https://americancynic.net/Atom Feed for 'denver' Articles2020-08-07T15:27:42ZAmer Canishttps://americancynic.net/about/tag:americancynic.net,2020-08-07:/log/2020/8/7/homelessness_and_the_desecration_of_democracy_in_denver_colorado/Homelessness and the Desecration of Democracy in Denver, Colorado2020-08-07T15:27:42Z2020-08-07T15:27:42Z<div class="paragraph">
<p>Denver Municipal Code <a href="https://library.municode.com/co/denver/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TITIIREMUCO_CH38OFMIPR_ARTIVOFAGPUORSA_DIV1GE_S38-86.2UNCAPUPRPRPR">§ 38-86.2</a> — known locally as the ‘urban camping ban,’ <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2012/05/14/denver-city-council-votes-9-4-to-ban-homeless-camping/">enacted by the City Council in 2012 (in a vote of 9-4)</a> — makes it unlawful for any person to sleep on public property with a blanket or “any form of cover or protection from the elements other than clothing.”
But there are hundreds of people living in Denver who have nowhere else to sleep, and must nevertheless sleep and shelter themselves, who are therefore made criminals by the municipal code and treated as such by the police (a July 17, 2020, count <a href="https://wraphome.org/2020/07/20/denver-co-denver-tent-count-facing-the-reality-of-mass-homelessness-in-denver/">found 1,328 people living in tents in Denver</a>).</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Such an inhumane law has resulted in some organized political resistance, of course.
In 2019 volunteers coordinating through an organization called <a href="https://denverhomelessoutloud.org/">Denver Homelessness Out Loud</a> managed to get a referendum (Initiative 300, <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Denver,_Colorado,_Initiated_Ordinance_300,_%22Right_to_Survive%22_Initiative_(May_2019)">the “Right to Survive” Initiative</a>) on the ballot, bypassing the council in favour of direct democracy.
If accepted by voters, the initiative would have made it legal in Denver “to rest and shelter oneself from the elements in a non-obstructive manner in outdoor public spaces.”
The potential protection of such an essential freedom was apparently too much for Denver’s business community which launched a campaign, endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, to oppose the measure.
That campaign spent $2.4 million to try to convince Denver voters that acts of survival by some of the already least advantaged citizens should remain criminal acts (compare to the $0.1 million spent by supporters of the measure).
That campaign was successful, and on election day the Right to Survive initiative was rejected by voters 81%-19%.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>If democracy, the “rule of the people,” means anything of substance, then it can’t mean mere majoritarianism and instead must refer to a society which, in the words of Kevin Carson, tries to “<a href="https://c4ss.org/content/49295">maximize the agency of individual people, and their degree of perceived control over the decisions that affect their daily lives</a>.”
I’d go farther and say that any worthwhile version of democracy is one guided by something like a Rawlsian difference principle whereby social and economic institutions work “to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.”</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>An examination of any actually-existing democratic society will make it clear that by those standards democracy is a lie.
The United States of America is both the revolutionary birthplace of liberal democracy with its dreams of republican equality as well as one of the world’s foremost engines of inequality.
American politics is dominated by two political parties which in their rivalry never imagine a world outside of a struggle over the spoils of capitalism.
The two American parties, appropriately called the Republican Party and Democratic Party, mirror the double lie of democracy itself: the promised “rule of the people,” a fair society in which we have a say over our own circumstances, is a false promise; but so too is its less lofty illusion as “rule of the majority.”
Would-be cynics hold their lanterns up to democracy and declare that it is in fact nothing more than mob rule, a majority of wolves caucusing with a few sheep over lunch plans.
But in practice even this cynical view is optimistic and democracies tend instead toward oligarchy, the rule of the few on behalf of a privileged class.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The case of Denver’s Right to Survive initiative being rejected by an overwhelming 81% of voters might seem like a counter-example to the charge of oligarchy.
I’ll concede that any electoral system that allows Denver’s wealthy residents to decide the fate of the homeless is like polling the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah to decide how strangers should be treated; it immediately puts the lie to any pretensions of a just rule of the people.
But even in this egregious case of democratic-process-as-mob-violence, the oligarchic tendency of democracy is visible in the background.
Looking at the election numbers shows that less than half of active, registered voters in Denver cast a ballot on the issue.
The defeat of the initiative was the result of a hateful minority, whipped up by a campaign funded by business owners, to preserve oppressive legislation originally enacted by nine city council members.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Eight years (and counting) of the urban camping ban has not reduced homelessness in Denver, but it has exposed some of Denver’s most disadvantaged residents to increased stress, danger, and police harassment.
More recently, amidst a nation-wide rebellion against <a href="https://americancynic.net/log/2014/4/16/when_police_kill_the_homeless/">murderous police</a> and a pandemic-fueled recession, Colorado’s capital has been rocked by protests and shifting homeless encampments as city police sweep one location after another.
In June Colorado Governor and millionaire Jared Polis opted not to renew an emergency moratorium on evictions.
After protests against police in Aurora (Denver’s most populous suburb), the governor also re-opened an investigation into the 2019 killing of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Elijah_McClain">Elijah McClain</a>, an unarmed black man who was attacked and killed by police while walking near his home.
The officers involved in McClain’s death remain at large, and protests are ongoing as I’m writing this.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>By July the state capitol building and other state property in Denver were marked by substantial vandalism and encroached by growing tent cities.
In response to questions about these scenes during <a href="https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/coronavirus/we-aint-going-to-wait-colorado-will-ramp-up-testing-processing-as-national-lab-backlog-grows">a press conference</a>, Governor Polis pressured the city to grant authority for his state troopers to help enforce the urban camping ban and likewise encouraged city police “to come onto our property and remove tents.”
The city immediately granted the requested authority and a few days later <a href="https://coloradosun.com/2020/07/29/denver-tent-city-cleared/">state troopers effected a sweep of the homeless camp in front of the capitol building</a>.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>During the press conference, the governor offered these words to emphasize the importance of more aggressive policing:</p>
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<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
It’s not just a building. It’s a big part of our Republic. It’s who we are. It’s our state Capitol. It’s symbolic. It’s important. And frankly, when it is desecrated, we all are desecrated and democracy is desecrated.
</blockquote>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Governor Polis reveals here the actual content of democracy: sacrosanct symbols of state power elevated above struggling human life.
If ever there can be a society in which individuals have a real say over the management of their own affairs and in which our economic and political institutions benefit the worst off the most, it begins with the desecration of this present democracy.
“Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”</p>
</div>On the double-lie of democracy and the criminalization of homelessnesstag:americancynic.net,2017-05-11:/log/2017/5/11/on_the_road_to_may_day_a_non-report-back_from_denver_2017/On the road to May Day: A non-report-back from Denver 20172017-05-11T19:09:59Z2018-08-03T21:00:41Z<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<img src="/log/2017/5/11/on_the_road_to_may_day_a_non-report-back_from_denver_2017/Diogenes_Asking_for_Alms.jpg" alt="Diogenes Asking for Alms">
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<div class="title">Figure 1. “Diogenes Asking for Alms” by Jean-Bernard Restout (1767). Here Diogenes is begging from a statue, which he did to practice being rejected.</div>
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<h2 id="_a_spectrum_of_beggars">A spectrum of beggars</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
Being asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, Diogenes said, “Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy.”
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Every other day of the year I’m dismissive toward churches, parties, unions, and holy days; but on May 1st, I’m somehow always hopeful that a large number of radicals will turn out and cause trouble. It’s been a few years since I’ve written a post complaining about the tameness of <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2017/05/01/mayday2017">May Day</a> in Denver. That’s because I realized that I’m too shy to contribute to or get much out of protests and stopped attending them. This year, however, with good weather, the drama around Trump, and the centennial of the 1917 revolutions, I thought the demonstrations could be big. I searched online and saw that the Democratic Socialists of America and some other groups planned a “May Day Against Trumpism” at the capitol building. Wanting to not miss out, I took the bus to the city.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Between Union Station and Denver’s capitol building is a mile of pedestrian shopping called 16th Street Mall. Recounting one’s walk down 16th Street Mall is often to sketch a continuum-forming typology of beggars:</p>
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<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="/log/2017/5/11/on_the_road_to_may_day_a_non-report-back_from_denver_2017/beggarspectrum.svg"><img src="/log/2017/5/11/on_the_road_to_may_day_a_non-report-back_from_denver_2017/beggarspectrum.svg.png" alt="Diagram of begging typology."></a>
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<div class="title">Figure 2. A print-quality diagram depicting the perfectly sensible multi-dimensional typology of begging. I’m not at all embarrassed of the concept or drawing. The bus icon is by <a href="http://naomiatkinson.com/naomiatkinsondesign/">Naomi Atkinson</a>; the capitol icon is by <a href="http://www.loren.co/">Loren Klein</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/">CC-BY-3.0</a>). The lines were drawn by me: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Click image for SVG version.</div>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Almost as soon as I stepped outside of the bus station a woman approached me and asked if I had “a dollar or something to help with food.” I remembered that I had grabbed some extra change with my bus fare and handed her the two dimes. She cheerfully assured me that every little bit helps. This is the unpretentious beggar: she offers nothing in exchange for taking money except to live and beg another day. Every other beggar I’d meet on my way to the capitol would present their case as an <em>exchange</em>; they’d tell me that either I or an even more helpless third party somewhere would benefit from my donation.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>A girl with a clipboard standing at the nearby intersection who witnessed my twenty-cent donation caught my eyes and asked, “Do you want to save a child with me today?” From what I gathered before the crossing light changed, the plan was for her to get paid to solicit donations for some sponsor-a-child charity scheme and for me to give her my money. I couldn’t even think of a sensible response to that offer of teamwork and just awkwardly shook my head before crossing the street. Later down the mall I met some more clipboard beggars, and I did much better. One girl got my attention with a friendly greeting and then explained that with Trump in office it is very important that I give to the ACLU. I told her I didn’t have any money. She was understanding and told me that I could donate online whenever I do have money.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>A man begging on behalf of <a href="http://savethechildren.org">Save The Children</a>, an organization currently helping victims of the Syrian civil war, asked if he could talk to me about their work. I told him I don’t have any money, and he politely asked if he could give me his spiel anyway. So I listened. When he got back to asking for a donation I wished him luck and walked on. It turns out that while he’s trying to extract money from unemployed anarchists on the mall, the President and CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles (whose background is in marketing, specifically in selling American Express cards to college students), is paid <a href="https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4438#">$455,000 per year</a>.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Further down the mall I looked down and walked fast to avoid interacting with a pair of clipboard-holders wearing Greenpeace shirts.</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. When I crossed to the other side of 16th Street, on the first block of the mall, there was a man playing the flute along to some kind of electronic jazz music playing from a loudspeaker while also talking to passers-by trying to get them to dance. It was a tough crowd, but he was a skilled performer and there were several dollars in the wooden box on the ground in front of him.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Unlike most beggars, buskers are generally not only tolerated but desired by downtown business improvement districts because they provide some cultural authenticity which makes shopping a less sterile experience. People often give to buskers because they genuinely enjoyed the performance rather than out of pity, in which cases street performing is a commercial art rather than begging proper. While I’ve not witnessed them in Denver, other cases in which unsolicited services are pre-rendered with the expectation of payment, such as squeegee beggars who clean windshields at stoplights for donations, probably rarely make that transition (and so precede busking in the spectrum).</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The claim that donations are actually payment for a service is a rhetorical game Diogenes played when he said people should pay him “not for alms, but for repayment of his due” (presumably for being such a great philosopher). And like some guilt-tripping clipboard beggars, he also tried leaning on potential donors' sense of fairness and morality to reason them into giving to him: “If you have already given to anyone else, give to me also; if not, begin with me.”</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Jesus, the founder of the other ancient tradition of begging which has been gnawing the foundations of Western civilization for over 2,000 years, also gave some rather cynical advice on how to handle beggars. Included in his Sermon on the Mount are three of his most characteristic pronouncements. The first, “Do not resist an evildoer,” is followed by three examples of enduring more abuse than one’s day-to-day abusers expect (if someone slaps your face, turn turn the other cheek; if someone sues you for the literal shirt off your back, give them your cloak too; if you are conscripted to walk a mile, walk <em>two</em> miles). The third is “Love your enemies,” after which Jesus points out that even tax collectors — the very agents of exploitation — are nice to their friends, so that should be, like, the absolute minimum standard of behavior.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Perhaps less famous (though not less vexing) than those two paradoxical sayings is found right between them: “Give to everyone who begs from you.”</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Jesus’s first followers were propertyless peasants who had left even their homes, were used to putting up with abuse at the hands of their social betters, to going without sufficient clothing, to walking more than even soldiers, were more often beggars than givers, and who nevertheless treated everybody well. Whatever the deeper and more general applications of these sayings, then, on their surface they not only presented the lifestyle of the early Christians (that which potential followers would be expected to adopt), they also seem to be lightheartedly self-serving in the same style of the Cynics who taught that it was virtuous to give to homeless philosophers.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The co-optation of Christianity by the rich and powerful not long after Jesus was executed imbued these sayings with even greater difficulty for their future audiences, especially “give to everyone who begs from you” which cannot be so easily philosophized away as a paradox. As an example, consider the case of a 19th-century Russian aristocrat named Leo Tolstoy who after a legendary career as a novelist attempted to take the sayings of Jesus seriously. His struggles with “do not resist an evildoer” produced several works which had profound influences on social justice movements around the world and are still read by pacifists and anarchists today. But it wasn’t until he was quite old that he finally got the courage (if sneaking away from one’s wife in the middle of the night counts as courageous) to leave all of his possessions by setting out on train with nothing but the clothes of a standard Russian peasant. He developed pneumonia and died within days of leaving home.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The pretensions of the cynical beggar are ironic in that the audience is aware of the rhetorical game, but like in the case of the street performer, it is the decision of those who give as to whether they are giving out of pity or gratitude. Beyond that, the type of beggar represented by the Cynic and the Christian are <em>honest</em> both in the sense that they present neither sob stories nor pretended friendliness, but even more so in that they invite their listeners to throw off their own pretensions about the society they are living in and reproducing. That is, to the Cynic and the Christian, giving to beggars is not in tension with more systematic solutions to poverty, it <em>is</em> the systematic solution to poverty. The clipboard-holding fundraiser, in contrast, who has perfected the sob story, the salesman-like friendliness, and who claims salvation is found in non-profit organizations, is perhaps the paragon of the dishonest beggar.</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>I didn’t have occasion to mention it, because I have thankfully never been a witness or victim to a robbery (not that such crimes are unknown on the 16th Street Mall), but robbers also make no claim to be helping their victims and should logically precede the unpretentious beggar in our spectrum. While of course theft and robbery, being characterized by their involuntary demands, are not begging properly, even muggers sometimes couch their activity in the language of a market exchange (‘your money for your life’).</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Julian, the fourth-century Roman emperor (a nephew of Constantine) who tried to peacefully revert the empire from Christianity back to Paganism, was annoyed with the openly atheist and crude Cynics of his day. He wanted all Cynics to be as pious and educated as he imagined Diogenes and Crates were, and argued that most Cynics were even <em>worse</em> than bandits and pirates who were at least decent enough to be ashamed of their lifestyle and live in their faraway hideouts instead of preaching at people in the streets. He also referred to Cynics as “monks,” intending the association with Christians to be an insult (Christians were only one or three gods away from being atheists themselves).</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>At many of the intersections along the mall I saw newspaper salesmen — often older men with all of their possessions in bags on the ground at their feet — selling <a href="https://www.denvervoice.org">the <em>Denver VOICE</em></a> for a suggested $2 per copy. Originally founded 20 years ago as “a grassroots newspaper created by homeless people for homeless people,” the <em>VOICE</em> is now written for a general audience and sold by homeless vendors (who buy the papers for $0.50 each) as a way for them to earn some income. (The <em>Denver VOICE</em> is independent, but its operating model is influenced by similar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_newspaper">street newspaper</a> vending networks which operate in cities around the world.)</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>These charity vendors, whose sales depend at least as much on pity as on satisfying the wants of their customers, are located in the middle of the murky space where begging becomes selling (somewhere to the retail side of the children in third-world cities who sell trinkets to Western tourists).</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Of course the entire mall is lined by actual retail shops and beggardly advertisements. Salespersons and advertisers (and the business owners they work for) likely imagine they are much further along the spectrum of begging than they actually are.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Downtown business associations and city councils will often commission artwork to help beautify shopping areas and, as in the case of buskers, will happily tolerate some guerrilla murals which provide a degree of authenticity to the shopping environment. But for the most part any art or graphic design which might distract from the commercial purposes of the property is forbidden. In the words of the street artist Banksy, “The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you’re never allowed to answer back.”</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Banksy’s observation echoes one by GK Chesterton a hundred years earlier that “It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money”:</p>
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<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
A man would be annoyed if he found himself in a mob of millionaires, all holding out their silk hats for a penny; or all shouting with one voice, “Give me money.” Yet advertisement does really assault the eye very much as such a shout would assault the ear. “Budge’s Boots are the Best” simply means “Give me money”; “Use Seraphic Soap” simply means “Give me money.” It is a complete mistake to suppose that common people make our towns commonplace, with unsightly things like advertisements. Most of those whose wares are thus placarded everywhere are very wealthy gentlemen with coronets and country seats, men who are probably very particular about the artistic adornment of their own homes. They disfigure their towns in order to decorate their houses.
</blockquote>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Shop and restaurant owners on the 16th Street Mall have been known to be hostile to the more needy beggars operating on their turf and have enlisted the police to carry out revanchist actions against the most vulnerable. In 2012, <a href="https://www.municode.com/library/co/denver/codes/code_of_ordinances?nodeId=TITIIREMUCO_CH38OFMIPR_ARTIVOFAGPUORSA_DIV1GE_S38-86.2UNCAPUPRPRPR">legislation</a> criminalizing the act of sleeping outside with shelter (defined as “any tent, tarpaulin, lean-to, sleeping bag, bedroll, blankets, or any form of cover or protection from the elements other than clothing”) was passed on behalf of downtown business owners. Under the authority of that code, police have conducted winter <a href="http://observers.france24.com/en/20161228-denver-urban-camping-ban-police-take-blankets-homeless">raids</a> on homeless camps to confiscate blankets. Recently three individuals accused of camping with shelter were tried by jury, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/2017/04/05/denver-homeless-camping-ban-violators-trial/">convicted</a>, and sentenced to several days of forced labour.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The City of Denver in collaboration with downtown business owners has installed mechanical panhandlers — modified parking meters — which are meant to compete with live beggars. The city has promised the money collected by the machines will go toward “job training, meals and permanent housing options that help get people back on their feet,” but it has been <a href="http://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/06/30/city-used-homeless-donations-to-assist-with-homeless-sweep/">caught</a> spending it instead to help fund the police sweeps of homeless camps.</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The mall ends where 16th Street dead-ends into Broadway. To the north is the financial heart of Denver’s business center. On 16th Street itself are the two Denver World Trade Center buildings and Republic Plaza (the tallest building in Denver); scattered beyond those are more high-rise office buildings and skyscrapers. These buildings exhibit almost none of the colorful and chaotic elements of the shopping mall and are instead dark, sleek, and inauspicious.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The craft of capital allocation and investment, which is practiced in many of these buildings, does not depend on demanding, begging, or offering so much as on staking ownership and simply taking interest. Like the robber on one end of our spectrum, we have financial capitalism on the other: the bandit subsumed. The full spectrum of begging plays out between these dialectical bookends of the modern capitalist economy, as it does everyday between Union Station and Broadway.</p>
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<hr>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Walking a block south on Broadway brought me to the state capitol building. I could see maybe 100 demonstrators nestled up on the steps waving red and black flags. A large banner facing the street read “No War But Class War,” and another further back read “Workers & Oppressed People of the World Unite!” There were no police or pro-Trump counter-protestors in sight.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The prospect of joining them seemed both socially overwhelming and boring. Like some sort of party. So I continued walking down Broadway and spent my afternoon in the Denver Public Library. It was a good May Day.</p>
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<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_other_peoples_may_day_2017">Other people’s May Day 2017</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Of course, some people actually followed through on their plans to attend a May Day demonstration. The local Fox News affiliate was kind enough to both get the word out about various May Day protests in Denver as well as to follow up with a short video and a couple of pictures from the event at the capitol: <a href="http://kdvr.com/2017/05/01/may-day-events-taking-place-in-denver/">“May Day events taking place in Denver”</a> (Fox31, 1 May 2017). More photos can be found on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/589838171220197/">the Facebook event page</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>A few cities <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2010/may/02/may-day-protest">around the world</a> saw major protests, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/01/may-day-violence-france-six-police-injured-armed-group-hijack-paris-march">the riot in Paris</a> getting the most headlines because protesters responded to police tear gas with spectacular petrol bombs. Hundreds of protesters and six cops were injured during the clashes.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In the United States the most unusual thing about May Day this year was the presence of Trump-inspired right-wing counter-protesters who turned up in several cities. <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/does-peaceful-may-day-signal-seattles-no-longer-in-protesters-bulls-eye/">Seattle was unusually quiet</a> though there was a minor <a href="http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/05/01/25118288/dispatch-from-the-right-wing-presence-at-seattle-may-day">confrontation</a> with participants of a “Stand Against Communism” rally.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The most rowdy demonstrations were in Portland and Olympia. <a href="http://www.kgw.com/news/politics/may-day-protests-expected-monday-in-portland-across-us/435436532">In Portland</a> a minor riot broke out after a few protesters threw full cans of Pepsi at riot police who responded by charging into the mostly peaceful crowd of marchers. The bloc’d up [mostly-anarchist, no doubt] protesters who instigated the police response have been <a href="https://socialistworker.org/2017/05/04/hard-facts-about-portlands-may-day-riot">criticized</a> for endangering the rest of the march.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>There was also a small riot <a href="https://itsgoingdown.org/olympia-wa-may-day-reportback/">in Olympia</a> where protesters threw rocks at police (and some counter-protesters threw rocks at marching demonstrators). In one unfortunate and embarrassing instance, a protester tried to pepper spray some taunting counter-protesters and accidentally sprayed passers-by including a dog. Most cops are not even that irresponsible with chemical weapons.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The <a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2017-02-17/red-guards-and-the-modern-face-of-protest/">Red Guards Austin</a>, a Maoist group which has gained some notoriety in recent months due to their open-carry demonstrations, tried to march in Austin, but they were surround by an alarming number of reactionary counter protesters. Apparently racists and anti-communists of the InfoWars variety are numerous in the Austin area (I didn’t realize until now that Alex Jones lives in Austin and hosts his show there). Some Red Guards members were carrying rifles, and so were a few of the right-wingers. In their <a href="https://redguardsaustin.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/fight-fail-fight-again-fail-again-fight-again-until-victory/">public self-criticism</a> which they posted to their weblog, the Red Guards described this scary moment:</p>
</div>
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
Early on in the march a fascist named William Fears physically assaulted one of the comrades who was guiding chants and for this Fears came very close to forcing our units to use lethal force. Those in attendance could see fear in his eyes as the Partisan unit moved into the ready position prepared to chamber a round.
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>My impression is that the Austin PD did a good job keeping the groups apart and possibly from literally killing each other. The independent journalist Kit O’Connell was present and wrote a good postmortem of the event: <a href="https://kitoconnell.com/2017/05/06/mayday-fascist-rampage-in-austin/">“Unpacking The Fascist Rampage On May Day In Austin: What Happened, What Went Wrong.”</a> I could not find a single report from a main stream news outfit.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_sources_of_quotations">Sources of quotations</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The sayings of Diogenes quoted above can be found in Diogenes Laertius’s <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Lives_of_the_Eminent_Philosophers/Book_VI#Diogenes"><em>Lives of Eminent Philosophers</em>, Book VI</a>. Those of Jesus are recorded in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A38-48&version=NRSV">Matthew 5:38-48</a>. Julian’s thoughts on Cynics are preserved in his seventh Oration: <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/To_the_Cynic_Heracleios">“To the Cynic Heracleios.”</a> The Banksy quote is from his introduction to <a href="http://libgen.io/book/index.php?md5=D759C402177573EB0A108ADE74D83A33"><em>Wall and Piece</em></a>. GK Chesterton’s opinion on advertisements can be found in his 1920 book <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13468"><em>The New Jerusalem</em></a>.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>An anecdotal introduction to the continuum-forming typology of begging as a dialectical model for understanding the structure of late capitalist economy.tag:americancynic.net,2015-05-14:/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/Report Back: Denver March in Support of the Baltimore Uprising (4/29)2015-05-14T22:28:32Z2015-09-28T05:23:46Z<div class="paragraph">
<p>On the afternoon of May 1st I attended the annual May Day demonstration in Denver. I think it was a larger turnout than last year. But after about a minute I remembered how much I hate things like being in a group of people I don’t (but should) know, standing around “protesting” with signs and slogans, and generally being in a city. So I right away walked back to Union Station and got the next bus home.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>As I walked away from the demonstrators the only police I noticed were some officers staged around the corner of the capitol building largely out of sight so as not to incite any conflict. This was in contrast to the method employed by the Denver Police Department (DPD) across the street from the capitol during a protest demonstration I attended only a few days earlier. That protest, on the Wednesday prior to May Day, was a march organized by the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/denvercommunitydefense">Denver Community Defense Committee</a> (and others) in <a href="https://itself.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/what-does-it-mean-to-support-something/">support of</a> the rioters in Baltimore and of the protest movement sparked by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Iguala_mass_kidnapping">murdered students of Ayotzinapa</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>My sister met me downtown and attended the march with me, so it was way more fun than when I try to do protesting by myself. We gathered in front of the detention center and courthouse (where I was once detained, and where I was <a href="http://mretc.net/~cris/arrested-O14/">tried and convicted for my role in the Occupy Denver camp</a> almost exactly three years ago). Many cars honked in support as they drove by. Some organizers with permanent markers moved through the crowd making sure everyone who wanted it had the jail support phone number written on their bodies. A member of the ISO was handing out free copies of the latest <a href="http://socialistworker.org/"><em>Socialist Worker</em></a>. <em>Free copies</em>. When the Trotskyists are giving away their newspapers you know Full Communism can’t be far off.</p>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206644668215273&set=pb.1229828253.-2207520000.1431057425"><img src="/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/banner.jpg" alt="Protesters holding banner which reads 'From Denver to Baltimore to Ayotzinapa We Do Mind Dying'" width="640"></a>
</div>
<div class="title">From Denver to Baltimore to Ayotzinapa: We Do Mind Dying (photo by Jason Metter)</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Once around 100 people had gathered, we moved into eastbound Colfax Ave leaving only one lane open for traffic. Even then we got honks of support from motorists. The police materialized from behind the protesters, moving west up the eastbound side. We turned to face them. I got pressed into service holding one of the banners at the front of the group (via a classic “would you hold this for a second?” move by its previous handler). A line of police on motorcycles drove up to the protest, stopping suddenly only inches from those of us in front so as to prevent us from marching forward down the street. After a brief standoff we moved to the sidewalk and walked past the line of motorcycles.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>For the next couple of blocks the police carelessly and intentionally swooped their heavy motorcycles close to marching protesters in an attempt to keep them on the sidewalk. Many other police vehicles carrying officers in crowd-control gear including a DPD SWAT team riding on an SUV had also responded to the gathering. We lost our motorcycle escort briefly at Civic Center Park where Colfax bends away from the sidewalk, so when we turned right onto Broadway we were in the shoulder of the street again.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The motorcycles quickly caught up and resumed trying to herd us off of the street. One sped right up beside me, almost right into me, and shouted to MOVE TO THE SIDEWALK! I was looking forward at that moment and was startled by his maneuver and the only thing I could think to say in response was, “be careful.” He repeated, this time in a quieter tone, his command for me to move to the sidewalk. I replied, “ok, but while we are in the street, be careful with your bike.” At that point we were approaching two big tour buses parked on the shoulder of Broadway; he drove off up ahead to find someone else to yell at while I decided to go around the buses on the sidewalk in order to avoid being squeezed between them and the police. I also took the opportunity to abandon my job as a banner holder. I think the other guy was better off without me anyway.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Just as I passed the second bus, the police attacked. I heard a scuffle in the street on the other side of the buses. I jogged back to see several police arresting a protester wearing a backpack. Luckily, as the police were walking him away he managed to toss his backpack in the street where another protester grabbed it before any of the cops could.</p>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="https://www.facebook.com/occupydenver/photos/a.719504098159144.1073741881.105073176268909/719505464825674/"><img src="/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/bicyclistarrest.jpg" alt="Photo of the arrest. He had already thrown his backpack to safety at this point." width="640"></a>
</div>
<div class="title">Photo of the arrest. He had already thrown his backpack to safety at this point. The sign in the back reads "Jesus Loves Coffee Not Cops," a reference to the weekly <a href="https://www.facebook.com/coffeenotcopsdenver">Coffee Not Cops</a> meeting in Denver. (Photo from Occupy Denver’s Facebook page)</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>While I was watching, one of the green-clad tactical guys armed with one of those large riot revolvers that shoot 40mm cannisters shoved the guy next to me and then pointed his weapon at my chest and told me to get back. I didn’t know if he was loaded with impact rounds or tear gas, but at that range I assumed anything would be ‘more or less lethal’, so I backed up then returned to the sidewalk.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>That’s when I realized it was not an isolated arrest. Several people between and beside the buses had been pepper sprayed, some tackled on the pavement, and were being bound while other police in crowd-control gear were pepper spraying onlookers. My sister and I both got only a very light misting which caused a bit of coughing and brief eye burning…​ but I saw several people take multiple full sprays directly to the face.</p>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="https://www.facebook.com/occupydenver/photos/a.719504098159144.1073741881.105073176268909/719505608158993/"><img src="/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/spray2.jpg" alt="Eager cop sprays protesters from behind motorcycles" width="640"></a>
</div>
<div class="title">Eager cop sprays protesters from behind motorcycles (photo from Occupy Denver’s Facebook page)</div>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206644676695485"><img src="/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/arrest1.jpg" alt="Denver police arrest a man while pepper spraying photographers" width="640"></a>
</div>
<div class="title">Denver police arrest a man while pepper spraying photographers (photo by Jason Metter — see his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/metter/media_set?set=a.10206644678535531.1073741847.1229828253&type=3">Facebook album</a>)</div>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="https://www.facebook.com/occupydenver/photos/a.719504098159144.1073741881.105073176268909/719506074825613/"><img src="/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/spray1.jpg" alt="Police spraying a small group of people on the sidewalk." width="640"></a>
</div>
<div class="title">Police spraying a small group of people on the sidewalk. The sign on the ground reads "Christians Against Killer Cops" (photo from Occupy Denver’s Facebook page)</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The group spent quite a bit of time in Civic Center Park recovering and flushing eyes with water and milk. The police made a few excursions into the park to grab and arrest a few more protesters. I don’t know why some people were targeted, but I’m assuming they were grabbing people they could identify as having been in the street earlier so they could charge them with minor traffic offenses and remove them from the protest (there were forensics officers video recording the entire march).</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Once everyone had more-or-less recovered we continued our march to the 16th Street Mall and around downtown Denver before people began dispersing. After the attack on Broadway, my priority for the rest of the march was to make sure neither myself nor my sister got arrested. That meant leaving the group at one point as it headed down an alley-less street toward police where I feared a kettle and possible mass arrest. Fortunately the group was able to turn, and we caught back up to them on the mall a little before everyone dispersed.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In total 11 people were arrested. Most were charged with misdemeanors, but there were also at least two felony assault on police charges. Two protesters that I know of were hospitalized while in custody for the injuries they sustained during their arrests.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_videos">Videos</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>There are several videos of the march available online, especially of the police attacking protesters on Broadway, including some <a href="https://vimeo.com/126535599">footage posted to Vimeo by Unicorn Riot.</a> The videographer during much of that footage is next to me, so it actually provides something near to my point-of-view during the first bit of the protest.</p>
</div>
<div class="videoblock">
<div class="title">Unicorn Riot’s video shows much of what I saw</div>
<div class="content">
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/126535599" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>David Long captured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEkXquMskHM">video of several of the arrests</a> which I did not witness myself:</p>
</div>
<div class="videoblock">
<div class="title">Arrests During the Denver-Baltimore Solidarity March (4/29)</div>
<div class="content">
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bEkXquMskHM?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Finally, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHZjQZSXytMKNeG0G0FXXOA">DAM Collective</a> posted several videos to YouTube, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ4MpIbickU">this one</a> which shows the general mood of both protesters and police before and during the attack:</p>
</div>
<div class="videoblock">
<div class="title">This video gives the general flavour of the first part of the march</div>
<div class="content">
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kQ4MpIbickU?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_why_did_they_attack">Why Did They Attack?</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The attack on Broadway surprised me, and the apparently unprovoked aggression struck me as unusual even by DPD standards. I am not the most experienced street protester (refer to the list of things I hate in the first paragraph), but most unpermitted marches I’ve seen are controlled by police by blocking intersections in order to force the group to halt or turn until everyone gets tired and goes home (or, if the police had time to prepare, until most protesters are kettled and arrested).</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>But this attack occurred in the middle of a block, after we had been walking for only a few minutes, and when a good portion of the protesters were on the sidewalk. There was a rumor that the attack was precipitated by a protester jumping onto or knocking over a police motorcycle. And after the march the Denver Post <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28016764/protesters-march-near-jail-downtown-denver">reported</a>, quoting a police spokesperson, that the trigger for the attack was when “An officer got knocked of[f] his motorcycle as he was basically patrolling.”</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>However, on May 1st <a href="https://twitter.com/JesseBenn">Jesse Benn</a> posted a clear <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81xLpbQSq-U">video</a> to YouTube showing the incident which incited the attack by police. In the video, a police officer on a motorcycle is seen riding very close to a bicyclist who was riding along with protesters. The cyclist can be seen defensively sticking his elbow out as he is crowded by the motorcycle, at which point the officer, who is trying to balance at a very slow speed, manages to drop his bike. In response that officer and the tactical team are seen to immediately rush the protesters.</p>
</div>
<div class="videoblock">
<div class="title">Slow motion video of police officer dropping his motorcycle and then attacking protesters</div>
<div class="content">
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/81xLpbQSq-U?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>(<strong>May 14:</strong> the video is no longer public at this time. I’m guessing it was made private at the request of the legal defense of the protesters involved. I am hoping Benn will make the video public again once all criminal cases have been dropped or completed.)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Benn was arrested after recording the incident in the video above. His wife, who was also documenting the action with her phone, was forced up against a bus with a police baton to her throat. Her phone was confiscated and is apparently lost — presumably destroyed by the DPD. The couple was interviewed as part of a CBS4 report a few days after the protest which is available online as <a href="http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/05/04/pregnant-womans-phone-taken-during-police-protest-that-ends-in-violent-arrests/">“Pregnant Woman’s Phone Taken During Police Protest That Ends In Arrests”</a> (May 4, 2015).</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>On May 22nd, Michael Moore, the bicyclist in question, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204159978547676&set=a.1247694040456.2032037.1472590064&type=1">posted to his Facebook page</a> that all three charges filed against him had been dismissed (assault on a peace officer, criminal mischief, and resisting arrest). According to <a href="http://notmytribe.com/2015/second-degree-felony-assault-charges-dropped-against-occupy-michael-moore-843259.html">a report at NotMyTribe.com</a>, Moore spent two days in jail after his arrest.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>So the aggression on the part of DPD seems to have been largely unprovoked. Perhaps the situation in Baltimore and the fact that there was another Denver-Baltimore solidarity demonstration the night before contributed to tensions which had the police officers on edge. It may be worth noting that Civic Center Park was also the scene of <a href="http://americancynic.net/log/2014/3/26/denvers_october_2011_uprisings/">Denver’s October 2011 Mini-Uprising</a>, which itself involved an officer being pushed off of his motorcycle by a protester.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>But whatever the reason for their actions at this particular demonstration, the fact that police so often confront political protests at all is a curious phenomenon. Surely everyone involved — protesters, police officers, police commanders, municipal administrators — knows that police presence and police aggression merely extend the duration of demonstrations, cause injuries, and amplify (many times over) the impact on traffic and business.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>During Wednesday’s march the DPD was able to use one officer’s embarrassing motorcycle slip as an excuse, but police will sometimes go to great lengths including undercover <em>provocateurs</em> to stir up trouble and elicit violent confrontations with protesters. While individual police officers may benefit from [overtime] pay, everybody else (including the municipal treasury, especially after any resulting civil suits are paid) may incur very steep costs. So what’s the reason such expensive crowd-control methods have evolved and persist?</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In Chapter 8 of his book, <em>Our Enemies in Blue</em>, Kristian Williams provides a description of the various crowd control methods favored through the history of modern policing. During the middle of the 20th century, into the 1970s, police adhered to a strategy of “Escalated Force” (as opposed to previous strategies of “Maximum Force”), the implementation of which Williams describes in the following passage:</p>
</div>
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
Dispersal operations are not designed to uphold the law or to protect public safety; often the police action itself will represent the most serious violation of the law and constitute the greatest threat to the safety of the community. Instead of the law or public safety, the police are concerned with establishing control, maintaining power. (p. 184)
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Williams goes on to note that after the failure of police to control the 1999 Seattle protests there has been a return to the haphazard (but also increasingly disciplined/militarized) use of force to control protests:</p>
</div>
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
Riot gear, tear gas, mass arrests, and widespread violence have again become common features of demonstrations. While police violence has always been a possibility, it has lately come to resemble an open threat. Some of this is surely deliberate. The threat of violence is an effective tool for suppressing the attendance at a gathering, especially among portions of the population who are more routinely subject to police attack. It also serves to criminalize dissent. When members of the public see the police in riot gear, it is easy to assume that the crowd they are monitoring is dangerous, or even criminal. But some of the police reliance on force is the product of desperation. They simply don’t know what to do, and while they figure it out, the old-fashioned, straightforward head-knocking approach seems like a safe bet. (p. 193)
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>And indeed things make more sense if police (especially riot police) are thought of as producers of fear and discipline rather than as producers of peace. For at least a brief time during a political protest, the protesters themselves perform the difficult police task of intelligence gathering by making themselves visible as dissenters on the streets. This provides a good opportunity for police to dissuade further dissent by putting on an intimidating display of paramilitary force as a sort of counter-protest, recording the faces of those present as a convenient means of surveillance, as well as visiting physical pain and the promise of future punishment at the hands of the criminal justice system upon a sample of protesters.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Attacking protesters also provides police with an opportunity to target known activists and organizers in attempts to disrupt the activities of already-known subversive groups. For example, one of the arrested protesters on Wednesday was Dave Strano, a well-known anarchist organizer in Denver. Strano was charged with several misdemeanors including interference and resisting arrest. As described in <a href="https://denverabc.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/denver-community-organizer-arrested-call-out-for-jail-solidarity/">a weblog post by the Denver Anarchist Black Cross</a>,</p>
</div>
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
Dave was assaulted and received injuries by the police, including a gash to his head, a broken clavicle and a twisted knee. He was take to the hospital where he was left shackled to the bed covered in pepper spray, and they refused to provide him with crutches after 8 hours. His friends were able to to bring crutches to the jail so that he could walk when he was finally released.
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="https://www.facebook.com/occupydenver/photos/a.719504098159144.1073741881.105073176268909/719506074825613/"><img src="/log/2015/5/14/report_back_denver_march_in_support_of_the_baltimore_uprising_429/dave.jpg" alt="Dave Strano after being released from jail the first time" width="350"></a>
</div>
<div class="title">Dave Strano after his release</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Strano was bonded out the day after the solidarity march, but soon after he was released the district attorney’s office decided to charge him with an additional felony. Denver police then waited until he was driving with his children before pulling him over and arresting him a second time for the same protest, all apparently in an attempt to intimidate Strano and his family.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Of course, even powerful police forces are not completely autonomous. They must avoid too much public and political scrutiny if they wish to continue existing in their current forms — and existing is what police forces do best. Police, then, must balance meting out discipline at political protests with avoiding too many expenses and too much scrutiny-inducing controversy.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>So the police response to any given political protest is difficult to predict. Some times, such as during May Day this year, they will remain discreet in order to keep things calm. Other times they will start hitting and pepper spraying after a demonstration has marched only a few blocks.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>For the same reasons, police always urgently couch their violence in the rhetoric of ensuring “health and safety” — their survival depends on the public believing (or at least having the option to believe) they perform such a beneficial function rather than being seen as merely class enforcers. As an example during our Baltimore solidarity march in April, after the police responded in force and, unprovoked, went out of their way to inflict pain on whichever protesters they could get their hands on with pepper spray, beatings, and arrests, their PR department <a href="https://twitter.com/DenverPolice/status/593590527586512896">tweeted</a> that “Anti-Police Protestors [<em>sic</em>] are now marching on the 16th St Mall. Denver Police are protecting them and ensuring public safety.”</p>
</div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">UPDATE: Anti-Police Protestors are now marching on the 16th St Mall. Denver Police are protecting them and ensuring public safety.</p>— Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) <a href="https://twitter.com/DenverPolice/status/593590527586512896">April 30, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The way police describe themselves as those who “protect and serve” while providing “health and safety” is part of the same language of counterinsurgency which has become standardized over the past 50 years or so of uprisings — most recently in Ferguson and Baltimore — which seeks to valorize both the police and “peaceful protesters” while blaming the impoverished “thugs” who stand up to state violence for their own condition and discrediting those who sympathize with the oppressed as “outside agitators” and “white anarchists”.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>My account of a protest I attended in support of the April Baltimore uprising. We had only marched for a few blocks before Denver police began pepper spraying and arresting people. If you don't want to read all my words, you can skip to the 'Videos' section.tag:americancynic.net,2014-05-11:/log/2014/5/10/may_day_2014/May Day 20142014-05-11T03:05:23Z2018-08-03T20:38:11Z<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
“Space is social”
</blockquote>
<div class="attribution">
— Henri Lefebvre
</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>I’m too shy for this social activism stuff. But for the third year in a row I went to Denver on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day">May Day</a> to find out what the local anti-capitalist folks were up to. On <a href="/log/2012/5/6/my_may_day_2012/">my first May Day</a>, 2012, I was in Denver anyway because my trial the previous day went long and I had to be in court on the morning of May 1st to find out from the jury whether I was guilty or not. That year, riding the momentum of Occupy Wall Street, there were hundreds of people out in the park all day. Various unions had organized speakers, some anarchists were hosting a really (really) free market, I saw pro-immigration chalk art advertising some Maoist website. Everyone was there! Some friendly transient kids even managed to outmaneuver my reluctance and included me in their conversation. When it got dark we slept out on the 16th Street Mall to protest the then-pending (now in force) <a href="/log/2012/5/15/depressing_monday/">urban camping ban</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Last year on May Day by the time I caught a bus to Denver it was snowing. I walked all over downtown (and then some) for hours and never found any May Day demonstrators. But the walk itself was lovely, the snowfall being unusually still and the flakes large. By the time I gave up and went back to the bus station, there was 5" of snow on the ground.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>This year it was sunny, and I found the demonstration immediately: several dozen people holding banners and red flags at the bottom of the steps leading up to the capitol building. May Day this year happened to fall on the first Thursday of May, the National Day of Prayer.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_1" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup> While the socialists were waving their red flags near the street at the bottom of the steps, about the same number of Christians were waving flags, singing, and praying at the top of the stairs. I don’t know which group was exhibiting the more wishful of thinking.</p>
</div>
<div class="imageblock">
<div class="content">
<img src="/log/2014/5/10/may_day_2014/musicians.jpg" alt="Photographs of musicians playing at Denver’s May Day" width="600">
</div>
<div class="title">A bunch of commies showed up for the National Day of Prayer (photo by Janet Matzen)</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>I was a little disappointed with the small number of people who turned out. In a park a couple of blocks away from the demonstration I had walked past people doing some sort of group exercise. There were more people there, stretching in a park in the middle of a Thursday, than the entire gamut of working class and anti-capitalist groups in Denver could get to show up for an international labour day. At one point in the afternoon an elementary school class <a href="http://thedialoguechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/denvermayday5.jpg">walked through our demonstration</a> as part of a field trip to the state capitol. I think there were more children in that class learning the name of the state bird than there were demonstrators.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>But a small demonstration can be a good thing, offering opportunities for more intimate conversation and an exchange of ideas which is not possible during massive demonstrations. The topics represented by the banners and short speeches being made throughout the day included refusal of work, the criminalization of homelessness, anarchism, and the police (who were gathered across the street and around the corner — at times there was probably a police officer surveilling us or ready for action for every two protesters in attendance). In other words, these were people who were interested in the same things I’m interested in — yet I managed to keep to myself for most of the day, feeling increasingly disconnected and depressed.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>It is geography that fails me in my shyness. When I arrive at a place, and I do all the time, I don’t ask, “What is this place and how was it produced?” I need instead a normative geography. I’m constantly finding myself at places, and when I do I want to know, “What should I do here?” But I don’t know. I never know what to do when I get somewhere.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>At demonstrations like the one on May Day I just hold to a vague hope that my presence alone will add to the body count and thereby increase the effectiveness of any worthwhile message. “Look, they’ve got flags, megaphones, <em>and</em> a guy sitting on the grass. Maybe capitalism <em>is</em> bad after all!” I’ve brought signs to protests before; those are good because they allow you to ineffectively communicate without even speaking. This year I brought some pamphlets I made just in case opportunities arose to hand them out. No such opportunities did arise.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Another aspect of the demonstration which left me feeling a little disaffected was some of the ideas being extolled by the group of anti-authoritarian (self-proclaimed anarchist) young men in attendance. One of them lamented the NSA in one sentence, and then expressed concern over “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory">chemtrails</a>” in the next. Many of them identified with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)">Anonymous</a>, complete with Guy Fawkes masks and the insufferably melodramatic aesthetic which characterizes that movements' propaganda. They also endorsed the <a href="http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/the-zeitgeist-movement/">Zeitgeist Movement</a>, which is a throwback to old utopian socialism inspired by a trilogy of conspiracy-theory laden documentaries created by Peter Joseph.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>I don’t know any of the Denver Anonymous kids, so I might be reading too much idealism into a few statements I overheard. But I know substituting conspiracy theories and blind anti-authoritarian rhetoric for a solid materialist understanding of capitalism would not be unusual for inquisitive young anarchists. It’s my estimation that the people (who usually seem to be young men) attracted to those movements and theories have good instincts and motives, it is their sense of justice and their anti-authoritarian instincts which have guided them towards anarchism, but it is that same instinct which allows them to view conspiracy theories as reasonable. They know the world is organized backwards, and they are eager to accept any explanation for the current state of affairs so that they might have somewhere to direct their energy and their anger. They have a sense of their own alienation, but not an articulated consciousness of it. I guess unsubstantiated conspiracy theories are more accessible or easier to digest than solid Marxist and anarchist critiques of capitalism. That’s unfortunate.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>I did greet and meet a few people. One homeless vet who has been involved in homeless rights activism on his own saw the sign calling for a repeal of the camping ban and asked me about it. I was able to point him to the <a href="http://denverhomelessoutloud.org/">Denver Homeless Out Loud</a> website.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Janet Matzen was there; she’s the tireless activist who has been leading boycotts against members of the Downtown Denver Partnership in an effort to get the camping ban repealed. They’ve already convinced two businesses to take a public stance against the ban, and they are currently <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140128081552/http://occupydenver.org/fridays-boycott-the-tattered-cover">targeting</a> the Tattered Cover Bookstore having picketed it (while also feeding any hungry passersby) every Friday evening for the past twenty weeks.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>My favorite part of the entire event was the banjo player and drummer (members of the band <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SeizureRights">Seizure Rights</a> and pictured above), who were playing songs — both radical and popular — all day.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_haymarket_pamphlet">Haymarket Pamphlet</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Wikipedia has a high quality article on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haymarket_affair">Haymarket affair</a>. I adapted an abridged version into a pamphlet titled “Origins of May Day: The Haymarket Affair.” It is available in several sizes of PDF:</p>
</div>
<div class="imageblock right">
<div class="content">
<a class="image" href="http://mretc.net/~cris/hm-pamphlet/hm-pamphlet-booklet.pdf"><img src="/log/2014/5/10/may_day_2014/hm-cover.png" alt="Thumbnail of pamphlet"></a>
</div>
</div>
<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="http://mretc.net/~cris/hm-pamphlet/hm-pamphlet-booklet.pdf">A half-letter sized pamphlet</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://mretc.net/~cris/hm-pamphlet/hm-pamphlet.pdf">A regular US Letter sized document</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://mretc.net/~cris/hm-pamphlet/hm-pamphlet-booklet-imposed.pdf">An imposed (US Letter) version</a> ready for printing:</p>
<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p>Print double-sided (short edge) and landscape (takes three sheets)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Fold sheets and assemble in order</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Put two staples in spine (using long-reach or saddle stapler)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Trim page edges so they are flush (if necessary)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Distribute to curious passersby at your next May Day rally!</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_other_reports">Other Reports</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p>“<a href="http://revolutionaryaim.org/2014/05/03/report-may-day-in-denver/">Report: May Day in Denver</a>” by Morton Esters of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement (a Maoist group).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>“<a href="http://thedialoguechronicle.com/headline-tbd/">Denver’s Turn-Out Small but Vigorous</a>” by Randy Robinson of The <em>Dialogue Chronicle</em> (it’s the second story on that page).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>“<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljOxZcpZFDw">YouTube: A quick look at police watching OWS protesters marking May Day</a>” from The <em>Denver Post</em>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="footnotes">
<hr>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_1">
<a href="#_footnoteref_1">1</a>. The National Day of Prayer does not always fall on May Day, but two other federal holidays do (less accidentally): <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Day_of_Prayer">Loyalty Day</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_Day">Law Day</a>.
</div>
</div>My experience in Denver on May Day, and a pamphlet I made out of the Wikipedia article on the Haymarket massacre.tag:americancynic.net,2014-04-16:/log/2014/4/16/when_police_kill_the_homeless/When Police Kill the Homeless2014-04-16T14:03:07Z2015-09-28T05:23:46Z<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_homo_sacer">Homo sacer</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
In Western politics, bare life has the peculiar privilege of being that whose exclusion founds the city of men.
</blockquote>
<div class="attribution">
— Giorgio Agamben<br>
<cite>Homo Sacer</cite>
</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p><em>Homer sacer</em> (“the accursed/sacred man”) is an obscure figure from ancient Roman law whom anyone can kill without committing a crime, but who may not be sacrificed: an outlaw. <em>Homo sacer</em> thus inhabits the threshold of the political realm by being included within the law only by being abandoned by both profane and divine law. In his extensive study of this archaic figure, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben sees remnants of the original foundation of the Western political sphere in which political life (Aristotle’s <em>bios</em>) is constituted by excluding the ‘bare life’ (<em>zoe</em>) of the home.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The other limit of the political sphere is the mirrored figure of <em>homo sacer</em>: the sovereign whose inclusion in the law consists of the exclusive ability to suspend the law by declaring a state of emergency (the “sovereign exception”). Insofar as subjects are exposed to legal homicide (such as extra-judicial executions) under the state of exception, sovereign power produces bare life. “<em>The sovereign sphere is the sphere in which it is permitted to kill without committing homicide and without celebrating a sacrifice, and sacred life—​that is, life that may be killed but not sacrificed—​is the life that has been captured in this sphere.</em>” (83)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In his book <em>Citizens Without Shelter</em>, Leonard Feldman presents a theory in which the homeless body is seen as an example of <em>homo sacer</em>. Through readings of U.S. case law on anti-homeless ordinances (those municipal codes which forbid begging, public feeding, sitting on sidewalks, sleeping outdoors, etc.) he shows that the courts have constructed homeless life as bare life. The homeless life, even when lived in the very center of the city, is included by the law only through its exclusion from political life.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Homeless life shares similar ambivalence as the sacred life of <em>homo sacer</em>: private and public, disgust and august, reviled and romanticized, criminal and victim, excluded and included. In recognizing homeless life as sacred life, Feldman has done well in following Agamben’s directive: “We must learn to recognize this structure of the ban in the political relations and public spaces in which we still live. <em>In the city, the banishment of sacred life is more internal than every internality and more external than every extraneousness.</em>” (111)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Even anti-authoritarian or pacifist utopians might concede the benefit of a professional peacekeeping organization whose members, authorized in the use of violence, are dedicated to defending victims and seeking out and providing comfort to the hurting. But in the parlance of actually existing cities, `peace officer' is synonymous with `police officer,' who is often dedicated to enforcing the interests of the strong against the weak and to making cities into safe, clean spaces for <em>bios</em> — for capitalists and their worker-shoppers — by excluding bare life (and relegating the activities of bare life as much as possible to the sphere of the home).</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>If the production of homeless life within the cities of global capitalism can be seen as an instance of (or at least an approximation to) the production of bare life by sovereign power, then the sovereign counterpart to the sacred life of the homeless is the professional policeman (who shares the same, if mirrored, ambivalences as the homeless: respected and reviled, defender and criminal, public and private, human and animal, etc.).</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In a quotable line from his <em>Homage to Catalonia</em>, George Orwell emphasized the role professional police play in maintaining property and class relations when he called the policeman the “natural enemy” of the worker. But a more diametric contrast would be between the policeman and the unemployed [non]worker: those unwilling or unable (or just too unlucky) to fit into capitalist society, including the ill and homeless.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In downtowns throughout the world, the homeless beg outside of skyscrapers which are guarded by police and full of financial workers allocating and reinvesting immense concentrations of wealth. Visible on these homeless bodies, refugees with no camp (or whose camp is the streets in the business district of the city), living without homes in the hearts of cities which have banned homeless life, is not only the ancient foundation of political life itself but also the extreme contradictions which characterize life under global capitalism today.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The interactions between the police and the homeless sometimes show the relation between homeless life and sacred life as more than mere approximation. When the police kill the homeless, they often do so with impunity. Below, I highlight four recent examples of police in the United States needlessly killing homeless men in plain sight of the public and video cameras. In all four cases it is undisputed that the police directly ended the life of the victim, and in three cases the state (local) jurisdiction determined that no crime was committed while carrying out the killing (in the other case, it was a jury which made that determination). Each of the cases reached national attention in part due to street protests following the announcements that officers would not be charged with criminal homicide.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In some of the cases below, the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are still conducting their own review of the incidents. Even if those investigations reveal violations of constitutional or federal law, however, it seems unlikely that the individual police officers who carried out the killings will be indicted for homicide by the federal government.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In the footnotes I provide at least one link to video of each incident. Most of these videos, and other videos of each incident, are available from several locations on the Internet.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_marvin_booker">Marvin Booker</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>On July 9, 2010, five Denver Sheriff’s deputies held, beat, and shocked Marvin Booker to death in the waiting area of Denver’s Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center. Booker, a 56-year-old homeless street preacher, was being held on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia. The incident was witnessed by tens of people and captured on several surveillance cameras.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_1" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_1" title="View footnote.">1</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Just as sacred life is excluded from legal sanctions against homicide, “The coroner ruled that Booker’s death was caused by homicide, meaning he died at the hands of others. But the deputies were cleared by a criminal investigation which found they had not broken any laws.”<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_2" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_2" title="View footnote.">2</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In 2012, the FBI announced that it would investigate the slaying, but it’s been two years and no report has been released yet.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_3" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_3" title="View footnote.">3</a>]</sup> In November, 2014, a federal civil suit found the deputies to have used excessive force. The City of Denver paid a record $6 million to Booker’s family.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_4" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_4" title="View footnote.">4</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_kelly_thomas">Kelly Thomas</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>On July 5, 2011, officers in Fullerton, California, confronted Kelly Thomas, an unarmed homeless man whom they incorrectly suspected of breaking into cars. Thomas became impatient with the policemen’s questions and did not immediately comply with all of their demands. A digital recording device carried by the police captured one of the officers, Manny Ramos, calmly make the following statement to Thomas after putting on some white latex gloves, “You see my fists? They are getting ready to fuck you up.”<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_5" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_5" title="View footnote.">5</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Two officers then began striking Thomas with their batons and tackled him to the ground. Once on the ground, backup officers arrived who helped to restrain, shock, and beat him. Thomas began apologizing repeatedly, complained he couldn’t breathe, called for help, begged for mercy, screamed in pain, and cried out “Dad! Help me, Dad! They’re killing me, Dad” before losing consciousness.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>When paramedics arrived, they were directed to treat an officer’s minor injury while Thomas lay dying in his own blood on the street.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_6" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_6" title="View footnote.">6</a>]</sup> In the eyes of the police officers at the scene, the bare, biological life of Kelly Thomas was excluded not only from the protections of law, but from also from medicine. Five days after the beating, Thomas was removed from life support and died.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>An unusual element of this case is that (after significant public protest) three of the six officers involved were actually charged with crimes: officer Ramos was charged with murder in the second degree, and the other two officers were charged with involuntary manslaughter. A jury found the first two officers (including Ramos) not guilty, and the charges against the third officer were dropped.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The city of Fullerton agreed to pay Thomas' mother $1 million in order to avoid civil litigation.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_7" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_7" title="View footnote.">7</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_milton_hall">Milton Hall</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>On the morning of July 1, 2012, members of the Saginaw Police Department in Michigan responded in force to an aggressive man suspected of stealing a cup of coffee and being impolite to the owner of a convenience store.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_8" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_8" title="View footnote.">8</a>]</sup> The police confronted Milton Hall, a 49-year-old black man, in a parking lot. Hall was armed with a three-inch folding pocket knife — hardly a deadly weapon. The confrontation was witnessed by passing motorists and captured on video by both police dashboard cameras and a witness’s cellphone camera.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_9" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_9" title="View footnote.">9</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The dashboard cam videos were shown during a news conference and are available on the MLive website.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_10" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_10" title="View footnote.">10</a>]</sup> The videos show that eight police officers (including a K9 unit) formed a semi-circle around Hall. Six of the officers had firearms, both pistols and rifles, trained on Hall who was squatting in a defensive position with the small knife in his hand. At one point, the K9 handler backed up, apparently deciding not to sic the dog on Hall. In response, Hall seemed to relax, took a few steps backward and then two steps to his right. But when Hall appeared to take a step back toward the police line, all six officers opened fire, discharging 46 rounds in a few seconds and killing Hall.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>A video obtained and broadcast by CNN was captured by a witness across the street and shows the incident from a different angle and with audio.<sup class="footnote" id="_footnote_cnn2">[<a id="_footnoteref_11" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_11" title="View footnote.">11</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>An investigation by the Saginaw County Prosecutor’s Office and the Michigan State Police into whether the shooting was justified concluded that “Criminal charges aren’t warranted.”<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_12" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_12" title="View footnote.">12</a>]</sup> The Department of Justice and the FBI then conducted their own investigation and likewise determined that “this tragic event does not present sufficient evidence of willful misconduct to lead to a federal criminal prosecution of the police officers involved.”<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_13" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_13" title="View footnote.">13</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Milton Hall’s mother, Jewel Hall, described the shooting as “a firing squad dressed in police uniforms.”<sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_11" title="View footnote.">11</a>]</sup> It is worth noting, however, that while the police presented themselves to Milton Hall as executioners and ended his life with an extreme degree of overkill reminiscent of a firing squad, the killing was not carried out according to any legal ritual or due process. Like <em>homo sacer</em>, Milton Hall’s homeless life was exposed to death by being excluded from both legal prohibitions against homicide and from sacrificial rites.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_james_m_boyd">James M. Boyd</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Jewel Hall is a retired public school teacher and community organizer in the Albuquerque, NM, area. In a tragic coincidence, at the time her son was killed by police in Saginaw, she was working to get the federal government to investigate an alarming pattern of shootings and use of force by the Albuquerque Police Department. In 2011 she wrote an opinion piece for the <em>Albuquerque Journal</em> urging “a full investigation by the Department of Justice.”⁠<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_14" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_14" title="View footnote.">14</a>]</sup> A year and a half after her son’s death, a similar shooting unfolded on the outskirts of her hometown in which police with a K9 unit shot an uncooperative homeless man to death.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_15" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_15" title="View footnote.">15</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>On March 26, 2014, members of the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) approached and attempted to frisk 38-year-old James M. Boyd based on the suspicion that he was camping without a permit in the Sandia foothills just east of town — he was suspected, in other words, of getting his <em>zoe</em> all mixed up with the city’s <em>bios</em>. Boyd, who was homeless with no private place where he could legally sleep, refused to cooperate. The situation escalated into an hours-long standoff including a tactical team and a State Police liaison. Home video aired by KRQE News 12 shows six regular uniformed officers holding Boyd at gunpoint even before the APD Crisis Intervention Team arrived.<sup class="footnote" id="_footnote_krqe1">[<a id="_footnoteref_16" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_16" title="View footnote.">16</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Boyd remained defiant. He armed himself with two small knives, and at one point he warned the officers that “I would have the right to kill you right now because you’re trying to take me over. Don’t get stupid with me.”⁠<sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_16" title="View footnote.">16</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The APD has released video footage from the helmet camera of one of the officers on scene which clearly shows how the standoff came to an end.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_17" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_17" title="View footnote.">17</a>]</sup> Boyd, who had apparently had enough of the negotiations, began gathering up his belongings to leave the scene. One of the officers called out, “Do it!” and a flashbang grenade detonated a few feet in front of Boyd. Simultaneously a dog was released which appeared to bite Boyd’s hand, and both the dog’s handler and an officer with a rifle moved toward him. Boyd dropped his bags and put his arms up to his side (while still holding at least one knife.)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Boyd then turned to walk away, which is when two officers with rifles fired six live rounds at his back, striking him at least once. Boyd fell forward to the ground. Mortally wounded and lying prone, he was apparently unable to move his hands. The officers demanded that he drop the knife that was still clutched in his left hand. Boyd replied, “Please don’t hurt me. I can’t move.” Instead of moving to render aid, officers repeatedly ordered him to drop the knife while firing three beanbag rounds into his back from a shotgun. After some deliberation, officers then released the dog a second time. Boyd was unresponsive as the dog chewed at and pulled on his leg. Officers finally moved in, stepped on one of his hands, removed the knife from his other hand, and handcuffed him.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Boyd died from his gunshot wounds in the hospital the next day. At a news conference several days later, APD Chief Gordon Eden announced that the officer-involved shooting was justified.<sup class="footnoteref">[<a class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_16" title="View footnote.">16</a>]</sup></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>In January of 2015, in an exceptional move which brings a challenge to the sovereignty of the police, Bernalillo County District Attorney has brought murder charges against the two officers who shot Boyd.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_18" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_18" title="View footnote.">18</a>]</sup> The charges came in the wake of almost six months of large protests across the nation after district attorneys in several jurisdictions failed to indict police officers who shot and killed unarmed black men. Whether the charges will result in a criminal trial depends on the outcome of the preliminary hearing which will be held in a few months — at which point the charges may be downgraded or dropped.</p>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_department_of_justice_investigation">Department of Justice Investigation</h4>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>At the time of Boyd’s shooting, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice was already investigating the APD for its large number of shootings (37 since 2010) and apparent pattern of other uses of excessive force during arrests. After the video of Boyd’s death was released, and after hundreds of riotous protesters demanded reform to the police department,<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_19" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_19" title="View footnote.">19</a>]</sup> Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry wrote a letter to the DoJ requesting that they expedite their investigation.<sup class="footnote">[<a id="_footnoteref_20" class="footnote" href="#_footnotedef_20" title="View footnote.">20</a>]</sup> The DoJ complied, and on April 10, 2014, about 17 months after the investigation began, it released its findings in the form of a 46-page letter to the mayor.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The findings did not address the Boyd shooting because it is still under criminal investigation. It did, however, refer to Chief Eden’s comments at the press conference as evidence “that more work is needed to change the culture of APD.” (4)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>According to the findings letter, the DoJ found “that the department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force during the course of arrests and other detentions in violation of the Fourth Amendment” stemming “from systemic deficiencies in oversight, training, and policy.” The report also noted that “A significant amount of the force we reviewed was used against persons with mental illness and in crisis.” (9-10)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Those and similar findings from the DoJ investigation reveal how members of the Albuquerque Police Department routinely constitute themselves as little sovereigns acting in <em>de facto</em> states of exception by suspending the constitutional rights of their victims, especially those subjects with mental illness and in crisis who misfit within and are excluded from the political life of the city.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>As a final illustration of how both police (who are excepted from the normal prohibitions of the law) and homeless (who are excepted from the normal protections of the law) share in what Agamben calls the “relation of exception,” here is an account from the DoJ findings letter of an incident in which police confronted an angry 75-year-old homeless man named “Ben” who depends upon a cane to walk:</p>
</div>
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
The incident happened in September 2012 after officers responded to a bus station because Ben refused to leave. When officers arrived, they offered to take Ben to a homeless shelter and also called a Crisis Intervention Team officer to assist. Ben sat on a bench and told officers that he was not going to leave peacefully and that he was angry with the bus company for refusing to let him board. After officers tried to convince him to leave for about an hour, Ben threatened bus company employees and reached for his cane. Officers ordered him to put his cane down, but he refused. As Ben was trying to stand up using his cane (presumably for support), the CIT-trained officer shot Ben in the abdomen with his Taser. He did so even though the threat from Ben was minimal: Ben had trouble walking on his own, a sergeant and three officers were standing around him, and there were no indications that bystanders were near Ben. The sergeant on the scene found the Taser use reasonable, as did other supervisors. One supervisor praised the officers' conduct as “<strong>exceptional</strong>.” (18, emphasis added)
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_references_and_notes">References and Notes</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Agamben, Giorgio. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/37457953"><em>Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life</em></a>. Translated by Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford University Press, 1998.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Feldman, Leonard C. <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53476873"><em>Citizens without Shelter: Homelessness, Democracy, and Political Exclusion</em></a>. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Orwell, George. <a href="http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79h/"><em>Homage to Catalonia</em></a>. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide Library, [1938] 2008. <a href="http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79h/" class="bare">http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79h/</a></p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/April/14-crt-364.html">“Re: Albuquerque Police Department.”</a> Findings Letter. April 10, 2014. <a href="http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/apd_findings_4-10-14.pdf" class="bare">http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/spl/documents/apd_findings_4-10-14.pdf</a></p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="footnotes">
<hr>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_1">
<a href="#_footnoteref_1">1</a>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG7Mjt_j8Cs">YouTube video ID: vG7Mjt_j8Cs</a>. Footage from the surveillance cameras is available elsewhere on the web, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18029572">including the <em>Denver Post</em> website</a>
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_2">
<a href="#_footnoteref_2">2</a>. Tom McGhee, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_18025446">“No discipline for deputies in Marvin Booker’s death at Denver jail,”</a> The <em>Denver Post</em>, May 9, 2011.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_3">
<a href="#_footnoteref_3">3</a>. Tom McGhee, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22637726/fbi-looking-into-bookers-death-at-denver-jail">“FBI looking into Marvin Booker’s 2010 death at Denver jail,”</a> The <em>Denver Post</em>, February 21, 2013.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_4">
<a href="#_footnoteref_4">4</a>. Noelle Phillips, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27019931/denver-pay-6-million-end-appeals-marvin-booker?source=infinite">“Denver to pay $6 million in Marvin Booker jail death settlement,”</a> The <em>Denver Post</em>, November 26, 2014.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_5">
<a href="#_footnoteref_5">5</a>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU0Imk2Bstg">YouTube video ID: KU0Imk2Bstg</a>. Witnesses with a cellphone also captured <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ljYNgLnpxM">video</a>
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_6">
<a href="#_footnoteref_6">6</a>. Eileen Frere, <a href="http://abc7.com/archive/9349329/">“Kelly Thomas Trial: Forensic Expert, Paramedic Testify,”</a> ABC7 Eyewitness News, December 4, 2013.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_7">
<a href="#_footnoteref_7">7</a>. <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/16/local/la-me-0516-kelly-thomas-settlement-20120516">Richard Winton, “Homeless man’s mother settles with Fullerton over his death,”</a> <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, May 16, 2012.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_8">
<a href="#_footnoteref_8">8</a>. David Ariosto, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/12/justice/michigan-police-shooting-saginaw/index.html?hpt=hp_t3">“Prosecutors: Police won’t face criminal charges in Michigan death,”</a> CNN, September 13, 2012.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_9">
<a href="#_footnoteref_9">9</a>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC3OAMi9kjY">YouTube video ID: YC3OAMi9kjY</a>. The cellphone video obtained by CNN is also available on <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8f5_1346412595&comments=1">LiveLeak: “Saginaw Police Shoots Homeless Man (Milton Hall) 46 time in 5 Seconds.”</a>
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_10">
<a href="#_footnoteref_10">10</a>. Bob Johnson, <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2012/09/video_police_dashboard_footage.html">“Video: Police cruiser footage shows events that led to Milton Hall police shooting,”</a> MLive, September 13, 2012.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_11">
<a href="#_footnoteref_11">11</a>. Jason Carroll and Sheila Steffen, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/16/us/michigan-police-shooting/">“Video captures Michigan man’s shooting by police,”</a> CNN, August 17, 2012.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_12">
<a href="#_footnoteref_12">12</a>. Bob Johnson, <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2014/02/no_federal_charges_for_officer.html">“Saginaw officers who shot and killed Milton Hall won’t face federal charges,”</a> MLive, February 25, 2014.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_13">
<a href="#_footnoteref_13">13</a>. Department of Justice, <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2014/February/14-crt-203.html">“Justice Department Announces Results of Investigation into the Death of Milton Hall,”</a> February 25, 2014.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_14">
<a href="#_footnoteref_14">14</a>. Jewel Hall, <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/71117/apd-protects-a-culture-out-of-control.html">“APD Protects a Culture Out of Control,”</a> <em>Albuquerque Journal</em>, November 23, 2011.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_15">
<a href="#_footnoteref_15">15</a>. I’m not the only one to notice the connections between the Hall and Boyd shootings: <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/380620/police-shootings-are-eerily-similar.html">“Michigan police shooting similar to ABQ case,”</a> <em>Albuquerque Journal</em>, April 8, 2014.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_16">
<a href="#_footnoteref_16">16</a>. Chris McKee, <a href="https://www.krqe.com/news/apd-officer-involved-shooting-was-justified/">“APD: Officer involved shooting was justified,”</a> KRQE News 13, March 21, 2014.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_17">
<a href="#_footnoteref_17">17</a>. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgRkkLyZMKM">YouTube video ID: dgRkkLyZMKM</a>. A slightly edited version of the helmet camera video (as released by KRQE) is available on <a href="http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8aa_1395460451">LiveLeak: “Police helmet camera captures fatal shooting of James Boyd armed with a knife as he’s turning away”</a> (though the YouTube video has better audio)
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_18">
<a href="#_footnoteref_18">18</a>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtEBj_mhOCc">“Officers in Boyd shooting charged with murder,”</a> KRQE News 13, January 12, 2015
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_19">
<a href="#_footnoteref_19">19</a>. Elizabeth Barber, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2014/0331/Albuquerque-protest-over-police-shootings-turns-to-mayhem-video">“Albuquerque protest over police shootings turns to `mayhem' (+video),”</a> The <em>Christian Science Monitor</em>, March 31, 2014.
</div>
<div class="footnote" id="_footnotedef_20">
<a href="#_footnoteref_20">20</a>. Anna Velasquez, <a href="http://www.koat.com/news/mayor-asks-doj-to-fasttrack-review-of-apd/25291154">“Mayor asks DOJ to fast-track review of APD,”</a> KOAT Albuquerque, April 2, 2014.
</div>
</div>When police kill the homeless, they often do so with impunity. I've tagged this entry as a 'feature' due to the magnitude of its length more so than of its quality, but it does probe an important issue at the nexus of my libertarian and anti-capitalist motivations. It is my first (and rough) attempt at applying some ideas from the first volume of Agamben's Homer Sacer to the criminalization of homelessness (following Feldman's lead).tag:americancynic.net,2014-03-26:/log/2014/3/26/denvers_october_2011_uprisings/Denver's October 2011 Uprisings2014-03-26T16:04:36Z2017-05-03T04:12:38Z<div class="paragraph">
<p>This post is just a collection of links to some of the media covering the protests which started in Denver on October 15, 2011, the day after the police evicted the Occupy Denver camp (and <a href="http://mretc.net/~cris/arrested-O14/">arrested me</a>).</p>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_october_15">October 15</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The events in Denver on October 15 correspond with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_October_2011_global_protests">a day of global protest</a>, and they apparently prompted an update to the Denver Police Department’s Crowd Control Manual, which was issued on October 19, 2011, as Department Directive 11-07. Recently (January 22, 2016), the folks at Unicorn Riot obtained a heavily redacted copy of that updated manual through Colorado’s Open Records Act. It is available online: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502193808/http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=3893">“New Document: Denver Police Crowd Control Manual”</a></p>
</div>
<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502192937/http://www.westword.com/news/the-police-moves-in-on-occupy-denvers-largest-gathering-yet-with-pepper-spray-photos-5877538">“The police moves in on Occupy Denver’s largest gathering yet — with pepper spray (PHOTOS)”</a> — The Westword covered the day with photographs</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502192937/https://streetmedic.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/report-back-from-occupy-denver-week-of-oct-25/">“Report Back from Occupy Denver Week of Oct. 25”</a> — Report from Colorado Street Medics</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502193045/http://blogs.denverpost.com/crime/2011/10/16/occupy-denver-protesters-march-for-peace-results-in-arrests-after-food-tent-stirs-tensions/1986/">“Occupy Denver protesters’ march for peace results in arrests after food tent stirs tensions”</a> — Jordan Steffen for a Denver Post blog.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502193240/http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/18/1027513/-Occupy-Denver-A-10-15-Photodiary-Updates">“Occupy Denver: A 10/15 Photodiary & Updates”</a> — boatsie on Daily Kos</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502193239/https://www.rt.com/news/denver-police-protesters-weapons-163/">“Denver police spill protesters' blood (PHOTOS, VIDEO)”</a> — RT</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502193249/http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/10/occu-o31.html">“Police attack Occupy protests in Denver, Colorado”</a> — Joseph Kishore for <em>WSWS</em></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=occupy%20denver%20october%2015&sm=3">Several videos are available on YouTube.</a> I had forgotten how annoying chants and megaphones are.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_october_29">October 29</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Protesters clashed with police every Saturday for several weeks. October 29 may have been the most violent. <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502193513/http://www.westword.com/news/independent-monitor-five-denver-police-officer-involved-shootings-still-under-review-5823029">A 2012 report by Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor</a> (OIM) highlighted the events of that day:</p>
</div>
<div class="quoteblock">
<blockquote>
The decision was made to immediately address the ordinance violations, and a small group of of officers made verbal requests that the tents be dismantled. Although officers made these requests for voluntary compliance, many were outfitted with helmets and other riot gear, which sometimes provokes crowd response. Many demonstrators became physically aggressive, and there were confrontations between protesters and police. The small group of officers was surrounded, and DPD issued an emergency citywide call for additional police assistance. Officers deployed O.C. spray and pepperballs, among other less-than-lethal force options, to maintain a perimeter or skirmish line. Several civilians were injured during the ensuing melee, and many in the crowd were affected by the O.C. spray and struck with pepperballs, including one civilian struck in the face. An officer was trampled, though thankfully not injured. The incident, and the force used, received local and national media attention, and several complaints were filed with the DPD and the OIM.
</blockquote>
<div class="attribution">
— p. 15
</div>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>The independent monitor recommended that the tactics used by the police on October 29 be reviewed by the Tactics Review Board to assess whether they complied with existing policy. The review board declined the recommendation. See also the <em>Westword’s</em> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170502202331/http://www.westword.com/news/occupy-denver-independent-monitor-criticizes-police-department-of-safety-over-protest-tactics-5838193">“Occupy Denver: Independent Monitor Criticizes Police, Department of Safety Over Protest Tactics”</a></p>
</div>
<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503030524/http://www.denverpost.com/2011/10/29/occupy-denver-protesters-law-enforcement-officers-clash-20-arrested/">“Occupy Denver protesters, law enforcement officers clash; 20 arrested”</a> — Jordan Steffen and Electa Draper, The <em>Denver Post</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503030600/http://www.westword.com/news/occupy-denver-biggest-riot-squad-presence-to-date-pepper-bullets-multiple-arrests-photos-5870013">“Occupy Denver: Biggest riot squad presence to date, pepper bullets, multiple arrests (PHOTOS)”</a> — Kelsey Whipple, <em>Westword</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20111202084357/http://technorati.com/politics/article/denver-police-brutalize-occupy-denver">“Denver Police Brutalize Occupy Denver”</a> — Tim Paynter</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503030627/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/denver-police-move-into-occupy-encampment/">“Denver police move into Occupy encampment”</a> — CBS News</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503030634/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/denver-quiet-after-police-raid-occupy-camp/">“Denver quiet after police raid Occupy camp”</a> — CBS News</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503032158/https://shadowproof.com/2011/10/30/the-long-blue-line/">“The Long Blue Line”</a> — A first-hand account by Eclair.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503032954/http://redgreenandblue.org/2011/10/29/police-brutality-today-at-occupy-denver/">“Police brutality today at Occupy Denver”</a> — A collection of updates and links by Jeremy Bloom of <em>Red Green & Blue</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503033003/https://denverabc.wordpress.com/2011/10/30/dabc-update-from-3-weeks-of-social-war-in-denver-colorado/">“DABC update from 3 weeks of social war in Denver, Colorado”</a> — Update from the Denver Anarchist Black Cross who provided prisoner support.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503033617/https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/10/487651.html?c=on">“Police attack on #Occupy Denver”</a> — Photos and links on <em>Indymedia UK</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503033814/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/us/occupy-wall-street-protesters-arrested-in-denver-and-portland.html">“Occupy Protesters Regroup After Mass Arrests”</a> — Kirk Johnson, The <em>New York Times</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20120401002949/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/29/occupy-denver-clash-_n_1065667.html">`Occupy Denver Clash: Police Use Force On Denver Protesters (PHOTOS, VIDEO)`"</a> — An AP report by Kristen Wyatt.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503034220/http://www.rawstory.com/2011/10/police-fire-mace-at-denver-protesters-20-arrested/">“Police fire mace at Denver protesters, 20 arrested”</a> — Reuters</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503041418/http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/10/29/police-use-pepper-spray-rubber-bullets-on-occupy-denver-protesters-trying-to-storm-capitol/">“Police Use Pepper Spray, Rubber Bullets on Occupy Denver Protesters Trying to Storm Capitol”</a> — The <em>Blaze</em>. Links to additional coverage by local news.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.webcitation.org/6I7WNRY29">“20 Occupy Denver protesters arrested after clash at capitol”</a> — 9news.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503035944/http://www.westword.com/news/occupy-denver-aclu-demands-formal-investigation-of-police-conduct-pepper-ball-guns-5849153">“Occupy Denver: ACLU demands formal investigation of police conduct, pepper ball guns”</a> — The ACLU of Colorado alleged that during these protests the Denver Police Department engaged in abusive use of their batons, violated their own crowd-control policy with their use of pepper balls, and illegally confiscated and destroyed personal belongings, as reported by Kelsey Whipple for <em>Westword</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=occupy%20denver%20october%2029&sm=3">Again, several videos are available on YouTube.</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_september_12_and_13">September 12 and 13</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Things flared up again on September 12 as the Denver Police Department developed a violent reflex to the sight of tents. (Yes, I know September is not really October.)</p>
</div>
<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503041334/https://streetmedic.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/dpd-denies-medics-access-to-unconscious-unresponsive-patient/">“DPD Denies Medics Access to Unconscious, Unresponsive Patient”</a> — Colorado Street Medics</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503041334/http://www.westword.com/news/occupy-denver-large-police-presence-moves-in-on-three-tents-with-pepper-spray-and-arrests-5893175">“Occupy Denver: Large police presence moves in on three tents with pepper spray and arrests”</a> — Kelsey Whipple, <em>Westword</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503041334/http://www.denverpost.com/2011/11/12/denver-police-force-occupy-denver-to-move-their-property-in-civic-center/">“Denver police force Occupy Denver to move their property in Civic Center”</a> — Jordan Steffen and Electa Draper, The <em>Denver Post</em>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503041340/https://denverabc.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/this-is-war-dabc-call-for-support-against-state-repression/">“This is war: DABC call for support against state repression”</a> — Update from Denver Anarchist Black Cross</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170503041527/https://shadowproof.com/2011/11/12/police-clear-out-occupy-denver/">“Police Clear Out Occupy Denver”</a> — A brief first-hand account.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=occupy%20denver%20november%2012&sm=3">Some videos on YouTube</a>.</p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>This post is just a collection of links to some of the media covering the protests which started in Denver on October 15, 2011, so I don't have to spam all of them to my linklog.tag:americancynic.net,2012-05-15:/log/2012/5/15/depressing_monday/It Is Now Illegal To Be Homeless in Denver2012-05-15T15:17:51Z2018-08-03T21:04:02Z<div class="paragraph">
<p>Yesterday morning 100 police officers from several agencies dressed in crowd-control gear <a href="http://www.insidebayarea.com/twitter/ci_20619490/uc-police-move-occupy-farm-protesters-albany">cleared a handful of “Occupy the Farm” participants</a> from the previously unused plot of land where they were living, cultivating vegetables, and protecting wild turkey habitat. The land is owned by the University of California which decided it needs its land back for research purposes.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Watching the police over-respond to squats and guerrilla gardens like this provides such a clear illustration of their primary purpose as defenders of the property status quo. Organizing a society on the basis of title-property, so the rich can live at the expense of the propertyless, requires an immense amount of force and threat of violence (and actual violence against those courageous and honest enough to live in opposition).</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Here in Denver the headline being syndicated across the county is that <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20624090/colorado-civil-unions-bill-killed-before-reaching-house">the civil unions bill was killed in a special legislative session</a>. Because the “liberal” battle of the age is expanding the state privileges of marriage to a few more couples. Meanwhile Denver’s city council, specifically district 8 councilman <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CouncilmanAlbusBrooks">Albus Brooks</a> (pictured below) and eight other heartless or delusional politicians, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_20624086/protests-greet-final-passage-denver-homeless-camping-ban">criminalized being homeless in Denver</a>. One of the most frustrating and disturbing trends during this ordeal was how Brooks and the other supporters of the ban refused to admit what the ban actually is (authoritarian greed aimed at our most vulnerable neighbors and at sterilizing our public spaces into purely consumptive spaces attractive to global capital) and insisted that the motivation was to help the homeless and improve the “health and safety” of the city.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>It’s no secret that the primary advocates of banning the homeless from downtown are members of the <a href="http://www.downtowndenver.com/">Downtown Denver Partnership</a>, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_improvement_district">business improvement district</a> similar to those which have passed similar legislation in cities all over the country. As <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Lost_in_space.html?id=fcEUAQAAIAAJ">Randall Amster</a> put it when discussing the actions of Tempe’s BID, “with regard to economic concerns that the homeless are bad for business […​] such concerns are inverted, and that, indeed, it is business that’s bad for the homeless.” Why do we have laws again? To protect vulnerable persons from the powerful? or the other way around?</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>One person <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/tmpdd/cops_raided_the_farm_an_occupied_tract_of_land_in/c4o1dvn/">commented</a> on the Occupy the Farm raid that, “I don’t know what to say, other than fuck the police, their time will come, and the people will rise.” That sentiment is far more optimistic than I feel right now. I have no reason to think I won’t live my entire life under the rule of little authoritarians like Albus Brooks and the UC police departments, or that anything other than absentee-landlordship will be the economic norm in my lifetime. But I also know that if there is any meaning to life, it is not found in material equality alone. Indeed if it were then all of the honest people who lived before me lived meaningless lives. What was it God said to the successful farmer in that <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+12%3A13-21&version=NIV">parable</a>? ‘You fool! You’re going to die, and all you have are things.’ Something like that. As far as I can tell, <em>all</em> Albus Brooks and the business owners who control him have are their things. If there is any <em>life</em> to be found in this life, they would be better off freezing on the streets they insist on owning or sitting in their own jail cells.</p>
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<a class="image" href="/images/scumbagalbus-color-small.jpg"><img src="/images/scumbagalbus-color-small.jpg" alt="scumbagalbus color small" width="530"></a>
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<div class="title">Scumbag Councilman Albus Brooks, sponsor of "Urban Camping Ban" bill BR12-0241. His Facebook page lists "From Wild Man to Wise Man" as a favorite book. I’ve not read it, but it is by a Franciscan and appears to be spiritual lessons inspired by such characters, and homeless heroes, as Jesus of Nazareth, John the Baptist, and the saint from Assisi himself. This Brooks fellow is complicated; or just confused.</div>
</div>What a depressing Monday. The most positive comment I've read about yesterday's events was from a redditor, 'I don't know what to say, other than fuck the police, their time will come, and the people will rise.' I doubt it.tag:americancynic.net,2012-05-06:/log/2012/5/6/my_may_day_2012/My May Day in Denver: Trial, Verdict, Sleep-In Protest2012-05-06T06:00:00Z2018-08-10T03:22:40Z<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_my_trial">My Trial</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>On April 30th I had my jury trial for the criminal charges brought against me in October when I protested the criminalization of homelessness and the eviction of Occupy Denver by sitting in Lincoln Park and refusing to leave (<a href="/log/2011/11/2/i_was_arrested/">“I Was Arrested at Occupy Denver”</a>). I was represented by an attorney who volunteered to take my case through the National Lawyers Guild. Several of my friends and family members came to watch the proceedings (many for the entire day — thank you everybody!)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>My attorney did an excellent job, and despite my antagonism towards the state and flagrant lack of remorse for my actions, put quite a bit of work into what he hoped was a viable defense. Despite ruling against my motion to dismiss at an earlier hearing, finding that the State’s actions in closing the park did not violate the First Amendment because they were content-neutral and narrowly tailored to the State’s interest (and so fell within valid time, place, and manner restrictions of speech), the Court did rule that my attorney would be able to speak about freedom of speech in front of the jury. She also ruled that if I were to testify he would be able to ask me about my property that was taken from me during my arrest and that the Colorado State Patrol subsequently lost. Two early victories.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The prosecution’s case was not especially strongly argued, despite fairly clearly having the law <em>and</em> the facts on their side in at least one of the charges ("Unlawful Conduct on Public Property" — it was undisputed that I ignored a police officer’s request to leave a public park). During jury selection voir dire he smartly emphasized the oath the jury took to determine only the facts of the case, and not to decide whether a law is just. He even implied that <em>all</em> laws must be obeyed in a sensible society. I wish I (or my attorney) had asked them to think about the absurd implications of that and to consider whether an oath which will cause more harm than good is an ethically binding oath. Oh well.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>As far as evidence, the prosecutor’s strategy was to first demonize the Occupy Denver camp and then to condemn me by association. Neither step was very convincing I don’t think, even to an objective observer. Unfortunately my attorney was so focused on his negative defense based on my state of mind (he wanted to argue that I didn’t "knowingly" break the law, because I believed the law to be invalid…​ or something) so he didn’t focus on the hypocrisy of the State’s actions nearly as much as I’d have liked: that the mess in the park was the <em>result</em> of the state police disassembling tents, that instead of offering toilets or trash service the state offered 100 riot police, that even if there was a good reason to evict the camp (there wasn’t) there was certainly no good reason to arrest me (I was, by all accounts, sitting peacefully at the edge of the park). For my part I wasn’t sure whether to defend Occupy Denver, to defend myself, or to explain why it is unjust to criminalize living in public. When I finally took the stand to testify I was too nervous to say much of anything.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The trial went late, so after both sides finished presenting their case the Court decided the jury would return in the morning to deliberate a verdict. Before adjourning my attorney won one more important dispute: the wording of the jury instructions for the “Obstructing a Law Officer” charge. The DA’s recommendation included only the verb “to hinder” (not coincidentally, my arresting officer testified that while I did not resist I did “hinder” him by not standing up to be arrested — the first time he ever used that language in describing the events). My attorney successfully had the phrase “by force or by using an obstacle” added to the instructions. The next day being May Day I had planned to stay in Denver that night anyway, so after the trial I went and bought a sleeping bag (to replace the one that was lost when I was arrested). I found a good stealth site under some bushes in a city park — my first time sleeping out alone in resisting curfew!</p>
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<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_verdict">Verdict</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>After my rather narrow defense, the verdicts the next morning were not surprising to me:</p>
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<div class="ulist">
<ul>
<li>
<p>Unlawful Conduct on Public Property: Guilty</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Obstructing a Law Officer: Not Guilty</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Criminal Trespass: Guilty</p>
</li>
</ul>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>My sentencing is not scheduled until June 29th, so that the state may have time to conduct a pre-sentencing investigation report to inform the Court about what sort of threat I pose to society and so what level of jail or probation I should receive. As part of that investigation I was briefly interviewed by a probation officer. Before the interview they had me fill out a form which was almost exclusively about domestic violence and substance abuse. So I filled it in with a lot of sad forever alone jokes and mentioned that while I’ve never had an alcoholic beverage before, I may have had sips. In lieu of filling in the “describe in your own words the events of your crime” section I attached a copy of my <a href="/log/2011/11/2/i_was_arrested/">“I Was Arrested at Occupy Denver” pamphlet</a>.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The probation officer was friendly and respectful of my convictions and he said his primary recommendation would be fines/costs with no probation, though he was insistent on emphasizing the penalties for breaking probation if that’s what the court ended up choosing. The insinuated logic was “your reasons may be righteous, but the state is scary and living a principled life is not worth it.” The thoughts he left me with as I got into the elevator were that if I end up spending 30 days in county jail “nobody would care” about my reasons and that despite my valid protests if I ended up in jail then I “wouldn’t be doing any good.” Throughout the interview I was the subject of all actions: <em>I</em> put myself in a position to be arrested; <em>I</em> didn’t take the plea deal; <em>I</em> was sent to a probation office that doesn’t have the resources to spend on nonviolent offenders. The State’s role in unjustly arresting me, in overcharging me, in compelling me to trial, in convicting me, and in subjecting me to a pre-sentencing investigation and possibly probation were conspicuously absent from his thinking.</p>
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<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_may_day">May Day!</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>After hearing the verdict and visiting the probation office, I went down to Civic Center Park to partake in the May Day events Occupy Denver had organized. On my way I stopped to pick up my backpack from the county detention center where I left it in a locker while I was in the courthouse. While I was in the lobby a sheriff came out with a handful of cables and locks and announced that the lobby was going on lock-down so everybody who wanted to leave should do so <em>now</em>! I got out and found out the reason for the lockdown was a small group of protesters gathering to show solidarity for a few protesters who were arrested (for jaywalking) during the May Day parade (which I missed). One of the arrested, Sole, was slated to perform in the park later, but instead sat in a holding cell while they waited for his fingerprints to be processed. (You can read <a href="http://www.soleone.org/board/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19433">his account on his message board</a>.)</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>By the time I made it to the park there were not many people there, but it was a refreshingly radical and friendly environment. Signs and chalk art everywhere said things like “Another World is Possible Ⓐ ,” “No Human Is Illegal” (although that one included a URL to a Maoist website), “Homelessness Is Not a Crime,” and several General Strike, Industrial Worker’s of the World (IWW), and class war slogans. There was a booth giving away seeds and tomato plants, a barter market (which I think was put on by the <a href="http://www.denverhaho.org/">Denver Handmade Homemade Market</a> folks), an IWW info booth, and food provided by some <a href="http://www.foodnotbombs.net/">Food Not Bombs</a> activists. (You can see some photos and reporting on this <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/01/occupy-denver-to-hold-may_n_1468125.html#s=927073">Huffington Post article</a>.)</p>
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<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_haymarket_the_origins_of_may_day_as_labour_day">Haymarket: The Origins of May Day as Labour Day</h3>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Until recently I never took an interest in organized labour struggles. I have had no personal experience with unions, but what little I saw of them was a strange celebration of unpleasant work, wages, materialism, and hierarchical organization. I had, however, never been taught about (or never paid attention to) radical labour movements, like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism">anarchism</a>, which seek not only better working conditions, but the elimination of the wage system and of the separate employer/employee classes. One hundred twenty-six years ago Chicago, IL, was the hub of such radical movements in America. On the fateful day of May 4, 1886, the struggle for the eight-hour workday had spilled into the streets, and as the police were dispersing a crowd from Haymarket Square somebody — nobody ever found out who — tossed a dynamite bomb into the police line, killing one officer immediately and fatally wounding several others.</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>Eight anarchists were arrested for their roles in organizing the protests, seven of them were sentenced to death, one killed himself before the state could do it, four were executed, and the remaining two had their sentences commuted by the governor. One of the anarchists, August Spies, moments before being hanged shouted out his famous last words, “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today!”</p>
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<div class="paragraph">
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair">Haymarket affair</a> (see also this very good short history which was first published in the April 1986 issue of <em>Revolutionary Worker</em>: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120202204203/http://rwor.org:80/a/may1/haymark.htm">The Origins of May First</a>) became an excuse for the propertied class to discredit and crackdown on socialists everywhere. The momentum for the eight-hour workday was lost, anarchist groups were constantly accosted by police (and to this day the dark bearded man sneaking about with a round, fused dynamite bomb is the caricature of an anarchist), revolutionary unions like the IWW lost membership to reformist unions like the now-dominant AFL, etc. But Haymarket also became a rallying event for labour movements all over the world, with the First of May becoming an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day">international workers' day</a> in commemoration of the Haymarket martyrs.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>Today more than eighty states officially recognize May Day as a labour holiday. The United States does not. In fact this year Obama, like in past years, <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/01/presidential-proclamation-loyalty-day-2012">proclaimed</a> May 1 to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalty_Day">Loyalty Day</a> in a not-so-subtle snub at the Chicago anarchists who gave their lives in the struggle for equality. In past years America has also officially celebrated those deaths as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_day">Law Day</a> and “Americanization Day”.</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>This year, thanks to the organization of the various Occupy movements, May Day was once again celebrated by thousands as a day to commemorate labour struggles (see also the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Boycott">Great American Boycott</a> of 2006). Including me, for the first time.</p>
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<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_sleep_in_protest">Sleep-In Protest</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph">
<p>After the events in the park, about 50-60 of us walked over to the 16th Street Mall to sleep for the night in <a href="http://www.citizenside.com/en/photos/politics/2012-05-01/59341/occupy-denver-sleep-in-to-protest-denver-urban-camping-ban.html">protest</a> of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/urban-camping-ban-aclu-wr_n_1431065.html">Denver’s proposed urban camping ban</a> (which will likely be put into effect later this month). I met several friendly young people, several of whom were currently homeless, recently homeless, or were currently hitchhiking around between jobs. They included me in their conversations, listened to what I had to say, and were generally very encouraging people to meet. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/occupythethunderdome">The Thunderdome</a> stopped by to make s’mores, coffee, and chai for everybody. Other people brought pots of soup and loafs of bread. (Somebody posted a <a href="https://secure.flickr.com/photos/78036631@N04/7150880877/in/set-72157629619333626/">Flickr photo album of the protest</a>. I’m visible in some of the photos.)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>At first there was a large police presence, but once it was clear we were just there to sleep they left us alone. All the local TV news stations were there both at night and in the morning to run short live reports on the protest. At one point during the night a very frustrated man who decided he wanted to get arrested that night tossed a large rock through the glass door of one of the shops we were sleeping in front of. Even to that incident the police reaction was subdued, responding with only one vehicle and at least ten minutes after it happened (there was a group of private security guards keeping an eye on us all night who reported the window smashing immediately). The guy who threw the rock was getting impatient waiting for the police (at one point shouting “Where are the police?!” while standing on the curb with his hands behind his back). The window was boarded up before the news crews came back in the morning, and nobody reported on the incident — I don’t think any news station was ever aware it occurred. (I can be seen walking in front of the camera during <a href="http://www.9news.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1616398167001">a clip aired by 9News</a>.)</p>
</div>
<div class="paragraph">
<p>There is a similar sleep-in protest <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130203010432/http://occupydenver.org/week-five-take-action-against-ordinance-to-criminalize-homelessness/">planned for next Saturday</a>. I intend to be in attendance.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>I appeared in criminal court for my jury trial, slept in a park, in the morning I received two guilty verdicts and a non-guilty verdict, loitered at the May Day demonstrations, then slept on the 16th Street Mall to protest Denver's proposed urban camping ban.