A-Infos (en) US, Palo Alto, MEDIA:* Reclaim The Streets Rally Stories

STANFORD DAILY May 23, 2005 Palo Alto 'anarchy' rally turns violent
By Michelle Keller Managing Editor of Special Sections Monday, May 23, 2005
Police flashers lit up the streets of downtown Palo Alto Friday
night as officers attempted to contain what participants called
an "anarchist" rally. Nearly 200 protesters -- many clad in
black hoods, masks and bandanas -- turned hostile during the
"Reclaim the Streets" party beginning at Lytton Plaza, said a
Palo Alto Police Department report. No injuries were reported,
but the crowd jumped on cars, turned over trash cans and
damaged several University Ave. businesses.

One protester, William O'Connor, a 19 year old from
Berkeley, was charged with smashing the window of American
Express with a large flagpole, stated the report. Another
suspect, a juvenile, was cited with vandalism charges and
released to his parents. Police could not be reached for
comment.

"This happens every year, but it's never been this big,"
said Keith Dunckel, a sophomore from Palo Alto High School
who observed the rally. "This year it's a big radical movement."

The "Reclaim the Streets" party, which began at 8:30 p.m.,
was initially under control. Police had been tipped off
about the event beforehand and directed traffic while
monitoring the crowd.

"It was just music and fun at the beginning," said Stanford
senior Abby Hall, who was in attendance. "The cops were
really cool at first. They were just directing traffic --
they weren't really doing anything. There was a speaker and
an amp and the music was great. Then the crowd started to
move and everything changed."

The protesters moved into the streets and began chanting
"Bombs are dropping while you're shopping” and “Whose
streets? Our streets," said a post on the Web site of The
Paly Voice, Palo Alto High School's student newspaper. At
first, passersby appeared more curious than agitated.

By 9:30 p.m., more than 30 police officers had herded the
crowd on to Hamilton St. and closed off sections of downtown
streets -- including University Ave. -- in an effort to
control the mass of high school and college students. Armed
with police dogs and stun-guns, they eventually pushed the
crowd to Hamilton and Webster Streets, where the rally
dispersed.

Traffic was temporarily disrupted and officers yelled at
drivers attempting to bypass the police officers blocking
streets.

For the more part, business on University Ave. went
undisturbed. Some of the demonstrators attempted to run
through the Borders Bookstore, but were unable to do so when
the store's employees lowered the metal gate.

Pam Parsons, manager of the Borders, said the store was only
closed for 10 minutes before the protesters moved on.

"It was an unremarkable event for us," said Parsons, who was
not present during the protest. "The customers were not
disrupted."

Organized by the group Anarchist Action, word of the
demonstration passed through e-mails, Stanford lists and
fliers posted at local high schools.

"I would say it was about one third Stanford students, one
third Berkeley students and one third local high school
students," said Mike Thielvoldt, a Stanford junior who
observed the event. "It was a pretty big group covering a
lot of ground."

http://www.stanforddaily.com/tempo?page=content&repository=0001_article&id=17475

*****

Sun, May. 22, 2005
Palo Altans weren't rattled by protesters
TIP LED TO HEAVY POLICE PRESENCE
By Jessica Portner and Elise Ackerman
Mercury News

Police barricades and streams of boisterous, self-described
anarchists protesting in downtown Palo Alto didn't disrupt
diners at upscale bistros or rattle customers browsing at
bookstores along University Avenue, merchants said Saturday.

"There was no damage done to the store and customers seemed
to take it all in stride," said Pam Parsons, the general
manager of a Borders bookstore which had to close off a gate
when protesters rushed through their patio Friday evening.
"For us, it was low key."

Others weren't so lucky.

The Palo Alto police said that at about 8:30 p.m. Friday, as
many as 200 youths and adults massed on downtown streets and
were jumping on cars, dumping over trash cans and
spray-painting graffiti. William O'Connor, 19, of Berkeley,
was arrested on felony vandalism charges for allegedly
smashing a window at the American Express office on
University Avenue.

During the protest -- which lasted more than an hour -- Palo
Alto police officers formed lines of five or six abreast,
and brandished clubs to disperse the crowd to keep it from
rampaging through residential areas. No shots were fired and
Taser stun guns were not used on the demonstrators, police
said Saturday.

Sgt. Mike Yore said police were forced to call in
reinforcements from East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and other
neighboring departments to handle traffic control and
pedestrian safety. He said the department had ample warning
to mobilize officers because they were tipped off the
previous day about the march.

Yore said that he had never before seen a protest by
self-described anti-capitalists marching down the city's
main thoroughfare.

"But we aren't concerned that Palo Alto is being targeted
more than other surrounding agencies," he said. "We are
prepared to deal with any situation that might arise."

The demonstration's organizers said they were part of an
international movement called "Reclaim the Streets" which
seeks to take back public spaces from businesses and use
them to create community. Protesters came from as far away
as Santa Cruz and San Francisco.

Mayor Jim Burch, who participated in anti-nuclear protests
and rallies to support energy conservation, said Saturday
that the street protests showed him how powerless young
people feel now.

But, he added, vandalism cannot be tolerated. "When you are
young you have to vent," he said, "but it doesn't have to be
destructive."

Contact Jessica Portner at
mailto:jportner@mercurynews.com
or (650) 688-7505

*****

Palo Alto Online News
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Two arrests in 'anarchist' demonstration
19-year-old from Berkeley arrested for smashing windown of
downtown business

Two "felony vandalism" arrests -- of a 19-year-old Berkeley
man and an unidentified juvenile -- resulted from a
"reclaim-the-streets" demonstration of youthful "anarchists"
Friday night that got out of control.

The Berkeley man, identified as William F. O'Connor, was
arrested and charged with smashing a window in a business.
The juvenile was cited and released to his parents,
according to Palo Alto police Lt. Ron Lawrence.

Lawrence said the department was alerted Thursday to the
planned "revolutionary streetparty" in downtown Palo Alto.
He said they had developed a scenario of response plans.
When the 8 p.m. gathering of 150 to 200 persons, mostly
older teenagers up to early 20s and including males and
females, spilled into the streets in a march around the
downtown, police called for reinforcements and sent teams of
officers throughout the downtown area.

Reinforcement units responded from police departments in
East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Los Altos and
Stanford, plus the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department,
Lawrence said.

A coalition of groups had announced a demonstration on
Lytton Plaza, at University Avenue and Emerson Street, for 8
p.m. Friday following a 7 p.m. "Critical Mass" bike ride
from White Plaza at Stanford University. In the late 1960s
and early 1970s, the plaza was a focal point of numerous
summer demonstrations protesting everything from the Vietnam
War to a sound curfew and anti-commune ordinance. It
recently has become the site of a community debate about a
large egg-shaped sculpture versus a fountain.

Lawrence said that about 8:25 p.m. the demonstrators "became
unruly, agitated and disruptive to pedestrian and vehicle
traffic as the group spilled out onto the streets. Several
reports of members of the group yelling, dancing in the
streets, blocking traffic and disrupting the normal flow of
traffic began to come in."

He said the group began to voluntarily disperse about 10
p.m. and order was restored to the area by 10:15 p.m.

One young demonstrator said the event escalated within the
first half hour when one demonstrator "did something stupid"
and whacked a police car with a "flag thing." The
demonstrator said he was a Los Altos High School student but
declined to give his name to prevent his mother from
learning of his participation.

The Jungle Copy center on High Street closed its all-night
club after police broke up the march using batons, and some
officers carried weapons, at one point forcing a group to
lie on the ground, the student said.

The event was sponsored by Anarchist Action, described on
its Web site as a "grouping of several anarchist
collectives, affinity groups, and individuals throughout the
San Francisco Bay Area. We have come together to organize
our own forms of resistance based upon anarchist principles."

The student said the members of the crowd "were partially
anarchists but a lot are more liberals." But during the
march "one guy was really stupid -- he hit a police car with
this flag thing," he said, triggering the police response.

"I saw this one guy smashing a windshield, but the cops
arrived and arrested the wrong guy," he said, adding that
some of the marchers tried to tell the officers they
arrested the wrong person. He said he saw a number of
marchers with large bruises and contusions from police batons.

"What I saw was not what I expected. I expected to march and
have freedom of speech," the student said. "It was more
supposed to be kind of a street party, where you move around
the streets and just protest. These are our streets."

The protest is about "the fact of how the government is
overruling what people say," he said. It is about "how we
should be able to make our own decisions as to what we want
to do with our lives instead of schools and government," he
said.

The anarchist group's Web site, announcing a "suburban
insurrection," exhorted people to "Live without dead time!"

"Every aspect of our lives is beyond our control," it said.
"From where we work to where we sleep, when we go to school
and where we play, outside forces dominate our environment,
and our lives become repetitions of the same meaningless
nothing. Police patrol our streets, global markets make our
decisions, and we live our lives through television screens,
spectating and mimicking.

"This isn't a coincidence. All around the world, from Iraq
to China to the Bay Area, people are being marginalized and
subjugated by an invasive global capitalism.

"But survival is getting old -- we want to live!

"There's only one way out, and we can only make it together.
. . . Take direct action against boredom, rediscover what
our cities and our lives could be, resist the G8 and Reclaim
the Streets!"

-- Jay Thorwaldson

*****

Palo Alto Police quell anarchist demonstration downtown

Posted Sat May 21, 1:29:43 PDT 2005
By Jimmy Chen and Eleanor Byler of the Paly Voice
   	Eleanor Byler	
(Top) Demonstraters stroll through downtown while carefully
avoiding the authorities. (Bottom) Three police offers set
up a blockade in an attempt to stop the demonstration.
Palo Alto Police are currently restoring order to the
downtown area after a large riot composed mostly of teens
and young adults marched down University and other streets,
disrupting traffic and disturbing the peace.

The riot, organized weeks in advance through fliers
distributed at local high schools, shopping districts, and
during the "Battle of the Bands," began Friday evening at
approximately 8:30 p.m. The demonstrators walked up and down
University Avenue chanting anti-capitalist slogans such as,
"Bombs are dropping while you're shopping," and "Whose
streets? Our streets!" The members, whose faces were
shrouded by dark bandanas, carried large banners and black
flags while marching.

The demonstrators broke the window of an American Express
office with a flagpole, blasted loud music through large
speakers, knocked over trashcans and newspaper stands. They
also stole a sidewalk sign from Beyond Juice, damaged a car
hood and windshield, and looted the local Longs Drugs store.

After police formed a line across University Avenue blocking
the demonstrators' path, the crowd detoured through various
streets in the downtown area blasting music and evading
police blockades.

Onlookers expressed varied opinions regarding the
demonstrators' intentions. Some cheered and clapped as the
crowd passed while others held opposing views. According to
one onlooker, a self-described bystander, Rob, the crowd
failed to deliver an effective message. Rob noted that the
purpose behind the demonstration was a statement against
globalization, but insufficient information was distributed
by the crowd to highlight the message. "[The demonstration]
was ineffective – it did not give out information… [the
demonstration] was only to disrupt corporate businesses such
as Starbucks and build chaos."

At one point, the demonstrators tried to enter Borders
Bookstore, but the music speakers could not fit through the
doors so the crowd was forced to retreat. Shortly afterward,
the group of police, which included officers from Palo Alto
as well as local departments, finally cornered the
demonstrators at the corner of Hamilton and Webster. The
police then escorted the demonstrators back to Lytton Plaza.
The Palo Alto Police Department plans to release information
regarding the details behind the incidents.
==================================
* See:

(en) US, Bay Area, Reportback: Palo Alto Reclaim the Streets! - May 20
a-infos-en@ainfos.ca Sun May 22 12:06:01 GMT 2005
 http://www.ainfos.ca/05/may/ainfos00319.html

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