splinter from the breakaway

Next, I guess to intimidate us, cops on motorbikes rode right into the crowd.

Another attempt at encirclement happened near a small park at 5:00pm. I was near the head of the march; some of the people who were right there as the police were shutting off the sidewalk were chased (hit?) by the police there. One guy said something like \"we\'re on the sidewalk, what else do you want us to do?\" to which the cop replied with something like \"get out of here\"... there were a couple of ladies in the park there who didn\'t want me going in there, presumably afraid that the cops would attack them while chasing us. An older guy on a bike who was taking pictures told me had been pushed off his bike. I guess the fact that I was pointing the camera directly in his face as he came towards me with his baton saved me.

At this point the sidewalk (at least in the direction I was in) was completely blocked off and the breakaway march surrounded. As usual, just a handful of cops managed to intimidate and pen in the entire crowd until the real riot cops showed up.

And boy, did they show up... at this point someone I talked to said something about 2 undercover cops jumping a fence and returning to the fold. Anyone have pictures of them?

I had to walk around a couple blocks to link up with the main breakaway, and shortly after I did so, the people I was with ended up getting seperated from the rest of the crowd. We ran through oncoming traffic down to market street, and were shadowed the entire way by riot cops. We were trying to head back to the Civic Center, and were afraid of being encircled, so we kept a pretty fast pace to stay ahead of the cops.

We waited for the cops (once we were in safe running distance to the Civic Center), and once they showed up they stood there looking despondent, and then left.

The traffic on Market street was a mess at that point. The rest of the breakaway showed up at Civic Center shortly after.