I didn’t plan to get arrested. But I found myself sitting in the middle of an intersection (Nassau and Pine), long before the cops came, and when they started arresting people couldn’t get up and break solidarity. My report will be in three parts: the longest part on the day, a short part on the need for an organization specialist to help out the NY police (but would it be good or bad to do so), and some thoughts on going forward for the Occupy movement.
THE DAY
I thought we’d be out in a couple of hours, but they held us until after the afternoon march, and in the end I was lucky not to be kept overnight, getting out at 7:30 p.m., but then having to go back because they forgot to give me my driver’s license, so not making it to my apartment until 9:10 p.m. And it turns out I was lucky not to have been kept overnight.
Near me at arrest time were Steve Fraser, author of one of the best books on Wall Street and my former comrade-in-arms from SAWSJ (an attempt to connect intellectuals and the labor movement), Jennifer Klein (a Yale historian, and comrade in relating to struggles inside SEIU), and a bunch of Jennifer’s students. I hadn’t known either Steve or Jennifer would be there; just chance that we connected. Also near us was a Philadelphia police captain, retired and in full uniform, arrested with us (but kept separate from us, and definitely not with us through the booking process).
I’m afraid I persuaded Jennifer to get arrested; she too had not planned on it, and was scheduled to be on a panel at 2:00 p.m. in Boston at the Social Science History Association. I hope she wasn’t kept all night, but fear she may have been (more below).
I had little idea of what to expect, but went to the morning activities about “shutting down Wall Street,” assuming it would be more militant, but not planning to get arrested. Things were (as expected) chaotic with contradictory messages. Somehow I was in a sizable group that was well in advance of the main march; we were sitting in the intersection before the march (and police) arrived. As noted above, I ended up deciding to get arrested – after all, my daughter is grown and doesn’t need to be picked up from school, and I’m spending the year at Russell Sage so I don’t need to meet a teaching schedule, so what could be a better time to get arrested.
At our intersection the arrests varied considerably. One cop in particular went a little nuts attacking people with his billy club; his supervisor grabbed the back of his coat, pulled him off, told him to stop it and back off. Most of the other police were being quite reasonable, a little rough but only what I’d expect. I’m not sure what behavior was like after I was arrested. The handcuffs (plastic) were tightened to varying degrees; some people ended up with swollen hands. We were held on the sidewalk a hundred yards away for an hour or so; sang Solidarity Forever and various other songs, talked. Then we were photographed in groups of five, each with a putative “arresting officer” (of record; ours was nowhere around when we were actually arrested).
Scene: Half an hour after arrest, still sitting on the sidewalk a hundred yards from the arrest site. Someone has a pack of Camels, and with hands handcuffed manages to get out the pack and pass it around; half a dozen people take smokes and (sometimes with help) get the cigarettes to their mouths. Someone somehow lights the first one, then people scoot around and mouth to mouth light cigarettes off the tips of each other’s cigarettes, smoking them no hands with ash falling down their shirts.
One piece of luck for me was that when we got to the booking area they wanted to take my pack away; to do so they had to cut the cuffs off me. They intended to put a new set on me, but forgot to do so. I stood with my hands together behind my back so they wouldn’t realize I was actually free. When I could I snuck out my phone and answered text messages. (Some texting pros kept their phones in their back pockets, and could text with their hands cuffed behind them; I definitely would not have been up to that.)
If you had told me I wouldn’t be able to go to the bathroom from 7:15 a.m. to almost 1:00 p.m., or get a drink from 8:30 to 1:00, I would have assumed I’d be miserable, but it actually wasn’t bad (although I’m fairly hoarse tonight; of course, we also chanted at various times). By about 10:30 we were in a pre-holding cell, men and women separated, about 40 men jammed pretty tightly in my cell. (So after 10:30 I have little idea what happened to the women arrested.) Around 12:30, I think, my arrest group members were moved through the next stage, the cuffs taken off (for those that had them), and all our possessions taken from us. My arresting officer helped me out (then and later) when I was going through; I had been to the bank the night before and had $160 in my wallet. He explained that if I had over $100 I would have to be booked by some lengthier process, and suggested I lend money to my co-arrestees (by then we were pretty tight). I did so, and once through the booking they then returned the money.
At 1:00 (or so) we were put in the holding cell. At various times there were 80 or more guys in there. As you went in you had a choice of sandwiches; I chose the peanut butter on whole wheat Wonder bread over the cheese on white Wonder bread. (Wrapped in plastic; two sandwiches) Also in the holding cell was a water cooler, sometimes with cups, sometimes without. At the back of the cell were two toilets, but they were not enclosed stalls; the walls of the stalls only went up about 30 inches (that is, below your crotch). The toilets, like the benches, were all made of metal.
The most boring part was the next many hours of waiting, not knowing what would happen or when we would be released. I talked with my fellow arrestees, first those who shared an arresting officer (Sam Black, co-producer of a film on Wikileaks; won’t be out for a year, but you definitely want to see it; Gabe Winant, son of Howard Winant; Ryan Harvey, construction worker, musician modeled on Phil Ochs, sometime contributor to Truthout), then assorted others (pharmacy manager, Bronx zoo carpenter, etc.). We discussed what we each did, thoughts on the future of the Occupy movement, information on what had been happening, debated non-violence and how to respond to the police and so on, but there was a lot of dead time.
Several (4-5? More?) people had blood on their faces. That pretty much always meant they were charged with assaulting an officer. The reasoning: If a demonstrator was bloodied, then either:
A. The police misbehaved and were unnecessarily violent to peaceful protestors. OR
B. The demonstrator must have engaged in some terrible aggressive action that justified a police assault.
Since (A) is impossible, it follows that the demonstrator must be charged with some serious crime.
Of the 80 or so people in there (with more passing through at one point or another) about 10 were black, perhaps 5 were Asian, and not many were visibly Latino. As one person noted, this was the most white people ever to occupy the holding cell at one time. I think I was the oldest person in there, but there was a fair age range. I met a number of people I know from political activities, including several labor organizers. Many of the relations with police officers were quite friendly; some of them are clearly sympathetic, and mocked the police commissioner to us. Officers from all boroughs had been pulled in; my “arresting officer” was from Brooklyn’s Flatbush district; he was incredibly helpful and did his best to get us out smoothly and easily, but clearly had no experience with a mass booking process and little ability to influence what happened. One of the officers told me that if the Occupy movement kept up he’d have so much overtime he could get a Beamer. (Most of the demonstrators made active efforts to be friendly to police; a couple of people argued the Occupy movement should be using violence and treating all cops as the enemies; several of us argued with them.)
I’m not quite sure why I was released at 7:30 p.m. on a D.A.T. or Desk Appearance Ticket. It’s roughly the equivalent of a traffic ticket, and means I didn’t have to get fingerprinted and a retinal scan taken. Generally speaking a D.A.T. is only for people who have a New York State I.D.; I listed a New York address, but my driver’s license is from Massachusetts. Someone else in my group has lived in New York for four years but had a Maine driver’s license; he was not released. Those not released apparently had to go to Central Booking; that had not started when I was released at 7:30 p.m. and there is a good chance those people are being held overnight. (Sorry Jennifer! Really – I never imagined.) I just have to show up on January 25 at 9:00 a.m.
NEW YORK POLICE INEFFICIENCY
I could make the process work SO much better. The management and organization was incredibly bad. I realize they probably intended to hold us until after the afternoon march, but leave that aside. They went through about three different rounds of entering information on paper, and only after that did someone else input it into a computer. They could save tons of time by starting out on a computer, especially since they are apparently going to do so ultimately. Also, when I was finally being released it was like a comedy: one “I’m in charge” paper checker, who seemed to be the only person who could look at anyone’s paperwork, with seven cops (including two white shirts, or supervisors) standing around waiting for him to act. Apparently every single case needed to go through him and only him; again, if this were done on computer it could tell you if a necessary field had been left blank. My guess is that close to half the person-hours put into the process were a complete waste; bad as universities are, I can’t think of any part of our university that is half as incompetently managed. (It did give me a chance to learn from a white shirt that 245 people had been arrested in the morning activities.)
THE FUTURE OF OCCUPY
None of us had very clear ideas. Maintaining a space is important, and clearly an effort will be made to close off and deny Zuccotti Park. Finding ways to build strength and organize matters, so new people are incorporated. Several people (both inside and outside labor) complained about labor’s inability to turn out significant numbers of people or to follow through on commitments. One labor organizer suggested that the first step for people in labor is to Occupy their unions, and make them more militant and democratic.
My own take is that mass arrests are a bad idea. In any announced mass confrontation with the state, the state will win; that’s what states are set up to do. Being arrested is silly; it wastes an entire day and is only useful for a brief mention on the news. I think we need to carry anarchist principles a step further: We should form affinity groups, then each group pick randomly out of a hat a target for their action (a building on Wall Street, let’s say, or a gathering of the 1%) and then out of another hat randomly draw a date/time (December 1, morning rush hour). That affinity group would then aim to disrupt the normal functioning of that building on that day, with the intention of NOT getting arrested, but rather just messing things up for a sustained period, then leaving before the police showed up. Groups could engage in a wide variety of creative actions. And of course this can be done in lots of places other than Wall Street, around the country.
I look forward to hearing other people’s thoughts.