April 7 rally at Port Hq

VIOLENT '03 RALLY RECALLED AT PROTEST
Scores turn out to commemorate demonstration that descended into rubber bullets, arrests at Port of Oakland

By William Brand, STAFF WRITER, Oakland Tribune
Article Last Updated: 04/08/2007


OAKLAND — Nearly 150 people ignored a drizzling rain Saturday morning to stand in protest outside the Port of Oakland headquarters at Jack London Square to mark the fourth anniversary of an anti-Iraq war demonstration that turned violent when police began firing rubber bullets and wooden dowels.

The protest on that day was right — the Iraq war should have been stopped before Day One, said Jack Heyman, a member of the International Longshoreman and Warehouseman Union, Local 10, and one of 25 demonstrators arrested by police at the April 2003 demonstration.

Heyman said Oakland police videos of the demonstration showed officers began firing first and that most of the demonstrators were struck in the back. They were running away from the bullets and tear gas, he said. A few people threw things back at police and were hit in the face, he said.

Heyman read a label he said comes with the kind of rubber projectiles used by police. "It reads, 'Do not fire directly at a person, serious injury or death may result,'" he said.

The incident was cited by the United Nations Human Rights Commission, he said.

A year after the incident, all charges against 25 arrested protesters were dismissed. The city of Oakland paid more than $1.25 million to settle 59 lawsuits filed as a result of the injuries. The largest settlement was $500,000 to Willow Rosenthal, a West Oakland resident who was hit in the right calf with a wooden dowel, and $210,000 to Sri Louise Coles, who was hit directly in the jaw with a dowel.

As a result, the Police Department changed its crowd-control policy to bar officers from firing stinger grenades or wooden dowels to control crowds.

The 2003 protest was called to protest shipment of military cargo through the Port of Oakland, but military cargo still goes through, Heyman said in an interview.

Unlike 2003, Saturday's protest was quiet. Oakland police were present in force, but officers and motorcycle cops stayed well away. The police mobile command station was parked nearby.

Another speaker, Wes Hamilton, a Vietnam veteran and peace organizer in Olympia, Wash., described peace activists' successful effort to stop military cargo shipments from Olympia, despite being tear-gassed by police.

Saturday's event was sponsored by a melange of groups opposed to the Iraq war, including ILWU Local 10 and the Oakland Education Association, the Oakland Unified School District's teachers union. Teacher representatives wore bright yellow-green T-shirts.

Teacher union member Bob Mandel told the crowd the union was against the war before it started. "We feel the way to support the troops is to keep them home," he said. "We know there's a war against the youth of America.

"We need libraries in schools in Oakland. We need a nurse in every school," he said. "We need water fountains that work. Here we have APL (the shipping line) that is one of the largest companies in the United States. They ship for the military all over the world.

"They don't pay a penny for our schools, not a penny for Highland Hospital," Mandel said.

The Port of Oakland has long pointed out that port activity creates many tax-paying businesses as well as tens of thousands of jobs.

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ALSO PLEASE SEE:

Photos from Sat. April 7, 2007 rally at Port headquarters
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/07/18391385.php

Port money for education & social services
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/04/18389074.php

April 7, 2003--a collection of reports on the police attack and the events that followed.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/03/31/18386904.php

What Was Left Untold--by Sri Louise
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/04/07/18137671.php

The Spymaster's Tale
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/04/04/18388598.php