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Title: Seven Myths about the Police Author: CrimethInc. Date: October 25, 2011 Language: en Topics: myths, police Source: Retrieved on 9th November 2020 from https://crimethinc.com/2011/10/25/seven-myths-about-the-police
The police exercise legitimate authority. In fact, the average police
officer is not a legal expert; he probably knows his department
protocol, but very little about the actual laws. This means his
enforcement involves a great deal of bluffing, improvisation, and
dishonesty. Police lie on a regular basis: “I just got a report of
someone of your description committing a crime around here. Want to show
me some ID?”
This is not to say we should unthinkingly accept laws as legitimate,
either. The entire judicial system protects the privileges of the
wealthy and powerful. Obeying laws is not necessarily morally right—it
may even be immoral. Slavery was legal, aiding escaped slaves illegal.
The Nazis came to power in Germany via democratic elections and passed
laws through the prescribed channels. We should aspire to the strength
of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of laws and police
intimidation.
The police are ordinary workers just like us; they should be our allies.
Unfortunately, there’s a big gap between “should be” and “are.” The role
of the police is to serve the interests of the ruling class; anyone who
has not had a bad experience with them is likely privileged, submissive,
or both. Today’s police officers know exactly what they’re getting into
when they join the force—people in uniform don’t just get cats out of
trees. Yes, most take the job because of economic pressure, but needing
a paycheck is no excuse for evicting families, harassing young people of
color, or pepper-spraying demonstrators. Those whose consciences can be
bought are everyone’s potential enemies, not allies.
This fairy tale is more persuasive when it is couched in strategic
terms: for example, “Every revolution succeeds at the moment the armed
forces refuse to make war on their fellows; therefore we should focus on
seducing the police to our side.” But the police are not just any
workers; they’re the ones who chose to base their livelihoods upon
defending the prevailing order, thus the least likely to be sympathetic
to those who wish to change it. In this context, it makes more sense to
oppose the police as such than to seek solidarity with them. As long as
they serve their masters, they cannot be our allies; by denouncing the
institution of police and demoralizing individual officers, we encourage
them to seek other livelihoods so we can one day find common cause with
them.
Maybe there are some bad apples, but some police officers are good
people. Perhaps some police officers have good intentions, but once
again, insofar as they obey orders rather than their consciences, they
cannot be trusted.
There’s something to be said for understanding the systematic nature of
institutions, rather than attributing every injustice to the
shortcomings of individuals. Remember the story of the man who,
tormented by fleas, managed to catch one between his fingers? He
scrutinized it for a long time before placing it back at the spot on his
neck where had he caught it. His friends, confounded, inquired why on
earth he would do such a thing. “That wasn’t the one that was biting
me,” he explained.
Police can win any confrontation, so we shouldn’t antagonize them. With
all their weapons, equipment, and surveillance, the police can seem
invincible, but this is an illusion. They are limited by all sorts of
invisible constraints—bureaucracy, public opinion, communication
breakdowns, an overloaded judicial system. If they don’t have vehicles
or facilities available to transport and process a great number of
arrestees, for example, they can’t make mass arrests.
This is why a motley crowd armed only with the tear gas canisters shot
at them can hold off a larger, more organized, better-equipped police
force; contests between social unrest and military might don’t play out
according to the rules of military engagement. Those who have studied
police, who can predict what they are prepared for and what they can and
cannot do, can often outsmart and outmaneuver them.
Such small victories are especially inspiring for those who chafe under
the heel of police violence on a daily basis. In the collective
unconscious of our society, the police are the ultimate bastion of
reality, the force that ensures that things stay the way they are;
taking them on and winning, however temporarily, shows that reality is
negotiable.
Police are a mere distraction from the real enemy, not worth our wrath
or attention. Alas, tyranny is not just a matter of politicians or
executives; they would be powerless without those who do their bidding.
When we contest their rule, we’re also contesting the submission that
keeps them in power, and sooner or later we’re sure to come up against
some of those who submit. That being said, it’s true that the police are
no more integral to hierarchy than the oppressive dynamics in our own
communities; they are simply the external manifestation, on a larger
scale, of the same phenomena. If we are to contest domination
everywhere, rather than specializing in combating certain forms of it
while leaving others unchallenged, we have to be prepared to confront it
both in the streets and in our own bedrooms; we can’t expect to win on
one front without fighting on the other. We shouldn’t fetishize
confrontations with uniformed foes, we shouldn’t forget the power
imbalances in our own ranks—but neither should we be content merely to
manage the details of our own oppression in a non-hierarchical manner.
We need police to protect us. According to this line of thinking, even
if we might aspire to live in a society without police in the distant
future, we need them today, for people are not ready to live together
peacefully without armed enforcers. As if the social imbalances and fear
maintained by police violence are peace! Those who argue that the police
sometimes do good things bear the burden of proving that those same good
things could not be accomplished at least as well by other means.
In any case, it’s not as if a police-free society is suddenly going to
appear overnight just because someone spray-paints “Fuck the Police” on
a wall. The protracted struggle it will take to free our communities
from police repression will probably go on as long as it takes us to
learn to coexist peacefully; a community that can’t sort out its own
conflicts can’t expect to triumph against a more powerful occupying
force. In the meantime, opposition to police should be seen as a
rejection of one of the most egregious sources of oppressive violence,
not an assertion that without police there would be none. But if we can
ever defeat and disband the police, we will surely be able to defend
ourselves against less organized threats.
Resisting the police is violent—it makes you no better than them.
According to this line of thinking, violence is inherently a form of
domination, and thus inconsistent with opposing domination. Those who
engage in violence play the same game as their oppressors, thereby
losing from the outset.
This is dangerously simplistic. Is a woman who defends herself against a
rapist no better than a rapist? Were slaves who revolted no better than
slave-holders? There is such a thing as self-defense. In some cases,
violence enforces power imbalances; in other cases, it challenges them.
For people who still have faith in an authoritarian system or God,
following the rules—whether legal or moral—is the top priority, at
whatever cost: they believe they will be rewarded for doing so,
regardless of what happens to others as a result. Whether such people
call themselves conservatives or pacifists makes little difference in
the end. On the other hand, for those of us who take responsibility for
ourselves, the most important question is what will serve to make the
world a better place. Sometimes this may include violence.
Police are people too, and deserve the same respect due all living
things. The point is not that they deserve to suffer or that we should
bring them to justice. The point is that, in purely pragmatic terms,
they must not be allowed to brutalize people or impose an unjust social
order. Though it can be empowering for those who have spent their lives
under the heel of oppression to contemplate finally settling the score
with their oppressors, liberation is not a matter of exacting revenge
but of rendering it unnecessary. Therefore, while it may sometimes even
be necessary to set police on fire, this should not be done out of a
spirit of vengeful self-righteousness, but from a place of care and
compassion—if not for the police themselves, at least for all who would
otherwise suffer at their hands.
---
Delegitimizing the police is not only beneficial for those they target,
but also for police officers’ families and police officers themselves.
Not only do police officers have disproportionately high rates of
domestic violence and child abuse, they’re also more likely to get
killed, commit suicide, and struggle with addiction than most sectors of
society. Anything that encourages police officers to quit their jobs is
in their best interest, as well as the interest of their loved ones and
society at large. Let’s create a world in which no one oppresses or is
oppressed, in which no one has to live in fear.
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found
out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon
them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words
or blows, or both.”
— Frederick Douglass
Copwatch groups seek to contest or at least limit police repression by
directly monitoring police officers. Copwatch volunteers patrol the
streets, observing police and recording their interactions with
civilians. They often concentrate on areas of high police activity or to
which known trouble-making cops are assigned. Copwatch groups also
advise people of their rights and listen to their stories, and otherwise
endeavor to undermine and thwart the police state.
Most radicals, not to mention many others, realize that the idea of
policing itself needs to be completely rethought. In the meantime,
people have to be protected from the brutality they face daily at the
hands of the police.
Form a group. Put out calls for one everywhere, even on the bulletin
boards of church groups and local grocers, not just in the activist
community. Approach your neighbors—the best neighborhood watch includes
a copwatch.
Educate people in your community and other communities, especially
targeted ones, about their legal rights, and about how to carry out a
copwatch. Hold classes everywhere in your city, at accessible places and
times. These can be formal events, or informal teach-ins outside a movie
theater or between performers at a show.
Hold regular, accessible, well-advertised meetings—don’t depend on the
internet for all or even most of your communications. Many of those who
need copwatch most are unlikely to have easy or regular computer access.
Decide as a group what your goals are and how you will go about
achieving them.
Find hotspots where police repression frequently takes place. Look for
them in the police blotter in your local paper, or ask around in
neighborhoods, or approach lawyers who do a lot of street work and
request advice.
Establish patrols, and have them report on their observations on a
regular basis. Your group will be more effective if it is well
organized.
For a variety of reasons, it makes the most sense for people to do
copwatch patrols in their own neighborhoods. If it is important that you
patrol another neighborhood, make an effort to become familiar with it:
get to know locals, and make sure you understand local issues and
context. Canvas from door to door if necessary, introducing yourself and
your group and announcing your intentions and motivations. Be open to
input from locals; they are the ones who will experience the bulk of the
repercussions from everything that happens in their neighborhood. Come
through on your commitments: don’t just show up out of nowhere doing a
copwatch program for a little while and then disappear, stick around
until locals know who you are and that they can count on you.
When the cops are particularly brutal or kill someone, raise a ruckus
about it. Put pressure on them and keep it on. Approach the survivors
and follow their lead as to how to handle things. Offer to organize
protests or benefit events, screenprint shirts, or play media liaison
for them. If they’re into it, hold demonstrations, spray paint the names
of the victims and murderers everywhere, smash out the windows of the
offending police station.
Agitate for laws and regulations that enforce stricter controls on
police. Try to get the worst police officers fired. If your community
has a Citizen Review Board, make an effort to give it teeth. Police
review boards should be elected by district, not appointed. They must be
empowered to impose punishments and fire officers.
People from communities that are terrorized will often be understandably
afraid to stand up for themselves. A copwatch program can be the first
step towards solidarity with each other.
To copwatch effectively, all you need is your eyes and ears, and some
means of recording incidents. A small notebook and pen or pencil are the
most useful and least conspicuous. A camera or video camera can also be
useful, as can a cell phone or an audio recording device.
Copwatching is generally safest and easiest if you make sure to follow
the letter of the law. There should be no drugs, alcohol, or illegal
weapons on your person or in your system. Be careful not to jaywalk.
This author has friends who have done a perfect copwatch, then jaywalked
almost immediately after leaving the scene, receiving a $50 ticket for
their efforts. If you are driving, make sure that you and all of your
passengers have on seat belts. Resist unnecessary horn honking or loud
music as you drive away—violations of noise pollution laws and
ordinances can be used as excuses to detain and arrest you. If you are
not following the very letter of the law, you may end up doing more harm
than good and could get yourself arrested. Don’t give them any excuse to
bust you.
Copwatching is best done with two or three others—you are less likely to
be arrested in a group. One cool-headed person can take the role of
speaking to officers, getting their names, ranks, badge numbers,
district designations, squad car numbers, license numbers, and general
descriptions, thus making them aware of your being there as observers.
The others should hang back, recording every detail of the encounter,
being careful not to interfere, provoke, or draw attention. If you have
the numbers, one person can pose as an individual onlooker with no
connection to the rest of the group. Decide on your roles before the
encounter, if possible.
Presumably, you are there to defuse the situation, not escalate it.
Don’t goad the police into arresting people as a way of getting back at
you because of your attitude. Reign in the hostility you feel towards
them—be polite but firm. Remember, police are dangerous. Walk, don’t
run, and avoid quick or sudden movements around them.
At the same time, don’t be so easily intimidated that you cannot
accomplish your task. Police officers who feel threatened by your
concern about the victims of their repression may well threaten you,
shouting “Move on!” and puffing themselves up like territorial frogs. In
the course of your interactions with them, you’ll develop a sense of
what to expect from them and an instinct for exactly how seriously to
take their threats.
Carry cards detailing legal rights, flyers with information about local
copwatch programs, and other information with you to give to people
subject to arrest or harassment. Inform people about their rights, and
of any numbers, local services, or internet sites by means of which they
can contact a lawyer or learn how and where to file a complaint. Citizen
complaint review boards are often virtually useless as a way of dealing
with police brutality, but they can be useful for documenting incidents.
Be aware of local laws and limitations—for example, in some cities, in
order to be able to file a lawsuit against the city, you must send a
letter to the mayor announcing your intention to sue the district within
six months of the incident in question. In such a case, you should
emphasize to people who have suffered police brutality that they should
keep their options open: “You don’t have to follow through with it, but
you should secure your right to sue if the incident was severe enough
for you even to think about doing so.”
When observing police officers’ interactions with civilians, try to get
as much information as you can. Make note of the day, time, and exact
location of the incident; the officer’s name, badge number, district,
and physical description; where arrestees are being taken; the names,
addresses, and telephone numbers of any witnesses; and vehicle or
license numbers for any police vehicles involved in the incident. Use
cameras or other recording devices to document the event from beginning
to end. Take down complete descriptions of police actions and any
resulting injuries. If there are injuries of any sort, even preexisting
ones, be sure to detail what medical attention was or was not offered by
the police—people have been let go by officers after copwatch members
observed them being denied medical attention, even though the injuries
had been not caused by the police.
If you feel it is warranted, you can call 911 and report that someone is
being injured. Wait until the end of your statement to note that it is
the police doing so, but don’t leave that out, and stick to the facts.
As all 911 calls are recorded and are relatively hard for the justice
system to “lose,” they can provide useful documentation for legal
proceedings. You can also call a friend’s or your own answering machine
and record what is happening as it happens, assuming the tape is long
enough. The sound quality may not be as good as an on-site recording
device would provide, but the police cannot confiscate the tape; this
method can be particularly useful if everyone present is getting
arrested. If you get arrested and the police don’t take your cell phone
immediately, call a talk show or progressive radio station from the back
of the police vehicle.
If you witness someone else being arrested, try to give the arrestee a
way to contact you, and vice versa. This is not to say you should give
your name or get their name in front of police. Give your name and
contact information only if you are comfortable with the police getting
it, unless there is another way.
If you are comfortable doing an assertive copwatch, introduce yourself
when you approach the scene and explain that you are there doing a
copwatch. Ask police why they are detaining or arresting people, but
don’t ask arrestees for their names directly, as they might not wish the
police to have it. If arrestees say their names and addresses to the
police loud enough for you to hear, write them down. If the
justification for the stop seems to be vague, ask officers to name the
section of the law they are enforcing. Officers will lie and make
mistakes—if you know the code do better or have a copy of it with you,
speak up. Don’t approach or speak to the arrestee directly while he or
she is being detained; if you do, you risk being arrested. Sometimes
you’ll have to do just that, but know what you’re getting into.
If a detainee is let go or ticketed, make use of the opportunity to give
your flyers and rights cards to them. If a detainee is arrested, you can
fold a card in half and ask the officer to give it to him or her—fat
chance, but miracles happen. You can’t speak to an arrestee directly
without risking trouble, but you can loudly talk about what rights
people have with the police or a bystander or your compatriot. These
include the right to remain silent, the right to speak to an attorney,
the right to refuse a search of your person, personal items, or car.
Stick around until the police have moved on. The Rodney King beating
began with what seemed to be a routine traffic stop.
Make use of every opportunity to have educational conversations. Speak
to onlookers about their rights, about what citizens can do about police
brutality, about community alternatives to policing. When answering
questions about legal matters, don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.”
This is always better then giving out wrong information.
Collect statements from other witnesses if you can. Many will not want
to get involved. Try to persuade and educate them otherwise, and get
statements from them even when you can’t get their names.
Keep the information you have gathered from your copwatching. If your
copwatch group does not keep records, keep track of it yourself. It can
be useful to submit copies of your records to government agencies, so
they will have them documented and on file. Do not edit any videotapes
you shoot, as this can render them useless as evidence in court.
If possible, carry with you the text of the laws most commonly used to
justify harassment. In addition to being familiar with and ready to cite
local laws, it can help to learn local police regulations, though it is
often difficult to obtain copies of these. During your encounters with
police, be forceful rather than tentative, but remain polite.
In extreme cases, police will smash or confiscate and “lose” your
equipment to keep you from having evidence against them. If it seems
like this might happen, a member of your group should swiftly leave the
area with the evidence that has been gathered so far.
Be prepared to be arrested. Though copwatch is not illegal, police will
trump up charges. Carry ID and at least $50 if you want to be able to
get out of jail swiftly and easily.
Know what you will and will not do in extreme situations. Consider in
advance what risks you are willing to take and what charges you are
prepared to receive in order to intervene if someone is being beaten,
injured, or killed by the police. Decide this ahead of time and talk
about it within your group, so all of you know what to expect from one
another. If you copwatch in some areas, you will eventually find
yourself in this situation.
Be prepared to follow through on your work. If you couldn’t get an
arrestee’s name and you feel that the situation was bad enough to
warrant further investigation or that the abuse will continue after the
arrest, go to the station to which he or she has been taken. Loudly and
firmly ask what condition the arrestee is in and demand to know the
charges he or she has received; explain what you saw during the arrest,
and ask to make a complaint against the officers. This makes the police
aware that people are concerned and will follow through; it may stop a
back room beating.
Be careful leaving the area after a copwatch. Police have been known to
follow, ticket, target, or beat copwatchers a few blocks from the site
at which they were observed. Don’t let down your guard.
Report on what you have seen to your group, to whatever citizen review
boards your area has, however ineffective, and to your community at
large. Talk to city council members about police conduct, and show them
your evidence. Tell them you want hearings and policy changes. Get your
information to the National Lawyers Guild and or the ACLU. Tell
community and church groups. Write up reports and spread them through
local independent media outlets, both websites and papers.
If your copwatch group is ready, you could establish a copwatch hotline,
a phone number people can call to report the activities of police
officers; you could even have a response team ready to follow up calls.
You could also start your own local copwatch paper or website, reporting
on your observations, the conduct of local police, and the struggle in
your community to survive and thwart police repression.
Don’t copwatch alone if there are other options. You should not ignore
those in exceptional danger just because you are alone, but be aware
that lone copwatching entails taking extra risk. If you have been
convicted of felonies, have a lengthy arrest record, or are not a
citizen, you should probably not copwatch alone unless the circumstances
are really exceptional. Be less assertive in engaging the police or the
individual being detained or arrested than you would be if you were in a
group. Police officers are much more likely to arrest or assault you if
there are no other witnesses present.
Be especially careful to obey the letter of the law. If possible, remain
at least twenty feet from the incident that you are watching; try to
phone someone and let him or her know what’s happening. As always, take
complete notes and, if possible, photos, audio, or videotape of the
incident. If you take photos, make sure that they are taken at the last
possible moment, to ensure the safety of you and your camera. Be
especially careful leaving the area.
If police knock on your door, do not invite them inside; step outside
and close the door before speaking to them, locking it behind you if
need be. If there are other people in the house, make them aware that
the police are present. Don’t address other people in the house by name;
let them decide how they want to identify themselves. After saying
clearly “I do not consent to this search,” stand aside and maintain
silence. Do not answer any questions.
If you are arrested or detained in the course of a raid, do not resist
unless it is absolutely imperative that you escape and there is a high
likelihood that you will be able to do so; instead, calmly ask on what
basis you are being held. Don’t volunteer any information or answer any
questions except when you are asked to identify yourself. No matter what
they tell you, speaking to the police can never accomplish anything
except making things worse for you and those you care about. If you have
a lawyer, upon interrogation—whether formal or informal, whether by
federal agents or local officers—simply present your lawyer’s card and
state, “You can speak with my lawyer.” If you don’t have a lawyer,
assert and maintain that you will seek legal counsel before answering
questions.
If the police say they have a warrant, ask to see it but do not at that
point resist the search. A warrant is simply a piece of paper signed by
a judge; it should have an address and some terms of the search. It is
not valid without a judge’s signature. In most cases, the police cannot
enter your residence legally without a warrant. To get a warrant, they
must have probable cause and a judge must sign his or her name
validating this; judges can be sneaky, but they also don’t want any heat
to come back on them. This is why we often don’t see warrants used in
activist raids: there simply isn’t the probable cause. If they can’t get
a warrant, the police may try to use other pretexts to get in: fire code
violations, health violations, looking for people who have warrants out
for their arrest. Educate yourself on local laws and municipal code. If
the police come by when there is someone inside who has a warrant, it
may be best for that person to go outside so the police cannot use this
as a justification for entering the building.
If your space may be raided, decide in advance how you will handle this.
Except in a few specific cases—for example, if you are engaged in a
political squatting action with widespread community support, and you
intend to resist eviction by militant means—it will make the most sense
to cooperate carefully with the police, and then take revenge later by
legal or extra-legal means. Determine with everyone involved what image
you will try to project—“nonviolent peace activists suffering unjust
police harassment,” for example—and maintain it from the beginning of
the process through the follow-up media and court campaigns. Hold
discussions in advance, so everyone who may be affected by a police raid
knows what to expect, how to conduct themselves, and what their role
will be in your response. Make sure everyone is comfortable with the
decisions made and understands each other’s needs.
Sometimes a police raid will come as a surprise. Other times, especially
if they are planning a raid on a larger scale, such as at an infoshop,
activist house, or convergence space during a mass mobilization, you may
be able to see it coming. Stay aware: if they are escalating their
surveillance of your building or your activities, this may culminate in
a raid. This surveillance may take the form of infiltration by
undercover agents, who may be easy to recognize as such—on account of
poor acting, suspicious questions, or suddenly getting involved right
before an action—or very difficult to detect.
If you are involved in any kind of activity that demands security, your
collective should decide ahead of time how careful to be in working with
others who desire to get involved in your group and in actions you plan.
Do you need to have a vouching system to protect against loose-lipped
liberals and undercover cops? Or do you want to work with large numbers
of people to such an extent that it makes more sense to leave things
wide open? Some collectives decide not to take on last-minute stragglers
right before an action: police infiltrators usually show up late,
because there isn’t enough funding to put them in earlier.
If you are on good terms with groups that are in dialogue with the
authorities, they may be able to tip you off when a raid is nigh;
likewise, locals familiar with the workings of the local police force
might be able to provide useful insights. For a serious raid, the police
will establish a staging area a couple blocks from the location, which
may give away their plans at the last minute if nothing else has.
In preparing for a potential raid, be conscious of what you have on the
premises and what can be found nearby in dumpsters and adjacent lots.
Make sure nobody has any illegal drugs or paraphernalia, recognizably
stolen items, or other material which authorities could use against you.
Police officers will routinely confiscate such standard household items
as paint thinner and PVC pipe and claim the possessors were using them
to make bombs. Such ludicrous charges will not generally stand up in
court, but they can enable the police to denounce your group to the
public; they can also paralyze individuals, preventing them from
participating in serious actions until their court cases are finished.
Knives, spray paint, gasoline, anarchist literature, bottles of urine,
and other similarly dangerous articles will all be needless liabilities
when the police show up, unless you’re actually planning to fight them
off with the stuff. Be conscious of what can be seen even when your
doors are shut and locked; the police can use items “in plain view” to
look further, even without a warrant. In extreme cases, the courts have
declared it permissible for the police to enter a home to investigate
further after seeing something suspicious through a window. Be careful
to follow the very letter of the law: police who can find nothing else
to use against you may ticket you for parking more than ten inches from
the curb, for example.
Have a phone tree in place, to be activated in the case of a raid: there
should be a couple numbers you can call to reach people who can
instantly call others, and so on, until a large number of people have
been informed. It is important that there is always at least one person
off-site who knows what to do if he or she is the only person not
arrested.
Don’t leave phone lists or similar information accessible to the police;
there’s no sense in doing their intelligence work for them. If those
informed by the phone tree converge immediately upon the space being
raided, this will force the police to restrain themselves, and show them
and the community at large that this is an issue many take seriously; in
a best case scenario, this can even transform the raid into a positive,
community-building event. Have local media ready to come: don’t miss the
chance to have the local alternative or pirate radio station report live
from your raid, or to get sympathetic coverage in the alternative press.
Plan in advance what spin you want to give the story, so the police play
into your hands. Compose a press release ahead of time and have it ready
to go out.
If you fear a police raid is possible or imminent, keep a video camera
charged and equipped with a blank tape, ready for use in documenting
police conduct. You can also hide secret cameras on the premises; these
may prove especially important if the police break their own laws in the
course of invading your space. Get every single badge number and license
plate, and record every movement and action of each individual police
officer; in court, it will be very much to your advantage if you can
prove that, for example, a police officer who claims he remained outside
during the raid was actually upstairs knocking over bookshelves and
breaking things. Your camera people should be levelheaded; even if
things are heating up, it may be more important in the long run for them
to record events as they unfold, calmly and consistently, than to get
involved.
Once you’ve got documentation, keep track of it. Don’t edit or adjust it
in any way. Be able to prove that your footage has been in your “line of
possession” from the time you recorded it to the time it appears in
court; this means you should be able to document everywhere it has been,
and show that it has been in the care of good, law-abiding citizens the
whole time—and as few of these as possible. To this end, it can be wise
to leave your material with someone’s conservative parents or
responsible sister-in-law; this can also be a way to make sure it is not
seized in a secondary raid. Keep an organized journal, with times and
dates and signatures, detailing all your observations from the time you
first begin to fear a raid might take place. After one occurs, compile
written narratives, with signatures, from all witnesses and
participants, while the events are still fresh in everyone’s minds.
If you’re in the middle of organizing an action or campaign from the
space that may be raided, make sure it won’t be crippled by a raid. Keep
important materials elsewhere, make sure that all the people in pivotal
organizing positions are never in the space all at once, see to it that
there are other spaces to which activities can be shifted. Establish a
place to get back together after the raid or ways to reestablish contact
with one another and make sure that everyone is accounted for.
When bringing suit against the city over a raid, work out the local
chain of command and sue as high in the hierarchy as you can. Those who
hold power will attempt to portray any misconduct as the anomalous
incompetence of individual underlings; your job is to show that the raid
was orchestrated from on high and that the people at the top of the
pyramid are to blame, if not the system itself. Get the best lawyer you
can—the American Civil Liberties Union is generally a better resource
than the National Lawyers’ Guild when it comes to violations of 4^(th)
Amendment rights regarding search and seizure and 1^(st) Amendment
rights regarding freedom of speech. If you don’t own the space that was
raided, make sure you have the cooperation of the landlords: emphasize
that they too can get something out of the proceedings. Keep the media
informed throughout the affair, and keep the pressure on.
As we were organizing a convergence against a particularly ridiculous
meeting of politicians, it became evident that our city’s Red Squad had
its eyes on us. We continued our work, though we realized that, under
the circumstances, we lacked the numbers to go forward with our original
plans of turning the city into our playground. We narrowed our focus and
message, deciding our best bet would be to embrace the image of pacifist
peace activists: this would give us an advantage should the defenders of
Power attempt a smear campaign against us. Having established this
strategy, we decided that the weekend would go ahead as planned, with a
festive street march and demonstrations outside the hotel where the
politicians were meeting.
As the dates for the actions approached, we saw a steady increase in
police traffic around our collective space, which was serving as a
meeting and organizing point for the demonstrations. On multiple
occasions, we experienced the unique pleasure of visits from undercover
cops. Keeping tabs on liberal organizers we knew maintained ties with
the police, we received additional clues that we were facing impending
state repression, which was likely to take the form of a raid on our
space.
We met as a collective and resolved to act preemptively in order to
minimize any possible harm we would suffer and, if possible, humiliate
and expose the police. We started by compiling a phone tree of our
friends and supporters in the community, as well as a list of local
media contacts. Drawing on the precedents established by the numerous
police invasions of autonomous spaces that summer, we took a number of
precautions, such as removing items that had justified earlier absurd
charges against revolutionaries: for example, we removed all kitchen
knives and Vitamin C pills, since cooking utensils and supplements had
been considered weapons and drugs in other raids. We also cleaned the
space and planted new flowers around the house, hoping this would make
the police look even more ridiculous should they choose intrude on our
space. We stockpiled photo and video cameras, tape recorders, note pads,
and other recording devices, and spread them throughout the house, both
openly and covertly. We made sure that at least one of the collective
members was downstairs at all times, and that our door was always
locked—though this was particularly difficult, with so many people
coming in and out. People who could not risk arrest stayed at other
locations.
Everyone who spent time in the space was briefed on the situation and
developed an understanding of the collective’s rights. In a move that
later proved to be of some importance, we painted the door with some
“house rules,” including bans on weapons, animal products, and
substances. This has since been used in both the media and in legal
decisions as a further embarrassment to the police. We also prepared a
press release, leaving only a few blank spaces for the details of the
expected raid, and left it with an uninvolved family member in case the
raid was accompanied by numerous arrests.
Busy as we were with organizing against the meetings, we were still able
to keep our space open for concerts and other events. Two nights before
the planned protests began, the police arrived during one of these
shows, an apolitical folk performance. The raid caused quite a bit of
alarm for the artists and visitors! At that time, some of us were
leaving to work on the pirate ship puppets—described as “anarchist body
armor” in police reports to the media—that we were planning to use for
street theater. As we were loading the ships into a pickup truck, we
noticed that police vehicles were assembling at every nearby
intersection and decided to attempt to leave. As soon as we began
driving, we were pulled over for the most minute of traffic violations.
We called back to the space, where police were already knocking on the
door. We set in motion our well-planned phone tree, calling our lawyers,
leaving reports on answering machines, and informing scores of friends
that we were in trouble. It turned out that the police had used supposed
fire code violations to get into the house, because it is standard
practice in our city for housing inspectors to be “protected” by police.
Each cop and each inspector were followed everywhere by comrades from
our ranks who documented everything. The police went through our book
selection, our kitchen, our desks, our basement, our storage areas, even
our bathroom, not to mention the personal belongings of those living
upstairs. They searched our whole house and the squatted house next
door. They towed our cars, on the ridiculous pretension that they were
parked three inches too far from the curb! In the end, they didn’t use
violence or arrests; they just hoped to scare us and reveal our
supposedly violent machinations to the public.
The phone tree, however, paid off. The local media as well as a slam
poetry group showed up immediately, along with about fifty of our
friends. In conjunction with the drumming and the constant flash of
still cameras, the slam poets created an atmosphere of festive defiance
and creatively informed the media and curious passers-by about just how
fucked up this situation was. While normally hostile to radicals, the
local corporate media could not resist covering the obvious foolishness
of the police, who wandered about the property en masse with
bomb-sniffing dogs while obviously earnest and non-violent activists
explained how the events of the evening were—can you believe it?—causing
them to “lose faith in this society.”
Thanks to the thoroughness of our preparations, we were able to upstage
law enforcement prior to the main event of the protests themselves; this
coup gave us much-needed attention and credibility. Additionally,
afterwards we were able to succeed in suing the city for tens of
thousands of dollars. This enabled us to fund many new subversive
projects, which the forces of order are even less equipped to deal with
in the aftermath of their ill-thought-out raid.