| Ivo Skoric on Sat, 22 Apr 2000 18:37:00 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> Protests and arrests American way |
This is the first-hand account of a protests in Washington DC written by a student from Wesleyan. Police wanted to actually charge people $50-100 per arrest, but when 80% of people would not pay, they just let them all go, and then protesters protested being let go. ivo _____________ Dear family, friends, professors et al I'm really sorry for those of you who hate forwards, but this is a first hand account of the conditions of imprisoned protestors in DC written by a trustworthy student at Wesleyan. It is essential that as many people as possible are aware that people's constitutional rights are being entirely neglected by the authorities in this situation. Please pass this on to as many people as you can and if you know people who can help (ie media or influential lawyers...) please encourage them to do so. Frederic --------------------- two wes students and at least 100 others are still in jail in dc. we need to get these people out fast. here's the scoop from behind enemy lines. i am writing only what i have experienced myself or witnessed firsthand. sorry if some of this is redundant, but this information needs to get out before i forget anything: i was arrested along with four other wes students at noon on monday at the intersection of pennsylvania avenue and 20th street. 600 protesters had linked arms to form a "soft-blockade" directly in front of police barricades, and several hundred cops in full riot gear stood on the other side of the metal barriers, resulting in a stand-off that had lasted about two hours. directly behind the cops stood the world bank headquarters, symbol of global capitalism etc. our plan had been to walk two blocks down the street and attend the wb meeting, but the police weren't cool with that, and they had pepper sprayed us when we tried to cross their (arbitrary) line. in a very real sense, they were defending the global economic system from assault by the people. by noon we had negotiated a deal with the cops that would allow us to cross the lines and risk arrest in return for the police sheding their riot gear and pledging not to use violence. ten feet past the line, we were handcuffed, searched, photographed and then escorted to the paddywagons. some protesters decided to "go limp" to make the process more difficult for the arresting officers and make a stronger statement. those who chose to resist in this way were handeled roughly and some had their heads smashed against solid objects. prisoners were divided among eight busses and people sitting next to one another in the blockade were deliberately seperated on different busses. the prison system was already overflowing from mass arrests on saturday and sunday, so many of us were shipped to a juvenile detention center in a police station for temporary "storage." once there, every prisoner had his property taken away, including shoelaces and belts for fear that we might try to hang ourselves. (i am not being gender-inclusive because i have no first hand information about what happened to the females). all prisoners had their fingers printed, and those who resisted printing were given pain compliance until they gave in. some prisoners with serious illnesses were deprived of their medications. we were then handcuffed again with a plastic band connecting an ankle to a wrist. when several prisoners complained that their circulation was cut off or that their hands were numb, the police responded by tightening the restraints. once we were processed, we was faced with two options: we could "sign out" and leave immedietely by paying a $50-100 fine and volunteering our names, or we could refuse to pay the fine and withold our names in solidarity with other prisoners. most of us chose option one unless we had an unavoidable commitment. the theory behnd jail solidarity is that prisoners can clog up the system if they act as a single inseperable body instead of many individuals. solidarity is also symbolic: we are a community that is concerned about the entire group instead of our personal well- being. this was important, for we soon learned that some prisoners were facing more serious charges than others even though everyone had participated in the same non-violent action. charges ranged from "incommoding" (blocking traffic) to "crossing a police line" or "resisting arrest" or even "assault". the group's central demand was that we would not give our names until we were allowed to see a lawyer and everyone's charges were reduced to a simple infraction like incommoding. those of us who chose to remain in solidarity were stored in the police station jail cells for about 4 hours. at one point we were fed two pieces of Wonder Bread with a single slice of bologna in between and each handed a carton of "fruit punch drink". the cell next to us ws only fed donuts, so we did our best to help them out by passing food through the metal bars. some of us were permitted to make local phone calls, but the number we were supposed to call for legal defense was continually busy. we later learned that police were using a machine that automatically dialed that number over and over again. our clothes were damp and the cells were deliberately cold, so some of us began shivering. after prolonged insistence, the cops gave the 11 of us in the cell a single blanket to share. to their credit, most of the city cops were not abusive. many of them were working 30-hour shifts to accomodate the never-ending flow of protesters into city jails. some of the guards even admitted to agreeing with our stance on the imf and world bank when we pestered them. the point is that with rare exceptions, these cops are not sadistic human beings. they are just puppets controlled by an evil puppeteer. after a few hours (not sure about the time because they took our watches) we were transferred to a holding cell in the municipal courts building. our new guards were federal police marshalls. i dont know if it is standard practice to turn ordinary criminals over to federal officials, but the district of columbia's status as a non- state complicates legal matters. 13 of us were stuffed into a cell so small that only three could sit down at a time. the rules of the game changed dramatically once we arrived in this jail. phone calls were not permitted. food was not supplied. our cell had no running water, and the autorities promised to bring a pitcher but never followed through, although they later moved us to a cell with a working sink. we were still not offered a change of clothes or additional blankets. the offer to pay $50 and walk still stood, and the police strongly encouraged us to accept it, to the point of using scare tactics. if we refused to comply, they explained, we would be transfered to the dc city jail, which in their words "is not a good place for white boys" and is "filled with murderers and rapists." they also told us that "our solidarity bullshit" was breaking down, and that most people had already paid the fine and left. we were constantly being shifted to new cells with new cellmates - an obvious effort on the part of the police to undermine solidarity by making communication difficult. after a brief meeting, we communicated to the police marshalls that we would not give our names until we were allowed to meet with our lawyers. The group that organized the protests (mobilization for global justice) had supplied a legal team called "midnight special" to represent us. however, most of these lawyers were prevented from communicating with arestees in any way or even entering the cell block. instead, court-appointed public defenders were assigned to us. some were sympathetic, most were not. one woman claimed to be a lawyer from midnight special, but was unable to produce any credentials, or give us the name of her firm, or inform us of our rights. (she "forgot" that we had the right to remain silent, and explicitly denied that we had the right to food and water). after interogating her for awhile, it became apparent that she was an undercover agent posing as a lawyer. eventually, the police allowed us to meet with a guy who we were pretty sure was in fact a real midnight special attorney. he told us that solidarity was still around 80%, and gave us instructions for our upcoming arraignment. after a long night of fake lawyers, non-existent food and trying to sleep while standing up, they began taking us away to be arraigned. during an arraignment, the accused is read his or her charges and asked to plead guilty or not-guilty. if he wishes to stay in solidarity, the accused remains silent rather than plea not- guilty. he also continues to withold his name, and is arraigned as John Doe or Jane Doe. however, when we were taken to our "arraignments", we never had the chance to plea. Instead of being arraigned, we were each handed a slip of paper that explained the police had lost our papers and our charges were being dismissed. we were then escorted out of the courtroom and told to leave the premises. when some of us protested, the federal police marshalls threatened to arrest again for trespassing on federal property if we chose to stay. obviously, the cops never lost any papers. they were simply trying to divide us by eliminating minor offenders so they can focus on people with more serious charges. it just didnt make sense anymore to clog up the dc city jail with 600 protesters. i left the courthouse around noon without paying fines on tuesday as john doe number ---. good for me, but bad for solidarity. most of my comrades experienced a similar fate. however, i watched several actual arraignments, and even these were extremely one-sided: the accused stood before the judge. the judge delivered a long tirade indicating that the accused had two options - give his name, pay $50 and leave, or remain john doe and be relocating to the dc city jail. the judge implied that the accused could expect to be sodomized by people of color in the city jail, and that he would be better off returning to society so he could "continue to exercise [his] first ammedment right to petition the government." the accused recived support from the gallery in the form of raised fists and cheering. some support was tolerated, but when one member of the gallery yelled "this is a mockery" he was roughly dragged away and shoved through the courtroom door. we heard loud noises outside as his escort moved him down the stairs. most of the remaining prisoners continued to maintain solidarity through the arraignments, but their numbers had fallen drastically at this point due to mass dismissals. they need our support - call the authorities right now to express your outrage: Central Holding 202-727-4213, DC Jail 202-673-8000, Cell B & C 202-727-2392, Superior Court 202-879-1010, Police Academy 202-645-0055, Subdistrict #4 202-727-4655. as poorly as we were treated, we must remember the millions of people who face these same oppressive conditions everyday. this is a polemic not against individual officers or a single jail system, but against the modern prison-industrial as a whole. and we must the role of the world bank and imf in setting up conditions that encourage countries in global south to imprison millions for speaking out against a corrupt system just as we did on monday. DE-FUND THE FUND! BREAK THE BANK! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS! RELEASE ALL A16 PROTESTERS! SOLIDARITY NOW! Abe Walker [email protected] (860) 685-5311 ----------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://web.horde.org/imp/ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]