'The Cops Had No Reason To Open Up On Them'

Arriving at 7AM at the Oakland docks on the morning of April 7, I scanned a lively circle of severalhundred protestors, including many Palestine solidarity activists, marching in a circular picket and demandingan end to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The corporate targets for the day's protests (organized byDirect Action to Stop the War  of the Bushimperial war machine were APL (formerly American President Lines), a cargo carrier that has contracts with theDefense Department to ship military cargo to Baghdad, and the Stevedoring Services of America (SSA), which wasrecently awarded a $4.8 million contract to manage the Umm Qasr seaport in Iraq.

As I heard what I took to be tear gas canisters explode further down the docks near another entrancetargeted by activists, I grew concerned that my housemates might be trapped in a dicey situation and felt likea cad for showing up an hour later than they had. I harbored no illusions that I could actually do much inresponse to any Oakland police overreaction aside from blurting out an ineffectual "easy!" or, asI'd done to a cop the week before at the Federal Building in San Francisco who trained a teargas gun at myhead while his colleagues put two of my roommates into pain holds, making the sign of the cross as if I was ina vampire flick.

But given that I was joining hundreds of Bay Area activists to act in solidarity with Iraqis under siege by mycountry's war machine, an advance into potentially teargas-laden airspace seemed the least I could do.

As I began walking down the train tracks that border the road alongside targeted dock entrances, the policeapproached me and a handful of other peaceniks and told us not to get behind them, then moved around us inwhat I can only describe as a paramilitary trot and forced us into the mass of protestors they were drivingaway from dock entrances. At least now I was not faced with getting arrested in isolation, I thought to myselfas my pal June yelled from inside a paddywagon to call her job and tell them she'd be missing work that day.

Soon a line of cops was advancing and making some noises I couldn't decipher, then firing what looked to beconcussion, or flash, grenades not that far above our heads. They also fired bean bags (innocuous looking whenrecovered later, they obviously stung like hell from the looks on faces of people hit by them) and woodenplugs (or blocks, as a friend who works with prisoners who have been fired upon by similar ordnance callsthem) big enough to take out an eye.

It was the first time I'd made plans with friends for future anti-war projects in an atmosphere thatsomewhat resembled what people in Jakarta describe going through on a fairly regular basis (admittedly,without a sense of possible torture or random execution). I can't say it was a treat exactly, especially whenI saw a woman who had been hit point blank by either a grenade or one of the wooden projectiles, which hadraised a tennis ball-sized bloody lump on her jaw.

I quickly grabbed a bunch of well groomed professional types with fancy cameras and dragged them to whereshe was being comforted by a friend ; a caption that later appeared with her photo said she refused to giveher name, but the young woman, called Sre, told me that none of the shutterbugs photographing her wounded facehad bothered to ask for it. Sre described bending down in front of a truck to avoid the police onslaught,where a cop ordered her to get up. When she did she was trapped between two cops on motorcycles, who drove herto the gravel bed of train tracks that I had just been on, then the next thing she knew she was shot. Giventhat she works with a pacifist affinity group devoted to yoga as a corollary to peaceful protest, it's a bitdifficult to see what threat she posed to the cops.

The official explanation for the extreme police actions is that random ruffians made the mistake of provokingsecurity forces by, according to Deputy Police Chief Patrick Haw, throwing "rocks and big iron bolts atofficers." But Joel Tena, the constituent liason for Oakland Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel, said "I wasthere from 5a.m. on, and the only violence that I saw was from the police."

Jeff Grubler, main conspirator behind the notorious insanereagan.com website and its associated series ofoutrageous political actions, was also on the scene by 5a.m. "I was at the gate where the police firstopened fire and no protestor threw anything at any of the cops before they advanced, gave a cursory dispersalorder, and opened fire without giving the assembled demonstrators enough time to leave. They continued firingconcussion grenades and other projectiles directly at us as we walked or ran away. In fact hundreds of us wereforced onto the railroad bed, which is loaded with small stones perfect for throwing back at someone firing onyou, but no one responded by doing so, they just kept screaming 'stop shooting.' There may have been one kidwho eventually did respond by chucking back a stone , but if that did happen it was only after three cycles ofpolice advancing and then firing on us for no apparent reason that anyone could discern."

Even if there had been a hothead or agent provocateur throwing something, it's hard to imagine such anisolated action justifying opening fire on hundreds of protestors. As Oakland officer Danielle Ashford toldthe San Jose Mercury News, "There were a few agitators in the crowd. The majority of them werepeaceful''; in the same breath Ashford blandly recounted that the cops nonetheless "fired non-lethalmunitions."

The question of how to maintain a respectful yet militant picket without alienating longshoremen not yet wonover to the anti-war position was largely solved by the outrageous behavior of the police. Trent Willis, abusiness agent for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, responded to cops opening fire on hisfellow longshore workers by declaring that they would walk off the job.

"They shot my guys. We're not going to work today," Willis said. "The cops had no reason toopen up on them." Seven longshore workers went to the hospital for wounds from police fire.

San Francisco activist Don Paul spent the morning talking to longshore workers and said he encountered 100%support for anti-war protestors. "One guy told me, 'the fucking Oakland police are out of control theyshould have known better than to piss off longshoremen.' They're clearly mad enough to stand up to the warprofiteers."

Repeatedly firing on retreating demonstrators (most activists were hit on their backs or the backs of theirlegs) was also probably not the most brilliant way to dissuade activists from protesting in Oakland. As aRichmond resident named Scott said of his wounds (shot three times in the back and once in the leg),"this was clearly meant to keep me from coming back to Oakland. But if my country's military continues toslaughter Iraqi civilians, as it appears it will, I'll be back. This crap has only strengthened my resolve tostand up and say no to this insane war."

As Jeff Grubler rightly points out, "the story the media puts out shouldn't be about demonstrators beingshot at, it should be about why we're out here being subjected to this nonsense: to stand up for people thatare being slaughtered in our names. What we went through with these concussion grenades is nothing compared towhat Iraqi civilians have been subjected to: we're not dealing with cluster bombs that send shrapnel slicingthrough people at hundreds of miles an hour.

We did an action last week where we told print, TV and radio journalists that we'd be smashing windows indowntown San Francisco. When they arrived and finally figured out, after we subjected them to plenty ofcarefully worked out anti-war satire describing the civilian casualties in Iraq that they're normally so boredby, that we were actually going to smash Windows software, which we happily did, they weren't all thatthrilled. But they filmed, photographed and wrote about it anyway and we got our message out. That's the kindof thing we have to keep on doing, locally, nationally and internationally, until we turn this thing aroundand help save the Iraqi people from liberation by mass murder."

Ben Terrall is an activist, writer and researcher who believes that Rupert Murdoch is on a campaign against critical thinking.