Occupy: One Year Gone, Part II

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Here is the second of three installments.

The flash point happened when a hundred people or so began to file out of the park, all passing the police at the gate in a hurry. I immediately snapped out of the trance of beating drums and ran to the front. Finally some action, in a day that seemed to be lacking a clear story.

Jill didn’t really pan out. There were no huge marches starring Tom Morello. But it was 3:45 p.m. and the stock market was just closing, and apparently a People’s Wall was in order.

For the sake of the argument, I was not participating, per se, in Occupy that day. That’s not to say I haven’t shouted and chanted many times before, but today I was particularly looking to track down a genuine story and not mingle too much.

So I was attempting to get some good photos of the front of this march, on which future friends held a banner, “This is the Threat of a Good Example.” There walked a man swaddled in an American flag, the one with the corporate logos as the stars. After being immediately redirected away from Wall Street, the march went up Broadway. I’ve seen detours made many times before, and would think it’s probably very amusing to the officers in the helicopters high above the canyons of the financial district. And in the same way, I’ve also seen police carry out large strategies that deceive those sincerely trying to leave an area, and round up many dozens at once. What happened next completely caught me off guard, and seemed almost unavoidably oppressive.

As we continued to march, I was forced onto the sidewalk with everyone, and we turned the corner onto Cortland Street, towards the World Trade Center. Now a white shirted cop (a lieutenant or captain) was standing in the street with others following behind him screaming into a bullhorn, “You’re blocking pedestrian traffic!” It hardly seemed like a warning, in fact it was hilarious. What pedestrian traffic? Anyone that wants to get anywhere near this train is already on it, and more were still jumping on the back. Now it was barreling down Cortland and there were seven white shirts with at least double that in blue shirts following behind – that always seems to be the ratio. I became more aware that there was going to be a control method used, so I kept my ears open for the inevitable, “This is your first warning, if you remain here you will be arrested!” Never came.

I’m jumping off and onto the sidewalk, trying to get an angle on whatever is to come, and we’re approaching the corner. It seems assumed that we will have to turn left and make a big tour around in order to set up this People’s Wall.

Within a matter of seconds, a girl, let’s call her Red (she had red hair), is bustling to get around the corner. The seven or so white-shirted officers form a parallel wall to the march, and whip around 270 degrees, the outside officer blindsiding Red and checking her backwards, both elbows out. This is a man of at least 50, and he is a silver backed gorilla, throwing a brick wall into a girl no older than myself.

Her flailing, reacting, stumbling backwards resembles resistance to this savage, and so he pushes her to the ground. Then two other officers, of the same inbred species, begin to beat her. When she’s pushed to the ground she’s met with swift blows about the body and to the head. In about 10 seconds she is pulled from at every limb and hit with either a fist or an elbow about four times. And then the real swine of them all, pulls out his compensation for something major in his life, and whips her across the stomach and back with it twice, before it gets real messy.

This point in time is the worst stain on my mind, I don’t know how it could ever fade. It is the second where I’m balancing on the curb as this all overflows into the street, and I have to stop and think about what to do. I’ve never been in this situation before. Let me stop and analyze my history with Occupy, my history as a member of society, and decide on what to do. Oh, the ego on me. I distinctly remember looking towards the corner of my eye away from the disgusting scene, and thinking to myself that I could walk away and I would be fine. Looking back on the moment where I would have surrendered myself desensitized, it literally makes me sick and my mind begins to get dark if I think about for more than just a couple seconds…

Deafening shouting from behind, blue-shirted officers coming from the side, my camera just dangling from my neck as I indulge my ego, and there’s a line I can cross over. Over that very grey line, which everyone knows is there, probably means jail time. It puts you in with a different group of people, which maybe you didn’t want to become part of just today. On the other side of that line though, is a helpless girl which just makes you think of any girl you’ve ever cared for, ‘cause you don’t even know her, and she’s being brutally, inhumanly assaulted – and for what? Having a reaction to being checked like an NHL player without padding, by someone who isn’t afraid to make an example out of you?

So I did what I honestly think most people would do, and tried to jump in there and help her somehow. In retrospect, was anyone who jumped in there really going to do anything? No. Because they have guns and tasers, and most in the crowd really do believe in nonviolence, in all cases. But myself and another guy, let’s call him Ari, tried to make an attempt at getting her out of that mess, or at the very least deflect some of those blows, which were still being delivered by the way. Neither of those things was really accomplished. I got in and covered her, grabbed at her leg and began to pull her away, and was welcomed with an unforeseen punch in the eye, elbow to the temple, and billy club to the arm. I wouldn’t even begin to think about trying to glorify any of that, mostly because I felt so numb throughout all of it, like I was watching myself do it. And before I could even stop and think about it I was thrown into the street. The video picks up around this point. The two in the front, the guy and girl, go through a similar situation, and while that is incredibly aggressive and violent, it is not really comparable to what had just happened in the background. You can hear Red’s blood-curdling scream, and that is when I wake up in the middle of the street. What on earth had just happened? They all just went in there like that, and sort of reinforced each other’s behavior in the most violent way. You can watch it on TV, on YouTube, or from 25 feet away, all of which I’ve done before, but to see it fall together like that and wonder how any of those officers can sleep at night, or kiss their daughters, it really makes me sick. Nothing sounds like the way she was struggling to exhale and scream after being struck with a billy club, nothing.

The point in telling such details is that this will happen over and over, again and again. This subject cannot be marginalized any longer though. It has become too taboo to denounce the NYPD, and nobody wants to be that person. But it’s not really about the NYPD as an institution, it’s about the relations of power that hold it together, and who they answer to. Everyone now knows who they answer to, and who are the thugs in the group. Bloomberg describes them as his own “private army…. the seventh biggest in the world,” and they have received multimillion dollar donations from the likes of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, just as a reminder of the hand that feeds them. So this story isn’t meant to denounce the police as a whole, or to paint any broad strokes. It is particularly those relations of power that become obvious in these situations, and deserve discussion.

What is obvious is the lack of transparency and accountability within the police force, leading one to immediately question the true role of the police force in society today. But how does one create change in such an environment? What do you do when protesting against these situations, and can any agreement be negotiated? The NYPD Sergeants Benevolent Association acts as an extremely top-down union for nearly 5,000 members, and as of last fall, had vowed to sue Occupy protesters for violence against their officers. Maybe strategies of more independent reporting, a bigger campaign or change in rhetoric from Occupy against police brutality or civil violence, or more objective oversight of all major department’s methodologies and tendencies for abhorrence from lawful behavior. Even still, Commissioner Raymond Kelly, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and many others have deep ties on Wall Street, with many officers working as private security when off duty. Some within Occupy are committed to bridging this gap, while others see the conflict of interest and have unfortunately given up on any possible reform.

Either way, I was pulled down the street a bit, all while contesting that I wasn’t resisting, and was picked up and told to put my hands behind my back by a female blue-shirted officer. She had nothing to do with what just went on, and had a steel glaze over her eyes. In fact, I noticed that there were a number of what looked like rookies, who seemed like they were just trying to go with the situation and not question anything. Telling themselves, “This is how it goes, this is what happens to people like that,” just like the officer who decided to pull out his club on Red. She wasn’t giving me any straight answers on my charge or if I was even under arrest, until she got the sign, answered, “Yes,” and dragged me towards the police truck as my shoes were falling off. My things were falling all over the place, and luckily my camera remained intact. I managed to get it all in the back of that truck and began to accept what was happening.

In the truck are the faces that I saw in a blur at the front of the march: Ari, Red, Boots, and Arrow. (Boots and Arrow can be clearly identified in the video as the two being arrested in front.). We all have the flex cuffs on, and some are a lot tighter than others, especially it appears, those who had been hurt the worst. I start to try and get to know Red, and maybe get her side of things. As quickly as we start talking though, Ari reminds us that it is probably not in our best interest to discuss our collective experiences, especially since our “arresting officers” were standing right outside the truck, and our charges were likely still up in the air. He had done this more than a few times before. These arresting officers, again, were different people from those that cuffed us, once more removed from those whose who assaulted us.

As Red begins to show us the bruise on her side from the club, which has already turned a terrible greenish-brown, the two arresting blue shirts get in the truck with us and close the doors. They sit at the front of the vehicle, and so we can still whisper to each other. One of the officers, Thomas, notices the girls checking their phones and calls us all out on it. There goes communication for the afternoon, or night… how long was I going to be in there? That was a good question. Ari had said that he’s been released at any time of the day or night. 2am, midnight, noon the next day… We really wouldn’t know until we were able to see the situation inside the precinct, and even then it was unnerving to try and gauge. We arrived at the first precinct in just a few minutes, and approached the tall chain-linked gates. The truck backed into the gates as they opened, and we were unloaded from the back.

We were put in a line, spaced out next to each other, and given the first light search. An officer made a comment to me about why I was doing this (what was this?), and I began to respond vaguely about social inequality and trying to squeeze a story out of the day. He laughed and Boots kicked me, and shook her head as she gazed at the ground. The ongoing theme of the afternoon was knowing what not to do, and knowing the right things to say and when to say them. Without any of that knowledge, you would surely be taken advantage of on many fronts. Did I have any marijuana or weapons? No, not today, but when an officer would find anything closely resembling contraband, they were at my throat. I’m then brought to a table for a second, more thorough search, and hassled in the same way. The worst part is having to suck up to these bastards, and in doing so rationalize their odious actions that got you here in the first place. This was not criminal activity any of us were engaging in here, but it didn’t matter, they just looked right through us.

The only one who had a hint of a soul left was Thomas, the officer from the truck, who was a younger black man, pretty pudgy. I only say that because he was the only one who would try to help me out throughout the day. With every other officer it seemed I was on my own. In the chaos that is processing in the first precinct, he helped keep my many things together, as well as gave the most minor charge possible. I shouldn’t really be thanking him for that, but you see where I’m going with this. Like I said before, it’s not all broad strokes and cowboys and Indians. There just happens to be this giant suckhole of power headed straight for the top of the pyramid, and the hierarchy of the police order, influence inherent in the mass media, and representative politics all get dragged right through it, as if by some unnatural confluence of interests. Yet it’s a produced lifestyle, meant to be thought of as normal, when events like that day’s can so clearly expose its alienness for it brutal, horrifying truth.

When I’m actually brought into the building, my belt and ID are confiscated, and I’m put in a small cell for just a couple minutes. After that, it’s over to the main lobby, where I received yet another search, just in case. I then stand around for five or 10 minutes, and watch the large room to the left, completely transparent but well soundproofed. There are about 50 men in there, some boys, and the diversity is staggering. Priests and veterans, ages 16 to 92, all colors and associations, and the characters in there… sometimes were too much. But honestly I was grateful to be amongst such a crowd of misfits. At least they weren’t drunks or junkies or actual criminals.

As I tried to wrap my head around a story that was hopefully ending sometime in the near future, I noticed how together the group remained. Any part of Occupy is a microcosm of the whole, and that is why being a horizontal movement is so important. That is not to say that this really is a leaderless movement, even though that is what Occupy Wall Street’s website says. It becomes obvious that the structure is so to facilitate leaders of every stripe, so that there aren’t any advantages of power. While I should repeat that prefigurative politics can be very slow at times, situations like this keep everyone in the right frame of mind. The more experienced and knowledgeable of the group would occasionally stand up on a bench, give the standard mic check, and proceed to deliver a briefing on what retina scans were and how to deny consent, or just a general briefing about what the usual process is for release, for any newcomers. Some, particularly the oldest and youngest of the crowd, got up to make inspirational speeches about the day. As the sixteen-year-old was being released, he got up and said something to the effect of, “They can lock me up, and tell me that it is wrong, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do it again!” And he was met with a roaring applause as two officers walked him and his friend out.

As I was being released, Boots was escorted into the lobby too. All but Red were being released together from our arresting group, which was bittersweet. We were given our phones, IDs, and belts, read our charges and court dates, and sent outside to get our things. We all received disorderly conduct. I’m assuming Red received at least another charge of resisting arrest, which would explain her longer stay. I expected to be released to the cold city breezes of the late night, and instead was met by Occupy Jail Support just down the sidewalk. They made sure I was doing alright, and I hugged my new friends goodbye, telling them that if I ever see them again they would know it. I began to walk uptown, and was finally able to draw an end to this 15-hour story repeating in my head. It was a tough one to swallow, but at least I had something.