London Indymedia

Sacramento WTO protests encounter police state tactics

phatrix | 23.06.2003 03:41 | Globalisation | Repression | London | World

Sacramento becomes a battlefield between peaceful protesters and bewildered police, decked out in swat gear, riding horses, brandishing weapons, and grimacing conservatively, who chase down and eventually turn violent in the face of their ineffectiveness.

While the police used their typical tactics of running people off of the street, flexing huge numbers of weapons during the early afternoon amongst the california capitol buildings, by 6pm PST the persistence and positivity of the protesters came to clash with the over militarized riot gear sporting police. Protesters chanted outside the IMAX theatre in an attempt to add a single popular voice to the highly elite agricultural summit. This was countered with a brutal increase in violence following a fairly non-confrontational beginning. Sectioning off the street making it unable for people to leave the area, and amidst the more chaoctic crowd, the riot gear police seemed to have been keep up in their sweaty cages for most of the day chomping at the bit as they now began to grab and mistreat people at random. Tasor guns were pulled on people standing outside the area on the SIDEWALK, and there were tackles and nightstick shoves inside the circle. After an escape route was opened on the sidewalk, random protesters were picked off and arrested. Citizens on the street familiar with the Sac police tactics expressed strong belief that leaders will be rounded up in their sleep tonight. Outside the area a group of testosterone driven blues rushed pedestrians and media on the sidewalk, in what would have been a trampling had the crowd not leaped back and run in fear. Had anyone simply held their ground, as is their constitutional, and empirical right, the police showed no capability of stopping and would surely have used outrageous methods considering the situation. The day is winding down after police followed protesters back to their dining area in the nothern neighborhood, but helicopters still circle the resistence camp. We can only assume that similar acts of aggression will continue tomorrow after the success of todays actions have been gauged.

phatrix
- e-mail: phatrix@hotmail.com

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