G20 Bed & Breakfast: Pittsburgh

CrimethInc: G20 summit didn't all suck

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:42:21 -0400

The reports are coming in, and many participants are describing the G20 protests in Pittsburgh as a success. This is exciting news; the US anarchist movement hasn’t pulled off an unequivocally successful nationwide mobilization in half a decade or more. At the same time, success entails risks of its own: we may overlook the things we didn’t do well, take credit for things outside our actual influence, or fixate on attempting to repeat ourselves. Meanwhile the authorities, who often exaggerate our effectiveness to justify repressing us, appear to be understating the extent of anarchist damage and disruption in Pittsburgh, perhaps to downplay the possibility of militant anticapitalism regaining momentum.

This appraisal explores the triumphs and shortcomings of the G20 mobilization, in hopes that these lessons can be applied soon on a variety of other battlefields.

For a description of the context of the G20 and an account of the events of Thursday, September 24, read this. For a discussion of policing at the G20 and a report on the events of Friday evening, read this.

(Continue reading)

The Limits of Control

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:41:22 -0400

By G20 Bed and Breakfast Interzone Editor William S. Burroughs.

There is a growing interest in new techniques of mind-control. It has been suggested that Sirhan Sirhan was the subject of post-hypnotic suggestion, as he sat shaking violently on the steam table in the kitch of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while the as-yet unidentified woman held him and whispered in his ear. It has been alleged that behavior-modification techniques are used on troublesome prisoners and inmates, often without their consent. Dr. Delgado, who once stopped a charging bull by remote control of electrodes in the bull’s brain, left the U.S. to pursue his studies on human subjects in Spain. Brainwashing, psychotropic drugs, lobotomy and other, more subtle forms of psychosurgery; the technocratic control apparatus of the United States has at its fingertips new techniques which if fully exploited could make Orwell’s 1984 seem like a benevolent utopia.

But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control.

III

A basic impasse of all control machines is this: Control needs time in which to exercise control. Because control also needs opposition or acquiescence; otherwise, it ceases to be control. I control a hypnotized subject (at least partially); I control a slave, a dog, a worker; but if I establish complete control somehow, as by implanting electrodes in the brain, then my subject is little more than a tape recorder, a camera, a robot. You don’t control a tape recorder - you use it. Consider the distinction, and the impasse implicit here. All control systems try to make control as tight as possible, but at the same time, if they succeeded completely there would be nothing left to control. Suppose for example a control system installed electrodes in the brains of all prospective workers at birth. Control is now complete. Even the thought of rebellion is neurologically impossible. No police force is necessary. No psychological control is necessary, other than pressing buttons to achieve certain activations and operations.

When there is no more opposition, control becomes a meaningless proposition. It is highly questionable whether a human organism could survive complete control. There would be nothing there. No persons there. Life is will (motivation) and the workers would no longer be alive, perhaps literally. The concept of suggestion as a complete technique presupposes that control is partial and not complete. You do not have to give suggestions to your tape recorder nor subject it to pain and coercion or persuasion.

In the Mayan control system, where the priests kept the all-important Books of seasons and gods, the calendar was predicated on the universal illiteracy since they operate through the mass media - a very two-edged control instrument, as Watergate has shown. Control systems are vulnerable, and the news media are by their nature uncontrollable, at least in Western society. The alternative press is news, and alternative society is news, and as such both are taken up by the mass media. The monopoly that Hearst and Luce once exercised is breaking down. In fact, the more completely hermetic and seemingly successful a control system is, the more vulnerable it becomes. A weakness inherent in the Mayan system is that they didn’t need an army to control their workers, and therefore did not need an army when they needed one to repel invaders. It is a rule of social structures that anything that is not needed will atrophy and become inoperative over a period of time. Cut off from the war game - and remember, the Mayans had no neighbors to quarrel with they lose the ability to fight. In “The Mayan Caper” I suggested that such a hermetic control system would be completely disoriented and shattered by even one person who tampered with the control calendar, upon which the control system depended more and more heavily as the actual means of force withered away.

Consider a control situation: ten people in a lifeboat. two armed self-appointed leaders force the other eight to do the rowing while they dispose of the food and water, keeping most of it for themselves an doling out only enough to keep the other eight rowing. The two leaders now need to exercise control to maintain an advantageous position which they could not hold without it. Here the method of control is force - the possession of guns. Decontrol would be accomplished by overpowering the leaders and taking their guns. This effected, it would be advantageous to kill them at once. So once embarked on a policy of control, the leaders must continue the policy as a matter of self-preservation. Who, then, needs to control others but those who protect by such control a position of relative advantage? Why do they need to exercise control? Because they would soon lose this position and advantage and in many cases their lives as well, if they relinquished control.

VII

Now examine the reasons by which control is exercised in the lifeboat scenario: The two leaders are armed, let’s say, with .38 revolvers - twelve shots and eight potential opponents. They can take turns sleeping. However, they must still exercise care not to let the eight rowers know that they intend to kill them when land is sighted. Even in this primitive situation force is supplemented with deception and persuasion. The leaders will disembark at point A, leaving the other sufficient food to reach point B, they explain. They have the compass and they are contributing their navigational skills. In short they will endeavor to convince the others that this is a cooperative enterprise in which they are all working for the same goal. They may also make concessions: increase food and water rations. A concession of course means the retention of control - that is, the disposition of the food and water supplies. By persuasions and by concessions they hope to prevent a concerted attack by the eight rowers.

VIII

Actually they intend to poison the drinking water as soon as they leave the boat. If all the rowers knew this they would attack, no matter what the odds. We now see that another essential factor in control is to conceal from the controlled the actual intentions of the controllers. Extending the lifeboat analogy to the Ship of State, few existing governments could withstand a sudden, all-out attack by all their underprivileged citizens, and such an attack might well occur if the intentions of certain existing governments were unequivocally apparent. Suppose the lifeboat leaders had built a barricade and could withstand a concerted attack and kill all eight of the rowers if necessary. They would then have to do the rowing themselves and neither would be safe from the other. Similarly, a modern government armed with heavy weapons and prepared for attack could wipe out ninety-five percent of its citizens. But who would do the work, and who would protect them from the soldiers and technicians needed to make and man the weapons? Successful control means achieving a balance and avoiding a showdown where all-out force would be necessary. This is achieved through various techniques of psychological control, also balanced. The techniques of both force and psychological control are constantly improved and refined, and yet worldwide dissent has never been so widespread or so dangerous to the present controllers.

All modern control systems are riddled with contradictions. Look at England. “Never go too far in any direction,” is the basic rule on which England is built, and there is some wisdom in that. However, avoiding one impasse they step into another. Anything that is now going forward is on the way out. Well, nothing lasts forever. Time is that which ends, and control needs time. England is simply stalling for time as it slowly founders. Look at America. Who actually controls this country? It is very difficult to say. Certainly the very wealthy are one of the most powerful control groups, since they are in a position to control and manipulate the entire economy. However, it would not be to their advantage to set up or attempt to set up an overly fascist government. Force, once brought in, subverts the power of money. This is another impasse of control: protection from the protectors. Hitler formed the S.S. to protect him from the S.A. If he had lived long enough the question of protection from the S.S. would have pose itself. The Roman Emperors were at the mercy of the Praetorian Guard, who in one year killed twenty Emperors. And besides, no modern industrial country has ever gone fascist without a program of military expansion. There is no longer anyplace to expand to - after hundreds of years, colonialism is a thing of the past.

There can be no doubt that a cultural revolution of unprecedented dimensions has taken place in American during the last thirty years, and since America is now the model for the rest of the Western world, this revolution is worldwide. Another factor is the mass media, which spreads all cultural movements in all directions. The fact that this worldwide revolution has taken place indicates that the controllers have been forced to make concessions. Of course, a concession is still the retention of control. Here’s a dime, I keep a dollar. Ease up on censorship, but remember we could take it all back. Well, at this point, that is questionable.

Concession is another blind. History shows that once a government starts to make concessions it is on a one-way street. They could of course take all the concessions back, but that would expose them to the double jeopardy of revolution and the much greater danger of overt fascism, both highly dangerous to the present controllers. Does any clear policy arise from this welter of confusion? Than answer is probably no. The mass media has proven a very unreliable and even treacherous instrument of control. It is uncontrollable owing to its need for NEWS. If one paper, or even a string of papers owned by the same person, makes that story hotter as NEWS, some other paper will pick it up. Any imposition of government censorship on the media is a step in the direction of State control, a step which big money is most reluctant to take.

I don’t mean to suggest that control automatically defeats itself, nor that protest is therefore unnecessary. A government is never more dangerous than when embarking on a self-defeating or downright suicidal course. It is encouraging that some behavior modification projects have been exposed and halted, and certainly such exposure and publicity should continue. in fact, I submit that we have a right to insist that all scientific research be subject to public scrutiny, and that there should be no such thing as “top-secret” research.

What Happened At Pitt ?!?!

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:49:14 -0400

We have created this website to organize information about police action on September 25th 2009. At the moment, most of the action on this website is over at the forum. We have also collected links that may be of use. If you have any more data, post it to the forum and it will make its way onto these lists. We do not control or necessarily endorse all content on the other forums and news sources. (continued)

Activist Elliot Madison´s Twitter case sparks criticism of...

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:31:20 -0400

Activist Elliot Madison´s Twitter case sparks criticism of police and FBI. A conversation with Leslie Harris, the president and CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a DC-based non-profit focusing on freedom of speech and privacy on the internet. Courtesy of FSRN

Pittsburgh cops love their new new G20 toys, can't wait to use them again

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:09:57 -0400

Pittsburgh police say they will continue to benefit from the millions of dollars spent to prepare for the Group of 20 summit.

“We spent months getting ready for this and it was a lot of preparation, but we’ll see the dividends of that for a long time to come,” Public Safety Director Michael Huss said. “It was invaluable to us.”

Huss said the summit forced the city to upgrade equipment and undergo hundreds of hours of civil disturbance training from the Department of Homeland Security.

Deputy police Chief Paul Donaldson said the training involved 716 of the force’s 872 officers as well as 254 officers from the Allegheny County police, county Sheriff’s Office, Port Authority Transit and University of Pittsburgh. (Continued)

Dan Onorato may know his constituency

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:47:00 -0400

But boy, do we got his number…

Read - Protesters disrupt Onorato as he announces gubernatorial bid

Grit not sold on G20!

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:32:00 -0400

Last week, world leaders gathered in Pittsburgh for the G20 summit and delivered - as usual - lots of talk but little promise for action. There was definitely lots of action on the city’s streets as security forces clashed with protesters. Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of Storms Still Raging: Katrina, New Orleans and Social Justice is just back from Pittsburgh and breaks down the week’s events for us.

See also: Bill Quigley on commondreams.org

What a great picture!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:54:23 -0400

What a great picture!

G-20 / Oakland / Schenley Police Scanner (condensed & captioned)

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 08:53:47 -0400

Police scanner recording from the night of September 25, 2009, which focuses on the militarized police activity directed against students, bystanders, press, and some We Are Change activists at Oakland / Schenley Park well after the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit had ended. The full police-scanner recording is 1 hour & 34 minutes long. This is the Reader’s-Digest-condensed version of the night’s events courtesy of 12.160MHz. See also KDKA

Twitter Use During G-20 Leads To Arrest. The use of Twitter by...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:38:23 -0400

Twitter Use During G-20 Leads To Arrest. The use of Twitter by protesters during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh has led to the arrest of a self-described anarchist. Elliot Madison, 41, is accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the summit. Paul Butler, a law professor at George Washington University, says the case presents difficult First Amendment issues. Courtesy All Things Considered

Democracy 101: Made in Pittsburgh within five days of the G20...

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:41:49 -0400

Democracy 101: Made in Pittsburgh within five days of the G20 summit, by a team from Pittsburgh Indymedia, Twin Cities Indymedia, Glassbead Collective, and Mobile Broadcast News, a new documentary: “Democracy 101 (Rough Cut)”.

Democracy 101 is a look at the policing and pattern of issues that arise during from National Special Security Events. Made with footage from the recent repression of dissent in Pittsburgh, salvaged from the broken cameras, stolen video and arrested reporters.

SOUND WEAPONS DEPLOYED • JOURNALISTS ARRESTED • PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATORS ASSAULTED • CAMERAS BROKEN • VIDEO CONFISCATED • MILITARY ACTIONS AGAINST CIVILIANS • FIRST HAND REPORTS FROM THE BATTLE ZONE

View the 26-minute long video, from the makers of “Terrorizing Dissent” and friends at: http://rnc08report.org/archive/1198.shtml

[via Flux Rostrum]

Teabaggers give advice to G20 Summit protesters

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:12:00 -0400

Tony Norman: This is what authoritarianism looks like

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:07:09 -0400

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.

Continue reading

Nobel Prize Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz at the Monumental...

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:00:00 -0400

Nobel Prize Winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz at the Monumental Baptist Church in Pittsburgh raps about the G20, the meltdown, and the future of the planet. Instead of focusing so heavily on the GDP, Stiglitz feels that a reevaluation of our society’s priorities is crucial to its recovery. He says that “distortions in our economy have lead to distortions in our values,” and points out that we must try to correct this by focusing on things like green innovation, that are both monetarily profitable and good for the earth.

The morning after: press conference detailing police brutality...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:27:05 -0400

The morning after: press conference detailing police brutality during the G20 protests. Courtesy of Radio Blastfurnace

Democracy Now: Nearly 200 Arrested as Police Unleash Tear Gas,...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:45:29 -0400

Democracy Now: Nearly 200 Arrested as Police Unleash Tear Gas, Sound Cannons at G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh. As leaders of the world’s richest nations gathered in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit, thousands took to the streets in protest amidst a heavy police crackdown. Heavily armed riot police were out in force and used tear gas, stun grenades, smoke canisters and sound cannons, which direct extremely loud shrill sounds. [Video]

Oakland's Long Night

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:08:00 -0400

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.”

Obama’s condescending response to G-20 protests at the...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:02:00 -0400

Obama’s condescending response to G-20 protests at the post-summit press conference

Mark Ames: Sound beam weapons turned on Americans

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:52:50 -0400

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

More on the Pitt students held by cops...

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:48:04 -0400

folkdeath95:

The following is an account from and anonymous Pitt student who attended the protest on Schenley Plaza last night Friday September 25th. The gathering, a peaceful crowd of a few hundred students, media, and community members was held in response to the violence perpetrated against Pitt student activists and Pitt students the preceding Thursday by the police. For more information, pictures, and video about the events of Thursday September 24th, visit the Pittsburgh Independent Media website.

Violence perpetrated against student organizers and uninvolved students is not a singular event or a symptom of increased police presence due to an event like the G20. Police violence occurs in many communities across the country and throughout the world every day. It is a sign of the privilege of the educated class that the media and community pay attention and express their outrage about our being abused when low income communities, people of color, and other marginalized groups with less privilege are attacked or harassed everyday. The police state is not just this week, it is all the time, and students need to start looking around and raising your voices everyday to protest the violence of the state.

Students at other universities: Please, forward this to your friends, campus organizations, campus newspapers, administrators, and everyone you know because if we don’t stand together in solidarity, your school could be next. Demand that administrators at your school accept responsibility for the actions of police on your campus. Demand that police on your city and campus be held accountable for all the violence the perpetrate. Demand that you and your classmates not be relegated to the conditions of a product for sale in the Industrial Education Complex. Make demands, because your campus is your home, your community, and your responsibility.

In solidarity,
Sheila Hubbard
Go Pitt

“WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY NIGHT?
A Firsthand Account by a Pitt student

By 10:00, a group of a few hundred people had formed and the perimeter stretched to 3 sides and started getting thicker. Helicopters were overhead, and someone said they’d heard snipers were on the Hillman Library. Riot police outnumbered protesters at least 5 to 1 at this point, and they looked like they didn’t know what to do. Groups of people sat playing Duck Duck Goose and laughing or, like us, stood around tensely waiting for something to happen.

Eventually, the riot police surrounded the plaza. Local filmmakers roved around interviewing people. Some protesters shouted into megaphones, trying to engage the cops in a dialogue and when that didn’t work, mocking them. The police started closing in on us, forcing us into a corner and out of the plaza - we ended up with them in a perimeter facing an empty lawn. They formed a blockade between us and Bigelow Boulevard - at this point we were on Forbes Avenue in front of the Cathedral lawn. We were also blocked at Bellefield, and were essentially trapped on the street. People started panicking and running at this point. As the police moved in, we backed up onto the Cathedral lawn. There were about 40 of us backed into a corner.

We headed up towards Fifth Avenue on the opposite side of the Cathedral, but the police there told us to go back the way we came, grabbing us by our shoulders and pushing us back. When we expressed confusion, they threw a canister of tear gas at us so we backed up quickly. They started closing in on us on the lawn, beating their shields with their batons in unison. Even though we asked over and over which way they wanted us to go, because we wanted to leave peacefully, they refused to answer.

Eventually they ordered all 40 of us to lay face down on the ground. They told us we would all be taken into custody, and the officers came around using zip ties to handcuff everyone. We were separated and marched to a series of police cars and vans along Fifth Avenue. Their system there was incredibly disorganized and the officers were crude. “You know, I’m kind of disappointed,” one remarked. “I was hoping I would get to beat you guys down, but you guys were pretty peaceful.” Eventually, they searched and confiscated our belongings and took down all our information - most of us were being charged with failure to disperse - and tossed us all in some vans to wait. After a while, they pushed us up against the side of a bigger bus, patted us down, and loaded us onto the buses.

Apparently there were too many of us to process properly at the jail, so we ended up driving to SCI Pittsburgh. We sat outside the penitentiary for maybe half an hour or an hour. Outside, we could see dozens of National Guard and riot police officers swarming around. Someone noticed that somebody else’s hands were turning blue from the zip ties, so after a few attempts we got hold of the officer in front, who told him to “wiggle them around” and that there wasn’t anything else to do for now. Several people requested to use the bathroom, which was ignored. Eventually, they started letting us out one at a time.

The one who took me into custody put real handcuffs on me, cut off my zip tie cuffs, and patted me down. When she brought me inside, there were temporary partitions set up everywhere. I had my picture taken and was fingerprinted, then taken to wait to give my medical information, “in case you go to prison.” Afterward we were put in chairs and told to sit quietly, with National Guard guys watching us. One of them seemed slightly sympathetic; he made sure we all got water and food. “Please don’t talk,” he told us, “when you talk one of us has to come over here, and that means that it slows down the process.” When we asked where we were going, he told us, “I don’t know where you’re going, or whether you’ll be charged. For now, you’re just waiting till they decide what they’re going to do with you.” So we waited. And waited. Aaaand waited.

More people kept coming in, and we discreetly asked them what had happened. One guy was shirtless with welts all over his back; after seeing the protest on the news, he’d ridden his bike into Oakland. When he got there, police told him to turn around. He did, and they shot what he assumed was paintball guns full of pepper at his back. He was covered in huge welts and shell-shocked. He refused medical attention from the police and sat staring blankly at the wall. The guy sitting next to me had been walking home, and they’d snatched him off the street.

Eventually they started calling names. They brought us out into the courtyard, where we sat and could talk quietly. We overheard the officers saying that we’d all be released. Each of us had a police officer on our arm, and we went in batches of 4 or 5. They walked us over to a van, still cuffed, and we waited to reclaim our stuff. The cops walking us out harassed us about protesting, to which we responded less than enthusiastically. When we got our stuff, we were told not to go through it until we were off the premises, and escorted to the sidewalk in front of the police station. We were uncuffed and told to leave, and to “stay in groups, this isn‘t a nice part of town.” We were all miles away from home and the place we were arrested.

Welcome to surreality.

Questions? Comments? Email pittprotest@gmail.com
If you have police harassment or repression to report, call the ACLU G20 hotline : (412) 562-5015”