RNC Day #2: Jessica's story

Jessica is a friend of my son’s, part of a tight-knit circle during high school, one of the first people he sees when he visits home from college. I suppose I have known her for about 6 years, seen her at my house, seen her at parties when I picked up my son before he could legally drive.

I wasn’t expecting to see her yesterday at the Ripple Effect concert on the Capitol Mall. But there she was, one of the first people I recognized as my wife and I reached the concert while working as volunteer street medics.

At the first aid office, they had said that things were tense at the concert, that there had been a number of incursions into the crowd by the storm troopers earlier. (Forgive me for this expression. I just don’t know what else to call the anonymous, black-clad people with long sticks, black body armor, various sorts of weapons and gas masks. I cannot tell if they are police from somewhere, National Guard, some sheriff’s deputies, Secret Service or highway patrol. They show no insignia.) But by the time we got there, the storm troopers seemed alert but relaxed. Perhaps a couple of hundred of them were along the street to the west side of the Mall, with bike police to the south and east, state troopers in front of the Capitol steps. A lone helicopter was overhead, sometimes to the east and sometimes to the south, but nobody paid much attention.

All was fairly mellow, however, in spite of the heavy armed presence on all sides and overhead. People danced or waved to the music, bodies swaying. I kept seeing friends every few feet I walked. It felt a bit like the Mayday Parade over at Powderhorn.

A little after 6, something shifted. One group of storm troopers separated from the rest, moving quickly across the area behind the stage. The crowd seemed to tense. The helicopter moved closer. I began looking around more carefully.

What had happened is that the rumors were flying that Rage Against the Machine was going to play a set, and the authorities were nervous, knowing that other concerts with Rage had involved disorder. When a car pulled up and Rage came out, a group of sheriff’s deputies immediately intervened, saying that Rage was not on the program. A tense standoff ensued, with the crowd chanting “Let them play, let them play!” while the power to the stage was cut. Everyone started getting nervous.

Eventually, someone handed Rage a megaphone and a couple of songs were performed, ending just as the Poor People’s March was turning down Cedar Street. Then the concert crowd moved en mass to join the marchers, doubling the combined crowd to maybe 2,000. It felt tense.

Slowly the crowd moved down Cedar toward downtown and the Xcel Center, with bike police, mounted police, ATVs and the storm troopers following or circling around to the side of the crowd. The helicopter shifted position. At the bridge over Interstate 94, there was apparently a standoff, with marchers virtually stopped, but they started moving forward again after maybe 20 or 30 minutes. I don’t know, but I am suspecting that the marchers somehow went around or through a police blockade. Things started getting more and more nervous, with the storm troopers starting to put on their gas masks shortly after crossing I-94. I located my goggles and gloves and started rummaging around for the vinegar-soaked kerchief.

And then, as is often the case in odd situations, nothing much happened. The crowd moved slowly forward, while my wife and I hung back a bit, waiting a bit to the side, wanting to be useful but not wanting to be arrested. This continued until we reached the street in front of the Children’s Museum, where the storm troopers blocked streets to the south and to the west. We called the first aid station for further instructions and were told that we should see if we could get around the storm troopers to somehow rejoin the main group of marchers. We tried and tried, but only managed to get stuck on a different side, as people were warned to disperse or to clear the road or to move back. We waited. All the troopers were wearing gas masks, so instructions were hard to understand. We waited. It looked like the marchers were trapped.

Eventually the concussion grenades started exploding and the tear gas clouds started drifting up the street. My goggles went on and the vinegar-soaked kerchief came out of the baggy, but the gas was drifting up the street away from us. Time passed. We still weren’t able to enter the main group, even though we heard that there were marchers down, bleeding profusely and asking for help. (I suspect the rumors were not true.) It became clear that we couldn’t get in to help, that any marchers in the area would be arrested, so we made our way back to the Capitol. An hour later, around 10 or so, I was home and looking around for something to eat. Then I got a call from Jessica.

Here’s Jessica’s story: After the concert broke up, she and another of my son’s friends decided to take a walk down toward the Xcel Center. They weren’t with the marchers. As they were returning back toward the Capitol, they found themselves in the middle of the crowd, surrounded by marchers and by storm troopers on the outside. I asked if she was able to leave at that point. She admitted that the storm troopers had ordered them all to clear the area, but that nobody moved. They didn’t move either, she admitted. What can I say? They are both young; maybe they will move more quickly the next time.

When the concussion grenades went off, the crowd finally realized that they had better actually leave, and nearly everyone started toward the Capitol on the north. At first, they were blocked by troopers, but later allowed to leave, and Jessica did. She said that she was in front of Mickey’s Diner, to the side of the crowd and moving quickly, when she glanced to her right. A storm trooper hit her directly in the face with pepper spray, targeting her eyes and face, hitting her and her friend. She doesn’t know if others were hit or not; she couldn’t see.

Maybe an hour later, she called me on the phone, trying to find out if there was anything else she could do about the pain. She had showered and shampooed and changed her clothes. There was nothing else to do, really.

She asked me: “Why would he spray me? I was moving where they told me to go!” I have no answer. Do you?

Let’s be clear here. She didn’t leave the area when she was told to leave. She didn’t start leaving until the first concussion and the first tear gas. But then she moved and she moved quickly and she was sprayed when she was doing what she was told.

Ideally, we all live in a society where we all would feel that our voices are heard. Ideally, none of us needs to push past police lines or storm any barricades. Ideally, a 21-year-old could vote against the war and the majority would win, and even the minority would have its rights held sacrosanct. Ideally, there would be no political violence because there would be no need.

But even if we accept that the wealthy and powerful will work their will against the majority, it still doesn’t make sense to spray a young woman in the face as she was following the orders of the guardians of wealth. It wouldn’t make sense, at least, if the objective was compliance. It wouldn’t make sense unless the police have become agents of intimidation as well as of law enforcement. It wouldn’t make sense at all unless the role of the police has widened to include punishment as well as compliance. It wouldn’t make sense at all, unless the storm trooper got some special satisfaction in spraying her in the face, beyond the satisfaction of merely doing his duty.

What do you think? Why was Jessica sprayed in the face, just as she was leaving? What was the purpose of that action?