Less than a day after a police
raid evicted the Occupy SF encampment from Justin Herman Plaza, occupiers
returned and resumed their occupation. The police raid and subsequent return of
the occupiers followed a national day of action to occupy foreclosed homes.
The Dec. 7 police raid is only the
latest of a series of attack on the camp. On the afternoon of Dec. 1, the SFPD set
up barricades around Justin Herman Plaza signaling a possible raid. Protesters responded
by occupying Market Street, the main thoroughfare through downtown San
Francisco. The cops, diverted to Market Street, made it possible for some of
the occupiers to take down the barricades, some of which were turned into a
sculpture in the middle of the encampment. Police gratuitously injured one woman
that day, leaving her with an open knee wound that required stitching at the
hospital.
The early morning of Dec. 7 was
cold, in the low 40s. By one o’clock in the morning, there were very few people
out on the streets. The police used this opportunity to assemble a relatively
small but well-armed force surrounding the camp. They warned protesters that
they had only five minutes to clear all of their possessions from Justin Herman
Plaza or they would be arrested.
Many in the camp, instead of
removing their belongings, began occupying Market Street. The cops turned to a
tactic known as kettling, surrounding the protesters on Market Street until they
arrested them one by one. Seventy protesters were arrested, including one man
who was run over by a police motorcycle and hauled off to jail after receiving brief
and insufficient care at a hospital.
The cops stated they will keep the
protesters tents as “evidence.” One 51-year-old occupier claims the raid left
him without his medicine and social security documents.
By noon, Justin Herman Plaza,
cleared of protesters, had been completely surrounded by cops in riot gear. Signs
proclaimed that the park was closed to the public “for renovations,” even
though anyone present could see that the plaza had been left spotless by the
occupiers.
At 12:30 p.m., an emergency
general assembly was held at the intersection of Market and Spear streets. The
ANSWER Coalition provided the sound system for the emergency action.
At 1:30 p.m., the crowd marched to
Justin Herman Plaza to confront the cops who had invaded their encampment. The
cops would run, in unison to block entry to the plaza at any one point the
marchers approached. One of the pretexts fabricated by police to forcibly evict
Occupy camps is that the camps were unsanitary, yet large piles of excrement from
police horses were on the ground. The crowd ordered the indifferent cops to
clean up after their animals.
Several hundred people, including
this reporter, returned at 6 p.m. Occupiers
marched from the Federal Reserve building to Justin Herman Plaza. The crowd
re-entered the park with ease despite the police presence, but cops rushed in
pushing people out of the park and onto the sidewalk. The police surrounded the
plaza and the few occupiers who managed to hold their ground. The rest of the protesters
in turn surrounded the cops, locking arms to form a human fence around the
police.
At about 7 p.m., a young African American
man stood between the human fence and the cops and held up a cardboard sign
comparing the controversial bill SB 1867, which would indefinitely suspend habeas corpus, to the police state envisioned in George Orwell’s “1984.” Ironically,
two cops emerged from behind the others to drag him down three concrete steps. They
handcuffed him and stripped him of his jacket, although the temperature was in
the 40s. He lay there weeping in pain, his face down in the dirt, as cops stood
over him laughing.
Although the brutalized man was
heard crying, “I can’t take the pain!” the cops would not call an ambulance and
even refused to let a long-time occupier who is also a registered nurse attend
to him. Eventually, a PSL member took the mic and demanded that the cops
provide him with care, reminding them that the whole crowd knew the names and
badge numbers of the cops who had assaulted the man.
Thirty minutes later, an ambulance
finally arrived, though in a bizarre move, the cops initially refused to let
even the San Francisco Fire Department through to attend to the injured man. The
cops told the crowd that while, they claimed, they had the right to arrest them
all, they would arrest no one if everyone left immediately. The crowd rejected
this “offer” and decided to hold a General Assembly next to the surrounded
plaza.
As the crowd began peacefully
moving to the cop-free northern portion of the park, the police attacked
another man, dragging him past the police line. A battalion of motorcycle cops drove
into the northern portion of the park and appeared ready to charge the crowd.
In response to these provocations,
a group of the occupiers confiscated the cops’ barricades and set them up in
front of the motorcycle battalion. This clearly rattled the cops, who then
drove off on their bikes.
The crowd was now empowered and
they started charging the Plaza in great numbers. The cops made a full retreat.
The camp was retaken, tents were set up, and a long and jubilant General
Assembly was held.
For the time
being, at least, Justin Herman Plaza is ruled by the 99%, not the police
apparatus of the 1%.
