Arcata Housing Encampment Raided by Police!

Are you sure absolutely sure about the tazering? There were at least five digital cameras and three videos within 20 feet of the action. There were probabaly 100 photos taken during that activist's arrest at different angles.
So far, nobody's come up with an image of a tazer being deployed. The non-lethal "tazer" equipment APD requires an officer to fire two wires at a suspect from a distance. He was "in hand" throughout the arrest. If APD fired some kind of secret electronic device, like a miniature cattle prod, they'd not want to be holding on, getting zapped.
As far as injuries incurred by the arrest, he was released shortly after arriving at the hospital.

The police gave the people 4 hours to leave, and they chose not to. They were in violation of the law. Plain and simple.

Eye Editorial: The Pointless Project – May 1, 2007

Every town must have a place where phony hippies meet
Psychedelic dungeons popping up on every street
– Frank Zappa, “Who Needs the Peace Corps?”



It’s a mistake to call the People Project’s latest fascistic, community-trashing initiative a “hippie camp.” For one, it isn’t fair to hippies.

The Flower Children, unlike this bunch, at least had a sense of style, a daffy idealism and some all-redeeming artistic productivity. We got some decent music out of that bunch, much of which is now being used to sell insurance, cars, athletic shoes and other fine products.

In contrast, the Orwellian-monikered “People Project” (PP) that squatted up public parks last week manufactures only self-righteousness and surly attitude, but mostly, a sense of entitlement large enough to blot out the sun. (After inviting the public to their “Dignity Village,” participants waxed indignant at curious questions, and said their consent was required for photography in D Street Linear Park. Friday afternoon, a news photographer who had been chatting amicably with a protester was interrupted and directed by one of the higher-ups in the People Project to leave City Hall's front lawn so that she could feel "comfortable.")

First, they aren’t serious. PP has made no formal proposal for the campground they’re supposedly demanding. No location, funding or management plan has been proposed. They offer nothing to work with other than slogans and admonitions.

The People Project’s half-assed lies are as dense as their proposals are vapid. In PP land, the police are all thugs, the City Council oppressors and the news media complicit. It has to be that way for them, because then they’re positioned as the valiant freedom-fighters.

Every institution is drafted as a character in their morality play, with virtually all non-cast members playing villains. Not since the Bush Administration has an outfit been so eager to pretzelize reality to justify conflict.

One arrestee in the Wednesday incident was immediately reported by an “indymedia” rad-website as having been tased by police. Ah, more memes. That’ll help. By the time the folklore machine is done with this story, the police will have been clubbing the group like baby seals. We've since read accounts by PP supporters that the police were "violent." Since there were dozens of cameras of every description at the site, we eagerly await hard evidence of any brutality. What we really see here is desperate post-event distortion to make it fit PP's rigid ideology.

In fact, the APD-directed multi-agency police effort showed monumental reserve in peacefully managing a volatile situation involving a mass of very excited people. The PP folks tried as best they could to ratchet up tensions, and flirted with inciting a violent brawl or even a riot. It’s unconscionable that public employees were exposed to potential injury for such a frivolous purpose.

The conclusion independently reached by many observers was that the “activists” wanted a confrontation, lawsuit and fatty settlement. Last time the City cleaned up a trashed campground – “Camp Aerial” at the Marsh, one camper sent the City a bill for $4,960. (It wasn’t paid.)

One of the asinine devices the PP uses to prop up their premise is a penchant for non sequiturs which may just be a refusal to process linear thought. Ask for a solid, specific proposal for the perma-camp they ostensibly want, and you might get a lecture on Bush, global warming, journalistic practices or, often as not, a repurposed Biblical parable of dubious applicability.

PP well knows it can work rich veins of compassion and guilt in Arcata, a place where extreme behavior is indulged as in few other places and the police won’t blow your head off for it. But note the utter lack of participation in PP by genuine housing activists, progressive political leaders or anyone else with any record of accomplishment.

Arcata is the most dynamically democratic town imaginable. Citizen committees guide all manner of political, economic and environmental issues (with more to come, such as a Youth Commission and possible Public Safety Committee), and get results. But that’s too quaint for PP dogma.

PP doesn’t bother with the tools the citizens have established for actually accomplishing things. Nor does it respect the laws our town’s people have approved, such as those regulating camping and dogs.

Those who are serious about improving matters put in the hours at City Hall meetings to get community projects done – not lolling around on its front lawn.

Taking over public spaces and saying who can and can’t be there based on looks and profession - that’s peaceful? Respectful? Welcome to dingbat dystopia.

Serious people are working on the homelessness problem (see page 1), rather than flipping off cops, rolling cigarettes and likening themselves to Jesus. The City has invested huge financial and personnel resources in addressing homelessness, and efforts continue at many levels. This is a tough one, folks. For PP, it’s a good reason for a party.

Were our elected leaders to ever dismantle Arcata’s striving efforts to provide housing and shelter, not only would the state go after the City, but the voters would throw the City Council out on its ear, probably in a special election. Is there a more liberal, open town in Humboldt County? The USA? PP jams their bogus construct onto Arcata and it looks like Pete in a Darth Vader suit.

Sadly, PP’s malignant activities besmirch Arcata’s image. To those skeptical of our free-thinking town, the hysterical PP, as seen on TV, is all of us. Arcata is the place weirdos go. Well, we do gain a lot from that phenomenon, so maybe we just have to suffer the exploiters along with the more productive eccentrics and iconoclasts.

Take heart, Arcata. That’s what will carry us through the predations of the odious People Project and its pointless violence on our collective psyche. Every day, we strange, wonderful, Arcatans – the ones who can – go out, serve their fellow citizens, create wealth and contribute energy to our wonderful local institutions. They teach school, build furniture, make art, fill cavities, bake bread, run cash registers, care for those in need, cut lawns, answer phones and make community.

Sometimes we have to step around grifters who spout political dogma and divisive demagogy. So? Living that way in Arcata is still better than not having to do so just about anywhere else.

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck the security guards!