9/12/08
I’m now one week removed from my arrest in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Republican National Convention. Still, some questions linger unanswered in my head, some emotions remain raw in my mind, and for these reasons (and the fact the St. Paul Police Dept. still has my camera) I want to blog one more time about my arrest and the RNC protests.
The police failed. The protesters failed. The media failed. These three entities, the primary participants of last week’s protest events, failed to achieve the peace they desired. Protesters wanted a peaceful end to the war, police wanted a peaceful end to the protests, and the media (say what you will here) wanted to tell the story of how peace prevailed on the streets of St. Paul.
The police failed when they treated innocent bystanders as participants in the protest.
Nick, a Green and White cab driver, parked his taxi on Marion Street that Thursday evening. He walked into a seemingly safe Sears parking lot, away from the commotion of flash-bang grenades erupting a block away. He unwillingly and unknowingly entered a trap. Before he knew it, police closed in on him (and others unaffiliated with the march). With his hands raised in an undeserved surrender, he asked one officer where to go if he wasn’t involved in the protest.
“That way,” the officer said, pointing his gun in the direction of the Marion Street Bridge.
Ten minutes later on the outer curb of the bridge, Nick sat with his hands on his head waiting for zip-tie hand cuffs.
The police failed when they refused to help an asthmatic woman begging for assistance.
“She’s having an attack,” her friends cried, their voices quivering in fear and projecting with anger.
Surrounding them, a group of ten officers in gas masks, clinging to their guns and night sticks, staring like soulless storm troopers. Not one moved.
After that woman’s cry for help turned to nothing but a muted wheeze, one kid took his hands from his head, jumped to his feet and pulled her up.
“I won’t let you watch her die,” he screamed.
The police finally reacted, not to help the woman, but to pull the kid down by his dreadlocks. “I told you to sit the f*** on the ground,” the officer screamed through his mask.
“Help her!” the kid screamed in pain.
Ten more minutes passed before one officer broke his stance, checked on the girl, and called for a medic…
The protesters failed when they blocked off intersections.
“Whose streets? Our Streets!” they yelled.
But those streets also belonged to the people who sat still in 12th street traffic, waiting for the unpermitted demonstration to move. Those streets also belonged to ambulances and emergency vehicles forced to find slower routs to potential stroke victims or fire victims.
The protesters failed when they mocked and taunted the police, the police who two days prior helped the protesters by blocking off roads for a different anti-war march. The police who couldn’t afford to skip work. One officer I talked to was putting in his third sleepless night of overtime. He had a pregnant wife at home, two days overdue.
“Well I should be a good husband and be with her now, but our rent is two weeks overdue…so what the hell can ya do.” he said with half a grin, a shuffle of the feet, and eyes diverted from the sky to the sidewalk…
The media failed (and yes, I include myself here). Last week’s demonstration was a series of standoffs between protesters and police. But on every front line opposing the police stood a wall of cameras making this march look more like the set of a feature length film than a protest.
The protesters rightfully screamed, “The whole world is watching!” That mentality prompted people to act differently.
In this Youtube generation, where everyone’s an on-camera anchor looking for the 1 million-viewer “don’t taze me bro!” money shot, all too often news walks the dangerous line between fact and fabrication.
A girl gets pepper sprayed, and the cameras swarm to her like paparazzi on Paris Hilton. That girl is screaming in pain and she can’t get water to wash her eyes because there’s an impenetrable wall of cameras around her… No, there’s an impenetrable wall of people around her who know damn well she needs something to stop that excruciating pain, but refuse to surrender their prize-winning frame for next year’s student film festival…
Like a grenade shell, this protest looked the part, and though it lacked the explosion, a shell was all that the cameras needed to capture.
Now I’m not saying there weren’t those protesters with the best of intentions, because there were. You could see it in their eyes. You could hear it in their cries. But to a certain extent, these protesters were not representative of the American public. Ironically enough, they were a younger version of the RNC demographic: predominately white males. White males who could afford to take a day off of work, who could afford to spend a night in jail, who could afford the misdemeanor on their record.
And the whole world is watching…the protesters knew it, they instilled that feeling, they projected it, and eventually the police wrongfully reacted to it. And we’re left with a portrait of chaos…
Palin and McCain made little to no mention of the protesters at the RNC, they did as they were trained to do. Ignore them and they’ll go away. The police did as they were trained to do. Arrest them and they’ll go away. Now we’ll wait and see… They did their part, will the protesters do theirs?
This week 3,500 members of the Wisconsin National Guard were deployed to Iraq, the largest number since World War II. This week Sarah Palin will watch her oldest son go off to war. These soldiers will leave for Iraq, the police will return to their normal duty, the protesters will protest their misdemeanor tickets, and Iraq will still be thousands of miles away.
America needs an end to war, but a misdemeanor ticket and three hours of cat chase mouse can’t be the most effective way.