G20 Bed & Breakfast: Pittsburgh

Teabaggers give advice to G20 Summit protesters

Tony Norman: This is what authoritarianism looks like

An occupation like the one Pittsburgh experienced can’t help but change the way people view cops and their civic leaders going forward. For three days, thousands of militarized strangers took possession of our city, ostensibly to “protect” foreign and domestic leaders most of us would never see, much less meet. As one critic of the police action said during a news conference at the Thomas Merton Center yesterday, if the planners of future G-20 summits really want to ensure smooth, dissent-free experiences for the world’s leaders, why not have the conferences at military bases?

Security for the G-20 in Pittsburgh is put conservatively at $20 million. There was an estimated $50,000 in damage to windows and storefronts caused by anarchists in a few neighborhoods on the East End. But more than a few windows were broken last week. Something ghastly happened to us.

We proved we were willing to give up something very precious to us for a few days in the international spotlight. We invited authoritarianism into our homes and promised not to whimper while it danced on our necks. This is truly pathetic.

Oakland's Long Night

This story was written by G20 Bed & Breakfast staff reporter Eleanor Chute, based on her reporting and that of staff writers Timothy McNulty, Vivian Nereim, Moriah Balingit and Dan Majors. We hear that these cats also work for a little something called the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Jonathan LaTourelle, 26, junior at the University of Pittsburgh who lives in South Oakland, had participated in protests in Lawrenceville on Thursday and the permitted “People’s March to the G-20” on Friday. He said he was not on campus to protest Friday night, but he went to the plaza “in solidarity with a lot of other kids who I knew were going there who were angry about what happened the night before.”

At the park, he said, “People were playing duck-duck-goose and talking. Mostly, I think people were there because the events that had happened the night before … ” he said.

“We weren’t doing anything. We weren’t confronting them. We weren’t even protesting.” He said the police didn’t give the order to disperse “until they had surrounded most of the park.” Many people then left. He said a group was pushed across Forbes Avenue and into the Cathedral of Learning lawn. He said some were turned away by police on Fifth Avenue.

“No matter where you went, there was no way to leave,” he said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘I’m just trying to leave.’”

He said he was released from SCI Pittsburgh at 5:30 a.m. and met by members of the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project. He said they asked him about his physical and mental condition, fed him, and gave him a ride home.

He said he was not a member of the G-20 group, but belonged to a college group that had worked on education issues around G-20.

Drew Singer, editor of the student newspaper The Pitt News, watched the events from a window in the William Pitt Union, which has a view of Schenley Plaza. Two Pitt News photographers were among those arrested. “There were way more police than there were civilians, nonpolice,” he said.

He said the police gave a loud order to disperse. He said police usually arrest people who are especially unruly, but Friday night, “it seemed like anybody who didn’t leave immediately was being arrested even if they were just kind of watching. Technically, they did not disperse.”

He said some Pitt News reporters saw people passing out note cards earlier in the day at the permitted “People’s March to the G-20,” which announced a rally that night in Schenley Plaza.

While there may have been protesters, he said, “I personally didn’t see a single protester. There was absolutely nothing like Thursday night. It was overwhelmingly spectators and people who just wanted to see what was going on. It seems like just after Thursday night, [police] just weren’t taking anything. They just weren’t up for any funny business. They gave the orders to disperse, and I guess anybody who didn’t immediately disperse they were going after, it seemed like.”

“It was all students and no protesters — it looked like any Friday night in Oakland but with more people,” said Nathan Lanzendorfer, 23, of Mt. Lebanon. He went to Oakland out of curiosity to see the protests. Shortly before midnight he was caught on Forbes Avenue, with police deploying OC gas from two directions.

He was hit with a rubber bullet in his right leg and his left, started to run, and was then hit in an arm and his lower back. “I never heard any warning to leave the area — all four [rubber bullet] shots were within five seconds,” he said. “All the wounds on my back. If I was opposing [the police] at all you’d think I’d have a front wound.”

Mr. Lanzendorfer went to UPMC Presbyterian for treatment of his contusions, one of which is softball-sized, he said.

Post-Gazette reporter Sadie Gurman, 24, was among those arrested on the Pitt Cathedral of Learning lawn.

“I was arrested on the cathedral lawn while truly trying to get out of the fray,” she said.

Ms. Gurman said she had gone to Schenley Plaza because of news alerts she received on her cell phone. At Schenley Plaza, she was talking with colleagues and others she had met while covering G-20 events. In the plaza, she said there was one person on a loudspeaker. Others were standing around talking, running or playing games, such as duck-duck-goose. She estimated the number of civilians in the plaza at about 200.

Much of the plaza was flanked by police officers.

“There was definitely an energy that was very ominous at that point,” she said. Even as police ordered the crowd to disperse, Ms. Gurman said some people in the plaza stayed and chanted, “You’re sexy, you’re cute, take off your riot suit.” Ms. Gurman said she left the plaza and went onto Forbes Avenue.

“I was trying to move in a way that would not be in their perimeter. I was walking on Forbes toward Craig Street to get out of it. Another police van pulled up. Additional officers in riot gear jumped out and said to ‘move back, move back’ and were pushing us the opposite direction back toward Bigelow.”

She went that direction and ended up having to jump over bushes on the Cathedral lawn to get out of the way of police.

“I thought I was OK there. The cops jumped over the bushes, too,” she said.

She said a helicopter was overhead. With the cathedral behind a group of people, the police made a half circle and ordered people to lie down on the ground.

“Some of the girls were hugging each other and crying, saying to the police, ‘Tell us how we can get out of here peacefully. We don’t want to be here, but you’ve trapped us.’ “

She estimated about 30 people were put into a police vehicle. She was released about 10 hours after her arrest.

Ellyanna Kessler, an 18-year-old freshman, said she had been watching from her dormitory in Forbes Hall Thursdy night when police shot OC gas canisters onto the balcony of the residence.

“Everybody got tear gassed,” she said.

Tracy Hickey, an 18-year-old freshman, said she had been arrested while watching the protest Thursday as an off-duty ACLU legal observer.

When she realized that many of those being ordered to disperse had “nowhere to disperse to,” she said held open the door to a dormitory, ushering a crowd of screaming students into the residence. She said police then arrested her.

Friday night, students received phone and text messages from the University of Pittsburgh telling them to stay away from the plaza, warning of a repeat of Thursday’s confrontation.

Junior Sean Malloy said he had received a call telling him, “conditions may be deteriorating in Oakland. Students are advised to remain near their residences.” Still, Mr. Malloy and many others came outside to see what was happening, they said.

By about 10:50 p.m., K-9 units and police with plastic shields had surrounded the plaza began to make arrests. Police fired OC gas canisters into a crowd of mostly students on the corner of Forbes and Bigelow. Many people ran down Forbes Avenue, coughing and screaming, as a line of police several officers deep stretched across the road and marched down the street, ordering the crowd to disperse.

Some protesters taunted the police, he said.

“How do you feel shooting students,” one yelled.

Peter Shell, co-chair of the Thomas Merton Center’s antiwar committee, said he had gone to Oakland Friday night to celebrate the day’s successful and peaceful People’s March to the G-20, which his organization had sponsored.

When police made Mr. Shell leave Schenley Plaza, he was forced onto the Cathedral of Learning lawn. When he tried to leave via Fifth Avenue, he was surrounded, trapped and arrested, he said.

“We tried going left, we tried going forward, we tried going right,” he said. “We wanted to disperse and they did not let us disperse.”

Molly Shea said she came to Pittsburgh to protest at the People’s March but wanted nothing to do with Friday night’s demonstration, she said. A 22-year-old senior at Ohio University, she was studying at Kiva Han coffee shop until about 10:45 p.m. Friday, when she left to look for her friends.

She walked to the lawn next to the Cathedral of Learning to find them and soon realized she was surrounded by police, she said.

“We kept asking them how we could leave, or if we could leave,” she said. “Most of them were unresponsive. Some of them just said no.”

She was on a police wagon and then a bus for about five hours without water or a bathroom break, though many girls with her were asking for both, she said.

“A few police officers were nice,” she said, “but for the most part, they were not.”

She said one of the officers was “taking a lot of pride” in taking mug shots next to female detainees, and that other officers frequently used profanities specifically derogatory to women.

“Some of them were making jokes when they were moving around from paddy wagon to paddy wagon about ‘getting the hot ones out,’” she said.

She was released Saturday morning after being detained for about 10 hours, she said.

A 24-year-old member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Army Sgt. Jeff Bartos had been deployed to Iraq as a medic in 2005. When he came to Pittsburgh this week from New Britain, Conn., to protest the G-20 summit, it was also as a medic.

Friday night, he was helping to treat a reporter who had been exposed to OC gas near Schenley Plaza when he realized he was surrounded by police on all sides.

He said he was corralled with about 40 “pretty nervous, ‘What-are-we-doing-here’ protesters” as well as “random college kids,” including a girl who had been jogging through the park when she was trapped.

He said he was charged with disorderly conduct and released about 6 p.m. Saturday.

\Jordan Romanus, 22, who lives in South Oakland, a 15-minute walk from campus, was among those arrested Friday night on the Cathedral lawn.

He said they were told to lie face down on the ground. “I feel pretty horrible. I think 99 percent of the people that were arrested had never been arrested before. The anarchists who did all the damage, none of them were there … It was absolutely atrocious.”

Mr. Romanus, who said he was released around 12:30 p.m. yesterday, said police kept the detainees handcuffed all night. “My wrists are really sore. I didn’t get any sleep. They made us sit in chairs. They [the handcuffs] were on really right. One kid’s hand was bleeding by the end.”

Mark Ames: Sound beam weapons turned on Americans

Here’s some blowback anyone could have seen coming from 10,000 miles away–or however far Iraq and Georgia are from the USA: those crazy LRAD sound-beam weapons which were used to devastating effect by Georgia’s authoritarian leader to crush massive pro-democracy demonstrations two years ago, have finally made their Big Debut here in America, melting the eardrums of G20 demonstrators in Pittsburgh. Click here to see a video of the LRADs used on protestors in Pittsburgh. Continue reading