| Re: We Are living a a police state (Part II) |
[Aug. 3rd, 2005|05:16 pm] |
Critical Mass is a grassroots (if international) group that gets togther, mostly in major cities, one night of the month, usually on a Friday or a Saturday, to bike around the city, in, well, a critical mass (some dozens-to, lately, hundreds, and some say that there may have been over 1,000 @ the NYC Critical Mass ride last August, before the Republican National Convention. The NYC Critical Mass ride has been on the last Friday of every month (meets between 7:00-7:30 p.m., in Union Square). I used to ride in the Critical Mass chapters in S.F. (San Francisco) and in Berkeley. As I understand, there are chapters in most major U.S. cities, as well as outside of the U.S!! In N.Y., it is connected with a larger biking group called times-up! (see www.times-up.org ) , which has at least four or five separate group bike rides going on each month, including the more peaceful, less demonstrative "Central Park Moonlight Rides" meeting @ around 10 p.m. Anyway, I heard a few years ago that San Francisco cops were now arresting Critical Mass bikers (which I can well beleive, as I witnessed police harrassments and arrests every day, for several years, while serving vegan soup and day-old bagels to the homeless, with a group called Food Not Bombs~ it was part of San Francisco's "Matrix Program (no relationship to the movie- this was in the early 90's)," a program designed to get the homeless people "swept out" of San Francisco, to make it seem more "accessible to tourists."
Anyway, while serving food to the homeless with "Food Not Bombs," I was actually arrested several times.
I had it (relatively) easy though. Some people were critically injured during arrests, several personal items (not to mention vans!) were confiscated and never returned. and I know of at least one person who had to go on S.S.I. (disability money) due to trauma and to injuries sustained during his various arrests.
The charge that the police gave to us was "serving food to the homeless, without a permit."
No such permit exists.
The city actually issued Food Not Bombs" a temporary one, and the, without warning, rescinded it, and just began assaulting and arresting people, each day.
Anyway, in the New York Critical Mass, hundreds of people have gotten together, sometimes (but not typically, excet during Halloween) wearing costumes or masks, sometimes waving banners from their bikes and/or yelling out protest slogans (usually things like "More bikes!" "Less cars!" or somesuch) Sometimes, a person wearing a boombox on their bike is part of the crowd, and some people, especially in the spring or on Halloween, festively decorate their bikes for the occasion. The point of this whole thing, by the way, is that there are more safe, healthy, eco-friendly and less expensive modes of transportation than cars in the city, and the bikes form a "Critical Mass" both to get some respect for their space from cars, and to form a noticable statement (by presence) in the city.
The city's latest excuse for arresting them, then, is for "parading without a license."
The series of regular arrests in New York City, have been going on for nearly a year, since the Rebublican National Convention, during and because of which, the numbers have actually increased. I was in that particular bike-protest, not getting arrested simply by sheer luck, but I saw the police - people all around!!
Since then, I have simply not had the time (not because of not having the particular inclination) to be in that particular bikeride. Until last Friday nite.
Anyway (as I always tend to do) I was biking near the front, not so much of an Alpha-thing, as to know what was going on, when (on 8th avenue) I saw the league of storm-troupers, blocking the road. I was not wanting to get arrested, having both plans that evening and work the next day, but, @ any rate, I was arrested.
So.. we were kept in a police van, until about sixteen of us were cramped into the tiny box in the back.
They kept most of us in the police station until 3 in the morning including a pregnant 44-year-old woman, a man who had had nothing to do with it, but had just been on his bicycle, and had "just been there," and several people with cuts and bruises or on their first Critical Mass bike ride.
The total head count, according to what my father heard on T.V (after which he called me up, to find out whether I'd been arrested), was 34.
Oh and btw.. the poice officer who herded us into the station, said that, before the Republican National Convention, he had always been a participant in the Critical Mass bike ride, too. But then, he asked of us, knowing that we could be arrested, what were we doing going into the bikeride, anyway (we are living in a police state!)
"It's just common sense," he said. |
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