P.N. and I are together at the meeting of the Global activists group. I am in my scooter on the south side of the room and P.N. is sitting to my left. After awhile she gets up to go and I follow. Folks have to move to make way for me to get out. She leaves through the door we came in on the north side of the room, and I go around past the theater entrance where the Spokescouncil is still going on. I scoot through  the lobby where there are still folks hanging out and talking or picking up flyers and such. I am carrying my poster at my feet for the rally/march tomorrow. I go outside and there are a lot of young activists there, milling around. Some are sitting on the sidewalk eating, others are standing talking in groups--there's an air of excitement. Tomorrow is the day of action. Our numbers have swelled considerably. Off to the left, Food Not Bombs has huge pots of food set up and are serving folks. I feel very excited and energized by it all. Then I look across the street and there are masses of riot-garbed police. There are similar groups at every corner. Someone points up and I see rifles trained on us from rooftops. Helicopters whirr overhead. The troops are definitely nervous. Someone with a guitar is leading some songs. Of course, I'm up for that. This is great fun! P.N. and I hook up again and start walking over toward the corner at Victoria. A fellow comes up and points to a brown Suburban van. He says, "See that? It's filled with cops and computers. They're taking digital pictures of all of us and checking us on their computer lists." Then I heard a disturbance behind me directly in front of the theater. The kids are starting to yell something about a "police state". There's a big crowd gathered but I can see a police car that had pulled up and soon it takes off. The word comes down very quickly that they've picked up Resisto the Clown. They said for juggling in the street but it is really because they picked his face out of their computer pictures. He wasn't supposed to be at any demonstration. Things start flaring up and a fellow with a video camera comes up and asks me what's going on. I talk into his camera even though I can see P.N. over beside the building obviously wanting to get the heck out of there. It looks like things could go very bad very fast. I finally stop talking and P.N. and I leave, walk/scooting down Victoria toward her house. She needs to get home to meet a family who are going to spend the night at her house. We actually run into them at the next corner.



return to Windchime Walker's journal