Illegal Mass Arrests in SF

Reporter's Notebook:

ILLEGAL MASS ARRESTS IN SAN FRANCISCO
By Michael Steinberg

-from the SF Chronicle, 3-24: AP, Havana Cuba's crackdown on government critics ended over the weekend following arrests of scores of independent journalists and pro-democracy activists.

San Francisco, March 21-This Friday evening, while acting in my capacity as an independent journalist, I was among hundreds snagged in an illegal mass arrrest carried out by the SFPD on the first block of Hayes Street just off Market. I became one of the SF 2400, those arrested here protesting the U.S. attack on Iraq.
An overflow anti-war crowd left the plaza at Market and Powell heading north shortly after 5:30 p.m., accompanied by a strong motocyle and foot police presence. An SFPD sound truck advised the marchers, who were on the sidewalk, that if they stepped off it they would be subject to arrest.
I followed the procession in the street on a bicycle. At the intersection with Hayes and Larkin across from Ninth Street, the front of the march swerved right, across Larkin onto Hayes. I continued to follow in the street on the bike.
Suddenly people began running back towards Market. I looked around and saw both ends of the block sealed off by lines of cops.
Seeing the trap, people got on the sidewalks. Police immediately ran in and formed lines to further trap people in on the sidewalks.
At this point the police began allowing media people who'd been snared in their net to leave. I approached an officer and informed him that I was an independent journalist covering the march, and asked to be released. But the officer refused my request because I did not have an SFPD-issued press pass.
I asked numerous officers why I was being detained. None answered me. Shortly thereafter cops began pulling people off the sidewalks, walking them over to the middle of Hayes, cuffing them behind their backs, and sitting them in the street.
I saw my time would be soon and asked a cop if I could lock my bike to a nearby parking meter. He said ok.
Soon another officer approached me and took me into the street. I asked him why I was being detained. Again I got no answer.
As I sat in the street after being handcuffed I asked another cop who was the officer in charge. I was told it was Commander Bruce. I asked to talk with him because I was a journalist doing my job and should be released. This request, and subsequent ones, were denied.
I later learned that this top cop is Deputy Chief Rich Bruce, head of special operations and security for the SFPD.
By this time it was dusk. Hundreds of predominantly young adults sat cuffed on the increasingly cold street. One group of women led the forced sit-in through chants and songs from Sesame Street.
Officers began getting people up on their feet. The cops then took them to the side of the street where their pictures were taken. Then they were disappeared into paddy wagons that drove off into the gathering darkness.
When my time came for this I asked the officer escorting me why I was being detained. He answered, "You're not being detained, you're being arrested." I asked why. He said I'd find out after they took my picture. But after I'd been flashed no one told me why I was being arrested. So I asked the cop taking me to the paddy wagon. He looked at a card my picture had been attached to and said, "Illegal assembly." I told him I hadn't heard any police announcement declaring an illegal assembly, nor an order to disperse. He claimed there'd been one.
After this I asked lots of arresstees if they'd heard any such announcement. All of them said they hadn't.
Subsequently all arrestees were taken to Pier 27. Before I was put in a paddy wagon officers seized my pens after I again asserted that I was a journalist and asked to talk with Commander Bruce.
At the pier I was put in a holding pen formed by metal police barricades with a growing crowd.Everyone still had cuffs on.
After a while an officer came over holding the card with my picture on it and took me out of the pen. He cut off my cuffs and took me over to a table where another officer took my information. I was asked if I wanted to be cited or released or booked and jailed. I chose the former, as did virtually everyone dragged in. By this time I'd given up on trying to talk with Bruce.
Next we were put in another pen to wait for our names to be called. An officer calling out names also informed us that if we were caught doing civil disobedience in the next 24 hours we'd be thrown in jail. "So don't go to the rally tomorrow," she warned. Penned people shouted that Saturday's gathering had a permit.
I waited around about five hours to be released. During that time I saw paddy wagons, sheriff's buses and MUNI double buses bring in hundreds more handcuffed people. I talked to some of them after they were put in our pen. Some said they'd been rounded up on Franklin Street, others on McAllister.
At around 1 a.m. a cop called my name. He took me over to another table where I had to sign a Notice To Appear in order to be released. I did so and walked out into the chill night.
Under a streetlight I saw that I'd been charged with two misdeameanors. No one at the pier had told me what my charges were. On a space specified for "Misc Information," "Mass Arrest: Code JEA" was written in.
The next day we were on a streets for a massive Saturday march that went on into the wee hours.
There was criminal behavior at the Hayes Street mass busts, but the charges should be leveled at the SFPD for blatantly false arrests.