Friday night, a set of students gathered on Schenley Plaza. They were brought there around 10pm by word of mouth and posters around campus (more on those later). The exact events should be written by someone other than myself - I admit that I was not an eyewitness and in fact got out of Oakland around 9pm. It would appear that the starting events included Duck Duck Goose and other playful games. I would hazard a guess that there was some shouting eventually. Regardless, the group of both Pitt students and others, many still in the city because of the G-20, were met by hundreds of riot police - more than the total number of people in the Plaza. Over the next hours, the group was contained, and dispersed using OC-gas and rubber bullets. It did not end there. The police chased recombining groups back up Forbes into both the Quad and Towers Lobby/Patio. They demanded that students disperse to their homes (which, by and large, were in the Quad and Towers), and demanded to see IDs in order to attempt to make arrests of non-students. The end result was the gassing of much of the area, which certainly had an effect on anyone living in those buildings, whether they had come out to see what was happening (not necessarily participate) or not. The gas used on street level Thursday certainly made it up to the 11th floor of Bruce - there is no reason the same should not have occurred Friday.

The civilians are not without fault here. The signs around campus telling people to gather on the plaza read 'Go Pitt. F*ck the Police. Schenley Plaza 10pm.' That is not a sign for a peaceful gathering, and there are some who would say that with that amount of antagonistic language (nevermind the unnecessary connection to the University), the police response, at least at first, makes sense. The students certainly are also at fault for antagonizing further police action with shouts of 'Let him go' and related taunts, as well as not following orders immediately.

It is however, the police that are mostly at fault here, and the police that this is directed at.

To those Officers of the Law present in Pittsburgh:

Thanks for being here. With the possibility of large violent actions b/c of the G-20 summit, I'm glad you're around to stop people from causing needless or excessive damage to the city, and to protect leaders.

It should be noted, however, that Friday's activities should in no way be considered a reaction to the G-20.

It was, instead, a reaction to the excessive preemptive build up of heavily armed and armored officers in the Oakland area. You are to blame for provoking this.

You are also to blame for using volatile and harmful substances near entire buildings of completely innocent college students - non-lethal does in no way mean harmless.

You are to blame for massive overreaction where students are concerned. In the age of instant media, in an age of curiosity, in an age of any large mass of people simply being interesting, you are entirely to blame for not being able or willing to separate the idea of bystanders from those inciting groups of people. You are likely to blame for overreacting to what those groups of people were doing - causing further problems.

You are, in many ways most of all, to blame for invading Pitt's property trying to break up groups of innocent students who are curious about what is happening on their campus, and trying to go home. There was no reason to put armed officials or non-lethal crowd dispersal through the Quad/Towers area. That is our campus, and I hold you accountable for making it unlivable completely unnecessarily. There is no reason your actions in those areas could not have been replaced by better methods - getting the university to return to its policy of only allowing students with valid Pitt IDs to be signed in, for instance, would have left any out of town inciters in the open. You should have left that area open so that students would feel safe rather than hunted.

Both sides acted poorly, but you [should] know better. You have training, you have people to think about responses, and you are not an uncentralized mob.

I want an apology.

I want a public apology by the riot forces, as well as the University and City police, to the University of Pittsburgh, and specifically to the students whose lives you made miserable stating that you:

Overreacted to the threat of protesters in the Oakland area, to the point of having hundreds of fully armed officers in the neighborhood for two days straight, and to the point of covering up famous figures from history.

Overreacted to the activities of various crowds.

Unnecessarily used various methods of crowd control on groups who were there simply to observe.

Failing to consider curious college students in your 'thinking about every possibility'.

Attacked students and others without provocation, and without patience when they were attempting to follow your commands.

Failing in your duties of keeping people safe and their homes secure, and failing to the point where people are afraid of law enforcement and their homes are neither secure, comfortable, or safe places to observe (as in the case of Forbes Hall Thursday night).

I want this apology posted to the University, in the Pitt News, and in the Post-Gazette.

You were correct in breaking up groups that were damaging property, and correct in keeping world leaders safe. But you were wrong here, and you need to admit that, to all of those you wronged. I will leave discussion of rights and permits to others. I base my demands on actions taken by those involved - because actions whether permitted by codes or laws or procedures can and often are simply wrong. We all owe it to everyone to think, and apologize when what we have done was out of line.

Sincerely,

Alexander Dale

(reposted from http://gloriousunrise.blogspot.com/2009/09/both-sides-wrong-now.html)

So yesterday, some people stood by a set of barricades, curious to see what 300 riot police who had arrived in Oakland were up to (or necessary for). The group got larger, got incited, inched forwards. The group was pushed back by a line of police and horses. These two groups remained in a standoff for several hours.

So yesterday, some people, antagonized by civilian organizers or possibly the existence of hundreds of police in Oakland, got out of hand, and set some things on fire. The police responded with OC gas, taking over much of the southern end of Pitt's campus, and more OC gas. Occasionally some batons, it would seem.

So yesterday, some students, pushed back by the police after some people set some things on fire after some people had a standoff with the police, started chanting 'Let's go Pitt'. Pitt had no stake in the matter in terms of winning or losing a contest, nor did the students organize for any reason related to Pitt.

There are some things wrong here.

That should be obvious by the fact that it would appear much of Forbes Ave. was been OC-gassed last night. Or by the broken windows at PNC, BMW, KFC, and Boston Market. But perhaps it is not. And while I think that putting pre-emptively large police forces in places without clear problems tends to gather incite-able groups which end up requiring police forces (it's a nasty positive feedback loop), I still cannot account for human stupidity. Or the fact that though initial damage and provocation was (likely, hopefully) from people outside Pitt, it was Pitt students who seem to have finished it - students with no clear connection to the demonstrations other than interest.

An Open Letter:

If you are here for the G20, in whatever capacity, welcome. It's cool to have you here. If you are a person of Political Power, I hope you enjoy yourself, like our city, and get something productive done. If you are a citizen who is here to protest the actions, past or future, of the people with Political Power, I hope you like our city and get something productive done. Note that I do not at this point hope that you enjoy yourself. That is because 'enjoy yourself' seems to be code in many cases for property destruction, inciting mobs and riots, and in general being a jackass in the eyes of people who live here. And that's stupid, because we did as little as you did in making the policies of the G20. Also, it's a shitty way to treat your hosts.

Amnesty International's tagline is 'Think Globally, Act Locally'.

By Act Locally, they do not mean destroy branches of large corporations.

By Act Locally, they do not mean tear up people's homes.

By Act Locally, they do not mean attack national or international political systems by ripping off leaves from a tree.

By Act Locally, they mean change minds in your community and let that change of mind spread.

By Act Locally, they mean get people in a community to tell people who are at a different scale of influence know how they feel.

By Act Locally, they mean build ideas, communities, awareness, and let that grow into larger change at the state or national level.

Learn the difference. It applies to anyone who wants to change things that matter at a global scale. Destroying the windows on a PNC branch or a BMW dealership hurts the people that work there, without doing anything to the larger corporation. As much as we may talk about global capitalism and whether it is the best system or not, you will not be able to bring it down - it is larger than you believe. And attacking one small piece of it does nothing but cause pain without solutions.

If you truly want justice for everyone, want a clean world, want policies which benefit everyone in the world, want sustainability in any sense - if you want any of that, you need a system which is in some fashion similar to what we have now - one which allows everyone to communicate, and probably aggregates power to some extent. And if you want these things, then act like you believe them on a local level as well as in an abstract global sense. Anyone know what the GWP of OC gas is?

If you are a Pitt student who was actively participating in the riots at the end of the night, shame on you. Did you learn nothing from the SuperBowl last year? Rioting just to riot is a lose-lose situation. Think about what you are doing. You're smart enough to get into Pitt - you are capable of such thought. Stop disgracing your alma mater.

In general, don't be a jackass. Figure out what level your complaint is at, and complain about it at that level. Attacking a global issue with local protests is next to useless - and the same goes for attacking a local issue with global protests, inasfar as that occurs.

And stop messing up my city while you're angry at complex things you can't reach out and hit.

Sincerely,

Alexander Dale

(reposted from http://gloriousunrise.blogspot.com/2009/09/unlawful-gatherings.html)