We returned to Woodruff/Troy Davis Park just before eleven o’clock last night, waiting to see what sort of action the police would take. The news vans were out in full force – I noted ABC Channel 2, Fox Five Atlanta, and CBS, all watching and waiting to see what would happen. At the General Assembly earlier in the evening, the camera-men had moved in to get some close shots of the discussion, and protesters began yelling at them – aggression that was quickly and effectively calmed. A few people covered their faces with shirts or jackets, and asked the newsmen not to film them.

“End the war, tax the rich, how to fix the deficit!”

The rain had cleared away, and with it most of the chill of the evening. The now-warmer park was more heavily occupied; there was a huge contingent of protesters congregated on the walking paths surrounding the park. Moving in toward the center of the park, though, the scene was absolutely surreal.

The tents and gear had been mostly cleared away or clustered down toward the south end of the park. Tables had been laid on their sides, outward from the tents, forming an impromptu barricade to the south, against which the Occupiers had leaned a number of signs. Someone strung red caution tape around the central encampment.

At its periphery, you saw the reporters, in suits and nice coats with microphones, either speaking to the cameras or waiting for something to happen. Closer in, all action was obscured by a shifting ring of camera men and photographers on foot. At the very center of this ring, the protesters who were prepared to be arrested were sitting, waiting – much more silently than anyone else, with signs or without.

I confess myself a cynic, and I know that, really, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of risk. The legal team had already established that an arrest tonight would most likely end in a punitive fine. But still: as a people, we are extraordinarily unaccustomed to the idea of being arrested. More, we are unaccustomed to the idea of knowing that we will be arrested, and sitting there waiting for someone to do it. It takes, I realized, a phenomenal amount of will and courage to sit and wait for arrest, even arrest on a very minor charge.

I realized: what this will do to that group of people is extraordinary. If they do get arrested, then they will be the men and women who spent a night in jail together for their convictions. If they do not, they will remember that they stood together to do so. Those who were not prepared to be arrested will remember being there, and remember supporting their fellow protesters. I realized that, regardless of whether or not arrests did happen, that evening would be a fundamental moment of bonding for everyone involve in the protest. I overheard the press – I believe a young woman reporting for CBS? – calling it a split into two groups ideologically, between those willing to be arrested and those not – and I am fairly sure nothing could be further from the truth.

The Police – on foot, on horseback, on wheels of all kinds

What you may notice, though, is that I didn’t note any police presence – no police presence at all. As far as I could tell, there were no police at the park – suspicious, given that we were verging on eleven o’clock, and they had promised to break up the protest at that time. I stopped to talk to my friend Gus, a tall older man who was there in a long black wool coat decked out in buttons from decades of protesting and activism. He’d heard a rumor from the press that the police were massing on horseback a few streets away.

I started to walk, then remember that I didn’t know the city at all – and so grabbed a young woman who was wandering by, asking her to come with me and look for police. Her name is Kirsten, and she stopped to tell Cop Watch – a group that films and notes police presence at protests – what we would be doing.

We couldn’t find any police at first, and I thought my information had been inaccurate – until we saw nine officers on horseback at Central and Decatur (about two blocks from the park), circling the area. Horses, the Legal Observers would later tell me, tend to be used in actions like this because their primary value is intimidation.

At Central and Underground, we counted seven more police officers, standing around, and nine police motorcycles parked in the entrance of Underground. Within Underground, we saw a mass of police officers milling about.

Later I would hear a rumor that a processing center had been set up in Underground; I don’t have a strong source for this, so I can neither confirm nor deny.

At MLK and Briarcliff, though, we hit the real trove of police officers. We counted more than twenty-five cruisers, two paddy wagons, and a few SWAT vehicles before we simply gave up on counting. We also noticed a fire truck and an ambulance – from what I heard, there was yet another fire truck to the north.

We returned, quickly, and passed the information on to the first Cop Watch team we found. We debated whether we ought to alert the protesters that there would be horses coming through. One Cop-Watcher suggested that the horses won’t move on uneven ground, and so we ought to tell the Occupiers to sit down close together if horses appear. Eventually, it was decided that any statement would just cause more trouble than it would solve.

I knew that there were a few people among the Occupiers who had come down to visit from Short Mountain Sanctuary in Tennessee; I sought them out to warn them that arrests seemed eminent, in case they’d like to leave – it’s somewhat more inconvenient to be arrested if you’re coming from out-of-state.

I ran into a team of young people in neon green hats that said Legal Observer, and asked whether they’d like my notes on the police presence. I gave them my notes, and exchanged contact information. They told me that the horses are extraordinarily well-trained, and will not harm people. Their primary use, as stated before, is intimidation. Protesters ought to treat them the same way they would an officer on foot, and not panic.

Tactics

The Legal Observers asked me to watch for police in riot gear, and whether I’d seen buses, or any kind of large transportation vehicle. Riot gear means they foresee themselves breaking through a crowd; buses, usually schoolbuses, mean that they are preparing to remove a large number of people.

The police in this country have had the past five decades to figure out the most effective ways to neutralize protest. And I do mean “neutralize”, not round up: to neuter a protest’s political power. I am by no means anti-police, but it is a reality that the police have learned that bashing in skulls and bringing out fire hoses does not for good PR make.

Instead: protests must be by permit, and they are usually kept in designated free speech zones. They begin and end at a certain time. This ensures that they do not inconvenience anyone, and that they do not demand any eyes on them.

Police have been trained to treat protesters with kid gloves whenever possible. A video of fire hoses knocking back marchers is much more powerful than of pepper spray.

Police have learned to use intimidation tactics first and foremost. The appearance of horses would scatter protesters; suddenly, it’s no longer a peaceful circle of men and women sitting on the ground and holding signs – it’s an unruly mob being corralled, certainly much better for PR. On Friday, the night of the first General Assembly, we observed the police breaking out zip-ties – suggesting that they were aiming to start arrests soon, arrests that never happened.

Rumors can be used to disperse protesters as effectively as actual force.

“Who do you serve?”

– one lone voice from the crowd at the corner yelled out as a contingent of about eight police on foot walked into the park. Around them, a cluster of people held up cell phones and video cameras; I heard one young woman asking each of them individually for badge numbers.

On the east edge of the park, I am told the head of Parks and Recreation was handing out copies of the ordinance based on which they’d be expelled (can anyone confirm or deny this one? Can anyone provide the ordinance?).

I spoke to a young woman named Anastasia standing along the sidewalk at the east edge. She said that she was not with the protest, but had been coming by to help out and watch. She didn’t want to be with the main group of protesters – she was certain that they would be arrested. I hurried over to join the main body of protesters, who were marching around the periphery of the park.

“They’re not trying to arrest our friends in the circle; they’re trying to arrest us – because they’re scared!”

A man stopped the chants and used the People’s Mic to say that. They say that over and over again. They’re scared of us. They’re scared of us. I don’t know if it’s true, or something that they say to make them feel more in control of the situation. To be sure, it was well past eleven o’clock, and the police haven’t take any action. I’ve heard tell that some of the mayor’s staff were making appearances and speaking, but I didn’t see them.

Notice the cleverness in that statement? After the man said it, everyone cheered. This started with people absolutely unwilling to be arrested during planning meetings; during the General Assembly on Friday, a few said they’d be willing and able; last night, we saw a concrete circle who were prepared for arrest. And then, suddenly, the don’t-arrest-us-contingent was cheering the idea that the police would be trying to arrest them.

More Occupiers and sympathizers are being drawn in and radicalized.

They started chanting again: “Whose park? Our park!” And then: “Whose park? Troy’s park!”

To the side, I overheard an old homeless man saying, “This is the only white congregation we’re allowed in this city.” Another old man, with him, shushed him, says, “Don’t say that,” and looked at me – taking notes.

A comedy plays out in the corners of a political drama.

“We will invite them to leave peacefully.”

I wondered how it would be played out in the media, if the police busted up the protest. Would it be sympathetic? Would it be about dissatisfied college students disturbing the peace? Would they, perhaps, talk about how much handling this protest was going to cost the city financially?

I found my way back to the sitting circle, where they were being told that the mayor’s office had issued a statement, saying, “We will invite them to leave peacefully” – and that’s it. When pressed, they suggested that police had been enlisted to “help keep the parks safe”.

Ominous, again.

Then another fellow ran up a minute too late to tell us that in a moment that mayor’s office would be making a statement.

“Journalism in this country died with Russert.”

I noticed three people sitting in one of the tents; in fact, they’d been sitting there a while. I wondered if they knew that there’d be arrests soon; surely, if they were prepared to be arrested, they’d be in the circle.

There was an older man named John, and a couple that looked to be in their mid-thirties: Elizabeth and (again) John. They told me they had been living in the park for about a week and a half; Occupation started four days ago. I asked if they knew that the police might be arresting people soon, and whether they were prepared to be arrested.

Yes, they told me. We’ve been arrested before, and we’re ready to be arrested again.

“Journalism in this country died with Russert,” Elizabeth told me. She was there to see the protest out to the end.

“We are re-occupying the park!”

As of 12:28, no arrests had happened, and the don’t-arrest-me contingent decided to retake the park. They formed around the circle of people who were waiting to be arrested – a circle that did not break up or change in form to accommodate them. I suppose that that turned out to be a very, very solid group.

A rumor floated through that the mayor would soon come to address the Assembly themselves, and the Assembly voted to allow the mayor to submit a proposal for what they ought to do – a proposal which, of course, would have to move through the consensus process.

One speaker said they ought to remind the mayor that his career started in leading students in an occupation of buildings at Howard University; another said, “We should ask him to help us – he got elected because of people like us.”

As of about one in the morning, the AJC was reporting that the mayor would let the protesters stay the night. I dropped by a few of the news vans to ask if they thought it likely the mayor would come by that night; they said no, that if anything their money was on a late morning visit. I asked a Legal Observer and a friend that had some past ACLU involvement whether they expected any further police action that night. They also told me no, with the caveat that if the police did show up, it would be far later – around five A.M., when the media presence had lessened considerably.

Satisfied, I left to get some much-needed sleep.

Reflections

So – in the nicest way possible – what the hell were the police doing? Why did they line up such a substantial force if they did not intend to break up the protest?

Were they intimidated by the media? The decision to break it up last night came at a time when it was cold and rainy and sparsely populated, and all except the ABC van were absent. Did their presence as the night cleared up discourage police action?

I suspect the police were there to intimidate. They hoped to break up the body of the protest just by appearing. If I had warned people that horses were coming, I wonder, how would that have affected things?

Events

Another general assembly tonight at 7. Marching on Bank of America at 4:30 – that’s in less than an hour, kids. Friday they will be picketing for Troy Davis.

As always: corrections, critiques, and additions are welcome and encouraged.