A White shirt kicks a prone protestor
A Chicago Police Department “white shirt” (commanding officer) kicks a prone protestor during August 8 ALEC protest.
The American Legislative Exchange Council “celebrated” its 40th birthday in Chicago last week, and protestors were there to greet this arm of the corporate shadow government — even rolling out the welcome wagon on the “Moral” Monday before they arrived.
On Thursday, unions and labor organizations promised a show of force — a massive rally with everyone from pilots to pipe fitters standing up against the attacks of ALEC on workers. Of course, one particular union had an even bigger show of force planned: the members of the Chicago branch of the Fraternal Order of Police.
Union Leaders Chant, Then Go Home
"Thumbs Down for ALEC!"
A member of the Chicago Teachers Union urges a labor crowd to chant “Thumbs Down to ALEC!”
There were thousands assembled along Monroe street outside Palmer House, the historic hotel selected for ALEC’s meeting. Police had shut down the street for over a block and allowed people off the sidewalk, surrounding a stage where union leaders and politicians like Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke.
The speeches were loud and rousing, and supported by a raucous angry crowd. A member of the Chicago Teachers Union stood up and spoke about the systematic attack on unions and urged the crowd to say “Thumbs Down to ALEC!” A local Chicago worker spoke about the impossibility of feeding a family on minimum wage. “There’s nothing dignified about $8.25/hour.”
We heard about most of ALEC’s myriad attacks on popular democracy, from the environment to women’s rights. Jesse Jackson led the crowd in a call and response chant, “Teachers … stand your ground! Steel workers … stand your ground! Police … stand your ground!”
Despite the three day length of the ALEC conference, the union protest lasted a mere hour. “Keep fighting!” we were told, but this, like Jackson’s speech, was merely aspirational. With the stage disassembled moments later, the crowd began to thin and the police took their turn in the limelight.
For all the speeches about togetherness, teachers, labor organizers, anarchists and other nonviolent activists would be beaten indiscriminately in the moments to come.
Waves of State Violence
CPD pours over the barricades
Led by “white shirts,” Chicago Police Department pours over the barricades to brutalize protestors.
Police are brutal thugs and they are murderers, too, when they think no one is watching. An Austin Police Department officer recently killed a Black man for the “crime” of trying to patronize a bank that a White man robbed earlier in the day. None of what follows should be seen as minimizing the horrors they commit on communities of color daily.
Yet even with dozens of cameras pointed their way, I can’t help but notice the particular glee that cops display when it’s time to beat protestors. What is it about free speech that makes them so eager?
If you need more excuse for what follows, the oft repeated rumor was that one of the white shirts (the commanding officers of the blue shirted rank & file police) had lost his iPhone. Did he blame the protestors, or just want to take out his frustration? I leave the answers as an exercise in speculation to the reader.
I can only tell you what I saw. Suddenly, with the crowd thinned from thousands to hundreds, the cops decided the street was closed. Using metal barricades as blunt crowd control weapons, they physically shoved the remaining protestors onto the sidewalk which was now overflowing — the crowd was smaller but still too large for the sidewalk. Protestors chanted, livestreamed, and danced.
And then came waves of attack. Police would lift the barricades and pour across into the crowd. Natalie Solidarity, a well-known activist, happened to be standing in the way of one of their targets. She is a blonde woman who can be seen in many photos & video (see bottom of post) from the protest in sunglasses and a pink and white shirt. Police picked her up and and threw her against a store window and then threw her again against the pavement for good measure. “The window was vibrating,” nearby witnesses told her later. Police piled on each target, so that a half-dozen might be sitting on just one person. One arrested man had his shirt torn off and his face bruised as it was forced into the pavement.
The police repeated this again and again, replacing the barricades, then lifting them again for more violence. I watched as a man went down under a pile of uniformed bodies. As the white shirt kicked at his prone form, he reached for a nearby dreadlocked woman. Instinctively, she reached her hand out in aid. Police poured over her too, tearing at her dreadlocks and pushing her to the ground.
The police filled a paddy wagon with the first six arrested and then brought us a fresh one, just in case. Considerate, but by now the spirit of the protest was broken. Abandoned by the union organizers and its most radical elements bruised or picked off by police, the ALEC protests were essentially over — though the Northern Illinois Light Brigade and Occupy Rogers Park would return that night to shine a message of defiance throughout the downtown area.