Police Brutality on the docks in Oakland Calif.

by D Tue Apr 08, 2003 19:05

But over enthusiastic editors who are keyboard happy musn't have liked it!
Explanation please ?

by sean otorain - labors militant voice Tue Apr 08, 2003 19:57 loughfinn at aol dot com

Well, it certainly was an interesting and exciting action today.

I'd say some 1000 people rallied at Oakland's port. The original plan
was to try to shut down American President Lines (APL) because they
carry war materiel to the US troops. (There was some concern by one
affinity group that the main materiel they carry is "humanitarian"
stuff - food, medical supplies, etc. They felt that we shouldn't
protest against this. Of course, these "humanitarian" supplies are
not being given to Iraqis.) Semi mass pickets were set up at several
gates, the first one being for truckers who carry the cargo
containers, the other gates for longshore workers and other port
workers.

Basically, all traffic was blocked for several hours by spirited
pickets. A brass marching band certainly helped maintain the mood.
Longshore workers were parked in the middle of the street, unable to
enter. Other port workers were stopped too, some in the middle of the
street, some parked along the sides.

Then the police action started. They formed a line of motorcycles
across the wide street, flanked on either side by cops on foot. They
donned gas masks, got out their weapons and declared the gathering
illegal. Nothing happened, nobody moved.

I was standing talking with some women who worked in the port and
were standing alongside their parked cars. The one woman was telling
me how this protest didn't make any sense to her. I was just getting
ready to explain why we were here, how this government was attacking
workers abroad and at home, when... "boom! boom! boom!" Percussion
grenades were going off all around me. Something was flying by. (It
was wooden bullets I later found out.) People started running down
the street, away from the cops. I went with the crowd and the two
women ducked back into their cars.

The police advanced about 100 feet and stopped.

The crowd slowed, stopped, and regrouped.

There were a series of picket lines at the different entrances along
this broad street. The cops moved methodically, forming their line,
firing and advancing rapidly, stopping, reforming, waiting a few
minutes, firing and advancing again. In this way the broke up one
picket line after another.

Eventually our crowd of a few hundred were forced down this broad
street, past all the entrances to the different port sites, but still
on the port itself. A high fence topped with razor wire lined the
street on either side. The cops slowed their advance, waiting for
longer periods before repeating their charges. Our group also slowed,
but became a bit scattered.

I had our bull horn with me and started calling out to people, urging
them to stay together in one group. People responded to this. We got
further away from the port entrances and I suggested that we all
gather round and decide collectively where to go, what to do from
here. People agreed. We were being forced down a wide street, on
towards 7th street. This is a major thoroughfare for port traffic,
and also possibly a route to return to the port from the other
direction (behind the cops) if we looped around. We agreed to proceed
down to 7th street.

When we got there, an informal picket line had been set up on our
street, but not in the 7th street intersection. Again, using the bull
horn, we got people together and many agreed that we should go out
into the intersection and block all the traffic. At this point, some
of the demonstrators objected that we were only aiming at APL, not
the entire port. However, it was clear that the protest
had spilled over to aim itself at the entire port. We got out and
blocked the intersection.

Finally, the cops arrived again, and started forcing us down 7th
street. Again, we held an impromptu meeting and agreed to regroup
back at the BART parking lot, where we had met originally. Using the
bull horn, we stressed the need to stay together, that if we allowed
a few people to get isolated, that this is how they could get hurt by
the cops. Everybody agreed to this and we had a more or less orderly
retreat.

At the BART parking lot, we got together to decide what we'd do from
here. Two plans were put forward: One was to proceed to the federal
building in downtown Oakland, and the other was to rejoin the one
remaining picket line that we thought still existed at the port. There was a
debate on this. This meeting in some ways reminded me of some of the
mass, open-air meetings we had during the carpenters wildcat, except it
was less disorderly and better organized, A new bit of information was
announced that the last remaining picket line had been dispersed by
the cops and that we would be unable to get back to the port.

I pointed out that there would not be many people at the federal building,
but that just a block or two away was 14 St. and Broadway. This is the major
intersection in downtown Oakland and there are always lots of people
there waiting for various buses. In my view we had a choice of either directing
ourselves to the government officials or to working class Oakland.

Eventually it was to the federal building and a new rally started. The cops blocked
off both ends of the street and a hundred or so protesters marched
around in a circle in the middle of the street, militantly chanting
anti-war slogans. A dozen passers-by watched them, mostly federal
workers who tend to be pretty conservative I have found.

Standing to one side was a young black couple, clearly people
who were in the area for some reason or another. They were
standing alone, off to the side. I went over and asked them what they
thought of all this. They thought it was great. We got into a
conversation about the war, the budget cuts in Oakland, etc. Although
they lived in E. Oakland, they hadn't heard about the march the
previous Saturday. I pointed out that this was the problem, that there was
not enough effort to reach out to ordinary working
people.

Overall, it was a great day. There was a great spirit for
awhile and we met some very good young people. Also, some of the
problems of this growing movement were more clearly revealed.

John Reimann
check our web site: http://laborsmilitantvoice.com