PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

100 march through Squirrel Hill despite chilling police repression and rain
by david Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004 at 8:51 AM

100 march through Squirrel Hill despite chilling police repression and rain.

On Thursday, November 11, Pittsburgh Organizing Group and Code Pink held a last-minute, emergency protest in Squirrel Hill against the assault on Fallujah. 100 protesters showed up on 48 hours notice as Pittsburgh joined 20 other cities holding similar demonstrations.

Protesters were greeted by an unexpected display of police repression and bullying.

Squirrel Hill is a quiet, mostly residential neighborhood that is home to many Pitt and CMU students as well as middle-class liberal families. The busy intersection of Forbes and Murray was selected for the protest not only because it was a potentially interesting departure from the usual Oakland or Downtown sites, but also because organizers' felt that it was important to "bring the war home." The urgency of the moral outrage inspired protesters to take the message directly to Squirrel Hill residents as they ate in local restaurants, shopped at the Giant Eagle, or commuted to their homes nearby. The time was ripe to challenge the comfort and complacency of those who remain silent while the U.S. continues to murder innocent civilians, break the Geneva Convention and commit other atrocities in our name.

Given those motivations, perhaps the heavy-handed police tactics we witnessed last night isn't altogether surprising.

What happened, exactly?

The police shut down the planned rally before it started. No sooner did people gather on the corner in front of the Sixth Presbyterian Church did the police, led by Sergeant Bogus (yes, that's his name), issue a dispersal order and threaten protesters with arrest. Bogus claimed that the church asked the cops to do so--but that was most likely a lie. On Tuesday the church's Interim Pastor, Beverly W. James, said that although the church couldn't officially endorse the last-minute rally, she did say that folks use their steps all the time and she promised that the church wouldn't call the cops and ask us to leave if it was made clear to the media that the rally wasn't a Church-sponsored event.

As it turns out, two members of the church were present at the rally and challenged the dispersal order. They proceeded to the top of the steps, one banging on his drum and the other holding her sign and chanting. In response, the cops pulled out a menacing K-9 unit and threatened them with arrest. The young women was nearly bitten.

After the unexpected and unwarranted dispersal order on the sidewalk in front of the church, in which protesters were surrounded by cops and K-9s, we informed Sergeant Bogus that there was no need to unleash the dogs on us--especially the young children present--and that we would abandon the rally in favor of a march on the sidewalks. He then threatened to arrest folks on charges of disorderly conduct unless we broke up into groups of "threes."

After a shaky start, we marched anyway, amidst heavy police escort consisting of bike cops, police wagons, K-9 units, undercovers (including video undercovers), a helicopter and regular patrolmen. As we marched, Bogus and other officers threatened folks using bucket drums and megaphones and said they would be arrested for disorderly conduct.

We marched for about an hour, up and down Murray and Forbes Ave., chanting "hands off Fallujah" and "end the occupation" staying on the sidewalks and mostly obeying the traffic lights. But the police presence and bullying was intimidating and unnecessary. As one POG member put it, it was like a "mini-Miami" -- referring to the unprecedented police repression at last year's FTAA Ministerial in Miami.

The march concluded in front of the public library where Radical Cheerleaders performed several squad sets. Members of CodePink and Pittsburgh Organizing Group say they will not be bullied into silence and that they will have similar rowdy "no more business as usual" protests in other neighborhoods.

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