"The following is an account from and anonymous Pitt student who attended the protest on Schenley Plaza last night Friday September 25th. The gathering, a peaceful crowd of a few hundred students, media, and community members was held in response to the violence perpetrated against Pitt student activists and Pitt students the preceding Thursday by the police. For more information, pictures, and video about the events of Thursday September 24th, visit the Pittsburgh Independent Media website.
Violence perpetrated against student organizers and uninvolved students is not a singular event or a symptom of increased police presence due to an event like the G20. Police violence occurs in many communities across the country and throughout the world every day. It is a sign of the privilege of the educated class that the media and community pay attention and express their outrage about our being abused when low income communities, people of color, and other marginalized groups with less privilege are attacked or harassed everyday. The police state is not just this week, it is all the time, and students need to start looking around and raising your voices everyday to protest the violence of the state.
Students at other universities: Please, forward this to your friends, campus organizations, campus newspapers, administrators, and everyone you know because if we don’t stand together in solidarity, your school could be next. Demand that administrators at your school accept responsibility for the actions of police on your campus. Demand that police on your city and campus be held accountable for all the violence the perpetrate. Demand that you and your classmates not be relegated to the conditions of a product for sale in the Industrial Education Complex. Make demands, because your campus is your home, your community, and your responsibility.
In solidarity,
Sheila Hubbard
Go Pitt
“WHAT HAPPENED ON FRIDAY NIGHT?
A Firsthand Account by a Pitt student
By 10:00, a group of a few hundred people had formed and the perimeter stretched to 3 sides and started getting thicker. Helicopters were overhead, and someone said they’d heard snipers were on the Hillman Library. Riot police outnumbered protesters at least 5 to 1 at this point, and they looked like they didn’t know what to do. Groups of people sat playing Duck Duck Goose and laughing or, like us, stood around tensely waiting for something to happen.
Eventually, the riot police surrounded the plaza. Local filmmakers roved around interviewing people. Some protesters shouted into megaphones, trying to engage the cops in a dialogue and when that didn’t work, mocking them. The police started closing in on us, forcing us into a corner and out of the plaza - we ended up with them in a perimeter facing an empty lawn. They formed a blockade between us and Bigelow Boulevard - at this point we were on Forbes Avenue in front of the Cathedral lawn. We were also blocked at Bellefield, and were essentially trapped on the street. People started panicking and running at this point. As the police moved in, we backed up onto the Cathedral lawn. There were about 40 of us backed into a corner.
We headed up towards Fifth Avenue on the opposite side of the Cathedral, but the police there told us to go back the way we came, grabbing us by our shoulders and pushing us back. When we expressed confusion, they threw a canister of tear gas at us so we backed up quickly. They started closing in on us on the lawn, beating their shields with their batons in unison. Even though we asked over and over which way they wanted us to go, because we wanted to leave peacefully, they refused to answer.
Eventually they ordered all 40 of us to lay face down on the ground. They told us we would all be taken into custody, and the officers came around using zip ties to handcuff everyone. We were separated and marched to a series of police cars and vans along Fifth Avenue. Their system there was incredibly disorganized and the officers were crude. “You know, I’m kind of disappointed,” one remarked. “I was hoping I would get to beat you guys down, but you guys were pretty peaceful.” Eventually, they searched and confiscated our belongings and took down all our information - most of us were being charged with failure to disperse - and tossed us all in some vans to wait. After a while, they pushed us up against the side of a bigger bus, patted us down, and loaded us onto the buses.
Apparently there were too many of us to process properly at the jail, so we ended up driving to SCI Pittsburgh. We sat outside the penitentiary for maybe half an hour or an hour. Outside, we could see dozens of National Guard and riot police officers swarming around. Someone noticed that somebody else’s hands were turning blue from the zip ties, so after a few attempts we got hold of the officer in front, who told him to “wiggle them around” and that there wasn’t anything else to do for now. Several people requested to use the bathroom, which was ignored. Eventually, they started letting us out one at a time.
The one who took me into custody put real handcuffs on me, cut off my zip tie cuffs, and patted me down. When she brought me inside, there were temporary partitions set up everywhere. I had my picture taken and was fingerprinted, then taken to wait to give my medical information, “in case you go to prison.” Afterward we were put in chairs and told to sit quietly, with National Guard guys watching us. One of them seemed slightly sympathetic; he made sure we all got water and food. “Please don’t talk,” he told us, “when you talk one of us has to come over here, and that means that it slows down the process.” When we asked where we were going, he told us, “I don’t know where you’re going, or whether you’ll be charged. For now, you’re just waiting till they decide what they’re going to do with you.” So we waited. And waited. Aaaand waited.
More people kept coming in, and we discreetly asked them what had happened. One guy was shirtless with welts all over his back; after seeing the protest on the news, he’d ridden his bike into Oakland. When he got there, police told him to turn around. He did, and they shot what he assumed was paintball guns full of pepper at his back. He was covered in huge welts and shell-shocked. He refused medical attention from the police and sat staring blankly at the wall. The guy sitting next to me had been walking home, and they’d snatched him off the street.
Eventually they started calling names. They brought us out into the courtyard, where we sat and could talk quietly. We overheard the officers saying that we’d all be released. Each of us had a police officer on our arm, and we went in batches of 4 or 5. They walked us over to a van, still cuffed, and we waited to reclaim our stuff. The cops walking us out harassed us about protesting, to which we responded less than enthusiastically. When we got our stuff, we were told not to go through it until we were off the premises, and escorted to the sidewalk in front of the police station. We were uncuffed and told to leave, and to “stay in groups, this isn‘t a nice part of town.” We were all miles away from home and the place we were arrested.
Welcome to surreality.
Questions? Comments? Email pittprotest@gmail.com
If you have police harassment or repression to report, call the ACLU G20 hotline :
(412) 562-5015
”
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