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CounterPunch
March 29,
2003
San Francisco's
Berserk Cops
The War on Protesters (Updated)
By ANN HARRISON
One week after anti-war demonstrators brought
San Francisco's business district to a standstill, the city's
police force has been accused of attempting to repress dissent
with widespread brutality, intimidation, and illegal mass arrests.
While San Francisco has become an epicenter
of U.S. protests against the war in Iraq, it is now embroiled
in a debate over police response to the demonstrations which
have resulted in over 2,500 arrests since March 19. Anti-war
groups say the police overreacted costing the city millions in
overtime pay.
Rachel Lavina, Program Coordinator for
the Ella Baker Human Rights Center, says the center's Police
Watch project has received over 80 calls from people recounting
vivid stories of police misconduct during protests. Lavina said
callers have provided accounts of police tearing protesters'
shoulder rotator cuffs, abusing elderly protesters, roughly separating
children from their parents, using overhead strikes with batons,
and sweeping areas without giving dispersal orders.
Ross Levy, a San Francisco architect,
said he and his young son were caught up in the protests on March
20 after stepping off a streetcar on Market Street. According
to Levy, a news photographer who was about to get arrested, threw
Levy a bag of undeveloped film prompting police to forcibly pull
his son Emett from his shoulders, knock Levy to the ground, and
step on his head. Levy suffered a head wound, and the entire
incident was captured by TV cameras and broadcast.
Protester Melissa Berridge, who found
herself caught up in a mass arrest on Franklin and McAllister
streets on March 21, said she was struck across the chest with
a nightstick and had her ankles stepped on by police. She said
an officer told her that the group was being arrested "to
make us think twice about joining any more protests.''
"What we saw was violation of police
general orders regarding crowd control, violation of the Constitutional
right to peaceful assembly and free speech, and use of excessive
force to curb public dissent in San Francisco,'' said Ishmael
Tarikh, director of Bay Area Police Watch. ''We do anticipate
filing suit.''
San Francisco acting Police Chief Alex
Fagan said the police department has acted with restraint in
dealing with protesters. Fagan displayed a collection of pipe
wrenches, hammers, rocks, a skillet, and what he said were other
potential weapons seized during police sweeps. But he acknowledged
that only 1% of arrests involved protesters who displayed any
form of violence. "Not only is this city tolerant, but this
police department is tolerant,'' said Fagan who said his officers
"took a lot of abuse'' during the demonstrations. "I
think they handled themselves very well."
Some city officials are charging that
the expense of policing the protests, staffing jails and 911
centers, paying clean up crews, parking and traffic costs, will
further exacerbate the city's record $347 million deficit. The
city estimated that the the protests were costing its general
fund $900,000 a day, half of which were police overtime costs.
San Francisco mayor Willie Brown claimed that the total bill
could reach $5 to $10 million, and would likely result in further
layoffs and cuts in city services. He charged that the demonstrators
were "defecating in their own nest.''
In a week in which 500 city employees
received pink slips, Mayor Brown said health care services may
be especially targeted for cuts if protest costs exacerbate budget
shortfalls. But Protester Martha Hawthorne, a nurse at the Castro
Mission Health Center, said a proposed 50 cut in her staff had
been announced before the protests started. While the clinic
was already falling short of caring for existing health care
needs, she fully supported the protests. "Our tax dollars
are going to kill,'' said Hawthorne. "We have to take action
against the things our government is doing half way around the
world.''
Disputes over budgets and brutality reached
a head at the March 25th meeting of the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors--the equivalent of the city council. During the meeting,
City Supervisor Tony Hall proposed a resolution urging San Francisco
District Attorney Terence Hallinan to fully prosecute all arrested
demonstrators. Hall also asked the DA to investigate whether
protesters could be fined to repay the city's general fund.
"The question has been raised by
a number of constituents,'' said Hall. "If they can receive
a $250 parking fine while their car is illegally parked and blocking
a street, why can't these protesters be similarly fined for doing
the exact same thing?''
DA Hallinan responded to this suggestion
by dropping or reducing charges against the 12 demonstrators
arrested on felony counts during the protests. Chief Fagan said
he was disappointed by this decision, but Hallinan's move came
as no surprise. The DA is currently prosecuting five San Francisco
police commanders indicted last month for blocking an investigation
of a street fight involving three off duty officers. One of the
accused officers is Fagan's son.
Chris Bowman, who testified during the
meeting, said he supported Hall's call to prosecute protesters.
''My nephew was arrested and if he was arrested a second time,
I'd say throw the book at him,'' said Bowman. "Sixty percent
of voters in the Bay Area say the protests are counterproductive.''
Supervisor Hall proposed a second resolution
directing the city attorney to explore legal remedies to recover
costs from protest organizers. The resolution also urges city
departments to itemize their expenses associated with the protests."The
question we should all be concerned about is how much is all
of this going to cost the city, and who is supposed to pay?''
asked Hall, citing Hallinan's assertion that nobody is above
the law. "It appears to be the law abiding tax payer who
may be the real victims of these protests.''
"The protesters don't assign police
details, yet we are being made the scapegoats for the expense,''
countered Lindasusan Ulrich who testified at the supervisor's
meeting. ''I saw one officer shove a man on a bicycle several
times, even as he was trying to comply with the officer's orders.
We witnessed another officer throwing down an old man with a
cane, who had to be taken off in an ambulance. Another policeman,
who like his colleagues, was in full riot gear and had a billy
club out, repeated to one protester who was asking to leave,
'Anyone close enough to be threatening will be hit.' These are
my tax dollars at work?''
Observers pointed to several examples
of what they said was the over deployment of idle police. Tarikh
noted that he looked out of his office window on Mint Street
March 24, and observed police officers eating snacks and playing
football. A photo of the football game made the front page of
the San Francisco Chronicle the next day.
LeiLani Dowell, spokesperson for the
protest group International A.N.S.W.E.R., argues that the strain
on the city budget pales in comparison to the cost of each $1.5
million dollar cruise missile, or the $75 billion that Bush has
requested from Congress to fight the war. Protest groups say
the White House should cover San Francisco's police overtime
expenses.
"Send the bill to Bush!'' demanded
the street demonstrators, and the mayor has decided to do just
that. Brown said on a radio program that he will try to cover
demonstration costs with federal Homeland Security funds set
aside to secure the city against terrorists. Brown argued that
terrorists could use the demonstrations as a distraction to carry
out an attack. Policing protesters, said Brown, is part of defending
the city, which estimates that it has spent $2.6 million a week
on security costs since the March 17th "Code Orange"
alert. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, only New York
City has chewed through more money guarding buildings, beefing
up law enforcement and emergency services.
Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesperson for
the Department of Homeland Security, says
Mayor Brown would have have to request the federal funding from
the California state Homeland Security director. But according
to Roehrkasse, Secretary Tom Ridge has earmarked the funds strictly
for terrorism prevention and preparedness. Paying police overtime
costs for the purpose of dealing with protesters, says Roehrkasse,
is not considered part of those expenses and no other city has
asked for similar reimbursement.
P.J. Johnston, the mayor's press secretary,
says a formal request for Homeland Security funds has not yet
been made. But he says San Francisco, like many American cities
is bearing the brunt of stepped up security costs during the
orange alert, and police overtime during the protests is part
of that. From our perspective they are not separate and distinct,
they are intermingled,'' said Johnson.
A Change In Police Tactics
Tarikh suggests that police misconduct
in San Francisco was an overreaction to the first day of protest,
Thursday, March 20, when thousands of demonstrators blocked traffic
downtown and were initially met by only a handful of police officers.
By early evening, groups of police and highway patrol officers
had descended on street protesters and made over 1,400 arrests.
The tenor of police response changed
significantly on Friday, March 21 when officers began to conduct
sweeping arrests of groups engaged in lawful sidewalk protests.
On Friday afternoon, shoppers and tourists were arrested during
a police sweep at the Galleria shopping complex, including an
outraged pianist from New York who was performing a concert
that evening. Encountering seated protesters at the intersection
of Spenser and Market Streets, police tied rags around protester's
necks to jerk them to their feet.
Early Friday evening, police surrounded
two separate groups of several hundred protesters on Franklin
and Hayes Street. Marchers on Hayes Street found trucks parked
on the sidewalk, and demonstrators streamed around them obeying
the order to remain on the sidewalks. Police blocked the end
of the street, surrounded protesters, and began making arrests.
On Franklin Street, police followed a
similar tactic witnessed by this reporter. Obeying police orders
to remain on the sidewalk, the group was encircled by officers
who threw some protesters to the ground and beat them. Those
arrested were handcuffed, photographed at the scene, and transported
to a waterfront pier which the police had rented as a detention
center. ''We were informed that we were under arrest on charges
of failure to disperse and blocking the streets, but these charges
were more than mistaken: they were the exact opposite of the
truth,'' said Ulrich who was arrested in the incident. ''Six
hours after being surrounded, arrested, transported, processed,
and cited for infractions that we did not commit, we were finally
able to head home.''
As the Franklin Street protesters were
being loaded into buses, the president of the San Francisco Board
of Supervisors, Matt Gonzalez, stood alone in front of City Hall
watching a group of bicyclists who had managed to flee the arrest.
''Go do this on federal property, go do this to a town that refused
to pass an anti-war resolution, go protest in front of Congressional
reps that refused to take a stand on this,'' said Gonzalez gloomily
as workers barricaded City Hall in preparation for Saturday's
anti-war rally. ''They are costing us, the city, the people who
are against the war. When we get into budget hearings, the city
could be out $2 million dollars for this. I could do a lot of
good with $2 million dollars.''
''We are not going to sit at home in
front of the TV and watch them drop bombs, we won't be passive,''
replied a protester named James Q. who had halted his bike to
talk with Gonzalez. ''Everyone needs to do what their conscience
tells them to do.''
The anti-war rally in front of San Francisco
City Hall the next day, March 22, drew 75,000 demonstrators.
After the rally, hundreds of protesters converged on Market Street,
the city's wide central boulevard which has been a flash point
for demonstrations. At 5 pm, an NBC news van was surrounded by
a crowd shouting, ''tell the truth!'' By 5:45 platoons of riot
police were marching down Market Street facing off against hundreds
of protesters who intermittently occupied the roadway. At 6th
and Market, police confiscated a bicycle-drawn sound system at
a sidewalk dance party and encircled over 100 protesters, many
of whom were arrested. ''We were on the sidewalk dancing and
they rushed towards us and hit us with batons,'' said Murphy
McMahon. ''This one guy was clobbered by four or five police
officers, and people in the crowd started throwing bottles. We
asked, 'am I under arrest?,' but they wouldn't answer us.''
At about 6:15 Saturday a swarm of bicyclists
passed through the intersection of 6th and Market. Twenty riders
were knocked off their moving bikes and tackled by police, who
arrested them and tossed the bicycles into a pile. By 7 pm, mounted
police arrived, and downtown descended into total anarchy. Trashcans
burned along Market Street, police were beating protesters at
5th and Market with batons. Onlookers, including non-protesters,
shouted at police to stop. ''This is the city I almost died for?
This is the country I almost died for? This is the martial law
I almost died for?'' raged Dennis Kyne, a gulf war veteran who
was observing the arrests. ''I'm ashamed, I'm embarrassed. Fuck
this war.''
The city was quiet on Sunday, March 23.
But by 7:30 on the morning of March 24, Father Louie Vitale was
back on Market Street leading a solemn procession of protesters
carrying child-sized white coffins. Protesting students at San
Francisco State walked out of classes and occupied the ground
floor of the campus administration building. Arrests resumed
when a group of protesters locked themselves together in front
of the Transamerica Pyramid which houses the offices of defense
contractor, the Carlyle Group. ''Carlyle gets rich! Our sons
and daughters die,'' chanted the crowd.
Arrests also took place at the San Francisco
Federal Building, but the mood on March 24 was subdued. Behind
a police line at the Transamerica Pyramid, a group called The
Underground Yoga Parlor for Self-Awareness and Social Justice
sang and practiced yoga postures as police looked on. ''We are
practicing yoga as a form of resistance to the military industrial
media complex that is undermining life as we know it,'' said
Bhakti, a spokesperson from the group. ''We want to invite America
back into its body so its heart can discern its interconnectedness
with the rest of the universe.''
At the Board of Supervisors meeting on
March 25, scores of people arrested during the protests lined
up to testify about their experiences. The testimony was accompanied
by the strains of the Star Spangled Banner played for a domestic
partnership ceremony taking place downstairs. When Hall suggested
that the organizers be made to pay expenses for the protests,
those testifying responded with calls of, ''shame!''
''I saw people pinned behind barricades,
cops were lunging into the crowd with their nightsticks striking
people, and picking up people's bicycles and throwing them down,''
said Kevin Gardner who was in the crowd surrounded and detained
by police on Hayes Street.
Karen Heisler said she was arrested while
marching on the sidewalk on Franklin Street. ''I witnessed no
demonstration of civil disobedience, no violence, no provocation
that could have explained the police decision to stop the marchers
and block us in,'' said Heisler who said she never heard an order
to disperse. ''There was no effort on the part of police to arrest
for cause, to identify individual unlawful action, such as being
in the street, that would support the charges that were ultimately
assigned.''
Carla West, who was arrested with 150
other people at the offices of the Bechtel Corporation on March
21, said she too obeyed an order to stay on the sidewalk but
was surrounded by police. ''I told them that if you would let
us go, we would walk down the sidewalk, but still they arrested
us,'' said West who said police still have her wallet, cell phone,
planner and address book.
Jed Holtzman, who was arrested on Hayes
Street, noted that the police gave no order to disperse and swept
up legal observers and tourists arrested walking back to their
hotel. ''Our troops are supposedly fighting and dying for the
preservation and dissemination of these treasured freedoms, and
for what?'' asked Holtzman. ''For mere protesting to become functionally
illegal? This blind and unlawful 'sweeping' of the streets of
protesters opens the city up to very expensive and deserved lawsuits.''
Chief Fagan asserts that his officers
did follow police guidelines during the arrests, and used appropriate
force to contain a relatively small number of demonstrators who
did not follow police orders. But Gonzalez wasn't buying the
argument. ''We should look at the real costs, not the inflicted
costs,'' said Gonzalez who listened attentively to the testimony.
''My own experience tells me that in many respects, we had an
exaggerated response, and that has unfortunately inflated costs.''
Riva Enteen, program director of the
Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild, said the police
department did not follow its own crowd control measures created
after the city was successfully sued in 1991. Both Enteen and
Tarikh point out that demonstrators cannot be charged with failing
to disperse unless an order is given. The ACLU has also complained
to police that innocent bystanders were caught up in the sweeps.
''That is what is going to really cost the city,'' said Enteen.
''This is going to lead to lawsuits, and it will have a bigger
and bigger impact on the budget if they don't follow the law.''
''Let me be completely clear,'' said
Lindasusan Ulrich, who was arrested on Franklin Street. ''There
was no order to disperse, we were on the sidewalk, as directed
by police; and neither I, nor anyone around me saw or heard activity
that was illegal, much less dangerous. We were corralled like
cattle for exercising our Constitutional freedoms of speech and
assembly.''
According to Enteen, protesters can sue
the city for false arrest and force them to pay up to $5,000
per litigant. The second option is a class action lawsuit, which
she said is now being considered. Both the Lawyers Guild and
Police Watch say they are collecting testimony and video evidence
in preparation for legal action.
Enteen said police also violated their
own policy by holding protesters on a continuing offense if they
were rearrested within 72 hours. Peter Birch said he was held
for almost 24 hours as a repeat offender despite the fact that
he was not cited during his first arrest on March 20. After his
second arrest on Hayes Street, Birch said he was separated from
the group, and held in a detention cell at the county jail. He
was released on $600 bail. ''At no point did anyone tell me what
I was charged with,'' said Birch who said he appeared in court
March 24. The judge could not find his paperwork, and Birch's
case was discharged.
Heisler said she was informed by her
citing officer on Franklin Street that if she was rearrested
within 72 hours, she too would be booked at the county jail.
''I was arrested for the first time in my life, under false pretenses
and was intimidated regarding my right to exercise freedom of
speech,'' said Heisler.
Supervisor Gonzalez said he was particularly
concerned about the mass arrest on Franklin Street, and proposed
a hearing to examine police response. ''I want the police department
to explain what their protocols are in dealing with the actions
in the last few days,'' said Gonzalez.
''Please do everything in your power
to rein in the out-of-control SFPD,'' Holzman asked the supervisors.
''Particularly the Special Operations and Security Bureau who,
though created to protect us from terrorist attack, have in a
very short time been turned against political activists on the
streets of our fair city.''
It's still to be seen how vigorously
protesters are prosecuted, if they are prosecuted at all. ''If
the District Attorney does not intend to pursue any of these
cases, should the police department set new guidelines for arrests?''
asked Supervisor Hall. ''After all, what is the point for the
police to exert all this effort, and spend all this overtime,
if nothing is going to happen once they do their job?''
At a press conference March 25, a coalition
of anti-war groups announced that they will focus on political
outreach to encourage residents of the city to support protesters.
Organizers said demonstrations will continue, but would now target
defense contractors, oil companies and other firms which stand
to profit from the war. More protests took place March 26 outside
CNN's San Francisco headquarters demanding an end to sanitized
news coverage. On March 28, another eighty protesters, including
priests and rabbis were arrested at the Federal Building. One
of the protest organizers, Direct Action to Stop the War, has
called for a national day of civil disobedience on April 7. ''I
don't think that they are sending a message about the war by
shutting down traffic,'' said Chief Fagan who said the police
would continue to arrest protesters if necessary.
Tanya Mayo, spokesperson for the anti-war
group Not In Our Name, said the San Francisco protests must continue,
because they have shown the world that not everyone in the U.S.
supports the war. ''This is something to be proud of,'' said
Mayo. ''We have made a powerful statement that this war is not
waged in our name and we must stop it.''
Ann Harrison
is a freelance journalist, in the Bay Area. She can be reached
at: ah@well.com
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