On Monday, October 22, 2001, about 500-700 people of all races, ethnicities, religions, lifestyles and ages marched through downtown Los Angeles to protest the escalating incidence of police brutality, mis-conduct, terrorism and illicit criminalization of an entire generation. In fact, young people made up the majority of the crowd(about 60% from what I could see) and there were drummers and musicians playing saxaphones, trombones and other instruments that really made for a festive march with dancing and rhythmic chanting. The cops were going about looking like SS stormtroopers, but this time did not attack as per last year when we tried to march around Parker Center. The rally before the march around their headquarters was rather long-winded with a lot of speakers lined up, but most were well worth the wait as family members of victims of police murder related their (sometimes tearfull) experiences. Rev. Bernell Butler, cousin of Tyisha Miller, murdered in Riverside by the cops, delivered by far the greatest speach when he equated police brutality/murder with TERRORISM! Because that's exactly what police brutality is-STATE SANCTIONED TERROR!!!
The demo ended peacefully, but the cops started looking comical when, as we filed back down the sidewalk on Broadway, they came up alongside us in their cruisers and vans WITH THEIR LIGHTS FLASHING AND SIRENS WAILING, and, in the most juvenile display I have ever seen, tried to provoke us so they could have an excuse to TERRORIZE us! But the crowd kept their cool and the bad little boys in blue had to wimper back home with their tails between their legs! Only one arrest(that I know of), and that one from what I heard, was (per usual) TOTAL BULL SHIT! Altogether, a great demo that put those nazi boneheads IN THEIR PLACE!!!! Congrats to all who participated and kept their cool in the face of some real OVERGROWN JUVENILE DELINQUENTS!!! And let's not forget our props to the Black Bloc who provided great protection for the rest of us-without them we could too easily have become more victims of STATE SPONSORED TERROR.
Hell yeah. Black black was the bomb. Fuck police brutality. We will defend ourselves.