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.
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to Windchime Walker's journal