadn't gotten their shot yet.

These clips demonstrate how many people collected at 4th and Market around 1pm.

All and all the vibe was starting to pick up a bit. (But not for long...)

Hi resolution files will be uploading for a bit -- I have to leave but I wanted to get this stuff up so I could get the rest up tomorrow morning...

More Photos - Part 5 (below)

More Photos - Part 6 (below)

Our adventure continues: Kevin and I decide to leave the arrests (see parts 1-2 and part 3) and wait to see if the cops were going to launch another offensive. The cops were behaving so bizarrely at this point, sort of lining up in formation and running around for no reason in long lines, that I must admit, I was more curious than scared of anything at this point. (A good twenty minutes had gone by since I'd seen a cop whack anybody with one of their clubs, after all.)

Kevin had already filled up his camera and really wanted to download his pictures to his computer so that he could take more shots. He felt "defenseless" without his camera, but the cops had just started trying to divert people off onto a side street, and were actually communicating with people for the first time since I had been present at the protest, so I was intrigued by this sudden opening of a communications channel between the cops and protesters.
--so I told him I'd meet him over at the Starbucks.

I walked up to the cop with the mega phone and asked him if it was now OK to stand on the sidewalk. He replied that actually, no it wasn't -- that he wanted us to move completely off Market Street over to Hyde or Ellis or somewhere or other (didn't really matter to me, because I had promised Kevin I would meet him back at the Starbucks, which was in the opposite direction, so I decided I'd better hurry before people were cleared off of the block entirely, if that was what was happening...)

On the way to Starbucks, I saw what was the only single incident of vandalism I witnessed the entire time I was downtown that day: a broken window of a Wells Fargo. (Perhaps this act of vandalism was why things had gotten so negative with the cops on that block?)

In the Starbucks, however, everything was normal. Oddly normal. Like nobody else but us was even paying attention to what was going on outside. Kevin and I watched the protest through a window as if it were a lifesized TV. And in a way, it was. It was TV where, if you chose to walk through a door, you would be part of the program.

When Kevin had downloaded his photos, we emerged from the Starbucks, and, magically, it was OK to stand on the sidewalk again!

However, things seemed to have heated up, and the cops continued to form in rather threatening formations without telling us why, or what we were doing wrong, or how we might make it better.

Day After/Day Of Part 4 of ? (Small - 10 MB)
Day After/Day Of Part 4 of ? (Hi-Res - 91 MB)

More footage of people getting arrested and being intimidated by the cops:
Day After Part 3 of ? (Small - 8 MB) (Hi-Res 97 MB)
Yes, she's smiling below. So is the cop walking away from her. One of the happier moments of the day...

violence.mov from SF indy media

Note: This set of video clips does not contain the ones from my earlier posts here and here.

Note that the hi-resolution clips might not have uploaded yet till about an hour after this post. (I'm having tech difficulties and it could be longer.)

This is footage of people getting arrested and the people around me yelling at the cops. Note: Just to clarify... I myself am not yelling at the cops.
In general, as a personal decision, I choose to not yell at the cops.
(Call me conservative :-)

It would also screw up my video footage if I yelled while I was filming.

Part 1 of ? - March 20, 2003 (Small - 8 MB)
Part 1 of ? - March 20, 2003 (Hi-Res 69 MB)

Part 2 of ? - March 20, 2003 (Small - 8 MB)
Part 2 of ? - March 20, 2003 (Hi-Res - 79 MB)

This footage goes after the other stuff I posted earlier. I think it will speak for itself. It's just me and Kevin exchanging stories about what happened to us while keeping an eye on the cops in case they should attack us again. (They were all over the sidewalk at this point and it didn't seem there was anywhere that was safe.)

I know it sounds silly, perhaps. Or over-reactive. But after what we had just witnessed, it was exactly what we were thinking.

I'll be numbering the rest of my clips so it won't be too complicated to know if you have a complete set.

The afterfreak. (4 MB)

Ug. There's a bunch more footage from yesterday worth preserving.

I'm not sure if I'm going to go get more footage of the protests today. From what I can tell, it's still "goin' on" downtown. (In fact, I'm a bit worried because my friend Kevin went without me around 9am this morning and I haven't heard from him since... -- he's OK.)

The footage I saw on TV last night was downright confrontational (between the cops and the protesters as a faction of them tried to take over the Bay Bridge) -- and not necessarily anything I want to personally participate in (although it would be interesting to film it, I suppose).

Yes I recorded footage from it on my VCR at home -- but first things first...

Let's see if I get the rest of yesterday's footage up, and then I'll take it from there...

At the beginning of this footage, you can hear me talking to my friend Kevin Burton on the phone. (Here it is in two parts for those of you with slow connections: part 1, part 2.)

I had been in the same spot for almost a half hour. There was a line of cops in the street, but they had been there the whole time and there was no reason to believe that anything was "wrong" per se.

The last thing I remember (and indeed, the last thing that happens on-screen before all hell breaks loose) is watching my friend Kevin wave to me as he is walking across the street. I had just finished telling him that I decided to take a few steps back so I wouldn't be "in the street." The cops would talk to us to tell us what we could do to not be in trouble, although they could have easily done so using a megaphone or some other means available to them -- but I could figure out that blocking traffic were what they were so upset about so I (so foolishly) thought I would be OK if I stayed on the sidewalk.

There was little or no communication between the cops and the protesters before the line of cops rushed into the crowd and started hitting people with billy clubs and selecting members of the crowd at random to be arrested.

I wish I could say that I stood my ground and just kept filming, but as my footage will demonstrate. I backed up to the far end of the sidewalk to make sure I wasn't going to get hit before I could concentrate on filming again.

It was then that I noticed "gangs" of 2 or 3 cops picking on certain individuals -- usually male. I got some shots of this (http://www.lisarein.com/3-20-03-copgang.gif) and then turned to see a cops throw a girl into a newspaper machine. I turned the camera on her in time to see her try to stand up while a cop confronted her and she tried to back away from him while he hit her with his club (med res) (hi-res and small) and was about to do it again when she ran off screaming. (I interview her here.) (Hi-res version of interview.)

Again: the violence I witnessed seemed to be at random, unprovoked, and without warning. If they're trying to scare us out of exercising our free speech rights, they're sure doing a good job. I'm going to get my footage up today and see what the scene is before going back out there today.

Okay so back to describing this scene. After the cops rushed the crowd, and selecting certain individuals and having them put their hands behind their backs since they were going to be arrested, the crowd begins booing and screaming. "The whole worlds watching," it screams. ("Ha!" I thought to myself, "I wonder if the crowd or the cops know how true that is!" :-)

Kevin was shouting, "You don't have to do this!" Someone else shouted "Take some pride in your work". I kept having to run from the action periodically so the camera keeps getting shaky, but I decided to leave in all of that footage so you could see the whole conflict within its proper context from beginning to end.

I was seriously worried that I was going to get attacked by one of these cops -- even though I was just standing there, far away from the street, with my camera, peacefully. I've never personally witnessed cops just running into the street hitting people at random that haven't provoked them before, and have generally been very supportive of San Francisco cops' behavior during the protests for this reason. Now I'm scared, and very, very sad (perhaps more sad than anything else).

One good thing I saw the cops doing was about four of them stopped to help an old man that was about to pass out. They stood with him for several minutes while he came around. At first people thought they were going to arrest him or something, and then we realized what was going on and spread the world that they were actually helping him out. (I just felt compelled to pass the incident along, to their credit.)

Photos of cop beating up girl from incident mentioned above:

Here are some other grabs I took from my footage, with captions:
Kevin Burton running out of the street when the cops start attacking people.

********

A gang of cops attacking a protester.

********

A shot of the crowd during the incident.

********
Another shot of the crowd during the incident. (At this point, everyone was putting their hands above their heads in peace signs, hoping they would see that we werent fighting back so they would stop hitting us.)

********

A cop brandishing the biggest baton I've ever seen in my life.

********

Cops restraining randomly chosen folks in the crowd.

********

Another shot of the same group of cops as above restraining the same guy (a randomly chosen protester in the crowd).

********

A very sad police officer who looks like he wishes he was somewhere else. (There were many sad cops just like this guy.)


********

Shots of the scuffle.

********

Another shot of the scuffle.

Awesome photos from my protest buddy, Kevin Burton:

The Battle Of San Francisco

Here are photos of the Fire Department sawing protesters out of their steel
armlocks, etc:

Photos 1
Photos 2
Photos 3
Photos 4

I can't even believe the violence that was inflicted on peaceful protesters between 4th and 5th Street on Market today. Luckily, I got everything I saw on tape, so I'll be uploading it over the rest of the day.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the cops' behavior. They would tell us we had to get out of the street, and most of us would, and then they would tell us we had to get off of the sidewalk and move to the another block. And when we got to the end of the block, there would be another line of cops telling us we had to go back (presumably into the other line of cops, or into the street where we also weren't supposed to go).

I've got footage of two different people that were attacked and then interviews with both of them afterwards. There was also number of peaceful, artistic demonstrations (in between our being intimidated and beat up by the cops).

Back in a flash!

Here's what I've got so far.

Note that there are "web size", "email" and "edited email" (small) versions available and also some gif files.

You'll want to upload the pictures on to your own site so they download quickly in a browser.

Here's the directory where I'll be uploading stuff all day:

Market Street Protest Footage - San Francisco - March 20, 2003

Story that goes with this footage:

So I walked from 16th and Valencia over to Market Street (about 8 blocks) and then one block over to where Market meets Haight. The entire intersection (all 5 parts of it) was blocked off and cars were forced to wait at a standstill. The cops appeared to be nowhere in sight. (But apparently they were close by and just monitoring the situation, rather than interfering with it.)

Over about 10 or 15 minutes, the protesters announced that their work at that intersection was done and that they were moving on to Van Ness and Mission.

The protesters moved out of the way and the cops rode in on their motorcycles (2 of them) and a few protesters worked with the cops to get the stuff out of the street and get traffic moving again.

Then a funny thing happened: all of the cars that had been forced to wait honked their horns in support of the protesters!

Okay I'm off to 4th and Market where I guess a different group of protesers have taken things over there.

I'll be back later this afternoon!

I'll try to get down there later today to get some footage, but let's just say that pretty much everything from Civic Center north on the Bart Station route will be "goin' on." (And worth avoiding if your trying to get to work or anywhere else you need to be. Go around that area.)

More soon....