Pepper Spray Nation Chapter 5: Occupy Seattle
Occupy Seattle: The Past is the Future
We are one nation, but we are not a homogeneous nation. The response by authorities to the Occupy Movement is conditioned by its local history and factors "on the ground."
History is prologue indeed. Over a decade ago protests were held in Seattle against the neo-colonialism of World Trade Organizations and their deleterious effect on third world nations and the environment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Oranization_Ministerial_Conference_of_1999_protest_activity
Activists of the successful 1998 campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) were convinced that the WTO would be used by transnational corporate influencers[clarification needed] as a forum in which to advance the global corporate agenda to the detriment of worldwide civil society and especially the interests of third-world countries.
Not an issue at the time, but what has been discovered to be a profound evil of Trade Agreements is the siphoning off of manufacturing jobs from American shores. Over ten years later we can now say that it was indeed a grave oversight and no small part of what motivates the Occupy Movement today.
In a number of significant ways, N30 foreshadowed the Occupy Movement: holding companies and industries to account; then, for what they were doing to the world. Now, for what they have done to us as a nation and to our legislative process.
Planning for the demonstrations began months in advance and included local, national, and international organizations. Among the most notable participants were national and international NGOs (especially those concerned with labor issues, the environment, and consumer protection), labor unions (including the AFL-CIO), student groups, religiously-based groups (Jubilee 2000), and anarchists (some of whom formed a black bloc).[2]
The coalition was loose, with some opponent groups focused on opposition to WTO policies (especially those related to free trade), with others motivated by pro-labor, anti-capitalist, or environmental agendas. Many of the NGOs represented at the protests came with credentials to participate in the official meetings, while also planning various educational and press events. The AFL-CIO, with cooperation from its member unions, organized a large permitted rally and march from Seattle Center to downtown.
Today's activists, thus far, have been downright genteel by comparison...especially considering the numbers of Occupiers involved. But many of the same tactics used by N30 protesters are in evidence today: civil disobedience, direct action. Though by and large today's black bloc [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc ] and vandals are as likely to be plants and false flag provocateurs working for the authorities to give them an excuse to use excessive violence against the Occupiers as they are to be members of the Occupiers themselves. Most do not want this to be any harder than it has to be.
Certain activists, including locals and an additional group of anarchists from Eugene, Oregon[3] (where they had gathered that summer for a music festival),[4] advocated more confrontational tactics, and planned and conducted deliberate vandalism of corporate properties in downtown Seattle. In a subsequent communique, they listed the particular corporations targeted, which they contend to have committed corporate crime...
And in some cases the names of the bad actors are the same now as then, and some just belong to the same industries that have so recently wreaked havoc with our economy:
And in some cases the names of the bad actors are the same now as then, and some just belong to the same industries that have so recently wreaked havoc with our economy:
Fidelity Investments (major investor in Occidental Petroleum, the bane of the U'wa tribe in Colombia); Bank of America, US Bancorp, Key Bank and Washington Mutual Bank (financial institutions key in the expansion of corporate repression); Old Navy, Banana Republic and the Gap (as Fisher family businesses, rapers of Northwest forest lands and sweatshop laborers); NikeTown and Levi's (whose overpriced products are made in sweatshops); McDonald's (slave-wage fast food peddlers responsible for destruction of tropical rainforests for grazing land and slaughter of animals); Starbucks (peddlers of an addictive substance whose products are harvested at below-poverty wages by farmers who are forced to destroy their own forests in the process); Warner Bros. (media monopolists); Planet Hollywood (for being Planet Hollywood).[5]
As a token of the effectiveness of democratic lobbying at local level, Seattle declared itself an MAI Free-Zone by unanimous vote in the City Council on Monday, April 12, joining numerous cities in the US and around the world.[6]
On 12 July, the Financial Times reported that the latest United Nations Human Development report advocated "principles of performance for multinationals on labour standards, fair trade and environmental protection ... needed to counter the negative effects of globalisation on the poorest nations". The report itself argued that "An essential aspect of global governance is responsibility to people—to equity, to justice, to enlarging the choices of all".[7]
On 16 July, Helene Cooper of the Wall Street Journal warned of an impending "massive mobilization against globalization" being planned for the end-of-year Seattle WTO conference.[8] Next day, the London Independent newspaper savaged the WTO and appeared to side with the organisers of the rapidly developing storm of protest:
The way it has used [its] powers is leading to a growing suspicion that its initials should really stand for World Take Over. In a series of rulings it has struck down measures to help the world's poor, protect the environment, and safeguard health in the interests of private—usually American—companies. "The WTO seems to be on a crusade to increase private profit at the expense of all other considerations, including the well-being and quality of life of the mass of the world's people," says Ronnie Hall, trade campaigner at Friends of the Earth International. "It seems to have a relentless drive to extend its power."[9]
On November 16, two weeks before the conference, President Bill Clinton issued Executive Order 13141—Environmental Review of Trade Agreements,[10] which committed the United States to a policy of "assessment and consideration of the environmental impacts of trade agreements" and stated "Trade agreements should contribute to the broader goal of sustainable development."
A spectacular coup was staged against Seattle's daily paper the Post Intelligencer on Wednesday 24 November. Thousands of hoax editions of a 4-page front-cover wrap-around were printed and inserted into piles of newspapers awaiting distribution in hundreds of street boxes and retail outlets. The spoof front-page stories were "Boeing to move overseas" (to Indonesia) and "Clinton pledges help for poorest nations".[11] The byline on the Boeing story attributed it to Joe Hill (a union organizer who was executed by firing squad in Utah early in the century). On the same day, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development reported that:
"...developing countries have remained steadfast in their demand that developed countries honour Uruguay Round commitments before moving forward full force with new trade negotiations. Specifically, developing countries are concerned over developed countries’ compliance with agreements on market access for textiles, their use of antidumping measures against developing countries’ exports, and over-implementation of the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs)".[12]
This ominously foreshadowed the impending conflict of the North-South divide which was to result in the collapse of the forthcoming WTO talks."N30"
On the morning of November 30, 1999, the Direct Action Network's plan was put into effect. Several hundred activists arrived in the deserted streets near the convention center and began to take control of key intersections. Over the next few hours, a number of marchers began to converge on the area from different directions. These included a student march from the north and a march of citizens of the developing world who marched in from the south. Some demonstrators held rallies, others held teach-ins and at least one group staged an early-morning street party. Meanwhile, a number of protesters still controlled the intersections using lockdown formations.
The control of the intersections, plus the sheer numbers of protesters in the area, prevented delegates from getting from their hotels to the Convention Center. It also had the effect of cutting the police forces in two: the police who had formed a cordon around the convention center were cut off from the rest of the city. The police outside of the area eventually tried to break through the protesters' lines in the south.
Here the response by the authorities is essentially the same as was seen over a decade later here, and in OccupyOakland.
Here the response by the authorities is essentially the same as was seen over a decade later here, and in OccupyOakland.
That morning, the King County Sheriff's Office and Seattle Police Department fired pepper spray, tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and eventually rubber bullets at protesters at several intersections in an attempt to reopen the blocked streets and allow as many WTO delegates as possible through the blockade.[13] At 6th Avenue and Union Street, the crowd threw them back.
The situation was complicated around noon, when black-clad anarchists (in a formation known as a black bloc) began smashing windows and vandalizing storefronts, beginning with Fox's Gem Shop. This produced some of the most famous and controversial images of the protests. This set off a chain-reaction of sorts, with additional protesters pushing dumpsters into the middle of intersections and lighting them on fire, deflating the tires of police vehicles,[14] non-black bloc demonstrators joining in the property destruction, and a general disruption of all commercial activity in downtown Seattle.
Other protesters tried to physically block the activities of the black bloc. Seattle police, led by Chief Norm Stamper, did not react immediately, because they had been convinced by protest organizers during the protest-permit process that peaceful organizers would quell these kinds of activities.[15]
If the Occupy Movement is to be understood as one of peaceful protest and civil disobedience then the activities of the black bloc must be restrained. One of the purposes of the Occupy Movement is to gain public support for their multitude of causes. That means being the willing recipients of violence from the authorities, if need be. Not its perpetrators. This willingness was what made the Civil Rights Marches lead by Martin Luther King Junior so effective, as well as Gandhi's opposition to the British in India. We are, at this time civilians in search of a civil society. It is a diplomatic operation at this point. We cannot say that diplomacy has failed until the presidential elections in 2012 when we will see what shape voter suppression takes. When we have been successfully cut out of the political process, then diplomacy will truly have failed.
The police were eventually overwhelmed by the mass of protesters downtown, including many who had chained themselves together and were blocking intersections. Meanwhile, the late-morning labor-organized rally and march drew tens of thousands; though the intended march route had them turning back before they reached the convention center, some ignored the marshals and joined what had become a street-carnival-like scene downtown.
The opening of the meetings was delayed, and it took police much of the afternoon and evening to clear the streets. Seattle mayor Paul Schell imposed a curfew and a 50-block "No-Protest Zone".
Another foreshadowing of what would become a common scene across the nation a decade hence:
Another foreshadowing of what would become a common scene across the nation a decade hence:
Over 600 people were arrested over the next few days. One particularly violent confrontation occurred the evening of November 30, when police pursued protesters fleeing from downtown into the bohemian neighborhood of Capitol Hill, using tear gas, pepper spray, and physical force.[16] A police order that day also banned the use or sale of gas masks downtown, provoking criticism.[17]
And yet another, in the Media response
The New York Times printed an erroneous article that stated that protesters at the 1999 WTO convention in Seattle threw Molotov cocktails at police.[18] Two days later, The New York Times printed a correction saying that the protest was mostly peaceful and no protesters were accused of throwing objects at delegates or the police, but the original error persisted in later accounts in the mainstream media.[19]
The Seattle City Council also dispelled these rumors with its own investigation findings:
"The level of panic among police is evident from radio communication and from their inflated crowd estimates, which exceed the numbers shown on news videotapes. ARC investigators found the rumors of "Molotov cocktails" and sale of flammables from a supermarket had no basis in fact. But, rumors were important in contributing to the police sense of being besieged and in considerable danger." [20]
An article in the magazine The Nation disputed that Molotov cocktails have ever been thrown at an anti-globalization protest within the US.[21]
It is an irony that the very thing that the protesters were falsely accused of by the media is the the very thing that three college student were actually guilty of in Tahrir Square during protests in Egypt who were then brought "safely" home with empurpled stories of how they feared for their lives at the hands of Egyptian authorities. Occupy protesters throwing Molotov cocktails and firebombs can expect to be met with deadly force from law enforcement. And justly so.
It is an irony that the very thing that the protesters were falsely accused of by the media is the the very thing that three college student were actually guilty of in Tahrir Square during protests in Egypt who were then brought "safely" home with empurpled stories of how they feared for their lives at the hands of Egyptian authorities. Occupy protesters throwing Molotov cocktails and firebombs can expect to be met with deadly force from law enforcement. And justly so.
[edit] Aftermath
Controversy over the city's response to the protests resulted in the resignation of Seattle police chief Norm Stamper,[22] and arguably played a role in Schell's loss to Greg Nickels in the 2001 mayoral primary election.[23][24]
Similar tactics, on the part of both police and protesters, were repeated at subsequent meetings of the WTO, IMF/World Bank, Free Trade Area of the Americas, and other international organizations, as well as the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in the US.
To many in North American anarchist and radical circles, the Seattle WTO riots, protests, and demonstrations were viewed as a success. Prior to the "Battle of Seattle," there was almost no mention of "anti-globalization" in the US media, while the protests are seen as having forced the media to report on why anybody would oppose the WTO.[25]
Similarly, the Occupy Movement has brought "Income Inequality" as a meme where before the prevailing topic and prevailing justification for political action, even by President Obama, was the Debt Crisis. Now allegiance to the 99% is being used in Republican political campaigns, despite how poorly or even nonsensically those claims are supported. This is a victory for the Occupy Movement in itself. All that remains is that it moves beyond words and discussion and actually becomes policy and institutional change.
However, this was only the second phase of these mass demonstrations. The first began on 12 December 1997 in which newly formed grass-roots organizations blockaded Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Darwin city centers.[26]
Similarly, the Occupy Movement has brought "Income Inequality" as a meme where before the prevailing topic and prevailing justification for political action, even by President Obama, was the Debt Crisis. Now allegiance to the 99% is being used in Republican political campaigns, despite how poorly or even nonsensically those claims are supported. This is a victory for the Occupy Movement in itself. All that remains is that it moves beyond words and discussion and actually becomes policy and institutional change.
However, this was only the second phase of these mass demonstrations. The first began on 12 December 1997 in which newly formed grass-roots organizations blockaded Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Darwin city centers.[26]
On January 16, 2004, the city settled with 157 individuals arrested outside of the no-protest zone during the WTO events, agreeing to pay them a total of $250,000.[27]
It is at this point that the past becomes the future.
On January 30, 2007, a federal jury found that the city of Seattle had violated protesters' Fourth Amendment constitutional rights by arresting them without probable cause or hard evidence.[28][29]
The massive size of the protest pushed the city of Seattle $3 million over its estimated budget of $6 million, partly due to city cleanup and police overtime bills. In addition, the damage to commercial businesses from vandalism and lost sales has been estimated at $20 million.[30]
Then, as now, the constitutional rights of the protesters take a back seat to those who are able to pay hard cash for their own protection to the authorities and law enforcement to keep their properties and brand names inviolate.
All of that was then.
Now, in many cases, we have more of the same.
Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street
http://www.thenation.com/article/164501/paramilitary-policing-seattle-occupy-wall-street
A man sits in front of a police line at City Hall during an anti-Wall Street protest in Oakland, California, October 25, 2011. (REUTERS/Kim White)
They came from all over, tens of thousands of demonstrators from around the world, protesting the economic and moral pitfalls of globalization. Our mission as members of the Seattle Police Department? To safeguard people and property—in that order. Things went well the first day. We were praised for our friendliness and restraint—though some politicians were apoplectic at our refusal to make mass arrests for the actions of a few.
“We have to clear the intersection,” said the field commander. “We have to clear the intersection,” the operations commander agreed, from his bunker in the Public Safety Building. Standing alone on the edge of the crowd, I, the chief of police, said to myself, “We have to clear the intersection.”
Why?
Because of all the what-ifs. What if a fire breaks out in the Sheraton across the street? What if a woman goes into labor on the seventeenth floor of the hotel? What if a heart patient goes into cardiac arrest in the high-rise on the corner? What if there’s a stabbing, a shooting, a serious-injury traffic accident? How would an aid car, fire engine or police cruiser get through that sea of people? The cop in me supported the decision to clear the intersection. But the chief in me should have vetoed it. And he certainly should have forbidden the indiscriminate use of tear gas to accomplish it, no matter how many warnings we barked through the bullhorn.
My support for a militaristic solution caused all hell to break loose. Rocks, bottles and newspaper racks went flying. Windows were smashed, stores were looted, fires lighted; and more gas filled the streets, with some cops clearly overreacting, escalating and prolonging the conflict. The “Battle in Seattle,” as the WTO protests and their aftermath came to be known, was a huge setback—for the protesters, my cops, the community.
More than a decade later, the police response to the Occupy movement, most disturbingly visible in Oakland—where scenes resembled a war zone and where a marine remains in serious condition from a police projectile—brings into sharp relief the acute and chronic problems of American law enforcement. Seattle might have served as a cautionary tale, but instead, US police forces have become increasingly militarized, and it’s showing in cities everywhere: the NYPD “white shirt” coating innocent people with pepper spray, the arrests of two student journalists at Occupy Atlanta, the declaration of public property as off-limits and the arrests of protesters for “trespassing.”
The paramilitary bureaucracy and the culture it engenders—a black-and-white world in which police unions serve above all to protect the brotherhood—is worse today than it was in the 1990s. Such agencies inevitably view protesters as the enemy. And young people, poor people and people of color will forever experience the institution as an abusive, militaristic force—not just during demonstrations but every day, in neighborhoods across the country.
Much of the problem is rooted in a rigid command-and-control hierarchy based on the military model. American police forces are beholden to archaic internal systems of authority whose rules emphasize bureaucratic regulations over conduct on the streets. An officer’s hair length, the shine on his shoes and the condition of his car are more important than whether he treats a burglary victim or a sex worker with dignity and respect. In the interest of “discipline,” too many police bosses treat their frontline officers as dependent children, which helps explain why many of them behave more like juvenile delinquents than mature, competent professionals. It also helps to explain why persistent, patterned misconduct, including racism, sexism, homophobia, brutality, perjury and corruption, do not go away, no matter how many blue-ribbon panels are commissioned or how much training is provided.
External political factors are also to blame, such as the continuing madness of the drug war. Last year police arrested 1.6 million nonviolent drug offenders. In New York City alone almost 50,000 people (overwhelmingly black, Latino or poor) were busted for possession of small amounts of marijuana—some of it, we have recently learned, planted by narcotics officers. The counterproductive response to 9/11, in which the federal government began providing military equipment and training even to some of the smallest rural departments, has fueled the militarization of police forces. Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission. What emerges is a picture of a vital public-safety institution perpetually at war with its own people. The tragic results—raids gone bad, wrong houses hit, innocent people and family pets shot and killed by police—are chronicled in Radley Balko’s excellent 2006 report Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
It is ironic that those police officers who are busting up the Occupy protesters are themselves victims of the same social ills the demonstrators are combating: corporate greed; the slackening of essential regulatory systems; and the abject failure of all three branches of government to safeguard civil liberties and to protect, if not provide, basic human needs like health, housing, education and more. With cities and states struggling to balance the budget while continuing to deliver public safety, many cops are finding themselves out of work. And, as many Occupy protesters have pointed out, even as police officers help to safeguard the power and profits of the 1 percent, police officers are part of the 99 percent.
There will always be situations—an armed and barricaded suspect, a man with a knife to his wife’s throat, a school-shooting rampage—that require disciplined, military-like operations. But most of what police are called upon to do, day in and day out, requires patience, diplomacy and interpersonal skills. I’m convinced it is possible to create a smart organizational alternative to the paramilitary bureaucracy that is American policing. But that will not happen unless, even as we cull “bad apples” from our police forces, we recognize that the barrel itself is rotten.
Assuming the necessity of radical structural reform, how do we proceed? By building a progressive police organization, created by rank-and-file officers, “civilian” employees and community representatives. Such an effort would include plans to flatten hierarchies; create a true citizen review board with investigative and subpoena powers; and ensure community participation in all operations, including policy-making, program development, priority-setting and crisis management. In short, cops and citizens would forge an authentic partnership in policing the city. And because partners do not act unilaterally, they would be compelled to keep each other informed, and to build trust and mutual respect—qualities sorely missing from the current equation.
It will not be easy. In fact, failure is assured if we lack the political will to win the support of police chiefs and their elected bosses, if we are unable to influence or neutralize police unions, if we don’t have the courage to move beyond the endless justifications for maintaining the status quo. But imagine the community and its cops united in the effort to responsibly “police” the Occupy movement. Picture thousands of people gathered to press grievances against their government and the corporations, under the watchful, sympathetic protection of their partners in blue.
Then, as now, the constitutional rights of the protesters take a back seat to those who are able to pay hard cash for their own protection to the authorities and law enforcement to keep their properties and brand names inviolate.
All of that was then.
Now, in many cases, we have more of the same.
Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street
http://www.thenation.com/article/164501/paramilitary-policing-seattle-occupy-wall-street
About the Author
A man sits in front of a police line at City Hall during an anti-Wall Street protest in Oakland, California, October 25, 2011. (REUTERS/Kim White)
They came from all over, tens of thousands of demonstrators from around the world, protesting the economic and moral pitfalls of globalization. Our mission as members of the Seattle Police Department? To safeguard people and property—in that order. Things went well the first day. We were praised for our friendliness and restraint—though some politicians were apoplectic at our refusal to make mass arrests for the actions of a few.
Then came day two. Early in the morning, large contingents of demonstrators began to converge at a key downtown intersection. They sat down and refused to budge. Their numbers grew. A labor march would soon add additional thousands to the mix.
Why?
Because of all the what-ifs. What if a fire breaks out in the Sheraton across the street? What if a woman goes into labor on the seventeenth floor of the hotel? What if a heart patient goes into cardiac arrest in the high-rise on the corner? What if there’s a stabbing, a shooting, a serious-injury traffic accident? How would an aid car, fire engine or police cruiser get through that sea of people? The cop in me supported the decision to clear the intersection. But the chief in me should have vetoed it. And he certainly should have forbidden the indiscriminate use of tear gas to accomplish it, no matter how many warnings we barked through the bullhorn.
My support for a militaristic solution caused all hell to break loose. Rocks, bottles and newspaper racks went flying. Windows were smashed, stores were looted, fires lighted; and more gas filled the streets, with some cops clearly overreacting, escalating and prolonging the conflict. The “Battle in Seattle,” as the WTO protests and their aftermath came to be known, was a huge setback—for the protesters, my cops, the community.
More than a decade later, the police response to the Occupy movement, most disturbingly visible in Oakland—where scenes resembled a war zone and where a marine remains in serious condition from a police projectile—brings into sharp relief the acute and chronic problems of American law enforcement. Seattle might have served as a cautionary tale, but instead, US police forces have become increasingly militarized, and it’s showing in cities everywhere: the NYPD “white shirt” coating innocent people with pepper spray, the arrests of two student journalists at Occupy Atlanta, the declaration of public property as off-limits and the arrests of protesters for “trespassing.”
The paramilitary bureaucracy and the culture it engenders—a black-and-white world in which police unions serve above all to protect the brotherhood—is worse today than it was in the 1990s. Such agencies inevitably view protesters as the enemy. And young people, poor people and people of color will forever experience the institution as an abusive, militaristic force—not just during demonstrations but every day, in neighborhoods across the country.
Much of the problem is rooted in a rigid command-and-control hierarchy based on the military model. American police forces are beholden to archaic internal systems of authority whose rules emphasize bureaucratic regulations over conduct on the streets. An officer’s hair length, the shine on his shoes and the condition of his car are more important than whether he treats a burglary victim or a sex worker with dignity and respect. In the interest of “discipline,” too many police bosses treat their frontline officers as dependent children, which helps explain why many of them behave more like juvenile delinquents than mature, competent professionals. It also helps to explain why persistent, patterned misconduct, including racism, sexism, homophobia, brutality, perjury and corruption, do not go away, no matter how many blue-ribbon panels are commissioned or how much training is provided.
External political factors are also to blame, such as the continuing madness of the drug war. Last year police arrested 1.6 million nonviolent drug offenders. In New York City alone almost 50,000 people (overwhelmingly black, Latino or poor) were busted for possession of small amounts of marijuana—some of it, we have recently learned, planted by narcotics officers. The counterproductive response to 9/11, in which the federal government began providing military equipment and training even to some of the smallest rural departments, has fueled the militarization of police forces. Everyday policing is characterized by a SWAT mentality, every other 911 call a military mission. What emerges is a picture of a vital public-safety institution perpetually at war with its own people. The tragic results—raids gone bad, wrong houses hit, innocent people and family pets shot and killed by police—are chronicled in Radley Balko’s excellent 2006 report Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America.
It is ironic that those police officers who are busting up the Occupy protesters are themselves victims of the same social ills the demonstrators are combating: corporate greed; the slackening of essential regulatory systems; and the abject failure of all three branches of government to safeguard civil liberties and to protect, if not provide, basic human needs like health, housing, education and more. With cities and states struggling to balance the budget while continuing to deliver public safety, many cops are finding themselves out of work. And, as many Occupy protesters have pointed out, even as police officers help to safeguard the power and profits of the 1 percent, police officers are part of the 99 percent.
There will always be situations—an armed and barricaded suspect, a man with a knife to his wife’s throat, a school-shooting rampage—that require disciplined, military-like operations. But most of what police are called upon to do, day in and day out, requires patience, diplomacy and interpersonal skills. I’m convinced it is possible to create a smart organizational alternative to the paramilitary bureaucracy that is American policing. But that will not happen unless, even as we cull “bad apples” from our police forces, we recognize that the barrel itself is rotten.
Assuming the necessity of radical structural reform, how do we proceed? By building a progressive police organization, created by rank-and-file officers, “civilian” employees and community representatives. Such an effort would include plans to flatten hierarchies; create a true citizen review board with investigative and subpoena powers; and ensure community participation in all operations, including policy-making, program development, priority-setting and crisis management. In short, cops and citizens would forge an authentic partnership in policing the city. And because partners do not act unilaterally, they would be compelled to keep each other informed, and to build trust and mutual respect—qualities sorely missing from the current equation.
It will not be easy. In fact, failure is assured if we lack the political will to win the support of police chiefs and their elected bosses, if we are unable to influence or neutralize police unions, if we don’t have the courage to move beyond the endless justifications for maintaining the status quo. But imagine the community and its cops united in the effort to responsibly “police” the Occupy movement. Picture thousands of people gathered to press grievances against their government and the corporations, under the watchful, sympathetic protection of their partners in blue.
I have chosen to focus on Occupy Seattle because there have been some truly fine examples of excessive police violence, such as the pepper spraying of 84 year old Dorli Rainey and the actions that caused the miscarriage of Jennifer Fox, and also because of Seattle's role as the grandfather of the Occupy protest movement by way of the N30 WTO Protests of 1999. As I've tried to illustrate, there are lessons here. Things to emulate - the awareness of the local and global actions of corporations and their consequences; things we are already doing - consciousness raising, direct action and non-violent civil disobedience; and a portrait of what we must avoid - the destructive and violent black bloc tactics; and what we can safely expect: violent over-reaction from the authorities, the violation of our civil rights for the sake of political expediency, and to have our cause(s) and methods slandered by the media. By the talking heads on Fox News and the disembodied voices on Right-wing talk radio especially especially.
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