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Report from one of the Johns

by james (the minor) (splee2000 [at] aol.com)
This report, though probably already too long, is by no means a complete account of what happened to the Johns and Janes while we were in jail. All it is is some of my personal memories, told in first person, of what went on during our three days in 850 Bryant.
I got arrested again (arrrgh), and this time it wasn’t on purpose. The time: approximately 6:30 PM on Tuesday, June 8, 2004. The place: 5th and Market, San Francisco. The event: the Reclaim the Streets (RTS) “mutant dance party,” a protest against the BIO2004 conference and the agenda of corporate domination that it so clearly represents.

This was my third arrest because on the previous day, Monday, June 7, I was arrested (including being handcuffed) by an oh-so-grumpy cop who’d been following me for 15 minutes as I was scouting around outside of Moscone Center. The charge: riding my bike on the sidewalk. If that doesn’t give you a clear idea of the level of police repression during last weeks protests, I’m not sure what will. Note: the future for street protests in San Francisco does not look good.

On June 8, the day we had planned to “shut down BIO,” only a few hundred protestors showed up, and we were never able to take more than one intersection at a time. Although there were some incredible (desperate?) heroic acts, such as the people who held out under the bus, for the most part, the day was a let down. I remember arriving late in the day at 4th and Howard, the only intersection still being held by the protestors, when the cops, apparently after being tipped off that the black bloc was arriving, charged the totally peaceful crowd, batons waving. Some of us tried to pull a barricade out into the street, but couldn’t even manage that in the mass hysteria, panic, and fear.

By this time, everyone’s hopes were riding on the RTS dance party at 5:00 PM. When that time finally arrived, spirits were high at UN plaza as party-goers participated in street theatre and sidewalk-chalk art-making. Then, with the sound system leading the way, the street party took off down Market Street. People were dancing and singing and having a good time until unexpectedly (or expectedly, depending on your viewpoint), the cops closed us in at 5th and Market.

I never heard a dispersal order, and neither did pretty much anybody else. What I did hear was the cops telling us that we were all arrested; when some of us tried to or asked to leave, we were repelled and/or refused. Talk of jail solidarity started up. A sizable crowd, including myself, raised their hands in commitment that they would not give their names to the cops.

Meanwhile, my mom and some extended family from out of town arrived on the scene. My mom was worried sick so she sent in my aunt to get me released. It was a difficult decision, but I had to tell my aunt that I wasn’t leaving because it violated my solidarity with the other people in the crowd. After that, I had to wait approximately four more hours until I was finally called out of the crowd, handcuffed with plastic banding, photographed, and loaded into the paddywagon as a “John Doe.”

During all that time, a strong spirit of solidarity was already developing both within the arrest circle and without. Several protestors outside waved red and black flags and yelled cheers, including “Viva, viva anarquista!” Food Not Bombs arrived and threw food and water over the police line so that we who were inside could have something to eat and drink. (This is the source of the SF Chronicle lie that we threw bottles and “rotting food” at the cops.) Still, the experience wasn’t pleasant, with people being forced to urinate on the ground in a large crowd of people.

That may very well be a human rights violation under international law (someone else who actually cares about laws should look into it), but it was nothing compared to what we were about to experience in jail.

I was amongst the last group of “Johns” to arrive in the holding tank where I would spend the next 24 or so hours. Immediately, I could feel the spirit of solidarity in the room. The twenty of us got to work promptly on formulating our demands and strategies for jail solidarity, making all decisions by consensus. Our central demands were as follows: (1) that we be unconditionally and immediately released, including those protestors with felony charges who were separate from us; (2) that we stay together at all times; and (3) that we be treated equally at all times.

That night, we were prepared for anything, including having to defend ourselves from being separated, so we were relieved when the lieutenant came in and announced to us that we would be staying in the holding tank together for the night.

This was probably the sheriff’s department’s biggest mistake, letting us remain together that night, because in those hours, we laid the foundations of solidarity that would carry us through the next two days with indomitable strength, courage, and determination.

During our hours in the tank, we stayed in contact with the women in the cell next-door by yelling and singing, and were in constant communication with legal support via telephone. We supported each other with words of encouragement and love, and lots of hugs. Despite the physical, emotional, and mental abuse we experienced at the hands of the cops, we refused to be broken. We were a powerful force to be reckoned with.

The next day, those of us who managed to sleep on the cold, hard floor of the holding tank (the guards refused to meet our demands for blankets, by the way) were awakened by the “breakfast” patrol. This was our first taste (dinner had been withheld from us the previous night) of the awful peanut butter and jelly and processed cheese-food sandwiches we were given throughout our stay in jail. We ate, for the most part, reluctantly.

For the rest of the morning and afternoon, we caught up on sleep; planned and strategized about how to deal with the cops; sang songs, yelled cheers, banged on the walls; gave back rubs; and had the most awesome theory break-out sessions I’ve ever participated in! Such a beautiful and wide diversity of opinions and viewpoints! - I learned so much from all the Johns. It was amazing.

Then came what was truly the most horrific and brutal evening of my life. It began with screams, screams of pain, agony, and fear from the cell next door: the cops were extracting the women one-by-one from their lockdown. We yelled to them in support: “We love you!” and we yelled at the cops: “Stop hurting them!” and “Shame! Shame! Shame!” Never had that old chant felt so urgent.

It took several more hours to extract the women, fierce fighters all, from their cell. Their courage inspired us for our own ordeal, which came soon after. Each time, it would begin with the guards opening the door, and asking one of us to step forward. Each time, we would remain in lockdown. Then they would rush in, a SWAT team essentially, but without weapons, and forcibly extract the person from the lockdown. They used two big padded shields to crush the two people next to the targeted individual, and they employed a variety of pain holds and other tactics to try to break us both mentally and physically. I should mention that through all of this, we were unable to contact legal; the cops had turned off our phone hours earlier, while we were in the middle of reporting what was happening to the women. Also, the cops’ cameras were turned off during some of the more brutal events.

The first time I was “in the action” I was trying to prevent the person next to me from being removed. I felt like I was in a war with the cops. I held on for dear life. Adrenaline was pulsing through my veins; as I felt the the pad against my back and the cops’ hands on my arms and legs and neck, I was amazed at my ability to withstand the pain. I screamed and yelled, and resisted as best I could. Every time the cops pulled my hands apart, I would slide them out of the cops’ grip and back together again. The cops were angered by this so they pulled on my ears and my jaw and my hair. They stuck gloved fingers into my right eye, causing excruciating pain and leaving my eyelid flipped-up once they finally let go. Against overwhelming force, we must have held the targeted individual for at least 2-3 minutes, maybe more, but finally, we were defeated. Afterwards, I remember getting up and running around wildly, crying and screaming in pain, sadness, and anger. I spit on the window at the cops on the other side.

The next time, we defeated the cops (so to speak), as they were unable to remove the person they had originally targeted and were forced to remove some other people instead. It was an intense struggle to achieve this small victory, however, and was by far the most traumatic part of the experience for me. I was totally crushed by the pad this time, so much so that my neck is still sore as I write this. With my glasses knocked off and my face pressed down in between my legs, I was unable to see, but I can still recall smelling the blood as it poured out of my friend’s ear beside me. They had tried to extract him from the lockdown literally by his ears, but they had still failed. He never gave up, never let go, and they were forced to retreat from the room without him, taking two others in his place.

I hate the police. They have absolutely no respect for human life, human dignity, or human freedom. Their entire occupation is a sham. They do not “protect and serve,” they brutalize and repress.

Anyway, despite our efforts at resistance, the group was eventually whittled down to just three, including myself. Our last act was to sing “A Las Barricadas,” the old Spanish Civil War-era anarcho-syndicalist hymn. As we sang “Alza la bandera revolucionaria (raise the revolutionary banner),” the cops stormed in and carried us away. All of us went limp, just as we had previously agreed to do. The cops were forced to put us in leg shackles and to move us using wheelchairs.

Different individuals put up varying levels of resistance during processing. Earlier, some had even scratched the skin off their thumbs to make finger printing harder. I stayed limp for as long as I could, but ultimately, the pain of having my wrists completely twisted was too much. I agreed to stand up on my own for the rest of processing. After another hour or so, they finally got me up to the actual jail, “the Pod,” where I was given a wristband and another disgusting bagged lunch and placed in a cell with one other John.

I actually slept pretty well that night; when I woke up, it was the afternoon. Down the hall, I could hear one John singing the Wobbly version of “Rockaby Baby.” I joined my comrades in singing “Solidarity Forever” and yelling, “Free us now! Free us all!”

Eventually, the guards came around and let us all out of our cells. They shackled us in groups of six and took us to the “Hall of Justice” to await our arraignment. First we were in a long hallway overlooking the freeway. Then they moved my group of six into a small holding cell, where we were finally allowed to meet with a lawyer. He informed us that the judge was likely to dismiss all our charges, but that even after that, the sheriff was going to hold us, based on some obscure law that supposedly prevents him from releasing people on John or Jane Doe status. The real reason, of course, that they didn’t want to release us without identifying us first was that doing so would defeat the very purpose of the mass arrest, that is, identifying and getting on record anarchists and other political dissidents.

In one last consensus decision, based on the advice we got from the outstanding people at the National Lawyers Guild, the Johns and Janes decided the best thing for everyone, including those with “funny situations,” would be to take the deal and give our names, especially once we were able to ensure that the two juveniles which included myself, be released first, into the custody of our attorney, as opposed to our parents.

Walking out of that jail into a crowd of loved ones, friends, and supporters was the best feeling ever. Thanks to everyone on the outside who supported us in solidarity throughout our ordeal!

Hopefully, our jail solidarity action was able to bring about attention to police brutality and abuse as well as to the issues being addressed on the street as part of the Reclaim the Commons mobilization, while also throwing a wrench into the perverse and evil American injustice system.

All I can say now is it’s good to be free! And once again to all the Johns: I love you guys! Solidarity forever!

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