Update: San Francisco Mission District violence from Occupy event
Further update on the pre May Day violence in San Francisco. There have been calls, typically, that this was “out of towners” or “agent provocateurs”.
Here was the call to a “ruckus street party” ad sent out by and to Occupiers, was on Reddit and other sites:
April 30: The Strike Starts Early Street Party
We call on our comrades from every corner of the Bay to descend upon Dolores Park, 8pm April 30th, for a ruckus street party to counter gentrification, capitalism, and the policing of our communities.
Everyday should be strike day.
They’ve stolen our lives. They’ve stolen our health. They’re taking over every inch of our cities and pushing us nowhere. If there is anything we have learned from the last six months it is this: May 1st isn’t the only day for striking, and isn’t only a day for workers. April 30th kicks off a string of actions in the Bay Area against all who would take our lives from us.
San Francisco, once a stronghold of the dispossessed, has become a playground for the rich and a living hell for those of us who can’t keep up or have no interest in capitalist relations. Homelessness, gentrification, racist police murders, the displacement of all that is queer, outrageous rent prices, our list is endless: it is time to reclaim our playground.
We call on our comrades from every corner of the Bay to descend upon Dolores Park, 8pm April 30th, for a ruckus street party to counter gentrification, capitalism, and the policing of our communities.
Everyday should be strike day.
Dolores Park 8pm April 30, 2012
As we noted in our earlier account, Occupy twitter accounts were at Dolores Park and following in the march. We have video below recording that fact. You can hear things smashing, and see very clearly the art gallery being smashed at 8:50
Some Occupiers tried to stop others who were causing damage. But others continued. As we noted, Occupy media, Sparrow Media Project, had no problem with the damage to the Mission District Police Station, celebrating the “glorious destruction”.
The problem with a march where there are no leaders and no hierachy, no one can say who is and isn’t “an Occupier”. The march becomes whatever the “hivemind” of the moment wants it to be. There may have been out of towners from what I can tell. But I believe the suprise was in that it just didn’t stick to “acceptable targets” like the police, but extended to, well, “normal people”. That 99% they keep talking about.
That workman that got hit with the crowbar outside of the Four Barrels coffee store didn’t appreciate it. Mom and pop stores smashed. Kids screaming at the projectile thrown through their window. The faded brown minivan owner whose car was destroyed. 500 calls into the police.
But that’s kind of what happens when you invite people to a “ruckus party”. Things tend to get out of hand. And unfortunately, too often and in too many places, things have gotten out of hand.
