Occupy San Francisco’s March Against Police Oppression

A few hundred people gathered at 101 Market Street, the Federal Reserve Building and the former home base of the Occupy San Francisco encampment Friday evening February 10 for the March Against Police Repression. There was food, music, and camaraderie amongst new and old occupiers. At about 7 pm we began marching up Market Street chanting everything from “We are unstoppable, another world is possible” to “Arrest us, we multiply, hella hella occupy”. Our voices and bodies filled the street as curious on-lookers lined the sidewalk taking photos and often cheering us on. We turned up Powell Street over towards Union Square where the symbols of consumerism, Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, towered over our heads. There, at the intersection alongside the Square we had a speak-out about the recent acts of police oppression against Oakland and all across the Occupy movement. Occupiers spoke in more depth about the once taboo issue of the police as an institution, and the theory behind controversial chants condemning the police which are more typical of Oakland where more people of color, the poor and the disenfranchised have faced decades of police repression.

Though many people within the Occupy movement feel the recent focus on the police is outside the realm of the original Occupy mission highlighting bank bailouts and inequitable wealth distribution, others are digging deeper and asking the question, what and who are the police really protecting? They feel strong language condemning the police is necessary because the police as an institution are there to protect the 1% in a system where the haves are few and the have-nots are plenty. The events over the last few months seem to solidify this. In cities with rampant murder, rape and domestic abuse, the Mayors of these cities choose to put resources into crushing peaceful sites of political expression where thousands gathered to question and debate the economic and political system that we live within, instead of using resources to stop violent crime. And when the police are not crushing peaceful protest sites, what are they doing? These days, they are often ejecting families from their homes: homes now owned by the same banks that siphoned off at least seven hundred billion dollars in taxpayer bailout money. And where are the police when white collar crimes are being committed by the 1%? These are the crimes that are actually bankrupting the country: massive fraud, bribery, money laundering, tax-evasion and corporate abuse. Yet the anti-crime funding seems focused upon non-violent drug “crimes” by poor people.

In a democratic country whose constitution expressly promotes the rights of freedom of speech and assembly, and one that actually drops bombs on other nations in the name of promoting democracy, one would think that peaceful demonstrations would be protected. Instead, the limited resources of these strapped cities have been used to crush expression, and the protestors blamed for the brutality committed against them. Some feel that the police are just doing their jobs, that they are part of the 99%. So if the policemen and women are just good citizens who took the oath to protect and serve the people, why are they failing to question their orders? At what point do the police get together either as individuals or within their police associations and their ranks and assert that, “crushing peaceful protest sites and targeting political activists with batons and tear-gas is contrary to the constitution and the oath I took to uphold it. I will no longer carry out orders that contradict the highest law of the land and put our democracy in jeopardy for future generations.” And if the police are unable to ban together and protect our freedom, then maybe there is something to the argument that the whole institution of the police was never there to protect people in the first place, but just to follow the orders to protect the institutions and excessive wealth of the 1% and their multi-national corporations.

After our speak-out at Union Square, we marched up Stockton chanting, “We are the 99%” and calling out to the Occupy movements in different cities across the world. We weaved in and out of cars when we weren’t occupying whole streets then stopped at another intersection where we played music, chanted and even danced for our constitutional rights. After Union Square, we turned back onto Market Street where we marched peacefully through a mall, bringing our message of activism to the Friday night shopping crowd and then past a long line of twenty- somethings waiting to party it up at a dance club. “Party for peace, occupy San Francisco!” some of us yelled to them as they gave us thumbs ups and high-fives. As we marched, a line of some fifteen to twenty police on mopeds followed us. There were almost as many young people in line to get into that club to party, but the police weren’t surrounding them. But then again, they were just there to party, not to practice freedom of expression…

So who are the police really protecting? The police in the United States focus on crimes of the poor, people of color and the disenfranchised. But how many crimes at the top with farther-reaching and deeper implications do the police actually stop? With our country on the brink of financial collapse due to the excesses of the 1%, not the petty survival crimes of the poor, perhaps we should be putting our resources into policing the crimes of the elites. We ended our march with a speak-out at our former home, our protest home-base, the sidewalk and street in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco where we recited poetry, speeches and discussed how a better world is possible. And the memory of our vibrant protest encampment filled with signs, pamphlets, tents, food and community, destroyed by the police, remained etched in our minds.

-Beth Seligman, J.D.