Chapter 3
Oakland General Strike—N2
There we sat, peace signs extended, nine or ten feet in front of three hundred uniformed, fully armed police officers in riot gear. Three rows of fifty in front of me and three rows of fifty beside me on the right. Three different agencies in all were represented. The Oakland cops were in the lead, followed by Santa Rita County cops, and a SWAT team. An hour earlier, I had been comfortably bedded down in my tent, after a life changing day of revolutionary miracles. Wednesday, November 2, 2011, had been the day of the massively attended, hugely successful Oakland General Strike. It was the realization of a long held dream—of people rising up and demanding their right to the America we were promised—“land of the free and the home of the brave.” I understood that this beautiful ideal required diligence, bravery, and sacrifice on each citizen’s part. I treasured the noble doctrine put forth by our forefathers along with Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a nation where, “Dissent is patriotic,” and “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” In many places around the globe, the trajectory of a life was determined by the accident of birth, but not so in these United States. I counted myself lucky to be born into a country where, theoretically, anyone could improve their station, graduate college, own a house, or even become president one day—where immigrants were introduced to their new home by a kind, compassionate Lady Liberty, who welcomed them with open arms, and assured them that the indignities they’d suffered thus far were now over.
Though, in reality, my native land had always fallen somewhere short of this idyllic wonderland, I always believed that it was possible, with some adjustments, to come much closer than this. I knew that my country was a unique and grand experiment. It once relegated my mother and her blackness to the back of the bus—then awakened to the barbarity of its actions, and went on to have an epiphany, culminating in the election of a man with that same original sin to the presidency. Could this magical oasis also suddenly have an awakening about the assaults that corporations, banks, and the richest people on earth were committing against us—the masses, the proletariat in the twenty-first century? And so, given my undying devotion to the stars and stripes, how had I come to be sitting there, on a cordoned-off downtown street in Oakland, faced and flanked by severe looking men with guns and tear gas bombs, that were trained directly at me. Physically, I knew how I’d gotten there. I heard the concussions shaking the ground under my body, and then heard the screams, “Poh—lice, Poh—lice! Y’all motherfuckers get up outta your tents—they fixin’ to blow this motherfucker up again!” I crammed all my stuff into a suitcase and considered running, not walking, to the nearest airport. To my way of thinking, there was no dishonor in hightailing my fifty-one-year old, comfortable, plump behind back to my mountain home, nestled inside 160 acres of verdant forestland. What would be the harm in retreating back to my gardens and the horses—reacquainting myself with my fourth grade daughter and the rest of my dear family, whom I’d left three weeks earlier to participate in first, Occupy Albany, then Occupy Wall Street, and finally this, Occupy Oakland? But instead, angered by the intrusion into my perfect day, I stumbled to my feet and staggered toward the commotion just outside the camp on San Pablo Street. There I found hundreds of shocked celebrants—leftovers from the successful port action—standing around in disbelief at what had just transpired. Seconds before, they were talking, dancing, and listening to music—digging the after-party—when along came a handful of Black Bloc anarchists, who swooped in, dragged over a green metal dumpster, and set its contents ablaze. They’d also broken a couple of plate glass windows on the downtown OPD criminal investigation/recruiting office, which was, unfortunately, located adjacent to our tent village in the plaza. There were ten or eleven of them, all dressed in black, with homemade shields and face masks, whooping and hollering like errant teenagers when I walked onto the scene. I sidestepped them with ease, as I looked north up the street and saw a multitiered row of about a hundred and fifty riot police officers facing us from about half a block away. They had just assembled and fired tear gas canisters and flashbang grenades into the crowd before I got there. A thick cloud of gas hung in the air and burned my nose, eyes, and throat. Wow, my first taste of tear gas, I thought, almost proudly, as I surveyed the scene. Some cops had their guns up and trained on us, while others merely stood there—eyes locked forward. I ran the distance to them, leaving about ten feet of pavement between us, and began imploring them to stop firing. Seeing them, expressionless, armed to the teeth, and looking on the verge of shooting everyone into swiss cheese knocked something loose inside me, and I felt an unexpected sob leap into my throat as I began pleading, “Please don’t hurt them—they’re just kids. They have a right to their anger. Don’t you hope your sons and daughters will get to go to college someday? Most of these kids did everything right. They stayed out of trouble and got good grades, and now they’re in debt up to their ears. They’re living at home with their parents—working for minimum wage at Starbucks. That’s not going to pay the bills. They’re mad because they know they’re screwed. Some of them are really smart and still won’t ever be able to afford college. Wouldn’t you be mad? Aren’t you mad? Are any of you having a hard time coming up with the money for your kid’s education? Are you feeling a little bit squeezed? How’s that going for you? Is that going well? Do any of you have grown kids at home, occupying your couches, because there aren’t enough decent jobs out there? If you need to arrest someone, go after the ones that broke the windows and torched the dumpster. Most of them are still right over there. Right there in the black jeans, with the shields and masks and leather jackets. That big ‘A’ on their backs stands for, “arrest me.” They’re the only ones that caused any damage, so maybe you should go after them. They’re easy to spot. They’re not even running. In fact, they’re over there waving at you. But these kids over here, they’re not thugs—they’re not even doing anything illegal. Why would you hurt these kids when they’re being peaceful?”
One officer said, “Look lady, these ain’t kids, they’re over eighteen.” Nonetheless, the whole row of cops seemed to hesitate, as if they might be mulling over my words. Some registered uncertainty while others appeared to be flummoxed about what to do next. Even though none resembled the friendly “peace officers” Catholic nuns advised me to seek out if I was in trouble, it was encouraging that no one had shot me yet. I did see a few of them on my right begin to advance slightly, so I ran over to them, gesticulating madly, imploring them to think about what they were about to do. I remembered my grade school teachers saying that calling “the authorities” could get you out of a bad situation in a hurry. These guys looked much more likely to put me in a bad situation than to get me out of one. Nonetheless, I tried to stay on track, beseeching them again and again to think about their own children and how slim their chances of getting ahead were becoming. I riffed as long as I could, often reaching for what I hoped would be compelling imagery to give things a chance to simmer down. Some of the words coming out of my mouth actually seemed to be having an effect for a while—judging by the fact that I was still alive. I kept filibustering, but was running out of material, and now resorting to blurting out anything that came to mind. “Yeah, soooo, don’t you want your kids to have like, clean water and fresh air and healthy food and shiny new textbooks and weekend trips to the petting zoo and stuff like that when they grow up? Yeah, wouldn’t it be nicer if the mayor had asked you all to come down here and talk with us, or help us plant flowers and plant vegetables, instead of tear gassing us and shooting us with bean bags? ‘Cause I mean I’ve never actually been hit by a rubber bullet or a beanbag, but I bet it smarts right? They gotta be goin’ pretty fast when they hit you, huh.” I asked them to chew on how the mayor threw them under the bus and then distanced herself from their actions, after she told them it was all right to fire on protesters. And then, after they wounded Scott Olsen, she said they’d acted on their own. She told the media that she was out of town at the time (which was true) and unaware that her police department might resort to aggressive tactics and chemical agents to disperse the crowd (which was not true). It was later determined that the OPD acted on her direct orders, and had not, in fact, gone all rogue on the Occupy demonstrators. I tried to make the point that they, too, were getting a raw deal, and asked them to understand that we weren’t just out for kicks. We were assembled there because we hoped to make things better for all of us, including them.
At that point I began to sense the guys’ attentions waning and impatience setting in, so I tried a new tack and asked the dark, muscular cop who seemed to be in charge, if he’d consider not harming us if everyone agreed to sit down and be silent. He looked at me scornfully through his shield, but, to his credit, didn’t outright reject the plan, saying, “Yeah, right, that’s gonna work.” I told him I thought it just might, and instantly ran back toward the group before he had a chance to stop me. “Sit down! Sit down!” I shouted. Then I put my finger to my lips and motioned, “Shhhhhhhhh! Everybody, please just sit down and they won’t fire at us.” I hoped that I was right about that. Many didn’t sit down, but, thankfully, over half of them did. Lots of them sat with peace signs extended, and almost everyone ceased talking. The contrast in behavior was wholly impressive and I hoped it would be enough to satisfy the army of police in front of us and get them to turn around and head out, which would leave us free to do the same.
I ran back to the squad that had since closed in and decreased the distance between us to only twenty yards. I positioned myself directly opposite the guy who seemed to be in charge. “Okay, so … lots of us are sitting down and we’re all quiet and peaceful. Can we just call it good and you guys go home now?”
“Hey, you seem like a nice lady, just get out of here and don’t get yourself hurt tonight,” he replied. And, with that, he pushed past me, and signalled to the whole row to move forward, which they did—nightsticks raised. Upon seeing the police charge, the last of the remaining Black Bloc troupe bolted and ran into the shadows, leaving the rest of us, who were seated, to pay for their deeds. The explosive surge of uniformed gunmen rattled us into paralysis, as we closed our eyes and flinched in expectation.
I had come here to Oakland to witness history, to be a part of a peaceful revolution—a social media facilitated groundswell, populated by other frustrated, hopeful, determined people who, like me, aimed to demand and create the America we wanted to live in. So then, why was I, all of a sudden, sitting in a tense standoff with all these pissed off, armed to the teeth, cranky cops, who looked as if they’d like nothing more than to separate my head from my neck? Furthermore, why was a sloppy, wasted chick sitting inches away from me, sounding like she’d only come out to the revolution because she heard there was going to be free booze? God, we were just about to be slaughtered by a bunch of hopped up automatons, and here she was, rambling on and on about some of the dumbest shit I’d ever heard. After they pushed me aside, the cops had applied the brakes and stopped on a dime a few feet in front of us. They dug in and planted themselves, as if someone had just yelled, “Simon says stop!” It was creepy to see how stiffly they could stand—completely immobile—eyes cold and dead, not saying or doing anything. I shot a sideways glance at the sodden goddess, and wondered who the hell had invited her to our party.
Physically, she was beautiful, I could see that. She looked like she could be in a Super Bowl commercial, selling … anything. She was the perfect combination of slutty and wholesome—sassy and submissive—hair like spun gold, teeth like pearls, drunk like a skunk—a heedless tumbleweed, party hearty womanchild, of perhaps twenty or twenty-two years of age, sucking fellatially on a gigantic brown beer bottle, and writhing around on the ground like a cat in heat. She seemed to have no idea whatsoever how she came to be there, or even why we were all there. Apparently unable to contain all her deep thoughts in one pouty, sexy, little mouth, she kept blurting out things like, “I’m horny,” and, “Will somebody just fucking kiss me,” as she reached out and drew both black and white men down to the ground to grind on and French kiss. After a time, another attractive young woman strolled by, unaware, only to be grabbed and pulled earthward by the insatiable coquette. Her victim seemed genuinely shocked, yet unable to resist the impossible urge to kiss and grind back. One cop, observing, looked like he was going to pass out. Not one among us could look away. She, with her brown forty-ounce bottle of beer resting between her sometimes crossed, sometimes splayed wide open like Olga Korbut, legs. She with the hoarse, childlike voice, rending the night air with illuminating pronouncements like, “I’m not political, I don’t even give a shit about any of this crap, the 69% or whatever—I just wanna fuck somebody hot tonight. Is that too much to ask?”
I watched some of the cops begin to tremble, hardly able to contain the physiological responses they were having to her. I saw riot shields move to cover sensitive areas. I saw men looking down at those areas, some breaking out in a cold sweat. Hell, I was having some sort of physiological response to her, though I was way past menopause. Not only that, I loathed her. I wanted her gone, and the fact that the entire revolution was turning into a farce because of her stupid, compromised, randy ass was pissing me all the way off. Here we all were, about to meet our maker at the hands of a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth cyborgs who were armed to the eyelashes, and all she could think of to say was, “I just wanna fuck somebody hot tonight.” Please God, make the sniper shoot her first, I thought wickedly. I hadn’t spent every night of the last week in a tent with maniacal crack heads and toothless tweakers to go out like this. I didn’t sacrifice all my creature comforts while placating murderers, and rapping with rapists for this. It might have been worth losing a few nights’ sleep trying to talk down meth addicts, hell bent on “beatin’ the shit outta their ol’ ladies,” if we’d made a little progress on foreclosures and income inequality, but not so this chick could party like it was 1999. I wanted to be charitable toward her, after all, she too was part of the 99% and probably could have benefitted greatly from services that didn’t exist anymore. I mean, it had been a life-altering journey and I had been brought to my knees watching damaged, ravaged people, even at their psychotic, paranoid, drugged out worst, attempting to have meaningful dialogues about social ills and the problems plaguing the planet. Overhearing their hazy, fucked up, jagged, and sometimes indecipherable conversations about democracy and out-of-control corporatization had made me love them all the more—but I hadn’t gone on that epic journey, only to have Drunky Drunkerson get us all shot up into confetti .
Drunky Drunkatelli had the potential to whip these cops into an overstimulated, trigger-happy frenzy if she didn’t watch out. And to be sure, she wasn’t watching out. I may have had a little more patience for the girl if she hadn’t been turning the entire body of our labor and devotion into some sort of bizarre, third-rate spectacle. But, because I had spent that intensive week with all those whacked out, scary people, I was not predisposed to tolerate nonsense. Being jarred awake after marching with tens of thousands of like-minded, passionate, unstoppable dreamers, who dared to demand the impossible, made me disinclined to suffer fools. I did not think I could bear her running monologue of physical needs (“I need a cigarette, I need to get my nails done, I need a bigger bra, I need another beer, I need to get FUCKed”) one second longer. That’s when she launched into the chant that made springs shoot out of my head. She spun around to face the police, who now stood rigidly, ten feet before us, as she pointed at them with her premoistened fingers, which she had swirled suggestively in her sensual little mouth. “You’re sexy—You’re cute, Take off your riot suit,” she began, giggling nymphishly, obviously tickled pink with her clever little rhyme. She continued for some time. I wanted to stab her.
I, along with several other terrified, anxious demonstrators, had begun our day wanting to change the world for the better, and somehow instead found ourselves sitting here in a tense stalemate with a mob of agitated police officers, who didn’t seem to know right then whether to shit or go blind. Somewhere in the crowd, a ragged violinist began to play and softly sing, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” I felt as though I’d fallen into a Dostoyevsky novel as he continued his mournful tune. Drunkenfrau resumed her writhing, looking as if she’d rather make a living on her back than anywhere else. How had our social justice movement become a personal opportunity for her to score with three hundred guys all at once? Some among us had even begun telling her to stop. A young man somewhere behind me yelled, “Shut the fuck up drunk bitch!” Another, growing bored with the impasse, stupidly skipped a votive candle over the brick street, where it rolled, broke, and came to rest just short of the line of police, who had nearly panicked and jerked their guns toward the harmless object. I too had almost mistaken it for a molotov cocktail. The close call prompted all of us to launch into a made up on the spot, chant, “Don’t Throw Shit, Don’t Throw Shit.” Then, sensing their ongoing ire, we amended the chant to, “Don’t Throw Shit—AT THE COPS.” We repeated the refrain until the tension eased and once more we resumed our uneasy standoff.
Nearly two interminable hours dragged by in semi silence. Some stayed because we wanted to assert our right to peacefully assemble, while others stayed because they didn’t know if we had permission to leave. Some people lying down had even gone to sleep. Others, like me, kept a wary eye on the weaponry before us, as the holders began to shift from foot to foot in restless irritation. They too looked tired, and anxious to get on with it. Drunk girl even dozed for a few moments, but jerked wide awake to resume her favorite chant anew. “You’re sexy, You’re cute—Take off your riot suit.” The surreal atmosphere crossed the line into absurdity when all the young men in our group began to take up the chant. Growing stiff and weary, I got to my feet and stood about a yard in front of the black officer with a bullhorn, who seemed to be the main guy in charge. I asked him if there was any possibility, since it was so late and we were all tired and frazzled, that he could just order his guys to turn around and head back to the precinct while we all returned to our respective corners. Without question, none of us harbored any secret plans to break windows or light fires—we simply didn’t want to be ordered to give up our constitutional right. And the cops did not want us to feel like we’d gotten away with something. Just then, a woman’s voice began to flood the airspace around us.
“Attention! You must leave the area immediately. Please be advised that this area has been declared closed and you are unlawfully assembled. Failure to disperse may result in arrest or injury.” The policewoman recited this same sentence, with little or no inflection, so many times, that it almost became soothing to me. Eventually she tagged the phrase, “Return to the Plaza and you will not be arrested,” to her mantra. It was well after my normal bedtime, and I wanted to go back to my tent. I asked the commanding officer again if we might call it even, and sort of mutually disperse. I told him that I understood how annoying it must be to have all these youngsters out here refusing to go home, but that it was not violent or unstable really, and none of them were breaking anything or acting a fool. He shot back with, “They’re all actin’ a fool,” after which he snatched up his walkie-talkie and spoke gruffly into the receiver, “Okay, uh ….You gotta tell me somethin’ about what you want me to do out here now.”
The disembodied voice on the other end said, “Well, what’s going on out there? Is anybody rioting or breaking anything … or … are there any more fires?”
“Well, no. Nothing much is happening here right now and nothing’s been happening for a long time,” he answered, abruptly.
Whoever was talking to him on the other end asked, “Well, what do you wanna do with them? Can you flank ‘em and push ‘em back into the camp, or what … how far are you away from the tents out there?” That’s when I realized the person who had the power to order us all blasted into microchips wasn’t anywhere near the Plaza, and probably hadn’t been all night. For all I knew, the voice was coming from an office downtown somewhere. It was unfathomable to me that someone wielding so much power and influence over our immediate well-being could give life-threatening commands without even being on scene to assess the threat level for himself.
“Hell … I don’t know man, just tell me whatchyu want me to do. We been out here all night and ain’t nothin’ goin’ on. Whatchyu want me to do, man?” returned the cop in front of me, gesturing impatiently into the handset as if it were a live human being.
“Well, get on it—arrest somebody and get it over with if that’s what yer gonna do,” was the final edict. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it all became clear when I felt someone’s hands grab the straps of my backpack, pull me into the row of cops, shove me onto the ground, and put a knee in my back. I hit the pavement hard, despite having put my hands out to break my fall. Someone pinned my face to the ground, and I felt my right hand being grabbed and yanked behind my back, and then, the left one. A set of rigid plastic zip-tie cuffs were then placed around my wrists and pulled savagely to their tightest possible setting. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, “please, it hurts. It’s too tight. It’s cutting into me. Please, I know you’re just doing your job, but please, I’m not going to give you any trouble, sir, can you just loosen it a little … please,” I beseeched. He didn’t acknowledge my request in any way. After awhile, I stopped asking and tried to endure the pain, as the police officer reached into my pockets and searched for weapons and sharps. Tears ran down my face and onto the street. I was completely isolated from my group. Most everyone fled either back to the Plaza encampment or home, and that meant no one on my team was around to see what happened to me or film them, as I was violently arrested behind the curtain of cops. I was afraid—very afraid. A powerful hand grabbed my wrists from behind and jerked me up, by my handcuffs, to a standing position. I yelped in pain just before the officer scowled, “You got a little gas tonight?” At first I was confused, saying, “Excuse me?” But then, understood exactly what he meant. “I said, you got a little gas tonight?” He repeated disdainfully. “You just farted in my face.” I felt my own face flush, as I remembered the air that escaped from my rear end as he wrenched me, painfully, to my feet. “Um, yeah, I guess so. Sorry … I wasn’t expecting that,” I said, instantly furious with myself for letting him embarrass me. I stood there in abject fear, until another police officer, whose name was “Alvarez,” came over and asked my tormentor whether he should “cut my backpack off, or just loosen the straps.”
“Whatever—it’s your call,” was the flat response from the first cop. I remained silent, knowing instinctively that my opinion mattered little here. I expected Alvarez to make a show of selecting the biggest knife in his arsenal and hacking away at my newer backpack, but instead, he opted to loosen the straps until they were undone, and gently lift it from my shoulders. The unexpected kindness made more tears flow down my face as I ventured to quietly ask him if he could loosen the cuffs just a little bit. There was genuine concern in his eyes when he asked a colleague if there was a way to decrease the pressure. The answer didn’t surprise me, but Alvarez’s bothering to check did. He walked me slowly to the van and then helped me up into it, as I struggled with the high paddywagon entry. Three men were already in the divided cages of the van, as was a woman who looked distressed. “You shouldn’t have to wait too long. You’ll just get processed downtown and released … probably won’t be more than two, three hours, tops,” Alvarez said, helpfully, as he left us to get back to his job.
Three hours later we arrived in a large, enclosed concrete bay at a downtown Oakland jail and were asked to stand up outside the van to await processing. By that time the fetters had cut off the blood supply to my hands, which had swelled like sausages, and my wrists were throbbing in pain. It was nearing four o’clock in the morning and I was calling out pathetically, to have the shackles removed. A woman officer came over to me and snapped, “You see that?” pointing to the inside of the building, where a madhouse scene of protesters were being dragged here and there by mean looking cops. “Yes,” I said wincing.
“If I stop everything I’m doing here and pay attention to you, then all those guys over there gotta wait even longer. And then they take it out on you for making them wait. You don’t want that. You got it?”
“Yes,” I said.
Though she’d indicated otherwise, she did return quickly to free my hands, which put me in a much better mood. After the manacles came off, I felt downright giddy and decided to make the best of what I hoped would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Three anxious young women and I were soon placed in a holding cell, where I was pleased to have company, so I began to chat them up. None were thrilled to be there, but we did have a few laughs while we waited for something to happen. Hours went by before one of my cellmates, Andrea, who held two master’s degrees from Cal, noticed that there was a phone hanging on the wall. She picked up the receiver and minutes later was placing a collect call to the National Lawyer’s Guild Hotline. We all had a chance to give the lawyer details of our arrests and tell her how badly we wanted out before hanging up, which made us feel better. Another hour passed before a severe officer came to free us from the cell. I was ecstatic to be leaving and said so, only to have the officer laugh at me, “Oh no, you’re not done. You’re going over to Santa Rita at Alameda, County. You’re gonna love it there. Your party’s just starting.”
We were combined with a dozen or so other female Occupiers and lined up in the concrete bay we arrived at to board a prison bus to Santa Rita jail. I smiled conspiratorially at the other women, who were all much younger than I, and in no mood for joviality. Ignoring their standoffishness, I congratulated them for surviving our first night in jail. I hoped my friskiness would rub off on them as I imagined the fun of telling my friends about the whole ordeal. The ride reminded me of a sixth grade bus trip I’d taken to a YMCA summer camp. I broke the ice with other riders, just as I had then, by telling funny stories along the way. Everyone seemed to perk up somewhat, after a fashion, and the morning sunshine felt good to me through the dirty bus windows. I struck up a dialogue with our transport driver through the metal cage mesh between us, which seemed to amuse him some. I guessed that didn’t happen too often in his line of work.
The Santa Rita “Campus” was manicured and green—almost inviting from the outside, which I glimpsed briefly before being unloaded inside another enclosed bay. I was swiftly disabused of this notion as we were paraded past a cramped holding cell full of mostly black men on the way to our destination. They jumped to their feet, grabbing themselves and ogling us hungrily as they pressed up against the bulletproof glass windows. The young women with me were obviously humiliated and some came visibly unglued, clutching their clothing and covering their faces while we walked the gantlet. I, on the other hand, felt like a tourist at Disneyland and began waving deliriously at them—flashing the peace sign in solidarity with my fellow incarcerees. Because most of the men were less than half my age, I felt more protective toward them than threatened. It pained me to see such numbers of dark-skinned people caged up and serving time, rather than studying for exams and launching careers. Many of the hard-bodied inmates abandoned their rough exteriors, returning my grins and signs exuberantly. Thirteen of us were escorted to a sterile white cell meant to hold no more than six. It did boast a tiny cut-out shower, which had a tile bench and a single drain in the middle of the floor. Unfortunately, the tile bench was already occupied when we arrived, by a tiny young black woman with a buzz cut, who looked more like a twelve-year-old boy than a nineteen-year-old girl. She was curled into a fetal position on the bench from which she hung her head every few minutes to vomit what appeared to be fruit flavored vodka onto the floor. She did not look up at any of us. I tried to keep my nose closed while selecting a bench seat as far away from her as possible. She kept her eyes closed and did not acknowledge any of us who tried our best to give her space and privacy. A few of the girls joined in my jocularity, but others stayed sullen and inward. I learned from them that they had all been arrested inside the Plaza, where the tent village was, and where we had all been ordered to retreat to by the OPD if we wanted to “avoid being injured or arrested.” According to my cellmates, the police went back on their word and immediately began arresting everyone who returned to the encampment after the final dispersal order was given. Though they were promised safe haven there, they’d been chased, trapped, and teargassed anyway, even while compliant and cooperative.
We were all tired but there wasn’t enough area for everyone to lie down on the cold floor with the metal toilet in the center of the room. Then of course was the inevitable need to pee, or worse yet, poop into a toilet that was inches away from someone else’s head. We all found elimination difficult to accomplish, yet talking about it beforehand made it more bearable. Most girls took advantage of the phone on the wall (which I was jokingly referring to as our “cell phone”) and made awkward collect calls to their parents, who ran the gamut from indifference to hysteria upon learning of their child’s whereabouts. Some of the teenagers among us had furrowed brows as they listened to what their parents had to say. After observing a few painful exchanges, I cajoled my cellies into shouting, “Hi Mom!” gaily, in unison, to each parent that got the late night call, which broke some tension and helped reduce the number of interactions that didn’t go well. After that was done, a cheery type named Kate made a proposal. “Hey, since there’s not much room and some of us are feeling a little down right now—you’re all welcome to join me in a cuddle puddle on the floor.” Lots of the girls took her up on it and soon they lay entwined like kittens on the concrete surface.
A short nap was had by some before a uniformed woman, whose badge said “Fox,” rousted us by loudly barking, “Hustle your asses out onto the floor before I lose all of your paperwork.” We did as we were told and hurried to exit the cell, only to be commanded to stand with our faces to the wall with our arms extended outward. Another female officer joined Fox and walked up and down the line. I felt her hands reach under my breasts and lift them up. Then she worked her way down my body, over my buttocks, outside my thighs and down to the floor. After that she placed her hand inside my thigh and cupped my crotch. Some felt violated and had a hard time complying with this, as they flinched and shied away to avoid the contact—all to no avail. I didn’t suffer unduly through the procedure though, as I was mentally cataloging everything that happened and enjoying the idea of holding court with the lively tale at Thanksgiving dinner. When we’d all been searched, Fox told us to turn around and run our hands back and forth through our hair, which we did. Then she told us to lift up our breasts for her, which we also did. Apparently she wasn’t satisfied with our performance because she frowned exaggeratedly at us and brayed, “Come on girls, you can do a lot better than that. SHIMMY. Come on! Shimmy for me,” she insisted. One young woman in the lineup, a journalist, who had her official press badge prominently displayed when detained, rolled her eyes theatrically and clenched her jaws, gritting her teeth as if she were about to explode. I hoped for her sake that she wouldn’t. Then, Andrea with the two master’s degrees, decided to break bad with Fox, who earlier had refused to bring her her medication, for an acute bladder infection, from her confiscated bag. “You are violating my rights and I’m having a medical emergency. I need my prescription NOW!” Andrea shouted.
“You ain’t havin’ no goddamn medical emergency. You know how I can tell? ‘Cuz you ain’t havin’ no seizure and you’re still breathin’,” Fox roared back. Then, she began to laugh, viciously, at Andrea who glowered back at her. Then she added, “And you ain’t got no rights in here. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re in jail, sweetheart. Now, it’s gonna be a hell of a long time before you get outta here, cuz I just lost your paperwork, Andrea.”
After shimmying, we headed off for mug shots and fingerprints, where I was torn between smiling and looking dejected for the camera. I wanted to relax and be myself, but I was so tired, I wasn’t sure how I felt or which look accurately depicted my state of mind. I chose the latter and walked the few steps to the finger print line, where five or six women preceded me. One of the women was a small, quiet teenager from Germany, who spoke very little English, but who’d told me earlier her name was Nadine, pronounced, “Nah-deen.” A tall, muscular, slow-witted male officer was leaning close to her face, shouting at her. “I said, What’s your name? I’m not going to ask you again.” Nadine looked terrified as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Nah-deen! Nah-deen!” she cried. We were all watching in horror, when I realized the policeman thought she was being uncooperative. He thought she was saying, “Nothing! Nothing!” instead of furnishing him with her name. I interjected, “Sir, she’s German, she doesn’t understand much English! Her name is ‘Nay-deen,’ but it’s pronounced, ‘Nah-deen’ over there. It sounds like she’s saying, ‘nothing,’ but she’s not. She has an accent …” I was trying not to sound like a big fat know-it-all college graduate when addressing him. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was reprimanding him, or felt superior in some way. But in the end, none of that made any difference. The dolt cop took his pen out and jammed it between her wrist and the silver bracelet she wore. He jerked upward, breaking the chain and sending it crashing to the floor beneath her. Then, he reached down, picked it up, and hurled it into the trash can before I could finish my sentence. The brutality of the act was so unwarranted, we were stunned into silence. Even Fox lifted her head momentarily, raising her eyebrows as she sat on a stool next to him, completing her paperwork. I wanted to rush to the child’s aid—we all did, but knew that it would only make things worse for everyone, most of all Nadine. So I stood impotently behind her and felt every ounce of mirth drain from my body. The girl, who had labored to explain to me in English that she was eighteen years old, also told me that, in her personal philosophy, it made no difference what country she protested in, because she cared about all people, not just Germans. She was crying hard now—frightened nearly out of her wits. Just then I was beckoned by Fox to come forward and state my name, which I did promptly. I articulated it clearly to her and then said, as humbly as I could muster, “Um, look, I was talking with that girl, Nadine, back at the cell and she doesn’t know much English, so I don’t really think she was trying to give him any trouble or anything. I covered the same ground with Fox that I had with her male counterpart, this time hoping for a better result. “Yeah like, I think she pronounces her name like’ Nah-Deen,’ because she’s from somewhere in Europe or something. I guess that’s how they say it in Germany or wherever.” Then, for effect, I shrugged and rolled my eyes as if pronouncing it any other way than “NAY-deen” was the most idiotic thing I could ever imagine. Her co-worker’s behavior was so uncalled for, that I could tell it even bothered Fox a little bit. She cast some of the nastiness aside and looked me square in the eye, saying, “Yeah, you know, cops are just like protesters or anyone else out there—it just takes a few bad ones to make us all look like assholes.” She tossed her head over to the bully officer next to us that had just finished with Nadine when she said the word, “assholes” and I felt like we were having an incredible breakthrough. “You know we’re not getting that great a deal these days either, right, Bill?” said Fox, throwing her words toward a uniformed man in his fifties who was sitting at a computer inside a nearby office. “Nope, not this year,” he answered, affably. “They just hiked it up to five hundred bucks a month now that comes out of our paychecks for our benefits package and that’s not all they took away,” he went on. “Yep, it sucks,” agreed Fox. “See, we’re part of the 99% too, if you really think about it. To tell you the truth, I hope you guys get some things done.” I fought to hold my facial muscles in check and resist the urge to let my jaw drop to the floor. Another teenager who was standing behind me, waiting her turn, overheard the entire conversation, and as I glanced back at her, she mouthed the word, “Wow.” I decided to push a little further with Fox as she finished processing me, since the other big meanie had gone on break. I asked if she might be able to retrieve Nadine’s bracelet from the trash and give it back, because it obviously meant a lot to her. She answered, “Yeah, I’ll make sure she gets it back,” sincerely. I thanked her and as I turned to leave she said, “Now why don’t you convince Andrea over there to stop being such a cunt.” I ignored the crassness of the diss to smile right back at my new BFF, Fox, then headed back to my cell.
It was just after 4:00 p.m. that afternoon when someone came to our cell, unlocked the door, and told us we were all getting out. I rose, arthritically, to my feet and began to stretch painfully. I was the last to walk out the metal door. We were deposited at a station where a clerk was responsible for releasing our confiscated personal effects. Nadine was ahead of me. We had all showered her with kindness and tried to console her back in our cell after the bracelet incident. She had been beside herself, saying that police in her country would never have mistreated her so. I felt ashamed when she said that she had no idea American police were so cruel compared to Germans. She’d never intended to be arrested that night. In fact she’d obeyed their commands and gone back to the tents in order to be safe and not jeopardize her travel visa. She worried now that it would be revoked and she would have to leave the United States prematurely.
When she got up to the clerk’s window, Nadine gasped as she took an inventory of her stuff. The police had returned the bracelet, however had stolen all the cash from her backpack. The clerk shrugged his shoulders, telling her that if it wasn’t written down at the time of her arrest, there was no record that she had ever had any money. I walked up and put my arm around her shoulder as she wept uncontrollably and pounded a frustrated fist on the counter, piteously lamenting, “How can they do this? All of my money is gone! This is not right! This is not fair! Why do you do this here?”
When that same clerk handed me my backpack, I surveyed its contents and found everything to be there, except for a handful of loose change and a few prescription ibuprofen pills. I remembered that fifteen hours earlier, when my personal property was being cataloged, the officer told me that she was going to do me a “big favor” because I was her “last customer that night.” She said, “Tell me the four things in this bag that you’d really like to see again and I’ll write them down so they don’t (air quotes) ‘disappear’ in evidence.” Without hesitation, I told her I’d like to see the hundred twenty dollars cash, my new cell phone, my Mp3 player, and my wristwatch. “Done,” she said. “Now don’t make me have to write down anything else because I’m not good at spelling and I’m tryin’ to get out of here tonight.” It was just a lucky break that I was last and got my possessions back, but I made a mental note never to carry anything I valued into a police standoff again. I thanked the clerk, who was behind a bulletproof enclosure, for my backpack, which was returned to me through a one way revolving drawer, and walked with the other women into freedom. There were a few news reporters outside the Santa Rita jail waiting to interview us, as well as a couple of National Lawyer’s Guild volunteers, who had driven the distance to take us back to Oscar Grant Plaza. On the ride back I perused my release papers and read that I’d been charged with a violation of Penal Code 409, “Unlawful Assembly or Failure to Leave the Scene of a Riot.”