PROTESTERS' ACCOUNTS OF THE ATTACK
Our companions who rejoined us at the BART station had spent an incredibly gruesome two hours in the depths of the port. After they disappeared from my sight, marching west along Middle Harbor Road, they reached the SSA terminal and joined another of group of picketers. That's where the shootings began, at about 7:40 a.m., when I witnessed those loud airbursts and plumes of smoke above a clump of trees.
There are many photos and videos as well as a large amount of eyewitness testimony of what happened next. Some of this material was reported in newspaper articles, and much was presented at forums and city council meetings. There are also about a dozen accounts written by protesters who were there. In trying to reconstruct what happened that morning of April 7th, 2003, I think it would help to go back to the beginning and start with events at 5 a.m.
According to a report by a photographer who witnessed the first three hours of the demonstration, two to three hundred protesters were peacefully picketing the first APL gate by 5 a.m., and Oakland police were blocking traffic to prevent accidents.
The photographer continues on to say that at 5:30 a.m., another two hundred or more protesters arrived to picket at the second APL gate farther down the street, and police were also there to direct traffic. More protesters kept coming, and around 6 a.m. there were enough that some went beyond the APL gates and down the street to picket at the SSA terminals.
Then, at 6:45, a large contingent
of OPD (Oakland Police Department) arrived wearing gas masks and armed
with rubber-bullet guns and chemical weapon grenade launchers. "I
knew this signaled trouble!" the photographer reported, and took
several photos which were afterwards posted on Indymedia. At 7:15 he
watched as police at the middle gate apparently told picketers to
disperse. "I was too far away to hear," he says, "as I was walking
down from the first gate at the time. Picketers quickly crossed the
street to stand on dirt between pavement and railroad tracks on the
opposite side of the street."
(At the same time that the photographer was observing these events, I arrived, also walking down Middle Harbor Road towards the main APL gate.) His account continues:
"The gasmasked police then formed a line that prevented almost everyone from leaving the area. There is no exit on the other side of the police line location! At this time there was a line of trucks and cars waiting to enter the dock area.
"When I got close enough to the first police line to take these pics, suddenly about fifteen cops ran to cut off the few people, including me, who were behind their line. These cops would not let me leave even though I told the gasmasked officer I was leaving as they had apparently ordered. Fortunately they did not have enough officers to block the entire street and track area, so I escaped down the middle of the street."
He couldn't get close enough to take any more pictures, and since he didn't have a press pass, he started walking back towards the first APL gate. Then, suddenly,
"I hear two loud shots, and turning around see what looks like tear gas being fired into the air back at people who are trapped by the OPD. One grenade is lobbed about 25 feet in the air and I clearly see a smoky trail behind it."
That was of course the same airburst that I witnessed, and as I've said, at that moment I didn't know what was going on. The photographer, however, had a much better estimate of the situation than I did. He also saw that it was significant news and had to be publicized. This was an information war as much as anything, and every second counted. He dashed off to his computer and, by 10:23 a.m., had the photos along with a report posted on the Indymedia website.
At the end of his report, the photographer adds:
"Late breaking news: A friend told
me via cell phone that she saw police pick out a Global Exchange
activist who was talking to a truck driver, saying 'Arrest her!'
Multiple cops then 'swarmed her' and arrested her. This same friend
witnessed the unprovoked use of concussion grenades by police on
protesters, dock workers and truckers."
* * *
These events were also described by a protester who was among the people trapped behind those police lines. This person, also a photographer, wrote under the penname "RAIL." He reports:
"By 6 a.m. this morning, hundreds of protesters had blocked both entrances to the shipping company American President Lines, which was targeted because it is a primary mover of military supplies . . .
"At 7:15 a.m., the first order to disperse was given by the Oakland PD with a two minute warning. As cops moved in, most demonstrators had moved to the sidewalk or across the street. At this point the first arrest was made, a demonstrator/performer on roller skates was grabbed as he skated too close to the line of police.
"Many protestors struggled to hold the picket line by allowing the cops to let the first few cars to pass and blocking the trucks further down the street. This resulted in a few more arrests as cops picked people off the front lines. One trucker expressed his opposition to the war but moved along once ordered by police.
"Once traffic was moving riot [police] moved in and began firing shotgun shells filled with octopus shaped beanbags, causing protesters to scatter."
"The demo had regrouped at the next entrance," RAIL reports. It was the first of the three gates of SSA (Stevedoring Services of America), which are spaced out over a distance of half a mile along Middle Harbor Road. "A handful of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) members were standing outside waiting to get into work."
* * *
The longshoremen were respecting the picket line set up by an earlier group of protesters who were already at the SSA gate at the time that RAIL and his companions joined them. One of these picketers was Jesse, who had arrived only shortly before the police attack began.
Jesse had entered the port by way of Maritime Street, which leads directly to the SSA terminals. The police had closed the street to passenger vehicles. In a report, which was posted later that morning, Jesse tells of his arrival:
"We all piled out of the vehicles and walked past the single policeman that was manning the roadblock. We walked a ways (almost a mile it felt like) to meet up with the other protesters who were enjoying a peaceful picket. When we arrived we had just been told that a dispersal order had occurred, but I heard none.
"All of a sudden, explosions are going off, smoke can be seen, people are panicking and the police are aiming what looks to be shotguns at people and shooting into the crowd at close range. It was the most barbaric display of violence that I have witnessed yet in my young life so far....
"[Our] protest was completely non-violent and peaceful. We were blockading a corporation who profits from the war....
"Personally, I took 4 wooden bullets to the left side of my body. One in the lowest rib in my chest, and 2 on my leg, with the last leaving my left knee looking like a grapefruit. The flash grenades were the scariest because they were actual explosions, and they were going off only meters from our heads....
"Watching cops run up to a crowd of panicking people, aim at their heads, and fire was a sight I will never forget. I saw a guy who got hit in the face with one of them and he was really bloodied up. There were people with cameras so you can expect some photos tonight. I wonder what happened to the mainstream cameraman who was caught up in a group of protesters that was getting shot at close range by cops. I also wonder if it will affect their reporting at all.
"So for a couple hours basically, we were in a tactical retreat, with the cops following close behind using nasty tricks to scare people into leaving. The motorcycle cops thought they could just drive right through us without incident. I wonder what kind of person it takes to attack a peaceful crowd like that. It's like I asked one of the cops: 'How do you sleep at night?'
"When I left, people were regrouping at West Oakland BART," Jesse finishes his report. Jesse was in the contingent which showed up at the BART station with banners still flying shortly after my group got there.
Before going anywhere for medical treatment, Jesse first wrote his report and posted it on Indymedia at 11:03 a.m. So it would've been up there by the time we were marching downtown. The next day, April 8th, Jesse added this:
"My bruises will heal.
"Through most of the day yesterday, I was thinking of our sister Rachel Corrie who gave her life defending Palestine. My bruises hurt, but they will heal. We will continue our resistance.
"To Rachel: Rest in the Peace that you could not find in Life, and know that your sacrifice was not in vain. We will carry on, and we will not give up."
* * *
Altogether, the police pursued the demonstrators for a distance of two miles, firing on them as well as on dockworkers eight times over a period of an hour and a half. Transcripts of police radio messages were later published in the Oakland Tribune (5/7/03), giving the times of the shootings as 7:38 a.m., 7:41 a.m., 7:58 a.m., 8:02 a.m., 8:06 a.m., 8:18 a.m., 8:20 a.m. and 9:05 a.m. The shootings began near the gate entrances of SAA on Middle Harbor Road, and eventually ended in the residential area near 7th and Willow streets, which is only a short distance from the West Oakland BART station. All the places where the protesters were fired upon were public streets.
More eyewitness accounts of the shootings appeared during the days and weeks that followed. One of these was by Kay Walker, a member of the Workers Democracy Network. She'd arrived at the docks at 6:30 a.m. She was at one of the SSA gates:
"Many of the truckers and other employees (members of the ILWU) refused to cross the picket lines. Our action, which was more like a strike than anything else, was beginning to be successful when the police arrived on the scene.
"I was picketing at the third and final gate when we were joined by about 200 people who appeared to have been driven away from other sites -- they appeared a little dazed.
"The police arrived -- eyeballed the group for a few minutes and then began to roll their motorcycles into the crowd -- a two tiered motorcycle brigade. No order to disperse was given. We began walking rapidly in the only direction open to us -- right into the freeway which had been blocked off -- no traffic. We were being moved like a herd of cattle and it appeared to be planned. I kept looking back at the crowd as I moved away from the police. A volley of shots rang out and again. We later saw the bullets -- large wooden shells - and the injuries - massive swelling and painful lacerations - some broken bones.
"My friend and I turned around and saw a young woman lying on the ground too injured to move. Her leg was swollen and lacerated in two places. Her injuries were swelling to the size of large oranges. This was documented on film as were other injuries."
* * *
Not all of the protesters were able to get out of the port. One of them was Paul Ginocchio who was arrested during the attack. Paul wrote and posted his report on Indymedia the next day, after getting out of jail:
". . . time sped up very quickly as we heard huge blasts from guns that sounded like war itself, and I saw some people fall from wounds caused by the objects being fired upon us. Many of us ran, some left the scene altogether. Some of us did not want to give up that quickly, feeling that it was our democratic right to picket on Oakland property. We re-grouped and joined a smaller picket circle in front of another driveway at the docks.
"Once again, we had little time to come together and communicate about what we wanted to do. My girlfriend and I joined the last remaining circle. We saw people running, police on motorcycles powerfully charging at the protestors, actually hitting one woman, leaving tire prints on her arm, leg, and back. The loud bangs began again . . .. Suddenly another wave of police ran towards us. Many people tried to run away to the other side of the street, but we were effectively trapped. Thankfully my 60-year old mother had just managed to avoid the charging police, as I saw one guy get thrown to the ground very forcefully by five police officers. I saw no one doing anything violent towards the police. . .
". . . I saw people trying to escape and 'disperse' as the police would say, but they were not allowed to. It was too late. . . .
"We were arrested at around 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning and held in Santa Rita county jail until 4 a.m. the next morning. . . . There were 16 men in our cell."
"The time in this cell was tough and hard, on the cement floors, but we managed to bond at a level not usual in the divided norm of our society."
* * *
One of the people sharing that crowded cell at Santa Rita was Jack Heyman, a longshore union official who'd been on duty in the port that morning when he was arrested.
ILWU Business Agent Jack Heyman was in the area of the main APL gate, not far from where I was, when the loud airbursts went off. At the time I didn't know who Jack Heyman was; it was another protester, Dave, who told me he'd seen him nearby.
There was a detailed account of the event in the next (April 2003) issue of The Dispatcher, which is the ILWU newspaper:
"During the melee, [Business Agent] Heyman kept telling his members to leave the site because it clearly was unsafe to be there. He got a call on his cellular from a member informing him that two longshore workers had been hit by police bullets up the road at SSA. Local 10 President Henry Graham then ordered him to drive to the gate and tell the members, 'Get the hell out of there. It's unsafe.'
"Heyman was driving up the road in his clearly marked Business Agent car when a police officer ordered him to turn off the engine. As Heyman explained that he was only trying to get his members out of harm's way, several cops dragged him out of the car, threw him to the ground, beat him, handcuffed him and hauled him into a waiting paddy wagon, even though he was dressed in a jacket bearing a large version of the ILWU logo and wearing his white cap.
"Oakland School Board Member Dan Siegel witnessed the event and called out to the police, asking what Heyman was being arrested for. 'I don't know,' one of the cops responded. 'He's just being arrested.'"
These actions were recorded on video, so there's not much room for dispute over how it happened. But why did the police arrest a person whom they certainly must've known was a union official doing his job? As for the school board member, Dan Siegel, he was, in the course of the morning, shot five times by police.
* * *
One of the last persons to be injured was Willow Rosenthal. She tells of being at an SSA gate when:
"The police started driving towards the group (of which I was a member) on their motorcycles and shot more of the shock grenades, and were firing into the crowd with some other type of weapon. I ran with the rest of the group up Maritime, attempting to stay away from the police fire. Since the police had closed off any other route we kept walking up Maritime. After a few minutes the police were not visible anymore."
The distance covered by Willow and her companions after leaving that SSA gate would be approximately a mile. She continues,
"At the corner of 7th Street and Maritime the group engaged in a discussion of what to do next. It was decided that we would go back to the BART Station about half a mile up 7th Street.... While the group was discussing, some of us were marching in a circle and singing on Maritime. We were there maybe about 15 minutes. I think it was around 9:15am. At this point, the police rode into view again on their motorcycles and made a line on Maritime facing 7th Street. I was afraid that if I went onto 7th Street this might be viewed by the police as an attempt to block the street, so I stayed on Maritime.
"I'm not sure if the police used their PA system to communicate with us, but if so, it was too low for me to hear. The group had decided to go up 7th Street back to the BART station, but right at that moment when we began moving in the direction of BART, and before much of the group had left Maritime, the police got off their bikes and began to fire into the group.
"The police line was about 30 feet away from me at this time. I saw the police began to raise their rifles, so I turned to run. I was hit on the back of the right calf as I attempted to run away from the police fire. I felt that I was badly injured but I kept running since I was afraid of getting hit again. I ran into 7th Street, and the police kept advancing towards us, trapping us on the left side of the street just before a tunnel without pedestrian access that I could see. I was very afraid that I would be hit again. I didn't know if I should try to escape through the truck traffic in the 7th Street tunnel but that seemed dangerous too.
"Someone let me lean on them as we attempted to flee. Finally we found the entrance to the pedestrian walkway, and a few men carried me to the corner of 7th Street where a woman with a car drove me to my house on Henry Street."
* * *
Most of the protesters probably went to the port that morning in the belief that our First Amendment rights would be respected. Only two days earlier, on Saturday, April 5th, there'd been a large antiwar demonstration of 10,000 people in downtown Oakland, and the police had been quite amicable that day; there'd been no problems. So people generally concluded that there wouldn't be any trouble on April 7th either. The police attack, which began around 7:40 a.m., was not anticipated.
The remarkable thing, which has greatly impressed me as I read and listen to the various accounts, is how courageous the protesters were under fire. Others remarked this too. According to Jonathan Nack, a Bay Area activist who was there, "The protestors conducted themselves in an organized, dignified, calm, and non-violent manner at all times, even while being fired upon. Very many observers have corroborated this account."
People fled under the barrages. Some were badly injured and were somehow gotten to a hospital. There are several accounts of people who risked themselves under fire to aid wounded companions. A few were isolated behind police lines where they watched the events almost as though they were spectators, while yet others regrouped at the next SSA gate. A video of one scene shows that as the police approached again, the protesters stood their ground and chanted:
"The whole world is
watching!" and, "We're nonviolent--how about you?"
The police answered with more wooden bullets.