Why Rejecting the Pitifully Small
Police Brutality Settlement of #J28 Helps #BlackLivesMatter
 |
| Here I am, defiantly saying "Fuck you!" to the Berkeley Police Department, after being tear gassed and shot with a rubber bullet at a #BlackLivesMatter protest on Dec 6th 2014. Since this image went out internationally on the AP wire under the headline "Berkeley Protests Turn Violent", and apparently I was the SnapChat Hero of the Day at Berkeley High School, yeah, 50+ days later I'll fucking own it. |
January 28th 2012 (#J28)
over 2000 people gathered in downtown Oakland to support #OccupyOakland’s “Move-In
Day”: an explicitly radical action designed to take over a dormant, vacant
building and transform it into a community activist/houseless-outreach
center. To prevent this from happening,
the Oakland Police Department and many agencies from all around the Bay Area
showed up like Roman Legionnaires to violently suppress us, breaking every
Federally-mandated court order regarding crowd-control policy to eventually
mass arrest over 400 hundred of us.
Although there is hundreds of hours of video footage from the dozens of
reporters and independent livestreamers documenting the police agencies
breaking their own laws hundreds of times throughout the day, it took our “Civil
Rights” lawyers three years to reach a
terrible pittance of a settlement with the City of Oakland: A $1.3 million
dollar settlement in which the lawyers keep the lion’s share; we the plaintiffs
are to receive ~$2.6k each (before taxes), and no official from the City of
Oakland, Alameda County, or the OPD receives any charges levied against them
from their brutal illegalities of that day and the following days when we were
tortured and abused inside the notorious Santa Rita jail.
I believe it
is extremely important to reject this insultingly low monetary settlement, the
secretive lawyering practices that led up to it, and reject and replace our “radical”
movements’ laissez-faire attitude towards those volunteer protesters afflicted
by police brutality and/or arrest: “Don’t worry! Let the ACLU/NLG/the ‘Civil Rights’ lawyers
take care of it,” since it should be shockingly obvious that these lawyers have
failed to do their job at even creating the meanest modicum of justice, over
and over again in the modern Bay Area populist/radical movements, stemming from
at least the Oscar Grant uprisings to present day.
This is an exceedingly
imperative conversation to have RIGHT NOW, as we are several months into the
#BlackLivesMatter movement against police-brutality in the Bay Area. Police have been the most violent they’ve
been since #J28 2012, with more illegal baton strikes; tear gas, concussion
grenades, less lethal munitions fired into crowds of peaceful protesters, and
more mass-arrests without giving people a chance to disperse. Yet, astonishingly, we the protesters of late-2014
to today have learned little to zero of the stark lessons about movement
sustainability since the days of Occupy.
We paid for those lessons in our literal blood, and they shouldn’t be
abandoned because of some unexamined kneejerk squeamishness in confronting our
Sacred Cow “allies” of the “left” like the civil rights lawyers’ guilds. This
is something that needs to be rectified IMMEDIATELY if we are to continue our
cause to en masse challenge and overcome the police state.
Since the events of #J28 have been
rather well document by others, I’m going to recount my memories of what went
down around the time of this iconic photo, and the resulting aftermath:
I remember us
marching rather blindly into the kettle trap at 19th &
Telegraph, and the police firing tear gas without warning ten feet away from
me, rather ironically in front of the statue commemorating Gandhi, MLK and
others.
I remember
two members of Occupy Cal, young UC Berkeley students, who fearlessly stood in
front of said statue in a cloud of tear gas, facing down the riot cops with
peace signs held high. I went back for them, as they were the last ones left
there, and suggested now was a good time to go.
(Later, the very-nonviolent female student who was all of 5-foot nothing
was clubbed on the back of the head: concussed & bleeding, she was arrested
and soon cited-and-released by OPD and left to wander aimlessly in a daze
through the streets of Oakland in the middle of the night [only to be randomly
rescued by another member of Occupy Cal who was doing jail support].) (Tear gas is banned in war = Torture/War
Crime)
I remember
the adrenaline rush of the fence being torn down and us escaping the kettle,
only to realize we were still marked pilgrims in an unholy land; surrounded by
riot cops in white vans on every street with no clear place to march.
I remember us
unstrategically marching back south down Broadway into another kettle trap of
phalanx of riot cops. I had all of one second to decide: I saw some of the
crowd trying to run into the YMCA on the left; others I saw climbing a fence to
the right. The one second I spend on
deciding was one second too long as WHACK--- a baton struck me from behind. (Illegal crowd control)
I remember
the ~400 of us being herded into the alcove at the Y, trying frantically to
calm the riot cops down who had a crazed look in their eyes like they wanted
nothing more than an excuse to charge into us and start cracking skulls. To that end, they “randomly” selected a black
man out of the front lines who was doing nothing wrong, threw him to the
pavement and put the boots and batons to him Rodney King style. (Illegal crowd control)
I remember
the mass arrest for “failure to disperse” after illegally never saying it on a
loudspeaker, and illegally, not letting us disperse after kittling us at the
YMCA. (Illegal crowd control)
I remember
being put in ziptie handcuffs at around 7pm.
Those zipties didn’t come off until 5AM at Santa Rita.
I remember
being loaded on a full prison bus with no ventilation: meaning all of us who
had been tear gassed all day in the open air were now boxed in with each other,
making a poisonous box full of people coughing, choking and vomiting. (Torture/War
Crime)
I remember
an older black man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was
arrested with the rest of us: he had kidney problems and begged the officers
for use of a bathroom. The officers
laughed at him while he pissed in his pants.
I remember
the officers saying we were going to all be collectively punished for people
urinating and vomiting on the bus, even though we hadn’t had access to a
bathroom in over 10 hours. We were
forced to wait an extra 30 minutes outside the bus with our faces against the
concrete wall for our “crimes” before being led into Santa Rita. (Torture/War
Crime)
I remember
being aggressively patted down: I remember those males identifying as queer or trans
being extra-aggressively being patted down, groped, molested, assaulted and
taunted by the prison guards.
I remember
24 of us being crowded into a holding cell that wasn’t mean for more than
five. We’d be there for the next ~20
hours. (Torture/War Crime)
I remember
that although 80%+ of us were vegetarian, we were denied vegetarian food out of
spite and given slimy baloney sandwiches instead.
I remember 2-3
times that night/morning after we managed to all more or less fall asleep in
the extremely overcrowded cell, some sort of chemical agent was pumped/vented
in causing us all to wake up, choking and coughing. (Torture/War Crime)
I remember
over the next 38 hours or so, the prison guards would strategically wait until
most of us were asleep in our cells, and call a cell check for some random name
that belonged to none of us: they did this for deliberate sleep deprivation. (Torture/War
Crime)
I remember
everyone involved being denied their necessary medication, including HIV/AIDS
meds and others. (Torture/War Crime)
I remember
being moved to a bigger cell that was slightly less overcrowded, but the
drinking water was scalding hot IE not potable. (Torture/War Crime)
I remember
in the 48 hours I was arrested and then finally released, I was never given
access to a phone or a lawyer. (Constitutional Violation)
I remember
the sickening feeling that if I resisted this torture in any way, I’d be
beaten, thrown into a hole and forgotten about.
This may have been the worst psychological torture: to let the pigs have
their way and feel that there was nothing I could do about it…
…
It’s hard/impossible to put a dollar
amount to the tortures I, we, endured.
But surely $2600 does seem ridiculously, insultingly fucking low, doesn’t
it?
Well, this
whole recounting has been rather fucking draining. But I must continue with the aftermath.
I remember
being arrested Saturday night and being released on a Monday night. Immediately upon my release I contacted every
media outlet because I wanted to give testimony/bear witness/go on record about the
tortures I witnesses and endured.
I remember Tuesday
morning calling up the Thom Hartmann Show and detailing my experience (with my
voice raspy as I was still affected by tear gas and lack of water), and getting
Thom to on the air, live, apologizing for criticizing Occupy Oakland and
offering a call for solidarity.
I remember
90% of the independent media journalists, if they got back to me at all, say a
version of “Oh yeah, I already filed my #J28 story on Sunday/Monday: no new news
here.” As if the largest mass arrest in Oakland in 30 years warranted no follow-ups. INDY MEDIA FAILED US.
I remember “indy-journalists”
who used Occupy Oakland social media channels to solicit donations for their
personal careers, refusing to do any follow-ups RE #J28--- it’s worth
reiterating: INDY MEDIA FAILED US.
I remember
still coughing tear gas out of my lungs when Chris Hedges published his
infamous “The Cancer of Occupy” article RE #J28 that was republished on
countless “left” “progressive” independent media news sites. More words were written about how we were “violent
counterrevolutionaries” for wearing helmets and carrying shields than were
written about the violent, torturous police and prison guards of Alameda
County. CommonDreams dot Org has me
banned to this day for commenting “Fuck Chris Hedges”. AGAIN: INDY MEDIA FAILED
US. (#OpChrisHedges)
I remember
the Leaders-Not-Leaders of Occupy Oakland/#J28 calling a special GA to talk
about Move-In Day. Hundreds of people
showed up voicing many direct, to the point questions about the egregious
tactics that failed us over and over again that day that left many of us fucked
up by police brutality (yet the Leaders-Not-Leaders [mostly] got away
unarrested and unscathed). One after
another these people were dismissed with variations of “Oh, we can’t talk about
it since there is now an ongoing court case going on RE #J28” IE, variations of
the bullshit sophist “Loose Lips Sink Ships” propaganda to silence extreme
pertinent criticism. I cannot stress
enough it was because of this there has been no major sustained radical
movement in Oakland to this day (with just wisps of ad hoc #BlackLivesMatter
rallies now, three years later--- more on this later). Unaccountable
leadership. The buck stops nowhere.
I remember
the NLG (National Lawyers Guild) calling us to two mass meetings of those
arrested on #J28, that was meant to placate us.
The meeting boiled down to “Don’t worry, we have everything under
control: don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
I remember
the NLG never calling us back RE our initial court hearings, having us rely on
varying degrees of accuracy social media reports to see if charges were filed
against us or not.
I remember
NLG making a social media announcement/email “Whoops, we don’t have everything
under control- we are going to fob you all off to independent civil rights lawyers
Yolanda Huang and Dan Siegel (the latter of whom is totally going to put his
best foot forward fighting this case and not at all be distracted by running an
ill-conceived Mayoral campaign).”
I remember
trying to call the Law Offices of Ms. Huang sporadically over the next ~3 years
and very rarely even getting this response/callback: “Don’t worry, everything
is under control; Stop calling me: I’ll call you.”
I remember
being extremely concerned circa summer of 2013 when the ACLU announced a
pitiful $1 million dollar settlement regarding the most infamous case of
obscene police brutality in all of Occupy: the pepper-spraying of Occupy UC
Davis by Lt. Pike. A case that was so
ridiculously clear cut, the ACLU could have hit multiple grand slams charging
the University of California, the UCPD, and made fundamental systemic changes
to how colleges handle student protests from now on: this ACLU chose to bunt
instead, holding no one accountable, and those student activists chemicallytortured receiving less than Lt Pike did with his paid suspension and workerscomp by a factor of ~6X. I tried to
write about this, but I was censored.
I remember
being extremely concerned when the NLG announced their settlement with the city
of Oakland regarding the Oscar Grant protest mass-arrests of 2010 (of which I
barely escaped the net). The NLG got the
lion’s share and for their 24 hrs of being thrust into overcrowded jail cells
after being illegally arrested (24-48 hours less than most #J28 arrestees) got
around $3k each. This seemed insulting
low to me (little did I know…) at the time, and I did my best to try and rally
people around the idea that if this is acceptable, we are going to get fucked
over when our #J28 settlement comes to fruition. How fun it is to have the Cassandra Complex!
I remember
being somewhat optimistic after hearing about the first few rounds of
settlements coming out of Occupy Oakland in the past year, and #J28 cases that
had individual counsel (and not a class action suit like the one I was involved
in). One woman got a $40k settlement for
being pushed to the pavement by OPD on #J28 and not even arrested. This set the bar at a reasonable place for
the rest of us who endured so much more brutality.
And then… the announcement of a
settlement of $2.6k each for #J28 happened.
Look: I’m not going to lie to you. I’m fucking poor, and I’ve been fucking poor
my entire life. $2600 would help me a
lot. But that’s not a settlement: you
might as well offer me 30 pieces of silver, because that’s fucking Judas
money. I haven’t been an activist in the
Bay Area these past 6+ years for the money, but this scene has taken from me so
much fucking more from me than I’ve put into it, and I’m not just talking about
fiduciary concerns. So if I’m ever going
to cash in my chips, I’m not fucking doing it for $2600.
But let’s be
really fucking clear: this isn’t about haggling over a fairer price for
me. If we accept this we are dooming the
#BlackLivesMatter movement.
Here is me,
in the middle of No Man’s Land, in a cloud of tear gas, during a
#BlackLivesMatter protest in Berkeley on December 6th 2014.
Out of the
hundreds of protesters gathered, I alone didn’t retreat back a block but
advanced towards the line of riot cops to rescue a stranger who had fallen
because a concussion grenade exploded inches from his face and he collapsed to
the street. Risking my health and safety
I helped him up and got him back to the protesters. For this, even though I never through a thing
at the police (except my middle finger), I was shot at and hit by rubber
bullets. I did this because I have
fucking courage, and I believe in the movement #BlackLivesMatter against police
brutality and the police state: even to the point of risking my life.
But I won’t
be a sucker. Never again. I won’t be used by people who exploit the
movement(s) for their personal gains.
Never again. I won’t sit silently
while this movement goes on unstrategically, while more people get brutalized,
burned-out and then gladhanded by the lawyers who are supposed to protect our
rights, but sell us out, over and over and over again. How many more examples do you need before you
too shout “NEVER AGAIN!”?
What then,
is to be done?
The fuck if
I know. I’m just one person, sometimes bolstered
by allies and friends; other times not so much.
I’m in a movement that pretends to be all about community, but will
jettison your ass to the curb the SECOND you become an inconvenience and do
something like ask the wrong question about the Sacred Cows of the “Radical” “Left”
(the knife in the back: no extra charge).
But here are
my “Calls to Action” all the same:
1st:
I think we need a public meeting
regarding the #J28 settlement and I think we need to pressure the lawyers
involved to show up and publicly state why they mishandled the case (Let’s not
mince words). And then we need to public
reject this settlement and go back to the negotiating table.
2nd:
I think we need a larger conversation locally and nationally about the goals
and demands of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and the construction of a
sustainable movement. While I have been
inspired by the series of ad hoc protests around the country these past months,
shutting down a freeway or mass transit for a few hours, and then being
brutalized and arrested by police only to have a shitty settlement three years
later isn’t sustainable, therefore it won’t win as currently structured. I want to win. I believe we can win. We MUST adjust our tactics accordingly.
3rd:
To that end, I’ve been remarkably consistent in what would be the biggest
revolutionary demand to end the police state: #EndTheDrugWar. I’ve been saying this since the Oscar Grant
movement at public and private organizational assemblies. Usually to crickets and tumbleweeds.
Yet the logic is simple: We are outraged at
police brutality, and how it disproportionately affects black and brown and
poor communities. We are outraged at the
mass incarceration of these communities.
What is the lead cause of this brutality? The Drug War.
#Every45Seconds someone in this country (overwhelmingly black, brown and/or
poor) someone is put in chains and a cage for possessing cannabis. More than ever before, a vast majority of
people in this country support ending the drug war: tying #EndTheDrugWar to
#BlackLivesMatter would make an overwhelming populist movement with a clear
goal, the likes of which haven’t been seen in the USA since the anti-Vietnam
War protests over 40 years ago. (And no,
the endgame here isn’t “Yippie! I can buy weed at WalMart now!” but #DrugWarReparations---
but that is a another conversation for now.)
...
That’s the
best I could come up with on short notice, on this, the 3rd
anniversary of #J28 2012. Here’s to many
more justices and victories for us, the good guys and gals, before the next
anniversary.
Lemme know
what you think = @Ergoat
