by Laura Love
With the exception of Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Amy Goodman, I now relied mainly on the no frills, unvarnished raw coverage that was being delivered to me daily by the growing cadre of citizen journalists, who, armed only with their cell phones, showed it and told it like it was—unedited, uncompensated, and free of charge for all who wanted to watch and chat.
These were the on air personalities I was putting my faith in as we headed south and eastward toward Laney College. Laura Koch called me, en route, about a tweet she read saying that the OPD was amassing and planning to block us from reaching our final destination. Occupiers monitoring police scanners confirmed that the cops knew where we were going, even as it remained a secret to me. As we approached the campus, I looked to the left and saw, for the first time that day, three dozen riot cops, conspicuously displaying weapons, as well as chemical dispersants and tightly bound reams of plastic handcuffs. The officers told our front line that we were being denied permission to go forward, so our leaders rerouted us over a narrow footbridge to get us wherever we were going. We walked to the far side of the campus and finally ended up on a street which led us alongside Lake Merritt and directly in front of a large ornate building on the left, which is where we stopped.
There, I saw a tall, temporary chain link fence anchored by sandbags, which surrounded the entire property and enclosed hundreds more riot cops, who looked dead serious about keeping us on the outside. It was extremely disheartening to realize that this, the once grand but long vacant Kaiser Convention Center, (formerly known as the Oakland Civic Center) was our destination.
We stared at them. They stared at us. About ten minutes passed before some among us began to cut lengths of fence as others pushed over eight-foot sections and simply walked through. I saw a few riot cops raise their rifles and aim them directly at us, which worried me and others, who began to shout, “We’ve got children, stand down. We are unarmed, and there are children here and old people—Stand Down!” over and over. Then, a smoking projectile landed to my right and exploded, sending frightened onlookers screaming and running down the street. I saw senior citizens in wheelchairs and babies in strollers being frantically removed from the area and down the street, away from the bursts of fire and clouds of smoke. I tried to drive the image from my mind, of one of those “non-lethal” weapons landing in a stroller or the lap of a disabled protester. Some demonstrators left for good after the explosions started, but many, perhaps a thousand or so, stayed to continue trying to enter the Kaiser Building. A chant began circulating that harkened back to the night of November 2, on San Pablo Street, just outside OGP, when I had been arrested. “You’re not sexy/You’re not cute—Take off your fuckin’ Nazi suit.” It seemed like a thousand years had passed since the night I heard the original version from the drunk girl. Since then, there had been a dramatic escalation in the way police dealt with us. Some analysts traced the evolution and pinpointed the change to New Year’s Eve, when President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA permitted the government to interrogate, harass, and indefinitely detain American citizens who were suspected of being terrorists. Most of us activists had been greatly disappointed to learn that we, as practitioners of civil disobedience, could arguably be considered enemies of the state or domestic terrorists, and therefore have the law applied to us. Though Barack Obama had assured the American public that he had no intention of using the law indiscriminately or frivolously, most of us, myself included, felt betrayed, disillusioned, and let down by this president, who many of us had hung so much hope on before the election. Even if he didn’t plan to use the legislation against us, what would happen when his term was over? Who would protect us then? One man pressed his body against the fence as I held my phone overhead to capture the scene. He began furiously imploring me to, “Get that cop, the one right over there. That officer’s pointing his gun right at us. Get him on camera! Get his badge number! Get his name! Get all of ‘em that have their guns up on us. They can’t do that. Hey motherfuckers, we got people in wheelchairs here. We got kids here and old people too. I know you assholes can see ‘em. They’re right here … right in front of your face, pricks! You guys think you’re mighty special don’t you. Yeah, what … now you’re gonna crack open grandma? Good job! Be proud of yourself, jerk!”
Ultimately the tear gas and flashbang grenades did their job and we began filing away from the area, eventually winding up at the Art Museum on Twelfth Street. A row of trees lined the right side, while the entrance to the museum stood on the left. Fifty yards ahead of us stood yet another squad of riot cops, with weapons trained on us. Everywhere we looked, guns were pointed in our faces, which led the schoolgirl Black Bloc Brigade to call an emergency strategy huddle, resulting in the formation of a defensive line directly opposite the army of cops, who were aiming lethal weaponry at us. The impossible courage and naivete of their actions tore me up, as I watched them all begin to kneel down behind the few mils of plastic that separated them from oblivion. Tiny midriffs and pale, exposed derrieres dominated the foreground as the girls crouched in a pathetic formation, a scant few yards in front of an impenetrable wall of kevlar helmets, assault rifles, tear gas shooters, and beanbag launchers that were trained on them. The young ladies had decided it was their duty to get us past the cops and back on track to attempt another approach to the Kaiser Center, from a different angle. Personally, I was scared witless at the very thought of these brutes and their obscene arsenal. Even though I was a good ten feet behind the kids, I judged myself to be in a life-threatening situation, and couldn’t stand the thought of them getting hurt. I do not possess that kind of bravery—I didn’t have a lot of combat experience, but I was making sure to keep a meaty tree trunk between me and the army at all times. What could these children be thinking as they stared down the barrels of all those big guns. A high-pitched voice that sounded like it came from a fifth grader ordered, “Okay … um … Go forward,” to the others who shakily got to their feet and advanced a couple of yards toward the riot squad, who stood there in utter disbelief, as did I. Then, shockingly, the pitifully puny crew crouched down again, as they prepared a second charge, to close the remaining twenty-foot gap that separated them from the squad. I heard one of the girls’ panicked voices crying to the others that they must not stop until they got us past the cops, so we could get back over to the Civic Center. Oh Jesus, I thought, no one here expects them to be taking on the entire police force—no one here is going to hold them personally responsible if we don’t get inside the building. Please, just give up. We’re good, kiddos. It’s all good. Turn around and run. I felt my bowels loosen and my eyes widen to saucers, as I saw them ducking behind their shields one last time, to lunge forward and lead the final surge, straight into a wall of uniforms.
When the gap disappeared, guns and projectiles started going off everywhere as the cops began firing on them and us with everything they had. Pow pow, pop pop pop, kaboom, bang, pow, kaboom, kaboom. Ordnance of every shape and size landed in our midst in an array of sparks and debris, only to screed and whiffle out on the ground before burning our eyes and boxing our ears with painful, lightning bright concussions. A scream escaped my lungs as my knees went weak, and my nose filled with searing smoke. I held my cell phone aloft as I cursed and dodged smoking objects. “It’s a fucking war zone out here. Fuck … Shit … Ahhhhhhhh. I’m scared out of my fucking mind,” I wailed into the camera, as I tried to keep the tree trunk between me and the police. I heard people screaming, “Medic, medic,” frantically, as I saw a young woman lying, unconscious, on the ground ten feet beside me. A group of three lads, who’d crafted a shield of corrugated metal roofing framed by two-by-fours, ran to the aid of the fallen woman, along with a self-appointed medic, who held her hands up to request a temporary ceasefire around the victim. Another half dozen Occupiers formed a protective circle around them, after the kneeling medic placed the shield in front of the girl’s body and tried to assess her injuries. While t
hey were administering aid, police fired tear gas and flash bang grenades directly at them, then started swinging their batons and pulling responders away from the unconscious girl to arrest them. Two of the rescuers ran off, reluctantly, barely missing the swings of the batons, as the rest of the cops sprinted past the remaining assistants, who were now trying to drag the girl away from the paved street and onto the parking strip. I turned and began to flee from the police who were now chasing us all—guns drawn, night sticks flying. They were connecting with as much flesh as possible, and I could hear the crack of wood meeting bone all around me. Those who could not run fast were surrounded, pepper sprayed, and pummeled mercilessly as they tried to block the blows with their arms and legs. I saw women being hit as well as men. I saw an elderly man with white hair staggering, dazed—trying to feel his way through a chemical fog. Medics were running from person to person, holding their faces back and pouring milk of magnesia into burning eyes. I saw young people fleeing, wild-eyed and crying, as they tried to stay one step ahead of the police. I too, was moving as fast as I could, to put as much real estate as possible between me and them. I could see that they were picking off the slow and the weak, and I said so into my camera as I ran. Two men with megaphones were urging calm. “Remain calm. People, please do not run. Running gives them more power,” repeated the black man. The middle-aged white man kept his back turned on the police and his face toward us as he calmly advised, “If we don’t run, they won’t chase us,” over his megaphone. “If we walk calmly ahead of them, they will walk behind us,” he repeated. “They’ll have no reason to arrest us if we don’t …” and just then, a handful of cops burst from their ranks and enveloped him, wrestling him quickly to the ground as his megaphone clattered noisily to the pavement. I was reminded of the opening scene in Space Odyssey, 2001, as he disappeared into the cluster, and I could see nothing more than clubs being raised and lowered where he’d once stood.
They pushed us west on Twelfth Street, for what seemed like miles, but what was probably few more than a dozen blocks. We’d stop briefly for traffic at each intersection, which allowed cops to catch up, then faced off for a few minutes before they charged, beat, and arrested us again. The whole unsavory affair lasted for almost three hours before we were driven back to our point of origin, Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza at City Hall on Fourteenth and Broadway.
By 5:30 p.m., I was reeling from the debacle, which had seemed so unlikely at the outset. Part of me wanted to go back to Laura and Lori’s house, curl up in a ball and go to sleep, while the other wanted to redouble my efforts to revive our commune that had twice been forcibly dismantled, during the Fall. Waves of bedraggled warriors streamed in from Broadway, as Brian’s PA system came into earshot, and a male voice began to congratulate us for surviving and remaining peaceful during the fiasco. “Okay Occupy Oakland … How do you feel? Make some noise out there, people. How do you feel?” An anemic cheer went up and covered the square like a drizzling rain. “I tell you what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna rest. We’re gonna get something to eat. We’re gonna chill for a while. And tonight, we’re going to try it again. Whaddya think Oakland?” Somehow I reached down into the well and found a reserve that had eluded me just seconds before, and I, along with hundreds of others, raised my fist into the air, and yelled, yeah!!!!!!!!!“
Laura and I went to Rudy’s Can’t Fail Cafe, a few blocks away on Webster, to get some comfort food and a quick partial charge on our phones. Minutes of silence would pass before one of us would blurt out what we both were thinking. “Can you believe the shit they used on us today?” I said, every five minutes or so, shaking my head. “I’m gonna have to get a big ass hunk of coconut cream pie, with whip cream slathered all over it, to make some of that bullshit go away,” I mused. “Um hum, you sure are girlfriend. I’m a fucking vegan and I’m gonna have to order me some bacon àla mode just to get the taste of tear gas out of my mouth,” she shot back. We laughed, but I knew we were both apprehensive about what was in store for us. As it turns out our fears were well founded.
Just after we paid our bill, Laura checked her messages and saw that there was an #OO Twitter alert informing us that our party was leaving right then from OGP. We were going again, to try to Occupy another building that had been selected as Plan B. We walked a few blocks north on Broadway, and then turned west on Eighteenth, to pause for a moment in front of a medium sized building, as some of us tried to calculate our chances of getting in through the partially blocked front door. Inside were some painters, who, while exceptionally friendly, asked us not to come in. We didn’t want to cause them any trouble or get them fired, especially since some looked as if they may have been undocumented workers, so we moved northwest toward the intersection of Nineteenth and Telegraph, adjacent to the Heroes for Humanity sculpture, where we’d previously tried to relocate the encampment back in November. As I looked in all four directions, I saw van loads of riot police unloading to cut us off. There were so many of them with different colored uniforms on, that I was sure that there had been a “mutual aid” arrangement made between them, where different law enforcement agencies collude to provide overwhelming force to put down insurrections, such as this. It was nearing seven o’clock when we got to the statues, and encountered police blockades from all sides. The only place I didn’t see law enforcement stationed was on the east side, where a long chain-link fence already served to deny us egress. At that time there were probably six hundred of us, while there looked, to me, to be about two or three hundred cops. We had been spread out earlier, but now I could feel the police herding us closer together and trapping us in a tightening group among the statues. Déjà vu gripped me as an officer with a bullhorn began barking out the order to disperse. He gave the familiar spiel that we were unlawfully assembled in an area that had been declared illegal or off limits, and that we must leave or be subject to arrest. I hadn’t seen Laura Koch in a while, and hoped she was okay as the ligature surrounding us got tighter. As a condition of attending J28, I’d promised my family that I would be home the next day, and that I would not get arrested again, as I had on November 2. It was critical that I be there to help one of my co-moms, Pam, at the Wenatchee hospital for her third hip replacement in four years. The “metal on metal” artificial hips she’d received were poisoning her and causing her to be terribly ill. Fragments were sloughing off into her body every time she walked, causing her cobalt levels to spike to damaging levels that were killing the surrounding bone and muscle tissue, as well as making her heart beat irregularly and her thyroid malfunction. She’d complained of feeling deathly sick most of the time after the second operation, and I’d seen her quietly crying on the sofa some nights, after especially difficult days. I promised I would stay by her side during her latest hospital stay, so that I could make sure she was receiving proper care and her needs were being met. I couldn’t leave her there alone, knowing how reluctant she was to disturb anyone and ask for help. And it was hard for me to completely trust surgeons after I learned that the corporations who manufactured the joints were still paying some medical professionals huge sums to install them, regardless of the fact that many recipients were experiencing a host of symptoms ranging from severe allergic reactions to complete rejection by the body, which manifested itself in the form of fluid and tissue buildup against the artificial joints which, as in Pam’s case, eroded and generally ate away and dissolved the once healthy bones (femur, pelvis, trocanter) surrounding the implant. Her latest x-ray showed that she was in danger of breaking a hip doing something as innocuous as walking down the road. To make matters worse, I also read that a few extreme cases had required heart transplants to replace organs so damaged by the metal that they’d not have survived otherwise. It gave me pause to hear her surgeon confess that that he was baffled as to why the hip had failed, but believed the manufacturer “was a good corporation,” and that, even though I voiced my doubts about their innocence, he didn’t think that anyone would “knowingly put out a bad product,�
� and that he’d often seen “good companies that made good products, like breast implant manufacturers,” be brought down by “hysterical, misinformed consumers, who merely thought they were experiencing symptoms based on overblown rumors.” I liked her doctor otherwise, but was unsettled by his opinions about breast implant patient claims. I didn’t elaborate my concerns, but I’d actually read a Seattle Times story the week before that speculated that so many of these hips were failing and causing permanent disability and even possibly death, that the entire Medicare and Medicaid industries might be forced to radically restructure if the true enormity of the problem came to light. The story went on to describe the experience of a man who’d received a hip, begun to feel extreme discomfort, had it removed, and then found that his body was rejecting the new one as well. In order to save the man’s life, the surgeons had had to remove the replacement hip, leaving him jointless, in constant pain, and permanently unable to walk or do virtually anything but lie in bed in agony. Needless to say, I was worried that things wouldn’t go well, and I knew that my presence was critical during her hospitalization. To further complicate things, Pam had developed a severe allergy to all the standard opioid painkillers during her last surgery, and had even “coded,” (her heart stopped) while a local anaesthetic was administered during her last round of diagnostic tests to figure out why she was so sick all the time. The only drug she could safely take to manage excruciating pain was ibuprofen. There was no question that I had to be there for this latest operation.