Socialist Action /August 2000
Thousands Protest Republicans
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER
PHILADELPHIA-"Whose streets? Our streets!"
chanted demonstrators as they greeted the delegates and media in town for
the Republican National Convention. For one week, this city was rocked by
scores of rallies, marches, and smaller-scale "direct action"
events.
Tragically, the peaceful protest activities were
marred by police violence. The Philadelphia Police Department-supported
all the way by the Democratic Party administration of Mayor John Street-arrested
some 480 people on spurious charges. Civil liberties were suspended, as
demonstrators and bystanders alike were swept up by police, incarcerated,
and often brutalized.
The largest event, on Sunday, July 30, attracted
about 12,000 mainly young people for a short march and a festival-like gathering
on the city's leafy Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Unfortunately, the political themes publicized
by the organizers of this event were unfocused and did not include clear
demands against the government.
But marchers came with their own signs and banners.
A contingent of "Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)," costumed in
evening gowns and tuxedos, chanted, "Gore or Bush, Bush or Gore, we
don't care who you're for. We've already bought 'em!"
Prominent were signs demanding a new trial and
freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Other signs called for justice in the case
of Thomas Jones, a Black man shot and brutally beaten just 10 days earlier
by Philadelphia police after a car chase. The beating was filmed by a local
TV station and replayed on national television.
Police claim that Jones shot and wounded one of
the cops who had been pursuing him. But witnesses dispute this claim, and
to date no gun has been produced as evidence; it seems likely that the cop
was in fact hit by the bullet of another officer shooting in a crossfire.
Another sizable march, of a very different character,
took place the following day, July 31. An estimated 5000 to 10,000 people
joined a march along South Broad Street, Philadelphia's main avenue, declaring:
"The poor will be heard."
The march was sponsored by the Kensington Welfare
Rights Union and endorsed by a number of unions and student and civil liberties
groups. At the forefront of the march were rows of disabled people-many
in wheelchairs-and mothers pushing babies in strollers.
According to the city authorities, the poor people's
march was "illegal." For several months, the Kensington Welfare
Rights Union had sought a permit for the march-but had been repeatedly denied.
When it came time for the event, however, the police
decided it would be bad publicity to attack a march of such size, let alone
one that was led by people in wheelchairs and with babies.
The four-mile march began at City Hall and ended
in a park adjacent to the First Union Center (which is misnamed, since it
is entirely non-union), where the Republican Party Convention was beginning
its sessions. Along the route, it passed through the vast working-class
neighborhoods of South Philadelphia. Many areas of the city have taken on
the look of bombed-out war zones, after being abandoned by the factories
where neighborhood residents used to work.
One of the marchers, Lorraine Daliessa, told the
Washington Post that she used to work at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard-which
is adjacent to the First Union Center-but she was laid off shortly before
the shipyard closed down. Daliessa lost her house earlier this year because
she could no longer pay the mortgage.
Asked why she was marching, Daliessa replied, "I
hope we impress somebody there are poor people in America today."
Police attack puppet center
The following day, the police decided to take decisive
action against the demonstrators when they raided a West Philadelphia warehouse
dubbed the "Ministry of Puppetganda." This was one of the main
locations where artists had been building and storing giant puppets, as
well as signs and banners, for the demonstrations.
The cops engaged in a full-scale siege against
the puppeteers; they surrounded the building and mounted the roof, refusing
to allow the 80 people inside to leave. An hour or so later, after they
had obtained a warrant, the cops broke down the door, arrested everyone
in the building (later charging them with "conspiracy")-and completely
destroyed all the signs, costumes, and artwork.
At a news conference several days later, the police
displayed the "criminal evidence" they had retrieved at the warehouse-some
chicken wire, PVC pipe, and a few kerosene-soaked rags-which they claimed
were weapons meant to be used in battles against the police. But the puppeteers
pointed out that chicken wire is a common material used in the construction
of giant puppets; and the kerosene was intended to make torches for jugglers.
That afternoon and evening, several marches took
place dedicated primarily to the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal and other political
prisoners, and against the death penalty and police brutality.
The largest rally, in front of the Municipal Services
Building on Penn Square, drew over 2000 people. Although the rally was peaceful,
and organizers had obtained a permit, it was ringed by police, and edgy
cops on horseback made repeated forays into the crowd to harass people.
In the meantime, smaller marches and non-violent
actions were taking place elsewhere in the Center City district. There were
many arrests.
The strategy of the Philadelphia police was more
refined than that of their counterparts during the WTO and World Bank demonstrations
in Seattle and Washington, D.C. The Philadelphia authorities opted for selective
arrests to try to get the key activists off the street, while avoiding large-scale
attacks in front of the media that might shift public opinion toward sympathy
for the protesters.
Furthermore, instead of relying on legions of cops
dressed like Darth Vader and armed with truncheons and tear gas, Philadelphia
made use of numbers of plainclothes police, who could mingle relatively
unobtrusively with the demonstrators. Even the uniformed cops wore shirtsleeves
and rode bicycles.
This was a charade meant to hoodwink the public
that the municipal administration in the City of Brotherly Love would be
civil in their encounters with protesters. At the same time, the authorities
consoled those Republicans (and Democrats) who might be anxious about "troublemakers
getting out of hand" that state and federal police and National Guard
units were being held in readiness nearby.
By midweek, the police were clearly emboldened
by the lack of an outcry in the media against their "preemptive"
tactics. They openly taunted demonstrators and independent journalists alike.
So-called "ringleaders" were identified and quickly arrested.
Noted examples were John Sellers, a leader of the Ruckus Society, a non-violent
organizing group, and Kate Sorenson of Philadelphia ACT-UP. Bail was set
at $1 million for each of them.
Sellers was arrested while merely standing on the
sidewalk speaking on his cell phone. Police confiscated his cell phone as
evidence of a "conspiracy," Sellers was finally released a week
later, after his bail had been reduced to $100,000.
Reports of abuses in jails
Mayor Street and Police Commissioner John Timoney
have been featured without let-up in the big business media, denying that
any "unjustified" arrests were made or that violence was used
on demonstrators. But their propaganda has been contradicted by reports
from legal monitors on the streets and in the jails, as well as by demonstrators
recently released from detention.
They speak of many abuses by prison guards, including
sexual assaults such as pulling women by their breasts, solitary confinement,
dragging prisoners through troughs of urine and garbage, and denying medications
to people suffering from diabetes, HIV, and other conditions.
One account that the local newspapers allowed onto
their pages was given by Joseph Rogers, a Quaker peace volunteer and president
of the Mental Health Association of Southeast Pennsylvania. Rogers told
reporters that he witnessed officers tightening the handcuffs of protesters
until their hands became blue. When Rogers asked the guards to loosen the
cuffs, they retorted, "This will teach them a lesson, this will teach
them to come to Philly."
After further protests, Rogers was removed from
his cell and cuffed from his left hand to his right ankle-a treatment given
to others who had spoken out about poor conditions.
In the Aug. 8 Philadelphia Daily News, Rogers was
quoted as saying: "I asked them how I could get back to my cell. They
told me I could hop." Rogers said that he informed the guards that
due to recent knee surgery he was unable to hop. The guards then pulled
him down the corridor and threw him into the cell.
Police Commissioner Timoney is calling for a federal
criminal investigation of the groups that organized protests in Philadelphia-as
well as those organizing for the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles.
Socialist Action /August 2000 |