A less peaceful protest...

Yesterday afternoon, I went looking for the protests that accompanied G20 into the city. There was blocked traffic and thousands of law enforcement personnel. But we didn’t see a single dissenter. I was slightly discouraged until I heard a news broadcast on a TV. Protesters were throwing rocks at buses in the Bloomfield neighborhood. I wondered what had compelled me to see such a scene in the first place.

Later last night, at 11:30 or so, a student came into the dorm and claimed that there was a huge protest on campus. We rushed out of the building, but there was nothing happening at Forbes. We decided to walk down into Oakland. I’m a sucker for novelty, and there were plenty of new things to look at. You could feel the tension in the air. A light rain was falling. Helicopters swept the ground with their searchlights, revealing a fantastic array of vehicles and cops with weapons. We made halting progress down Forbes and were finally stopped by a line of cops form into a wall of menacing batons. Up ahead we could see the “riotous mob.” They were shouting and arguing at the cops, but they looked pretty scared, pinned up against the wall of what I think was the UPitt library. They hid behind some trees as long lines of armored police opened fire on them with rubber bullets and multiple clouds of tear gas. The wind took the tear gas up towards the small crowd of spectators and press that were watching, and we got to experience for ourselves its unpleasant effects.

This went on for maybe ten minutes before the protestors broke and ran. One group ran farther downtown, another smaller group came back our way. The cops apparently didn’t think they were moving fast enough. That’s when this happened. I was standing right behind the news camera that shot this footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzOG7yghNvQ

I came out of the experience with mixed opinions. I don’t think it makes a whole lot of sense to be either for or against the G20. In itself, the G20 is just a meeting. There will be many policies associated with the summit, and it makes more sense to me to have an informed opinion on the policies individually than to stand against the G20 as a whole. On the other hand, there is certain nobility in what the protestors were doing. They were determined to have their voice, and they went out and stood up against an overwhelming police presence. Our culture places a very high value on the right to freedom of speech and opinion and on standing up for those rights. As an extension of that, I have respect for the protestors, who were willing to put themselves in a dangerous no-win situation to defend their ideals.