oct 13, 2009
went to the hearings at rochester city council today. the subject: police brutality on oct 7th 2009, the 8th anniversary of the afghan war, when a peaceful protest was violently attacked by police in the city of rochester.
some 25 people spoke. about 2 minutes each. the speakers were well organized, most kept to their allotted time. the speeches were rousing, eloquent, from the heart. there was a strong sense of community – the room was full, there was thunderous applause, and a sense of “we are all in this together.”
in the speeches, there was frequent emphasis on racism within the ranks of the rochester police dept. many felt that the media attention given to this particular incident was a sad testimony to this fact. someone compared the police force to a hammer that’s used to hitting black nails. the reason why we were even having these hearings was because this time some white nails had got hit. the first person to be arrested at the protest was a black student, an onlooker who had just joined the march.
a woman talked about a “thirst for blood” – american soldiers brutalizing others around the world and the police brutalizing us here at home.
people described the attacks on protesters – a young woman’s face was shoved into a lamp post and she started bleeding from the mouth. other people’s faces were bashed into the ground. it felt like a police state.
dawn zuppelli, an indymedia journalist who captured most of the footage that exposed police violence after her colleague was wrestled to the ground and arrested for filming, spoke eloquently about how the mainstream media were notoriously missing from the scene but found it convenient to criticize the “quality” of indymedia’s video evidence. the media were criticized for simply repeating the police line without any investigation or any effort to incorporate the other side of the story.
two black men spoke about the constant fear their community has to live with in the city. one of them said he was speaking out but was in mortal dread of the backlash this could mean for him and his family. a war veteran talked about how he had been sent to war to uphold the u.s. constitution but the police had failed to do that same thing on october 7th. a teacher’s voice shook as she explained how after this incident she had lost her trust in the system.
SDS’s jake allen reiterated the protest’s three demands: getting out of afghanistan, redirecting funds away from the war and into domestic priorities like education, and demilitarizing city schools (aggressive military recruitment found in city schools is simply missing from suburban school districts like brighton and pittsford). he said that it was clear that the power of love and community was possible – “we are that power.”
a mother who had taken part in the protest carrying her baby on her back, said that being in the street was not, in and of itself, an act of violence. similarly, upholding the law should not automatically imply an act of violence. someone said: “what is worse? war or the lack of a permit?”
charges were also made that the police were spying on an SDS meeting on october 8th, video taping participants and noting down number plates.
people decried the police’s racism and disdain for civil rights. they said that they would wait and watch. the city council was urged to take action against police brutality, find out who ordered it, and drop all charges against those who were arrested.