Protest for Peace Turns Violent in SF, March 21, 2009

it seems that SFPD's stance on any protest is, crack a few skulls, make some arrests and scare people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgodwEljoiU

Given yesterdays attack at the Civic Center Plaza, I really think that now would be the appropriate time to start training people on how to defend them selves for future mass-demonstrations from police violence. They basically declared war on the ANSWER coalition yesterday by their violent actions and to add insult to injury completely ignored the ANSWER coalition’s demands to with draw their forces and leave the civic center.

Up at the front of the demonstration nobody was spared from swinging billy clubs and so what are people supposed to do now everybody was asking? People now are getting the feeling that with or without a permit nobody is safe from leaving the protest with out having their ribs and limbs broken, or getting their skulls cracked. The movement is taking a heavy beating from the cops and there needs to be a response.

Today the gloves of the police state came off completely exposing the true nature of what the police are used for in American that is to crackdown hard on public protest by means of intimidation tactics and vicious physical confrontations. We all know that America is racist to the root from very beginning of it's creation from genocide to slavery and today the exploitation of the third world by American multi nationals and slave wages here at home. The war on the world has been declared long time ago by the very ones funding theses wars and genocide. They are not going to bow down to us which is why we need to take them out by force. These police are working for them by the way. Most of you already know that.

Even when police are unprovoked by us, somehow a permit to be here has no value to them when ever they feel like it and there for sad enough we cannot guaranty the safety of other people who attend our large rallies. So what's the alternative? Before I go on with that I would first like to comment about something really ironic that I heard on TV last night.

Apparently after the 3 Oakland police officers were shot and killed, the Oakland police department is asking anyone with any information regarding the incident to please step forward. After all the decades of police abuses and harassment in by police in the Oakland community, they expect people to be cooperative and helpful even after Oscar Grant?

It wasn't so urgent to the city when it was Oscar Grant lying dead on the ground until the rioting and now it is urgent on the FUCKIN day just because they were police officers. FUCK ALL YALL!

After seeing the behavior of the SFPD and Oakland PD a suggestion has been made that may come in handy for future actions in the fight for global social and economic justice and that means protecting the global social and economic justice movement. How many demonstrations have to be attacked before considering the following? If a death to 1 is a death to all then much the same will apply with a strike from a billy club or a punch to the face by these maniac cops. A strike to one is a strike to all! The people are getting ready to strike back!

List of things for protest protection:

1) Helmets: protect your head from down coming batons

2) Gas Masks: protect your face and lungs from tear gas

3) Thick Gloves: to throw back tear gas canisters

4) Affinity Groups: a group of people who know one another formed for direct action/civil-disobedience

5) Linking Arms Together: to protect the bloc from police snatch squads

6) Bandannas: protection from COINTELPRO SPYING by police cameras

7) Vinegar Drenched Rags: to protect lungs from tear-gas

8) Shields: to protect body from flying projectiles or swinging batons

9) Elbow & Knee Pads: to protect elbows and knees from being hurt when shoved down on the ground by police

10) Bullet Proof Vests: well I’m sure you all know this one!

While this may be unconventional I might add that in the environment that which we live in it is totally necessary so that we no longer have to see our comrades having to be rushed to the hospital while everybody just goes home and does nothing about it.

Both attacks on peaceful protestors at the Israeli Consulate and Civic Center Plaza have triggered this suggestion not just to the more radical bay area groups that want to explore other avenues to achieve their aims and goals but also anybody that feels that his or her life may be in jeopardy in attending these public rallies. We will not allow the police to succeed in their efforts to instill so much fear that it affects the turn-out at our demonstrations rendering the movement useless.

UNACCEPTABLE!

How fortunate that so many carry a little video camera these days. People just have to mentally prepare to position themselves to document this sort of thing.
Wearing a bicycle helmet sounds like a good idea. Someone was briefly knocked unconscious and required stitches for multiple baton strikes.

This is a long investigative piece which describes how it is against department policy to escalate to that level without justification of force.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/06/MNUFNELSON.DTL
more http://www.sfgate.com/useofforce/

Every single person who was hurt should go to a doctor immediately and should sue the City of San Francisco immediately for thousands of dollars. WE WILL NOT TOLERATE FASCISM IN SAN FRANCISCO. We are not wearing armour to any demonstrations; that is ridiculous. We are going to teach the FASCIST THUG DEMOCRATIC PARTY-ZIONIST POLICE A LESSON; THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE THEIR POLICE DEPARTMENT BANNED. For those who cannot remember the horrors of the past, in 1960, when the House Unamerican Activities Committee was holding witchhunting anti-Communist hearings inside City Hall and people sat down outside the hearing room to protest, THE SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT SPRAYED WATER FROM HIGH PRESSURE FIRE HOSES ON THE DEMONSTRATORS AND THE POLICE THREW THE DEMONSTRATORS DOWN THE MARBLE STAIRS, WITH BLOOD STAINS REMAINING THERE FOR DECADES. One person was an old black woman, a friend of the family, who had her ribs broken. THIS IS THE STINKING SAN FRANCISCO POLICE IN 1960 AND IN 2009. THIS IS THE STENCH OF CAPITALISM. The following Saturday (this happened on a weekday), the radicals of the Bay Area turned out by the thousands to surround City Hall in a DOUBLE PICKETLINE, 4 SOLID BLOCKS LONG, one going clockwise, one counter-clockwise, and you could only move if the person in front of you moved. HUAC NEVER RETURNED TO SAN FRANCISCO AND WE MUST RUN THE SAN FRANCISCO POLICE OUT OF TOWN AS WELL.

Answer has massive amounts of resources at their disposal. Are they using them to support the folks arrested yesterday? will they be stepping up to help pay for lawyers, organize jail and court support, organize political pressure to get all charges dropped?

ANSWER has no resources; this is a lie perpetrated by the Democratic Party and the Zionists. It is a workingclass organization that depends on donations at the demonstrations to pay the bills of those demonstrations INCLUDING THE PERMIT FOR THIS DEMONSTRATION. ANSWER is made up of volunteers who work for a living at workingclass jobs, unlike the Democratic Party and the Zionists, overlapping gangs. Lawyers can be hired on a contingency fee basis to file the civil lawsuits. The taxpayers pay the public defenders to defend those arrested. We, the taxpayers, can get on the phone and call the district attorney and demand the charges be dropped. Here are the phone numbers from the San Francisco phone book:
415.553.1741
415.553.1880
415.553.1862
415.553.1213

YOU, THE TAXPAYERS, HAVE TO BAN THE POLICE DEPARTMENT AND YOU HAVE TO STOP VOTING FOR THE VICIOUS POLICE STATE GANGS KNOWN AS THE DEMOCRAT-REPUBLICANS, and instead vote Peace & Freedom or Green.

fuck answer coalition you did nothing but tell people to gather back in the park(cus that will really do something right) and get mad at people for standing up to the police with you volunteer security that tried to grab me and hold me down when i was trying to get to the crowed of people pushing the cops out of the park.

idk but there's been alot of police violence lately and it pissis me of that the answer coalition doesn't do anything about it they still get permits and do what ever the cops say

When I heard the riot started because of a little kid "skateboarding" who was maybe 10, I was amazed. They threw the kid on the ground?

What happened was the closest to a real riot I have ever seen in this city, and I've been to all of 'em.

Imagine my shock when later I saw the kid in Lee's deli, and confirmed that he was not only the kid who started the riot, but the child of a Palestinian couple who run a liquor store a block from my house. I've seen him a million times.

The parents, who sometimes watch Al-Jazeera in their store, and sometimes run cartoons for their kids, were very upset yesterday. Seems like it may have smoothed itself out now, at least according to the mother, but the kid looked very very scared.

Very interesting indeed.

Just let you know, a bunch of us pro-Germans are going to counter-counter-protest your stupid Zionist facist group.

We will wave German flags in your face, you hypocrites!

who ever took these pics did an awsome job, and i cant thank you enough. These are amazing, wow.

The people who are criticizing ANSWER security for holding you back from the cops really need to have a reality check. Some of the organizers saw at least one person who was in the Anarchist contingent push a group of young Palestinian kids into a crowd of riot cops (who were all too willing to crack their skulls in response), and then retreat.

Real courageous of you.

I personally had to argue with a few of the Anarchists who were accusing the security team of "oppressing" them and being on the side of the pigs. We were on the side of the people that day. The security team did their best to de-escalate the situation while some of the so-called anti Authoritarians did everything in their power to provoke the cops, while doing nothing to support those arrested and beaten. My friends and fellow organizers, some of whom were in their early teens and from San Jose, were beaten and arrested on saturday.

I'm all for fighting the cops when neccessary. I've been on the front lines plenty of times. But be strategic for christs sake. Don't put others in situations they aren't ready or willing to be in. Don't put others in the line of fire then retreat behind your mask. And please, do something other than attack organizers who are doing their best to make a movement.

I ran because I'm smart and the movement needs me to be out of jail in order to attend mass protests. As far as anti-authoritarians pushing the kid into the line of riot police causing them to over-react,I haven't heard of that. But I did hear the justification was that people tried to pull the little boy to safety which then started the scuffle. Cops tried to come at me a few times but I ran not giving them the chance to get close enough to make an arrest. I'm really good at paying attention to their body movement. I know what their going do when they want to do it. I'm skinnier than they are and so there for a I can manuver around a lot better and quicker than they can. We need to stratigize on how to move in if there is ever a next time when cops try to get rough like that and crack heads. Seriously time to become more militant so we'll know what to do about it if it ever happens again next time.