20 arrests: High School Students sit-in against war at Market and Fell

Over twenty high school students were arrested after a sit-in against the war which lasted for at least an hour at Market and Fell Sts. in San Francisco.

A spirited group of high school students with admirable principle made a passionate stand against the war today, risking arrest and potential violence from motorists to say NO to the horrific impending oil war against Iraq.

After Market Street had been jammed for perhaps even an hour by the small group (reportedly the last of a very large spontaneous march), police moved in. A small group of just over twenty demonstrators locked arms and huddled in the middle of the major intersection as their comrades cheered from the sidewalks.

Over 64 police participated in the arrests.

While the SFPD was unusually peaceful towards the group of youths, perhaps owing to both their tarnished image after the indictments of the top brass, and to how bad it would look on the major news cameras to attack a group of caring kids, there were instances of injustice against the demonstrators.

As a group of police formed a circle around the resolute cluster of demonstrators, a top cop issued the order to leave the intersection, saying anyone remaining would be cited for CVC 22400A ("impeding traffic").

A somewhat methodical ritual of mass arrest began, with hats and bats being donned, and plastic handcuffs being wielded.

The first arrests were the two African American young men. This was clearly a blatantly racist act by the primarily white officers (with some asians). These arrests were committed by officers numbers 726, 473 and 219 in the first instance, and by 94 and 476 (with others in support) in the second instance.

The rest of the predominately white youths were arrested in turn, with one camera person leaving the scene before arrest.

The one African American young woman was the most physically brutalized, with pain compliance holds.being inflicted that made her thrash about in pain. Her arresting officers wree 2215, 1518 and possibly 219 again (notes are unclear at this point, things were happening too fast and we were kept some distance from the arrest -- I wish I had a camera or tape recorder on the scene).

Racism in the SFPD is blatant and documentable. The ACLU recently released a report on driving while black /latino (of color) which was particularly damning.

That's it for this report, although there's much more to tell. The arrest sequence took perhaps 30 minutes to the undending cheers of the arrestees' fellow demonstrators, classmates, supporters.

Thjis was really inspiring. Standing out in that cold intersection watching these youth set the example for this sorry country,, taking those risks, it was clear that they understand well enough the terrible gravity of this situation.

May their example carry on! Hope and inspiration people. We're really building for something better.

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Hopefully someone will post video, photos, and more details to this or a new story. I wish I had my video camera with me! At least ten law students watched and some of us participated in the demonstration. We knew about the walk out but because we're getting a grass-roots public interest law education we decided to "walk in" against the war in this case. Peace.