Yet another camera with a photographer and a blog

(background on how I ended up here – This is fairly focused on things from the security perspective. In large part, because that’s how I was there, and that’s where my brain was much of the night. I think had I gone there as a participant, I would’ve had a different experience of it).

I got to the rally site at a little after 3pm. Music was already playing, and people were already beginning to gather and mill around. I saw police officers, usually in pairs, mostly just standing around, they seemed relaxed for the most part (which I took to be a good, hopeful sign). I checked in, passed off the radios to organizer types so they could be put to best use, and went over to the staging area for security.

We broke up into our individual teams, getting our assignments for the two rally points, and the marches in between them. Our group was ‘team 6′, and we were going to be the front line for the two marches (to and from the DA’s office). We were to provide the line that the march walked behind, setting pace, and hopefully keeping things from rushing/surging.

We were going to have both motorcycles and the oakland scraper bikes along with us at the front of the line.

The rally began, with multiple speakers at city hall. We took up our position at the edge of the park, on the corner of 14th and broadway, and waited for the call that the march was going to begin. There were multiple introductions around our team, with me having my usual problems with names/faces – but it was good, relaxing. Some of our team members wandered back and forth between us and the park, wanting to hear the people who were speaking since we were far enough out that from where we were, the speakers sounded like a bad charlie brown episode.

Finally, we’re told that the march is about to begin. We’re given some last minute instructions, and line up across 14th, on the other side of broad way. The scrapers and motorcycles start doing their thing behind us. As the crowd of people started moving from the green towards us, a group of about a dozen motorcycle cops came loudly down 14th, through our line, and continuing on down towards the DA’s office, where our route was taking us.

The march down 14th was mostly uneventful. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of chanting, sometimes the front moved too fast, and we had to slow down, if not stop, to allow the rest of the crowd to catch up. People were angry, but focused. Yes, the officer involved had been arrested, but a trial/conviction wasn’t the only thing we wanted. Bart police effectively operate without any civilian oversight, unlike other police organizations. People wanted change. They also wanted change, not just with the Bart PD, but also with Oakland PD, which itself has some history as well.

We saw some police along the sidewalks and in intersections during the march, but not a whole lot. Finally, we get down to oak, and turn towards the DA’s office. Originally, we had been told there was going to be a stage right in front of the doors to the office, and we were going to take up a line between the state and the entrance to the building.

When we got there, the arrangement had been changed a little bit. The stage had been moved to crossing oak street itself, but we were still going to take up the line in front of the DA’s office, leading the march there. Where there was a line of about a dozen police in riot gear standing ready.

I don’t know how long the next bit was, my sense of time was thrown a bit. I just know that behind me, we had the cops in riot gear, stone faced and tense. In front of me, was a crowd of justifiably angry people, angry not only at the shooting of Oscar Grant, but at the other shootings that have happened over the years at the hands of Oakland PD. Angry at a society which still does a suck job of treating them as equals. Angry at a city government which seems to ignore them. Angry. And shouting. And pushing.

I remember feeling some sense of relief when things started on the stage, and the crowd backed off from us, and headed towards the stage. We kept our line where we were. Once again, I didn’t hear much of the speakers, a combination of our distance from the stage, and also because I found my focus to be on the crowd. I was constantly watching. Looking for anything that might possibly set the cops behind me off. Don’t ask me what I was looking for, I’m not sure I knew exactly, but I hoped I would when I saw it – since I wasn’t convinced that we would be the first in line if/when the police moved in. To say that things were tense would be, well, a police understatement.

After a while, we got the word that we were to line back up in the street, as we were, once again, going to be the head of the march, this time back towards city hall. We lined up behind the crowd, which was still focused on the stage, and the speakers there. This time, our line was bolstered by people who had come from the labor unions to help out with security.

While we were standing there, lined up, waiting for the program on stage to finish and the march back to begin. A small marching band type assembly was tuning up in front of us, getting ready to lead us back. I saw news organizations film the event, their vans with the dishes rasied high in the air. I saw police officers, mostly uniformed, some in suits, casually standing around and watching. Some of them had cameras, video and still.

And then I saw them. Down 13th, towards the waterfront. A large group of riot police, waiting. They were staying mostly out of sight, probably to avoid drawing attention to themselves, and probably to avoid riling up the crowd, but they were definitely there – and again, our line of people were who they would have to go through first to get to the crowd if something went wrong.

The speakers wrapped up, and we began our march back towards city hall. There was a different charge in the air walking back. Almost an air of celebration. There was music, there was dancing, there were still shouts of “I am Oscar Grant” and “Fuck the Police” but there were also shouts of “These are our streets” and a pride and strength. We made our way back towards city hall – I was relieved when we got there, without incident. We took up a line behind the stage, as the last part of the evening’s program began. More speakers, more music. Once again, I was limited in what I could hear because I was behind the speakers.

The scrapers were set up behind us, their bikes on the city hall steps. I wish I had my camera with me, both to catch the bikes, and to catch them just horsing around, and having fun. As the program began to wind down, there were still some concerns about police. Security was spread out in a large, loose circle around the greens, once again providing a line between the police and the crowd.

I think on some level the idea was to put a calm face before the police, and some distance, a buffer if you will. We were set up on one side of the green, and looking around, I only saw a couple of officers on bicycles, and a few officers standing against city hall. I kept scanning around, again not 100% sure what I was looking for, but hoping that if I saw it, I recognized it before anything happened.

I saw them again. I don’t know if it was the same crew, or a different crew – but down an accessway, behind city hall. Two groups of riot police standing around. A few of us changed our position a bit, putting ourselves in front of that alley. As people began to leave the green, we would encourage people to go down another way, or at least alert them to the fact that there were the riot police down there. Just caution – but I still didn’t want to see something set them off.

I guess it took about an hour for the grounds to clear out, I didn’t have a clear view of the grounds from where I was. Eventually, it looked like it was just staff left, and they were beginning to clear up. I was starting to relax, relieved that it looked like the night had likely ended without incident. Then our team lead got a call, everyone on security was needed down at 14th and broadway.

A group of about a hundred or so people were still there – in the intersection. Security was lining up along the crosswalk where we had started the evening earlier, for the march. Once again, there was a line of riot police, a line of security, and a group of angry, shouting people – shouting over the shoulders of the people in security at the police. Multiple attempts were made to ask people to clear the intersection to let them re-open broadway – mostly ignored. One person was saying that “a group of anarchists took off down 14th, and the police were separating us from them, just like last wednesday”. The OPD reps on the scene started getting more agitated, telling the heads of security that we had to get the intersection cleared or they were going to clear it. Finally, the rest of us joined the line, and moving slowly forward, we worked the crowd back across broadway, back onto the sidewalk on the two corners there.

We had a number of angry reactions to that, which I think I understand on some level. On the flip side, there was concern about OPD breaking out force if we didn’t get broadway cleared and re-opened. The crowd was now divided into two groups – one near the bart entrance and the park entrance on 14th and broadway, the other group across 14th on the opposite corner. Across broadway, at that point, it was mostly just riot cops and press, and eventually the line of riot police disappeared.

On our corner, we had some guy with a giant “going to hell sign” and a bull horn shouting all sorts of crap, and generally agitating the crowd. A number of people made attempts to calm him down, as well as calm down the crowd around him. The crowd on our corner slowly dwindled down though, until it was just the bullhorn guy, and a small group of people around him, shouting back. Someone started up singing campfire songs to drown the guy out, and other people joined in.

The crowd on the other corner was still much larger, and some of us went over there to help out if we could. Here, things get a little fuzzy. The bullhorn guy and his entourage finally stepped down, and started heading off. A crowd of people followed him, shouting in his face, encouraging him to keep moving. They crossed broadway at a diagonal. Once they got to the other side, something happened. I’m still not entirely sure what, but next thing I know, much of the crowd makes a breaking run for it.

People in security went after them, tried to break up the situation going on there, which I think we did, calming people down, and separating them from the bullhorn guy. Things weren’t done, yet, though. Further down the street, some people started in on jumping on a car. Once again, security went down to try to calm people down, and get things under control, let people breath. Someone started a fire in a trash can that security quickly put out.

We were now in the intersection of broadway and 12th, trying to calm people down, trying to keep things from getting out of hand. While this is going on, riot police are lining up across 12th on both sides of the intersection, as well as up and down broadway. People were still trying to calm people down, to keep things from going further, and then i heard the first glass breaking. A bus stop on 12th and broadway, was having its windows smashed in. People cheered, and ran over to the wells fargo behind it, and started smashing the windows there.

I heard something that sounded like a really loud ‘thump’ then saw the tear gas canister hit the ground about … 20 feet away from me? Far enough away that I didn’t react to it, and the wind was blowing it away from us. At that point, the heads of security made the call to pull us all out of there, and started gathering us all together and walking us back up the sidewalk.

I saw the riot cops in front of us taking off their helmets, and felt a sense of relief that they were standing down. Mental note, that is not a mistake i will ever make again. It took another few moments to realize that they were putting on gas masks. They shuffled some of us around the corner, and then the line cut us off from the rest of the security people. I don’t know what happened next, there was some kind of clashing and rushing, and then things quickly calmed down.

It seemed like the security heads had worked out that we were going to be allowed to go down broadway to 11th, and circle back around to city hall, and we rejoined up and started doing that, and then at the last minute, we were told that no, we were going to go up broadway back to city hall. We were kept as a group, the riot cops opened a hole in the line to let us through (and anyone who wanted to get out of that intersection as well, it seemed like – including, I’m suspecting, some of the people who were instigators in this, unfortunately). We went back to the lawn in front of city hall, and had one last ‘meeting’, or gathering? I don’t know what I would call it, before turning in our vests/radios, and heading out.

The bart station was now closed, here, and so we needed to find other ways out of there. One person was driving to fruitvale, and offered to give me a ride there, which I gladly accepted. He was parked a bit down webster, so we set off to head down there. As we were walking down 14th, we could see the riot cops moving in down the street, though I didn’t necessarily hear anymore firing.

We got to webster, and started walking down webster. On the way down the street, we passed by some cops arresting a pair of kids, who shouted to us that they were being arrested simply for calling out an earlier arrest of someone for no other reason than being black. We stopped, just to watch, which agitated the cops, who started shouting at us to keep moving. Two other cars of cops showed up, and they started moving towards us – I don’t think i’ve ever seen such a threatening look from anyone before. We slowly backed down the street, watching, as we went down to the corner, the one kid asking us to “please watch,” the whole time, the cops not directly involved in the arrest staring us down. I spent the entire time feeling like the cops there were just waiting for an excuse to arrest us as well.

We finally get down to his car, and start talking about where I live and such, and he tells me that he wants to go back and sit and watch the arrest, and would I mind waiting. He’d understand if not, and would drop me back off at bart, but he needed to go back and watch. At that point, I was spent. I don’t know if it was everything in the evening, not having eaten much in the previous 48 hours, a fear of being arrested, or what, but I couldn’t. I was done. He said he understood, and dropped me off near the bart station, which the cops near there said was still open. I’m not wishing I was less scattered, and had at least gotten his cell # so I could check in with him later on.

On the other side of the bart station there were two groups of people and two groups of cops in riot gear standing off against each other. I looked down the stairs, and realized the bart station was, in fact, still closed. I briefly thought about going back up broadway towards city hall, and seeing the multiple sets of cops there, and that things were still going on, I decided against that.

I turned around, and walked back down broadway, past 11th, thinking about how I’m going to get back home when I see an empty cab. I flag it down, and get in. He’s driving up broadway, and i tell him where we’re going. We end up back at the corner of 13th and broadway, and while he’s waiting for the lights, I watch the cops go in swinging on the crowd of people there (maybe a dozen cops, a dozen people, give or take?). My brain has pretty much completely shut down at this point, I am at a loss for what to say or do, and while digging for that, the light changes and the cab moves on. I give him directions back to my place, and we take much of the ride in silence, my heart rate spiking every time we pass a cop standing on the street or sitting in a car.

I get home, yulia gives me a shot of vodka, and gets pizza for me for dinner, and then I pretty much pass out from exhaustion.