S.F. Labor Movement Key to Preventing Raid of Occupy SF Encampment
By ALAN BENJAMIN Oct. 28, 2011
The San Francisco Chronicle reported today (Friday, October 28) that the S.F. Police Department had mobilized large numbers of police officers and special riot troops late Wednesday evening to raid and take down the Occupy SF encampment under orders from Interim S.F. Mayor Ed Lee. But in the early hours of Thursday morning, the Chronicle reports, the mayor and Police Chief Greg Suhr reversed their decision and ordered the troops — including a big contingent of riot troops that had mobilized from Treasure Island toward San Francisco at about 3 a.m. — to back down and return to their home bases.
The lead article and the accompanying piece by editorial writer C.W. Nevius noted that one of the main reasons for this about-face by the mayor and police chief was the large turnout by union officers and members who had come to help protect the encampment. Another reason was the all-night presence at Occupy SF of five Board of Supervisors members.
The Chronicle articles are correct, but they don’t tell the full story.
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of labor and community organizations met with Mayor Lee to ask him if it was true, as had been widely rumored, that he had ordered a raid of Occupy SF late that night because of “sanitation concerns.”
Immediately following the meeting, Bobbi López, a member of SEIU 1021, sent out an urgent memo in which she stated that during the meeting Mayor Lee did not deny this rumor — and this could only mean one thing: the order to raid had been issued. Sister López called on all unionists to gather at the encampment at 9:30 p.m. “to keep the movement going.” A similar message was sent out by S.F. Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson to Council executive board members.
In less than two hours, an emergency-response labor phone and email tree was activated, and by 9:30 p.m. more than 80 San Francisco union members — including Paulson, SFLC President Mike Casey, SF Building Trades Council Director Mike Therriault, SFLC Vice President Conny Ford, and six other e-board members — were at the encampment. The overwhelming majority were ready to be arrested, if that’s what it took to protect Occupy SF.
We were joined as well by hundreds of youth and community activists — many of whom had come as a group from San Francisco State University, City College, and the East Bay, to name a few places, to reinforce the defense effort.
But this was not all: Before leaving City Hall after the meeting with Mayor Lee, the union and community activists knocked on all the doors of the S.F. Board of Supervisors members, urging them to get down asap to the encampment to help prevent the raid. And not only did five of the Supervisors show up, four remained at the encampment till dawn. Former Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin also joined the group.
Though the numbers dwindled a bit throughout the night, what was remarkable was that a majority of the union officers and members held firm till dawn. Everyone knew that if we did not all stay firm till the early morning commute, the raid would take place at 3 or 4 in the morning.
We now know that the raid had been planned for those early hours. But the plan was foiled. This represents a first victory over the forces that have been hell-bent on shutting down Occupy SF. But it is not a permanent victory. Labor and community leaders and activists need to remain vigilant and prepared to act again on short notice should they be needed to defend Occupy SF.
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Alan Benjamin is a member of the Executive Board of the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO (as a delegate from OPEIU Local 3). He was among the unionists who stood with Occupy SF to defend the encampment against the planned police raid.
I am part of the 99 percent that you clearly dont represent. Your “protest” is causing a huge financial strain on the city, and it looks disgusting.
We welcome suggestions of more effective action.
Here’s a suggestion… grow up when you talk to people who don’t disagree with you
I actually do have a couple of suggestions for more effective action…I definitely wont discuss them online though.
Rob,
Historically, uprisings are not too heavily concerned with aesthetics. I’m sorry you feel like a group of strangers sacrificing comfort for a common goal is an eye sore. I find it beautiful. As for the monetary side, unless you can produce evidence that this movement costs more than the status quo, I find your statement slanderous and short-sighted.
Our country had it’s revolution. We don’t need another one. Protest, and become a political party. Vote your candidates in office… Become part of the system
Anyone with the internet can find the plenty of articles stating $180k for police overtime pay alone, plus $20k on park damages. How’s the grass look out there?
It is my understanding that occupy portland has told the city that they would fully pay for the repair for all park damages, in addition they didn’t ask the city to pay our police overtime, they have been peaceful and have vow to continue to be so i don’t fully understand why the city has chosen to waste taxpayer money on keeping the peace during an event that has been nothing but peaceful. This use of overtime seems more like the city wasting money because it has chosen to misspend funds rather than out of necessity. That is just my opinion though and you are fully free to your own, i encourage you to continue to do so.
You are one of the few who do. I went down their yesterday in my dress blues to show my support for LCPL Olson. I walked around the camp and talked with the occupiers. I listened politely, and when asked my opinion I gave a cautious, yet well thought out answer. I spoke with many veterans who were part of the movement, and shared a brotherhood only those who have served can know. For the 2 hours I walked around, people were coming up to me, shaking my hand,saying thank you for being here. One kid mentioned “It’s funny how, by you wearing that uniform, it turns a bunch of disrespectful people respectful.” I had to agree.
I was asked by the people manning the KBOO radio booth if I would sit down for an interview, so I did. I talked about my enlistment, my experience in Iraq, and my reasoning behind my choice to serve. I then explained my opinion, that the antogonistic protestors in Oakland have as much to blame for LCpl Olson’s injuries as the officer who fired on him. How quickly the crowd changed. I was booed, heckled, and one man even shouted I was “brainwashed and conditioned to believe what they want me to” An elderly lady told me I can’t come in uniform acting tough and telling the protestors what I think. I reminded her I was there to pay my respects for LCpl Olson. found it disgusting how few of you actually knew his name or who he was, yet you plaster the graphic images of his injury on the flyers you were passing out for everyone to see. IMO, you use LCpl Olson as nothing more than a mascot to your cause, and for that you do him great dishonor.
Right before I left, I was stopped by a few Vietnam Vets. They wanted to tell me how, back in their day, to do speak my mind like that in uniform was asking to get your ass kicked. The liberals back them spit on the troops, and attacked them for what they were drafted today. The liberals of today just say “thank you for your service” and don’t really mean it.
Is there lots of free pot?
I am a small business owner in SE Portland. Yesterday, one of my customers who works downtown near the occupation told me about how well her business has been doing since it started. Many businesses are being positively impacted by the occupation, too,
Like OccupyPDXer pointed out, a suggestion rather than a complaint seems like a more constructive course of action.
I work in the pearl district where there are a ton of small business owners… General consensus out here is that you guys have nothing better to do but have a fun little time playing “revolution” and drinking, dancing, and smoking weed out in the open. There’s so much on you tube of people going into your camp and exposing your social lifestyle. It’s disgusting.
I paid 7 dollars for a veggie buritto at a show. Isn’t that the same type of greed corp America has? Or is it fair market economy? When did 3 grams equal an 1/8th oz? I want change but feel we all have to except the blame. Everyone had a hand in this problem in America. A good story book I read once said, let he who is without sin cast the first stone….
Please don’t let the indigent masses down there become the face of the movement. They are killing it! My dad was one of the first of the peace movement. Only he was on the front lines, three tours in Vietnam. His feelings and those of the movement back home were one in the same. But the image of those back home, “ragged spolied kids” and such made it impossible for him to get past to the real movement. He did his part, saved entire villages of a near extinct people known casually as the mountain yards. Was he wrong?
I went to Jamison square at approx 2320 to address the crowd. Due to the anarchist element in portland, I felt it necessary to advocate non-violent protest. I was booed, ridiculed, and called names by the crowd. I find it disgusting you would treat anybody that way for their personal opinions. You undermine your movement by acting childish and antagonistic.
AND CLEAN UP YOUR SHIT BUCKETS AND PISS JUGS… THEY SMELL DISGUSTING
After spending most of yesterday afternoon and night at Jamison Square, listening, and talking with supporters and participants in your “sit-in”, it became abundantly clear to me that that the event was nothing more than a cynical stunt, specifically organized to provoke a police action. Few of the speakers in Jamison square had anything to say about your objectives, or even what those objectives might be — beyond getting some people arrested in the glare of TV camera spotlights. Now that you’ve joined the ranks of Occupy cities where a police action has taken place, I hope your “Oakland-envy” has been assuaged. Can you all hold your heads a little higher now? I, and many of my Pearl District neighbors, who were formerly supportive of Occupy in Portland, weren’t fooled by the tactics and know what this so-called peaceful demonstration was really about, and we were not amused.
Notes From Jamison Square
There were 27 arrests at Jamison Square in Portland’s Pearl District last night. Yours truly wasn’t one of them, but I did spend some time at the park before the police moved in. Here’s my understanding of what happened.
A splinter group (I’m told 13 individuals strong at the beginning), perhaps frustrated at a perceived lack of action on behalf of the greater Occupy Portland movement, decided to take up residence in a new location: Jamison Square, a small park in the Pearl District of northwest Portland. This was the major topic of discussion at the general assembly last night, and after talking over the options, a spur-of-the-moment consensus was reached at around 9pm: we would move the GA to Jamison Square so the splinter group could be part of the discussion and add their voices to any conversation we had about the matter.
The mainstream news vans were already parked along the south edge of Jamison Square when I got there, perched like vultures waiting for the corpses to drop. The police seemed to enforce a bit of a double-standard once the 12:01am curfew passed–the mainstream media was allowed (for a time) to remain in Jamison Square proper, while members of the independent media, including the official Occupy Portland livestream, were told they had to stand behind a line of trees; the combination of darkness and distance made it harder to make out what was happening in the park over the low definition live feed from the webcam. “Shenanigans,” I heard the cameraman from the live feed say, and I had to agree.
Eventually the mainstream media was forced to move back as well, and there was some consternation over the fact that they turned off their lights (and possibly cameras) as the police began to bring in reinforcements around 12:30am. Was this a conscious decision on the various news channels’ parts to enforce media censorship, or simple conservation of electricity in the face of needing energy for the hours of what was coming? It’s hard to say, but it certainly rubbed me the wrong way and made me a bit suspicious. The majority of the mainstream media has been pretty poor at keeping objectivity in their reporting of the Occupy movement thus far, and I’m not willing at this point to cut them much slack.
The police, too, had already made their presence felt by the time I arrived at Jamison Square. There were mounted police (who, let’s face it, serve little purpose at a function like this outside their use for propaganda and intimidation) and park rangers. The livestream caught footage of a sniper on a rooftop at one point, though apparently s/he moved either down or out of sight as the evening waned. Portland mayor Sam Adams made an appearance just a bit after the 12am curfew, though he claimed he was only present to observe and had little to do with the decision to break up the protest (though if it wasn’t his decision, whose was it?). A few protestors made cursory attempts to speak with the police and attempt to dissuade them from making arrests, citing the refusal of other officers to arrest protestors at Occupy Albany, though these arguments fell on ears that were, if not deaf, apparently uninterested.
At about 12:50am, a loud and obviously inebriated man entered the park and began shouting at the protestors, telling them that they were breaking the law. It didn’t seem to occur to him that he was not only breaking the 12am curfew but also drunk and disorderly. I have no idea whether the police bothered to arrest him or not; they may have saved all the room in their squad cars for the people trying to exercise their First Amendment rights.
For their parts, the protestors walked and chanted but offered no resistance to arrest when the police cruisers and mounted officers moved in a few minutes after 1am. “We’re going to have to be like Gandhi going Super Saiyan,” I’d heard one of the protestors say earlier, and while I’m not sure I’d make the comparison based on what happened last night, per usual, the Occupy movement held up its end of the non-violence bargain. Perhaps thinking on the recent example of the police violence against Occupy Oakland, the state response didn’t seem particularly brutal (beyond the legalized-kidnapping-and-caging-of-a-human-being-like-an-animal-under-threat-of-legalized-assault that passes for arrest), but word is they did leave horse dung all over the park.
I’ve written a bit before about the search for meaning in this movement and the importance that symbols will have to Occupy as the movement grows. I saw both factors at work here, as well as another that I’ve been meaning to write more on–the idea of the Occupy movement as a social networking platform in the offline world, a place where people can come together to have rational, adult discussions about why and how America has crashed and burned so spectacularly over the course of the past few decades (or, one could argue from a broader historical perspective, century). Was last night’s occupation of Jamison Square meaningful to the movement as a whole? I can’t say that it was from my own perspective, at least not in an immediate sense, but I understand the need that other Occupiers feel for a symbolic victory.
There may be a sense that Occupy Portland has stagnated a bit the past few weeks, and talking to people at both the GA and the square last night left me with the impression that people are ready to do something besides sit in meetings and hold marches. It says a lot to me about the dedication and self-control of the Occupiers that they held a peaceful demonstration last night in the face of that frustration; that said, I’m not sure walking in circles in the dark and letting the police put your fingerprints in a database is the “something” that needs to be done. Those who were arrested have my support–I’m just not sure that this was the symbol we needed at the moment. It’s important to let the world know this movement has teeth, yes, but let’s choose where, when and how we bite with a taste for the meal still to come instead of filling up on empty calories.
“At about 12:50am, a loud and obviously inebriated man entered the park and began shouting at the protestors, telling them that they were breaking the law. It didn’t seem to occur to him that he was not only breaking the 12am curfew but also drunk and disorderly. I have no idea whether the police bothered to arrest him or not; they may have saved all the room in their squad cars for the people trying to exercise their First Amendment rights.”
I was that man… I was not drunk and disorderly… I was exercising MY first amendment rights. I was highly agitated and outraged by the movement in Portland. They are undermining the entire national movement by being anarchistic and antagonistic. There will be no uprising in America because we had our violent revolution. As a 12th generation American, my family has fought in the revolution, the civil war, WWII, and Iraq… I took an oath to uphold the constitution of this country, and I intend to stand against the 99 becase they are not a representation of the whole.
At approximately 1120, I went to address the crowd. this is what I said:
“You people have your 1st amendment right to peaceably assemble, and address your grievences to the government – Just like the state of Oregon has their 10th amendment right to impose a curfew. When they ask you to leave, please do so peacefully.”
I was booed, laughed at, and called a tool. One man got in my face and started shouting over me. Once I told him I have a right to speak just like everyone else, I continued:
“You have my support to protest, because it’s your right. All I’m advocating is non-violent protest. Please, when they ask you to leave, do so peacefully”
This is when the crowd really started booing me. So I shouted “NON-VIOLENT PROTEST! NON-VIOLENT PROTEST! NON-VIOLENT PROTEST! You are undermining the entire movement when you employ Anarchy!”
At this, the only respect I received was an older Japanese lady who came up to me to shake my hand. There were a few people shouting how they are proud to be anarchists. The man who was in my face then yelled “What about Scott Olson? (The Marine in critical condition from the Oakland protests)… My response was simple. “He was injured during a violent clash with police, which is why I’m advocating Non-Violent Protest.”
After I said my piece, I walked away, only to be chased down by some guy telling me “Are you fucking serious? None of us have guns… People are surrounding us with guns, and we don’t have any guns. Maybe you had guns in Iraq, but we don’t have any guns, so you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
I expressed how those people surrounding them with guns were cops who were there to ensure a peaceful demonstration. If there were no demonstrators openly welcomlcoming a clash with police, or if they hadn’t reffered to their act of civil disobedience as “midnight fireworks” then maybe they wouldn’t be surrounded by guns. And how dare he compare a peaceful demonstration to war.
By 0200, the park was empty but for a few stragglers. The police were all outfitted with riot gear, tear gas, and non-lethal ammunition. Despite a few isolated fights, the demonstration remained non-violent.
Thank you OCCUPY for staying civil.
The rest of us want you to grow up and act like adults
The only piss n sh*t was from the police (horses)
It was all over the place at Jamison Square Park
Just saying
Before you critize one mans sh*t
Look at what your own horse just did
Re: News media behavior.
I’ve noticed in one city after another when the police are moving on protesters or one of the camps whenever they tell the mainstream press that they are’t allowed in a certain area, or on a certain street, or some such restriction, the the reporters, especially the film crews acquiesce, every time. Shame on them.
I wounder were Nick Fish buys his grass seed, must be one heck of a mark up.
Amazing how bad many peoples math skills are. There get bent out of shape over $200, 000 for a message of peace and justice and then in there lines of comment not mention once the $3,000,000,000,000 spent waring on just two countries.
SHIT and PISS obviously come from three orifices the third more often when there’s no brain to control it.
Don’t stay up too late tonight… Revellie comes early
Graphic on the Pearl District, on Oakland, on the attempts everywhere to sweep protest away with police violence:
http://portlandwiki.org/images/7/79/Police_brutality.jpg
By the way, I was at Jamison Square until 4 A.M. and held debates with several people from the neighborhood. They surprised me by the extent of their sweet naivete. I know that living in certain places is like a soft cushion that buffers you from information. But I didn’t realize how provincial and isolated from facts these Babbitts really are in the Pearl.
Hey where is the FREE pot? I need to come down more often instead of living in the burgs. I didn’t smell it while there during the day and I am an expert. I guess it always happens when I’m not present. And that if LIFE. Amen …
I said my peace!
Though I did see an agitator at the Michael Moore visitation.
I made an error in spelling the above. I can’t type and I admit it. It should be … and that is LIFE in a nut shell …