When the police response to a peaceful OLB action last Friday night swelled into a full force tactical deluge, we were a bit perplexed. Why the storm troop tactics? Who called it in? What was it about this particular message of PALERMO'S-NEGOTIATE! that got under someone's skin? After all, there have been many times when police have responded to complaints, and we've had many messages that would appear a lot more controversial or divisive than this one calling for discussion and compromise between management and workers at a local frozen pizza factory. A typical response is usually one or two squad cars, anywhere from one to four officers who observe us, talk with us, and go away with satisfaction that we are acting legally and responsibly on the overpass. Our rights to be there have consistently been reconfirmed. So what was different about Friday night? Why did one officer immediately claim we would all be arrested and that he was "shutting this down immediately!" while forcefully grabbing cell phones and storming around the bridge like an enraged bull?
Was a powerful donor chagrined about our union-supporting message? Is there some broader crackdown on dissent that is sweeping through the state now that a rightwing junta pretty much controls the country? Was there a back room Thomas Becket moment, a stray comment along the lines of "Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome Light Brigade?"
We aim to find out. Yesterday, Voces de la Frontera and OLB put forth a press release detailing the situation. OLB is just a small group of loosely affiliated activists, but Voces has some legal clout, so when they say they are putting forward an "open records request" to find the answers to our questions, people take notice:
Voces de la Frontera and OLB will be filing a Freedom of Information Act request to determine the process for which orders were given for Friday's action to be broken up- and why this particular message led to this particular response. Additional charges against Deputy Callies are currently being filed by the woman whose hand was injured when he grabbed her cell phone.
We are also asking the many elected officials who have endorsed and supported Voces and OLB actions in the past to demand a public investigation of this unacceptable violation of freedom of speech.
They are the ones who uncovered the skullduggery of Republican gerrymandering redistricting, and they are now the ones helping the Latino workers in their third month of strike.
We've pushed our networks on this, talking to local politicians, sending out press releases, posting to social media and for last night, calling out a huge group to take back the bridge. What a response we had! We chose the same bridge with the same message - as much out of stubbornness and a sense of symmetry as anything else. Right before we left for the bridge, we learned that some of our interviews had resulted in a sympathetic story in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Online. This in itself seems a miracle.
Groups just kept streaming in, with a final count of over 80 people. The tone felt protective, expectant, and a bit more serious than usual. We had a radio journalist from Wisconsin Public Radio, members of the Ironworkers and Steelworkers unions, a multitude of teachers, a bunch of activists who came directly from a Democratic Party picnic, a woman from Belgium working on her thesis about volunteerism in America, an ACLU observer, a legal observer, a photographer and writer from the Wisconsin Gazette, and our usual cohort of OLB volunteers who hold the lighted letters and chat and laugh as we live stream (two live streams last night!) and set up our "field office" to upload pictures and take still and video footage and generally have a great and convivial time of it.
When we came down off the bridge a County Sheriff paddy-wagon came by. We all cheered. We set up our usual "after shot" and then the head of Voces de la Frontera spoke briefly about the importance of our collective efforts, the ongoing boycott of Palermo (aka Kirkland) and how this pressure has resulted in management agreeing to sit down to talk with national labor leader Richard Trumka. It all felt pretty good.
We were packed up and heading to our favorite watering hole when our local CBS affiliate drove up. They wanted to do a spot "Live at 10:00" so we unpacked, got some of the neighbors to help us hold the letters, and set the backdrop for their story about "alleged police overreach" which aired the video we have of Officer Callies violently grabbing a woman's cell phone and illegally taking it. All in all, it was an excellent night in terms of visibility for the striking workers.
The Overpass Light Brigade is dedicated to peaceful protest. We are not out on the bridges to ridicule or disrespect local police. We conduct ourselves with discipline and decency, whether people like our messages or not. We have engaged more than 70 overpass actions by now, and have always had positive, though at times tense, relationships with multiple law enforcement jurisdictions. We are concerned about the growing militarization of American police forces, and intend to push back as much as we can against the increasing crackdowns on civil liberties.
We also want Palermo's Pizza to thrive. We are not trying to undermine them or take them down. Indeed, my family used to consume about two a week. We believe that they should listen to their workers, respond to their consistent complaints about health and safety hazards, not threaten them with deportation, and allow them to freely form a union without intimidation.
Finally, this is the issue that glues these actions together: our desire to create a society that values everyone, that gives equal voice and visibility to all people without intimidation or threat of retaliation. Last night I was talking with the young woman from Belgium. Her accent made it clear that she wasn't African American, and she seemed somewhat perplexed by what we were doing. I explained about the workers, their rights to organize, and how OLB had been so forcefully commandeered by police last Friday. She listened and thoughtfully said, "I am surprised by this! Isn't this America: the land of the free?"
There was not a hint of irony in her statement.