permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

Everyone should take this sorry episode as a guide to future behavior on the 
part of urban police forces in America. They get very edgy when "activists" 
show up to demonstrate in the face of official conferences and gatherings, 
such 
as WTO and World Bank meetings.

Do not hold flowers, for instance, when confronted by the police. Imagine 
yourself booked and processed by a nervous young fellow ready to swear you 
were 
"brandishing a flower in a threatening manner". Assault on an officer can be 
a 
serious charge-- even if the behavior itself clearly was not. Signs, being 
made of cardboard on a stick, clearly are intended as weapons in the minds of 
such people. So for your own safety, please demonstrate barehanded.

Check out how the Flying Rutabagas fared when they came to St. Louis to 
demonstrate:

<< May 20, 2003 

Circus Incarcerated! 5/17/2003

Flying Rutabaga greetings from St. Louis,
Our bike circus recieved a warm welcome from two collective houses here in 
St. Louis. The police, however, have not been so inviting. An enterage from 
our 
Flying Rutabaga Cycle Circus embarked from our housing Friday morning 
destined 
to present themselves at Biodevistation 7, a counter-conference to the 
Monsanto-sponsered World Agricultural Forum. We were scheduled to announce 
our 
mission to Caravan Across The Cornbelt, a 30 day, 1000 mile circus tour from 
St. 
Louis to DC. At 9:10am, the circus embassadors were stopped by a police van, 
questioned about their intentions of riding as a group, and asked to comply 
with 
a search of their bike circus trailers. Four more squad cars arrived, and the 
9 clowns were hand-cuffed, taken to jail, and charged with operating a 
bicycle 
without a license. For 8 hours the Flying Rutabagas entertained themselves as 
only they know how: singing, clowning, telling stories, and playing "finger 
toss". Denied access to lawyers, food, water, and phone calls, we waited 
until 
the police sorted out their justification for our arrival there. Eventually, 
the officers informed us we would not be able to get our bikes back unless we 
could prove ownership, that we would have to return for a court date, and 
that 
we smelled bad. More activists arrived, one man taken directly off the 
sidewalk and charged with "public protest". The bicycle licence infraction 
was 
dropped, and we were instead given traffic infractions and court dates. Our 
bikes, 
they said, were waiting in the garage, and we could take them with us. 
Missing 
items from the confiscated bikes: pocket knives, two circus organizational 
notebooks, one Appetite Rope Walker puppet. After our release, we learned 
that 
our hosts in town, a collective for five years called The Bolozone, was 
raided 
and all occupants were arrested. The clowns were taken from a fully 
functioning 
home with running water to a delapitaded old jailhouse with no running water 
and no phones. All bikes within the Bolozone were seized. Our entire Flying 
Rutabaga Cycle Circus, our hosts and other guests had been jailed within one 
half hour. The fifteen from the raid were kept overnight in jail. On the 
news, 
police laid out a table full of "weapons-in-progress" such as roofing nails, 
newspaper juggling pins, a whip, circus gear for fire twirling, and a poorly 
assembled napkin tucked into a bottle. Saturday we were together again, and 
will 
spend our time not rehearsing, but following legal matters, persuing housing 
options, reviving our food and equipment resources, and getting around town 
on 
half the number of bicycles, public transport and borrowed cars. We are 
unable 
to leave St. Louis until our materials are recovered. We are unable to ride 
bikes without feeling anxious. Today, (Sat.) we are making fun out of 
difficult 
work. We hope to leave this incident behind us and not encounter problems for 
ourselves or our hosts down the route. Luckily, we have much support here 
locally, legally, and physically clothing and housing the pajama-clad clowns 
who 
emerged from jail this morning. All our resourses are being drawn into play 
to 
spread the word about our situation. We are eagarly awaiting the tour, and 
voicing out against genetically modified food, and celebrating local organic 
sustainable agriculture. If you feel compelled to tell St. Louis to release 
the 
bicycles from custody and let us begin our mission to Caravan Across The 
Cornbelt, we humbly request your assistance. 
Please contact Chief Joe Mokwa at 314-444-5624 or the Mayor's office at 
314-622-3201 and tell them to release the bikes and return the Bolozone as 
soon as 
possible. >>

http://www.biodev.org/caravan/archives/000086.php 

And this...

> 
> >> [This article is based on the author’s presentation at the forum on “
>> Police Repression in a Police State,” held by the Green Party of St. Louis 
>> on 
>> June 4, 2003.] 
>> 
>> My name is Kelley Meister, and I would first like to share these words, 
>> spoken by Assata Shakur, revolutionary and freedom fighter, with you: 
>> 
>> I hate war in all its forms: physical, psychological, spiritual, 
>> emotional, 
>> environmental. I hate war, and I hate having to struggle because I wish I 
>> had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of 
>> struggle, and being a warrior, and being a struggler has been forced on me 
>> by 
>> oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, a carpenter. 
>> You know, 
>> I would be free to be so much more. 
>> 
>> I have been thinking about what she said a lot lately. What she did, what 
>> she fought for. And I’ve been putting her words into the context of my 
>> life, 
>> as a white, privileged, college-educated woman in 2003’s amerika. I 
>> believe 
>> that our current society oppresses all of us—to varying degrees and for 
>> various reasons, but I do believe we are all oppressed. I have chosen to 
>> live my 
>> life according to this belief, according to how I want to help us break 
>> free from the State’s repression, police repression, the class oppression, 
>> the 
>> racial oppression, the oppression of our sexual activities and enforcement 
>> of our gender boundaries, the oppression that is inflicted because of what 
>> age we may or may not be. These are the things I struggle against. 
>> 
>> I initially became involved with the Bolozone because of my struggle. The 
>> Bolozone was established four and a half years ago as a collective urban 
>> living experiment. Over those years, many people have been a part of 
>> shaping 
>> what the space is today and will become in the future through their 
>> artistic 
>> endeavors, musical studios/projects, urban gardening, rehabilitation of 
>> the 
>> house, creative experiments, and love for the Bolozone. I have been 
>> familiar 
>> with the Bolozone since Winter of 2000, and I moved into the house in 
>> November of 2002 because I wanted to be a part of this amazing project. 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> >>> …I again asked for a warrant. The officers told me that a warrant was 
>>> not necessary because this was a condemned building. 
>> 
>> On Friday, May 16, I woke up and let out a sigh of relief. The night 
>> before, police had been circling our house relentlessly, following my 
>> friends 
>> home, and harassing them on the street, and I had feared waking up to the 
>> police 
>> knocking down my door. I ate some breakfast and went downstairs to find “
>> Jane,” a member of the fabulous Flying Rutabaga Cycle Circus. We were 
>> going to 
>> be painting the butterfly bicycle flags that morning, and we decided to 
>> set 
>> up in the alley behind our house. While Jane was inside the back room 
>> talking with “Joe” (another Cycle Circus member), a police car pulled up. 
>> Two police officers got out of the car, as I stood up and moved toward the 
>> door. I said “Hi…Can I help you? I am a resident here…can I help you with 
>> anything?” As the words left my mouth, four more police cars pulled into 
>> the 
>> alley, and two cops got out of each vehicle. Suddenly I was surrounded by 
>> police officers as they came from around the side of the building as well. 
>> They were peering around me into the back room, and when I attempted to 
>> close 
>> the door, they instructed me not to. Two police officers pushed past me to 
>> enter the house, and I asked if they had a warrant. When they said, “No,” 
>> I 
>> stated that I did not give them permission to enter my house, and I again 
>> asked for a warrant. The officers told me that a warrant was not necessary 
>> because this was a condemned building. 
>> Joe, Jane and I were instructed to stand with our hands on the hood of the 
>> police car, and that we were under arrest. Joe and I were continually 
>> asking 
>> for proof of condemnation and a warrant for entry into the house. Finally, 
>> a man in a red plaid shirt who identified himself as a building inspector, 
>> came from around the house and waved a piece of paper in my face. He 
>> proceeded to tell me that it was documentation of our condemnation since 
>> April 1999, 
>> and that we were negligent on our two work permits. As the three of us 
>> were 
>> handcuffed then led around to the front of the house, I saw the 12 other 
>> people who were in or near the property when the police arrived sitting, 
>> waiting to be arrested. From the police van, I watched many cops enter and 
>> exit 
>> our house, most notably, an officer carrying a piece of art ripped down 
>> off 
>> the wall from my room. The cops also stole many other people’s personal 
>> items 
>> such as journals, posters, props for the circus and puppet shows, welding 
>> tools, roofing nails, and all of our bicycles that were in the building. 
>> The 
>> bicycles were eventually returned with slashed tires, but most of the 
>> other 
>> stuff that was stolen is either “missing” or being held as evidence. 
>> The 15 of us were arrested and charged with the city ordinance infraction 
>> of occupying a condemned building. My house was boarded up, with all of my 
>> and my housemate’s personal belongings inside it as well as most of the 
>> Cycle 
>> Circus’ gear and circus/puppeteering props. On Tuesday, May 20, the 
>> building 
>> was temporarily reopened for three hours for the retrieval of necessary 
>> belongings. The house was trashed. In my bedroom, shelves had been 
>> disassembled 
>> or knocked over, boxes of oil paints and other art supplies dumped out, my 
>> large reading chair was on its side and in the middle of the room, 
>> personal 
>> items were smashed, and a pile of my clothes that had been dumped from a 
>> small cabinet were most certainly urinated on by a police officer. 
>> 
>> >>> My clothes were urinated on by one of St. Louis’ finest. 
>> 
>> As a resident of the Bolozone, I can confidently say that there were no “
>> pee jars” or “jugs of urine” anywhere in the house as John MacEnulty 
>> erroneously claims in Sunday, June 1 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. My 
>> clothes 
>> were urinated on by one of St. Louis’ finest. In addition to the damage in 
>> my 
>> room, the rest of the house was also trashed and others’ things were 
>> tampered 
>> with. A photograph was drawn on, sleeping bags were slashed, 35mm cameras 
>> and video cameras were smashed, personal toiletry items were thrown into 
>> the 
>> toilet that contained a police officer’s feces, and books and posters were 
>> ripped up. 
>> My choice to be politically active, to express my dissent through activism 
>> and art, has put me in a place that invites this kind of police 
>> repression. 
>> Yeah, the police highly overreacted to the situation. It was wrong that 
>> they 
>> took our house away from us and trashed it. It was wrong that they 
>> arrested 
>> 12 other activists that same day and raided and shutdown or harassed three 
>> other buildings in South City aside from the Bolozone and the Community 
>> Arts 
>> and Media Project building. But in our current society—a society that 
>> barely blinked when the PATRIOT Act was passed, a society that allowed 
>> George W. 
>> Bush to be appointed as president, a society that seemingly supported the 
>> killing of millions of Iraqi, Afghani, Palestinian and other oppressed 
>> people 
>> in the last year—in our current society, I expect to have my voice muted. 
>> I 
>> expect to have my rights trampled on because I am expressing opinions that 
>> are contrary to the status quo. But I want everyone here tonight to 
>> realize 
>> also that there are hundreds, thousands of people living in St. Louis who 
>> experience this kind of injustice, this kind of police repression every 
>> day 
>> just because of the way they look, the way they dress or act, just because 
>> of 
>> the color of their skin or how much money they don’t have. 
>> Millions of people experience this injustice in our own country and all 
>> over the world. But we don’t have to sit back and take it silently. A 
>> civilian 
>> oversight board with subpeona power is an excellent attempt to counteract 
>> the police state that exists in our city and has existed long before I saw 
>> the 
>> insidious underbelly from the inside of a jail cell on May 16th. 


http://www.greens.org/s-r/32/32-03.html