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Protest creates gridlock on SF streets
Chronicle Staff Writers
Thursday, March 20, 2003
©2003 SF Gate
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/gate/archive/2003/03/20/protesters.DTL
Thousands of anti-war protesters poured into San Francisco on Thursday,
fulfilling their promise to disrupt life in the city as they occupied
intersections, blocked buildings and tried to shut down the Bay Bridge in
protests that occasionally turned violent.
Sirens wailed throughout downtown and helicopters whirred overhead
most of the day as police in riot gear hustled to keep up with bands of
demonstrators. Often they were unsuccessful, as small groups of
protesters scurried into place in intersections or dodged around corners
to elude police.
At least 1,025 people were arrested by early evening. Demonstrators said
there would be several days of civil disobedience to come as they protest
the U.S. war in Iraq.
"This is a total shutdown,'' said Benna CQ Kollinsky, part of a group of
protesters who held the intersection of Montgomery and Clay streets for
more than two hours. "I thought we'd be lucky to close it down for an
hour. We've run this block all morning.''
Twice on Thursday night, protesters tried to take over the Bay Bridge.
Police and highway patrol officers thwarted the effort, but the crowd
managed to snarl traffic.
The strongest attempt came shortly after 6 p.m. when hundreds of
protesters marched up Essex Street toward three bridge on-ramps. Some
blocked intersections while others made a run for the bridge.
They were quickly apprehended by about 100 officers.
"We tried all three ramps,'' said a young male protester who was arrested.
"But nobody got anywhere near the bridge.''
Traffic on and off the ramps was halted until the protesters marched off.
Dozens of officers remained stationed at the ramps to turn back further
attempts to take the bridge.
A smaller group tried again around 7 p.m.
At the Transbay Terminal, police used tear gas to break up a crowd that
was storming the Fremont Street off-ramp of the Bay Bridge.
With the fluid nature of the demonstrations, estimates on the total
number of participants were hard to come by.
"We don't really know how many people are out there or where they're
going next,'' Ladan Sobhani, an organizer with Direct Action Against the
War, said shortly before noon. "People make that decision on their own.''
Although the protesters were largely well-behaved, splinter groups
shattered windows, heaved rocks and bottles at police and left graffiti in
their wake.
Some protesters were clearly prepared for violence. Sheriff Michael
Hennessey said some protesters had fired bolts from slingshots, and others
had slashed the tires of squad cars. One protester tried to take an
officer's handgun, he said.
The demonstrations were the largest in San Francisco since the 1991 Gulf
War and were marked by a sense of anger unseen at peace rallies earlier
this year.
The demonstrations were centered in the Financial District, Civic Center
and Mission District. Protesters shut down Market Street and many
surrounding intersections and streets while marching through the city.
It left drivers fuming in traffic and the Municipal Railway scrambling to
reroute buses. Cable cars and the historic F-line trolleys were shut down,
and buses were wildly off-course all day. The 38-Geary and 7-Haight, for
example, were seen on Mission Street throughout the day.
"We don't want to alienate people. I hope people realize that political
murder merits action that inconveniences them,'' said Quinn Miller, 32.
His hope went unanswered among some of the people who were late to
work or unable to maneuver through downtown.
"You suck,'' yelled Larry Chu, stuck in his car outside the Transamerica
Pyramid. "Why don't you all go to North Korea and do this?''
Hot spots cropped up all over the Civic Center and downtown through the
day. One of the hottest was Seventh and Mission streets, where scores of
baton-wielding police surrounded some 200 demonstrators in a tense
standoff that lasted about two hours.
Police corraled the protesters, refusing to let them pass and, witnesses
said, hit many of them with their batons. At least one person escaped
after breaking a window in the federal courthouse and climbing into the
building.
One of those arrested was Wendy Norris, a graduate student in museum
studies. "I was just here observing, and the police told me to go this way,
so I did,'' she said. "But there was another line of police, so I couldn't go
anywhere.''
Protesters also gathered by the hundreds outside the Federal Building on
Golden Gate Avenue and around Union Square, where dozens of police
struggled to push back the advancing demonstrators.
Mayor Willie Brown said in no uncertain terms that, although he opposes
the war, he had no patience for the demonstrators.
"I must express my frustration at the tactics of some protesters, who have
chosen to specifically try to disrupt this city, rather than gather
peacefully to voice their desire for peace, at the expense of the day-to-
day lives of ordinary San Franciscans … and at great cost to the city,'' he
said in a statement.
The tide of anti-war sentiment also was met by counterdemonstrations,
most comprising no more than a handful of people, defending the Bush
administration and U.S. soldiers.
"Now, at a time of war, these people out here protesting are behaving like
traitors,'' said Russian immigrant Alexander Gosen. He spent the morning at
Franklin and Fell streets waving a sign reading "Viva Bush'' on one side and
"Go to hell, peaceniks'' on the other. "They should all be arrested. They
don't know what it's like to live under a tyrant.''
The civil disobedience started at dawn and kicked into high gear around 7
a.m. as groups of protesters fanned out en masse to locations chosen in
recent weeks in a well-planned campaign to shut down the city.
"It's going to be a long day,'' grumbled a California Highway Patrol officer at
a roadblock protesters erected on the Eighth Street exit of Highway 101.
Indeed it was. Nearly all the Police Department's 2,300 officers were on
the clock Wednesday, joined by scores of CHP troopers.
"We're going to keep the city streets open,'' Assistant Police Chief Alex
Fagan Sr. said early in the day.
That proved to be wishful thinking. Although police braced for the worst,
they found themselves scrambling to keep up with the wide-ranging
demonstrations.
By shortly after 7 a.m., protesters had flooded intersections throughout
downtown, tying up traffic as they sat, arms linked, in the street as horns
blared and fists waved around them.
At some spots, firefighters had to assist police by using bolt cutters to
separate protesters who had locked their arms together in metal sleeves.
The process went slowly. At Montgomery and Clay streets, about 15
demonstrators linked arms through lengths of 3-foot-long plastic tubing …
requiring four dozen police in riot gear to carefully and gingerly saw them
apart. The whole procedure took more than an hour.
"I'm definitely anti-war, but at the same time, we're trying to live our lives
here,'' fumed Mark Thedis as he spent 30 minutes in his idling Range Rover
in an alleyway off Folsom Street. "If they're trying to get people on their
side, it's not working.''
A few blocks away, protesters strung police tape and rainbow-colored yarn
across Fifth and Mission streets, blocking the intersection for about an
hour.
"My brother is on his way to Kuwait next week. He's in the Army,'' said Lea,
a 34- year-old protester who declined to give her last name. "He doesn't
support this war. No one in our family supports this war. I just want my
brother to come home.''
The ranks of protesters swelled as the day wore on. A boisterous crowd of
about 500 marched down Mission Street shortly after 11 a.m., chanting,
cheering and dragging news racks and other obstacles into the street. A
masked demonstrator armed with spray paint marked bus shelters with
slogans such as "The war stops here and so do you.''
At about the same time, dozens of CHP officers lined Fremont and Howard
streets to turn back a throng of 400 demonstrators that tried to shut
down the Bay Bridge.
The demonstrators, united in their cause, were varied in their tactics. A
band calling itself "Pukers for Peace'' vomited on the steps of the Federal
Building. The "Crafty Bitches, Knitting for Peace,'' knitted at Fourth and
Market streets. Down the street a bit, a lone trumpeter performed a
solemn rendition of "We Shall Overcome.'' on his trumpet. At First and
Market streets, a handful of women did yoga -- earning them some sexually
suggestive comments from passers-by.
Many protesters were confrontational. Some were violent. All were
boisterous as they waved signs, chanted slogans and sang songs.
Brad Kelly, a tourist visiting from Phoenix with his wife and three children,
watched the protests from Chinatown.
"This is a great education for our kids,'' he said as he explained the
protests to his 9-year-old son, Brandon. "It's like we're watching the news
as it happens. There's nothing like this in Phoenix.''
Brandon wasn't impressed. This story was reported by Chronicle staff
writers Nanette Asimov, Michael Cabanatuan, Bob Egelko, Kevin Fagan, Joe
Garofoli, Rachel Gordon, Julian Guthrie, Anastasia Hendrix, Henry K. Lee,
Ilene Lelchuk, Steve Rubenstein, Katherine Kathleen Seligman, Katherine
Kathleen Sullivan, Jaxon Vanderbeken and Jim Herron Zamora. It was
written by staff writer Chuck Squatriglia. Chronicle Wire Services
contributed to this story.
©2003 SF Gate
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