MIAMI: Giving Hospitality Under Siege.

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Friday December 05, 2003 06:56 by marco - mke indymedia

It was Thursday the week of FTAA protests in Miami and if
the clocks didn't strike thirteen they sure should've.

It was Thursday the week of FTAA protests in Miami and if
the clocks didn't strike thirteen they sure should've.

Armored Personnel Carriers patrolled the streets day and
night, but more important to the corporate media was that
Phil Spector was being charged with killing an actress, and
Michael Jackson was being charged with molesting a child.
How many APC's had the Miami police bought up to use against
us? We were able to confirm at least two in the streets at
all times. I guess breaking Posse Comitatus to use military
violence against thousands of citizens is just not as
compelling as what rock stars do to their friends and
associates.

Was it three in the afternoon? I've lost track of time
really. It was all so surreal. A handful of us were given
hospitality by a nonprofit on the 200 block of Miami Street
which was very close to all the action. Upstairs and to
the back, a few of us took turns editing any video people
would drop off with us. Downstairs looked like offices of
your normal average local nonprofit org. We could literally
run in, unload some footage, and run back into the streets
to get more, and there were people inside who could take
the footage upstairs and hand it over to those of us who
would begin editing and uploading right away.

We'd set up a few of our own personal computers up there
on our hosts' DSL, so IMCistas and assorted other independent
journalists alike could all pitch in.

Perhaps our biggest "coup" that afternoon using this setup
was video of someone using a pair of pliers to pull tazer wire
out of a woman's left breast.

http://ftaaimc.org/images/2003/11/2545.jpg

This footage was already online by the time Police Chief
Timoney was telling the corporate media that no one would
be using Tazers for the entire protest "because they're too
dangerous."


http://ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/2300.shtml
http://ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/2531.shtml

We also managed to upload pictures of undercover police dressed
like protesters, except that their tazers or other sidearms were
poking out from under their t-shirts at times.

http://ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/1190.shtml
http://ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/1849.shtml
http://ftaaimc.org/en/2003/11/2258.shtml

And contraband? This place was just perfect for taking stills
of rubber bullets, marbles and oversized shotgun shells that
law enforcement was launching at us, thanks to the extra 8.5
million dollar "shot in the arm" Chief Timoney managed to hijack
from Congress. In case you didn't know it, someone attached a
clause to the 87-billion-to-Iraq-bill which freed up over
eight million for the police chief to buy ballistics, batons
and body armor, however he saw fit.

We soon found out that our little video editing hovel could also
serve perfect refuge for people forced to disperse knowing that
their very dispersal attempts would cause them to be singled out
for arrest, as we'd seen time and time again earlier that day.
This very scene played out again on our street. Everyone outside
flooded into the storefront. We didn't know it, but our space was
the only safelooking spot within walking distance at that moment.

Suddenly on both our street corners were riot cops standing
5-8 thick. Our stop sign had an APC parked at it with two
patrolmen atop sticking out holding what looked like M16's
carrying live ammunition.

50-60 people flooded into our space. Come on in, we obliged,
behind everyone filing in, we could see that the shoe store
across the street was being raided. We all went upstairs to
the back room and hid. Someone turned the lights off downstairs.
We feared we might get raided next. I remember joking to lighten
things up a bit. One joke which was probably way too morbid for
its own good was that I suddenly felt like little Anne Frank,
although I'm only half jewish. People laughed nervously. Some
smiles, mostly scared looking tension was all around us.

In the 2-3 hours we hid inside we held emergency IMC video team
meetings. How to stow equipment for surviving confiscation, where
to smuggle video footage on our person if it comes down to that,
how to ask corporate media people to help on almost no notice.
(the non-embedded ones of course...)

Many details needed our attention and action immediately -- it
might be too late already. We couldn't know, it was a horrible
feeling, I'll never forget it.

We weren't aware, but the wider picture outside was that of
riot cops pushing their hardest with everything they had
trying to drive everyone 18 more blocks past us deeper into
the hood where they were planning an all-out "non-lethal" blood
bath. I'm told people in the hood tried to come out of their
homes and help the protesters, but were driven back by the same
police-state repression, but with the additional sinister aspect
I must describe.


Corporate reporters who were already cowed by a process the Miami
put them through called embedding, (adopted from the Iraq war) were
forced to train their cameras AWAY from the local citizens, and back
onto the protesters being brutalized. We're waiting for home video
that might confirm all of the anecdotal stories that flooded in the
following two days.

But I digress, that was all whizzing by us while we were hiding
upstairs in a darkened room.

Hours later things calmed down a bit but people with heavy
artillery were still patrolling our street. Three of us took
turns going downstairs and peeking outside to sense the climate.
As soon as we felt somewhat safe, we decided we could allow
those who wished to leave to pair up in 2's or 3's at most and
leave a group at a time alternating which street they walked
along. We were afraid that a mass migration out our front door
might cause everyone to be massarrested and hurt really badly.

It worked.

We were amazed, relieved, and entirely too thrilled for any of
our own comfort levels.

You know what amazes me the most specifically about Miami - but
also about this evolving police state in general?

The radicallizing effect it has on people who are just walking
down the street trying to ask a cop how they can best get AROUND
the protests. Many of the people who flooded into our building
didn't know what Indymedia was, and some were not even part of
the protests. They were for the most part, innocent bystanders
or passersby caught up in what can only be described as Chief
Timoney's version of "street sweeps."

A couple hours in jail seldom makes them fear any of us protesters
nearly as much as these goons decked out in all the body armor
that was SUPPOSED to go protect troops in Iraq.