December 03, 2003 News & Views » News Feature

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Police State 

In Miami, the battle was the story

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click to enlarge Miami's finest dressed up like space warriors in - preparation for beating up protestors
  • Miami's finest dressed up like space warriors in preparation for beating up protestors

Page 3 of 4

Thursday was the day. We awoke before dawn to meet at the Government Center downtown. From there, we'd march down Flagler Street to the water, where it was thought the confrontation with police would begin.

At the Government Center, police in riot gear were waiting. It would be a typical sight over the next two days.

By 8am, a parade of about 1,000 or so protesters was moving east on 1st Street, then south onto 2nd Avenue, then, finally, east onto Flagler. A block from Biscayne Boulevard, a wall of police stretched across the intersection. Frank Fernandez, a deputy police chief, came out and said that as long as the march stayed peaceful, police would allow it. "The minute you break the law, we'll put a stop to it."

That was at 8:35am. Less than a half-hour later, police inexplicably opened up the path to Biscayne Boulevard. Once marchers had funneled onto Biscayne, police re-formed the line, again blocking marchers who were now on a street much wider than Flagler.

That's when I found Mayor Manny Diaz standing quietly below the huge palm trees along Biscayne. "If everyone stays in the spirit of cooperation, it'll be great," he said. Soon after that, he left.

That's when the fun began.

At this point, things were quiet, considering. Some protesters faced off in front of the line of police, but there was enough space between the two rows for the hordes of media, themselves looking ridiculous in helmets and gas masks, to get the pictures that would wind up on wire services and in newspapers across the nation. Everywhere was the smell of vinegar, which demonstrators used to soak bandannas that would ward off tear gas.

Then an officer announced to anyone who could hear him -- about 20 of us -- that our march was unauthorized. He asked us to disperse. The line facing the cops strengthened, with protesters linking arms.

"More links! More links!" they shouted. From behind us, there was the sudden blast of a concussion grenade. Then a tear gas canister landed nearby. A protester picked it up and hurled it over the fence toward the Intercontinental. The police moved in. They marched forward, pushing the line back. Some gripped their batons in both hands, forcing the protesters back. Twenty-two-year-old Dave Phillips of North Carolina was among the first to go down, when he caught a baton to his forehead. He was dragged to the side by friends. Blood covered his hands. Medics from the convergence center brought him to a storefront, where they shone a penlight in his eyes. "My fingers are tingling," Phillips said. "Is that bad?" One medic took him to a medical center a few blocks away. By the end of the day, the center would treat more than 100 protesters injured by police in the demonstrations. A few required hospitalization.

From what I could tell, there were no police injuries. (On alternet.org, longtime, and famous, activist Tom Hayden writes of seeing undercover police among protesters provoking confrontation.)

On Sunday, two days after the march, the Herald ran a story about John Timoney, Miami's police chief, who had been hired from Philadelphia partly because of his unfettered use of brutality there.

In the story, he was heard to say "fuck you" to one protester. He was also quoted as saying, on the eve of the protest, that if demonstrators "don't do anything by tomorrow night, pardon the expression, but they look like p------."

I assume that means pussies.

On Thursday night, a group of us walked to Tobacco Road, the oldest bar in Miami. Over beers and nachos, we debriefed. No attempt had been made to take down the fence around the Intercontinental Hotel. No intersections were locked down by protesters. And yet the police still had managed to arrest some 150 protesters, who were now in jail awaiting a bond hearing in the morning. (Sixty more would be arrested the next day when they went to demonstrate at the jail where their comrades were held.) It seemed as if the protesters never gained momentum. Police had heavily outnumbered those demonstrators who had taken direct action. To Holland, that had figured into what many considered to be an anti-climactic rally.

"The ratio [of police to activists] is a big factor -- to feel like you don't have enough people," he said. "I would have liked to have seen more labor involved."

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