WE ADDRESS A CITY COUNCIL MEETING
I was getting a crash course in city government as I read the newspapers and attended a council meeting on the evening of April 8th, the day after the event at the docks. This was the first time I'd even been inside the Oakland City Hall, and it was an impressive building, inside as well as out.
The chamber was packed. I had to go up to one of the balconies, and even there I found standing room only. Several of us recognized each other from the previous day. "Good to see you here," people were saying to each other.
The council sat in a semicircle on a raised platform at the front of the chamber, like a panel facing the audience. At one end of the panel sat Jane Brunner, whom I recognized from the previous day. Near her was a woman whose nameplate read Nancy Nadel; she was the one who'd sent her aide to the docks to act as an observer. And in the middle was Council President Ignacio de la Fuente - who in newspaper statements had supported the police attack. He was chairing the meeting.
Facing the council, at the front of the audience, was a podium with a microphone for people speaking from the floor. There was also a huge video screen on which was projected the image of whoever was speaking at the moment. The screen was on the wall at the front of the chamber, above the panel of council members. Had it not been for the aid of this screen, I wouldn't have been able to see the faces of the speakers from where I stood in the balcony.
We'd already been told that according to the rules under which the council meetings functioned, no official hearing could be held until two weeks later. The purpose of that rule was to give persons representing all sides of an issue time to gather their evidence and prepare their statements. Moreover, there was already a non-related agenda that had been scheduled for this evening. However, for the first half hour there'd be an open forum where a dozen of us could speak from the floor. In effect this would be an unofficial hearing.
Ignacio de la Fuente opened the meeting and started off by gruffly warning us that anyone who spoke out of turn would be immediately ejected by the police. He said this confidently, perhaps in the belief that the shootings of the previous day had put the fear of god into everyone. But a few immediately jeered him, and someone yelled, "Ignacio, you suck!"
There was a brief exchange of insults. From comments I'd overheard while waiting for this meeting to begin, I got the impression that some people had previous experience with Ignacio. But most of us were probably here for the first time and we remained quiet, for a while at least. Meanwhile, Ignacio made no attempt to follow through with his expulsion threat, and the proceedings began with the open forum.
Each speaker would be limited to a minute, and the first to step up to the podium and take the mike was a protester who introduced himself as James Harris.
"What I experienced yesterday was a preemptive armed attack on citizens of the Bay Area who were protesting a foolish, illegal, military adventure overseas," he told the Council. "We were peaceful protesters. And even as the police officers fired on us I witnessed no panic among the protesters. We were walking away peacefully as the police continued to fire upon us. This kind of violence, I have seen in Nablus, Palestine, in a military occupation. I did not expect it in the United States of America!"
We applauded loudly as James finished and the next speaker stepped forward to the mike. His name was Gregory Morgan, and he explained in legal terms that the so called "non-lethal" munitions used the previous day were in fact defined by law as "lethal force." Gregory held up some papers in his hand. "I have that court ruling here," he said, and presented it to the council.
Kathleen Parsons was the next speaker.
"It's rare for me to find a protest that was as badly handled by the police as the one was yesterday," she told the Council.
"There are two basic questions here: Was there a leadership role that told the police to overreact in order to break down the demonstration, or, was it mere incompetence?
"I saw a woman with a left-temple injury. It could have taken out her eye if it had been a couple inches back or forth.
"I saw people hit in the back, and the only acts of violence I saw yesterday were those committed by the police.
"They took a deaf American Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair and dragged him behind police lines. And the officer handling his chair handled it so roughly that he struck another officer in the back."
A deaf person in a wheelchair? On hearing that I guessed that she must've been referring to Bob Miller. It was probably after that incident that I'd seen him in our picket line at the main APL gate. Bob Miller is one of those guys who just doesn't quit, doesn't give up.
Kathleen had finished, and the next speaker was a man in his mid-twenties.
"My name is Lyman Hollins, I'm a longshoreman, I'm a member of Local 10," he said, and was interrupted with enthusiastic applause. I applauded with the rest, but held my breath - what would he say about the event? Despite reports that the dockworkers had respected our picket line, I wasn't at all sure where we stood with them. It seemed fearfully possible that they might view us as intruders and blame the antiwar movement along with the police for their injuries.
The applause finished, and Lyman spoke.
"I'm a lifelong resident of the city of Oakland and a witness to this act of pure aggression by the members of the Oakland Police Department," he told the council. "I was in front of the SSA gate as they pushed the protesters from the APL gate. A phalanx of Oakland police and motorcycle officers approached us as the protesters were complying with police orders and dispersing. They passed the longshoremen, leaving us behind. The police officers then set off percussion grenades above our heads. Shot a longshoreman next to me in the back. That was shot deliberately at his back to take him down.
"When I called our business agent to come and take a look at this, he went to protect other workers which the police were advancing on and firing on. They fired and shot six more workers. [The business agent] was then dragged out of this car, handcuffed and taken to Santa Rita. Not to the Oakland jail. He was taken to Santa Rita! He got out of there at 2 a.m. - for protecting the workers! Doing the job that he was elected to do by our local, by our union!"
"Thank you, sir," Ignacio cut in to remind him that his time was up. We applauded Lyman enthusiastically as he withdrew.
The arrested union official was Jack Heyman. I'd also been told that, shortly before being arrested, he'd apparently passed through the area where I was, near the APL main gate. Several people had seen him arrested and it was even on video, but nobody knew why the police had arrested him. It was another of the many unexplained things that had happened that day. The mainstream media reported the longshoremen's injuries, but Heyman's arrest was hardly mentioned.
Next at the mike was the rather thin, delicate woman whose photo I'd seen on the front pages of several newspapers. As was the case with all the speakers, her face was projected onto the huge video screen at the front, and so I could see that the swelling on the side of her jaw had gone down somewhat since the photo was taken, but she was still black and blue.
"Hello. My name is Sri Louise, and I am a member of the Prayer and Resistance Mobile Yoga Action Unit. I am a committed antiwar protester. I am also committed to nonviolent action. That commitment I take with me every time I go out into the street and what I got for that nonviolent commitment was this injury here.
"You may have seen it," she said, pausing to hold up the large color photo of her injuries that had been in the newspapers. "This picture is all over the world. The entire world is watching what the Oakland city is going to do about this investigation into the Oakland Police Department. I want you to understand how serious this is that the whole world is watching you, and I, for one, am not going to settle for anything less than an absolute through investigation into what happened yesterday at the Oakland docks. Thank you."
The next person to take the stand was a gray-haired man who looked to be in his sixties.
"I'm Stan Woods, I'm a resident of Oakland and a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 6. I'm speaking in an individual capacity tonight because my local hasn't had a chance to meet in the last twenty four hours, but I feel without fear of contradiction that every one in the local condemns the attack both on members of Direct Action Against the War as well as members of ILWU Local 10. I feel it's important to mention that because the rightwing demagogues of Fox News for example like Bill O'Reilly tried to separate the two. We condemn [the attacks on] both. We don't accept any separation. [Attacks on] both were totally unjustified.
"I'd like to speak just for a minute about the so called non-lethal nature of rubber bullets and wooden projectiles. In Northern Ireland from 1972 to 1996 thirty Irish Catholics died from being shot by rubber bullets from the British occupation forces. Several dozen died in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip fired by Israeli authorities.
"I had the dubious distinction of being one of the first in the US shot by rubber bullets in the 1970's. After they tried them out in Northern Ireland, they thought, ‘Well, why not bring them over here?' And I was sandwiched in an icepack after being shot in the back and the chest for three days. Fortunately, it wasn't lethal, but it very well could have been. And I just want to say that it's no thanks at all to the Oakland Police Department that we don't have any war martyrs on our hands today."
The next speaker was a man I recognized from the previous day when we'd met at the BART station and marched downtown. He could've been about forty-five.
"My name is John Reimann, I'm a 35 year resident of Oakland and an [ ] member of the Carpenters Union." He took the mike in his hand and instead of facing the panel of council members, he turned to face us, and said, "I want to address myself to my brothers and sisters out here.
"What we saw yesterday morning was not some accidental overreaction of the cops. What happened was that the corporate elite and their mouthpieces, the politicians - the Republicans and the Democrats got together, and they realized we were going to see increasing turmoil and increasing struggle on the part of working class people, like we have in Oakland, as we are made to pay for this war and pay for their economic crisis. And they are experimenting with new and more effective means of crowd control. That is, put us down - that is what happened yesterday morning. It was an experiment to see if such tactics work."
John was followed by a man in his mid-twenties.
"Hello, my name is Jeffrey Crow Bolt. I work with East Bay Food-Not-Bombs. I was serving food to the picket line at the second APL gate when officers announced that we had two minutes to disperse. By the time we'd moved our pots of oatmeal across the railroad tracks to places not owned by APL, officers had begun throwing percussion grenades and firing the first salvos of bullets. I was struck a total of nine times that day."
Jeffrey lifted up his shirt to show a baseball-sized bruise on the upper right side of his chest. Then he continued.
"We picketers were dispersing, as ordered. Officers were firing into us as we were proceeding to the only exit available to us, which was several miles away. … [Police] were firing on picketers, later on traffic which had nothing to do with the rally.
"That was the beginning of wave after wave of police assaults on pickets nonviolently exercising our First Amendment rights. Officers made statements like, ‘It's illegal to protest in Oakland.' - displaying a woeful ignorance of citizens' rights and our Constitution."
"Thank you, Sir," cut in Ignacio, but Jeffrey was determined to finish.
"And at a time when we're spending fifteen teachers' jobs per bomb that we're dropping, it is more vital than ever to allow our citizens to nonviolently exercise our right of dissent."
"Thank you, Sir," said Ignacio again.
Jeffrey withdrew and a woman stepped forward.
"My name is Andrea Prichett and I'm a member of Copwatch, and as a member of Copwatch I have watched for thirteen years while fake, phony investigations have proceeded as a method to try to placate the public, and I want to let you know today that the citizens of Oakland have grown far to wise to be thrown off the trail by some chief who's going to investigate who? himself?"
Andrea then addressed the audience, warning us not to expect any serious investigation to result, and advised us, "Sue their butts off!"
The Oakland chief of police, Richard Word, had announced on the TV news that he was going to do an internal investigation of the event - which he later did, and it came out exactly as Andrea had predicted. Of course she wasn't alone in her skepticism, and that's why we were asking the Council for an independent investigation.
The next speaker appeared to be around forty-five.
"I'm Steve Stallone, a communications director for the ILWU. I'm here representing the international officers of the union. I'm here to register our dismay and our anger at the conduct of the Oakland Police Department yesterday. We're disturbed by their complete disregard for the First Amendment rights of the demonstrators. We're shocked by their use of excessive force and their militaristic response to a legitimate, nonviolent protest. And we're angry at the way nine of our members were shot and injured while simply trying to report to their jobs. And the way one of our business agents, clearly identified as the union official on the scene, was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, hauled off to jail and held in custody for 18 hours.
"In the New York Times today, Chief Word was quoted as saying that the police dispersed the crowd at the behest of the terminal operators, APL and SSA. What kind of chilly message does it send to ILWU members when the police open fire on them under orders from the very employers who locked us out in the bitter struggle just a few months ago?
"Our union was founded on the blood of workers shot and killed by police. We didn't tolerate those actions in 1934 and we sure as hell aren't going to tolerate them now. We demand justice. We demand accountability. We demand that the City Council conduct an independent and through investigation into the events of yesterday. From this investigation we want answers. We want to know who decided that the police should arrive at this demonstration in full riot gear. We want to know who decided to arm the police to the teeth with these munitions. We want to know who gave the order to fire unprovoked and indiscriminately into a crowd of demonstrators, long shore workers and truck drivers. We want to know why an ILWU official was arrested and incarcerated."
Ignacio reminded him that his time was up, but it seemed that Steve was finished anyway.
A man of about sixty stepped up to the mike. "My name is Bob Franklin. I'm with the Teamsters Union. I've been a Teamster for over thirty years."
"Did I call your name, sir?" Ignacio interrupted.
The Teamster affirmed that he had, and resumed with what he was about to say. "I think it was an outrage what happened, it marks the beginning of a whole escalation of the violence against the trade union movement and against the people in the Bay Area. And I must say I want to know how long it's going to take for action to be taken, and how many other acts of violence against the people in this community such as who demonstrated on the docks yesterday are going to occur."
Bob then ceded the rest of his time to Michael Eisenscher, a man who also appeared to be around sixty.
"My name is Michel Eisenscher, I'm here on behalf of U.S. Labor Against the War, the Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, and I've also brought a statement from Walter Johnson, the head of the San Francisco Labor Council. Because of time constraints I'll leave documents with you that state our position.
"I was there yesterday morning. And I have to tell you: There is virtually no justification for the level of force that was used. Our police are supposed to have gone through rigorous training in riot control and crowd management.
"What we saw yesterday - and it was confirmed by this morning's Chronicle - was a preemptive strike. The Chronicle this morning quotes the police as saying they were worried that they wouldn't be able to manage a larger crowd, and so they decided to attack in order to discourage others from doing likewise. What does that say about the Constitution of the United States?"
"Yes!" came shouts and cheers and applause from the audience. People sitting and stranding around me in the balcony were responding in loud support of what Michael was saying. "Yes! Yes!"
"I want to raise one other thing before I go. I want to know, and I think you should want to know, whether the state or federal government advised or instructed, or, made requests of the police to adopt a take-no-prisoners attitude with respect to this demonstration as an example for the nation of what we are witnessing going on around the world. Is this the kind of democracy we propose to set up in Iraq?"
This being an open forum, anyone who signed up to speak could do so, on any subject. So not all the speakers were here to talk about the police attack. An earlier speaker had talked about a local environmental problem, and another person spoke about difficulties that had been put in the way of an upcoming Carijama festival and requested that it be allowed to be held as scheduled.
The last speaker was Kate Tanaka from the Green Party.
"I was present yesterday at the demonstration," Kate said. "My specific request to you is that in the investigation that I'm sure you're planning to do, that you find out: Who it is. Who it was that made the allegation that a stone was thrown. Find that person and question that person closely. Because I was there and I saw no stones being thrown.
"The other thing I wonder about is what I heard last night on the TV. Some spokespersons on the part of the police department said that they were concerned that the crowd was going to grow larger and that's why they took this course of action. But in fact the crowd is going to grow larger! We want it to grow larger!"
Kate attempted to say more, but at that point her voice was drowned out by cheering and applause.
The half hour being up, it was now time for the council to begin with their scheduled agenda for this meeting. However, several dozen of our people had signed up to speak, and most of them hadn't spoken yet. Of course that didn't seem to concern Ignacio who'd already made statements to the media in support of the police. He'd begun the meeting by insultingly warning us that anyone who spoke out of turn would be removed from these chambers, and more than once he'd been insensitive to the point of being obnoxious. When he announced that it was time to proceed with the business of the evening, people began shouting, "This is the business of the evening!"
Ignacio told us to be quiet, and someone yelled out the old battle cry, "Whose street?"
"Our street!" chorused a hundred voices.
Then: "Whose meeting?" - "Our meeting!" Again and again we chanted, "Whose meeting?" - "Our meeting!" and that was followed by, "Whose city?" - "Our city!"
This went on for half a minute, and ended in applause. That is, we applauded ourselves. Ignacio did not applaud; he announced the meeting adjourned, put his coat on and headed for the door, with everybody now chanting, "Shame!" - "Shame!" - "Shame!"
But Jane Brunner took the gavel and reopened the meeting. She announced that a public hearing would be held in two weeks, and again explained the rules which prevented it from being held till then. As for this evening - and now she addressed her colleagues of the council - they could continue the open forum, but there was still the matter of the scheduled meeting, for which several people had shown up to present material.
Council members Jane Brunner, Jean Quan, Nancy Nadel and Desley Brooks briefly discussed how to handle it and decided that since the meeting wasn't expected to take long, they'd do that first, and after finishing it, go back to hearing another hour of testimony from us.
Ignacio returned to take his chair, and the scheduled meeting began.