Men In Black A16 and the Police State by Abe Walker When protesters took to the streets in Washington for the IMF protests, they were greeted by over 10,000 law enforcement officers. In addition to activating the entire 3500-member Metropolitan Police Department, Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey had called in reserve troops from adjacent counties in Maryland and Northern Virginia. The Secret Service was on special alert, and federal marshals were out in force near the district court buildings. Transit cops staked out their territory in the subway stations, and Public Safety Officers were highly visible around the numerous college campuses. By late Sunday, the National Guard was roaming through the streets with camouflage tanks. The barricades that blocked off a ten-block radius around the IMF and WB were reinforced by rows of cops in full riot gear striking the classic “Don’t fuck with me” pose: legs slightly spread, shins and knees guarded with high-tech Rollerblading pads, back rigid, chest protected with Robocop-style armor, billy club in hand, mouth locked in an angry frown, helmet and face shield pulled down, badge mysteriously missing. If you ignored all the protesters, you might have guessed that some rebel faction was attempting a coup. And in a sense, we were that rebel faction. Even most soft-line reformists will admit that their concerns strike at the very heart of global capitalism. We claim that the IMF and World Bank perpetuate global inequities by benefiting the world’s elite at the expense of the world’s people. This is a radical idea. It has quickly become clear that the a16 protests were about much more than the IMF and World Bank. While criticizing IMF structural adjustment programs, we indirectly questioned the superiority of the free market system. While claiming that World Bank lending policies pander to commercial interests, we indirectly condemned corporate imperialism. And for crying out loud, we got the word “capitalism” on the front page of The New York Times for perhaps the first time ever. By bringing these sensitive issues to a public forum, we sparked a national debate that posed a real threat to our national interests. The government needed to defend the IMF and WB not just because it depends on these institutions per se but because it depends on everything they represent. Ostensibly, the massive police mobilization on the weekend of April 16 was organized to prevent the protesters from achieving their stated goal of shutting down the meetings. But there was also another much more important motive. The police wanted to intimidate protesters in order to deter future actions. The movement had to be suppressed before it went too far. Perhaps due to their overwhelming numbers, many of these cops were consumed by a false sense of power. For much of the weekend, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were blatantly disregarded. In a well-documented incident on a Friday night, cops cordoned off a group of peaceful protesters walking in the street, arrested everyone, and carted them all off to jail. Never was there a call to disperse. In a separate incident on Saturday, police illegally raided and searched three activist’s homes in hopes of finding something incriminating. Nothing was ever found. Later Saturday morning police shut down the activists’ convergence center because of alleged “fire code violations” that were never substantiated. Throughout the weekend, protesters were routinely picked off for carrying “lockboxes”—plastic tubes that can be used to form an unbreakable human chain. Police were known to attack large groups of protesters without so much as sounding a warning. Virtually no protester I have talked to can recall being read their Miranda rights when arrested. Jailed protesters have returned with stories of cops posing as lawyers, indiscriminate beatings, and random strip searches. Even the Midnight Special Law Collective—a special group of attorneys designated ahead of time to defend the protesters—was repeatedly denied access to prisoners, and some were even preventing from watching the arraignments. Freedom of speech? Sorry. Freedom of assembly? Not this time. Due process? Forget about it. The aforementioned events are not simply isolated instances of police misconduct. Misconduct implies that an officer has acted outside of the limits imposed by his department and is therefore negligent. Many of the events listed above were condoned or even encouraged by department tops. The Washington Post quoted Executive Assistant Chief Terrance Gainer on the convergence center shut down: “When it was brought to our attention that there was [sic] serious fire code violations — we started licking our chops. It would be helpful if we discombobulated the protesters.” And even more distressingly, leading officers have expressed virtually no regrets about the department’s conduct over the weekend. Chief Ramsey told the Post: “[That weekend] was a turning point for the department, sworn and civilian. We’re all on cloud nine.” Given the attitude of the department leadership, it is clear that the problem does not simply involve a few bad apples stepping out of line. Actually, most officers preformed their jobs exceedingly well. They obeyed orders. They listened to their superiors. They avoided asking too many questions. Enforcing the law, after all, is a job, and officers are compensated based on how well they perform that job. Most officers join the force not because they have a burning desire to smash some heads but because they want to make some money. The law enforcement officers we encountered this weekend were dedicated workers, some putting in 20 or 30 hour shifts to meet the sudden demand. Many were union members. Some had families. Though we have a right to feel angry, we should not blame individuals officers for decisions made by the departmental leadership. But even the departmental leadership is not really to blame because they just take their orders from the city government. And so on. We will be much more effective if we redirect our anger away from individual members of the police force and towards the modern police state as a whole. For it is this system that rewards violence and encourages law enforcement workers to mistreat prisoners. The individual cop is merely a tool of the system, and it doesn't make sense to antagonize him or her more than necessary because he or she has very little control over the big picture. So how do we attack the system itself? Ordinary channels for the redress of grievances will likely be worthless, since even the courts have an obligation to defend the system from people like us. And clearly, as political activists, we cannot simply issue some broad intellectualized critique of the system and consider our work done. Theorizing is well and good, but at some point, we must throw our bodies on the machine and actively fight for change. One way to jam the machine is by rejecting one of its basic tenets—belief in individual autonomy. Cops are convinced that the individual exists separately from the group. A common police procedure in jail is to isolate people they think are “leaders” or “rabble-rousers” and torment them until they break down. To protect themselves from this kind of abuse, protesters often use solidarity tactics. Jail solidarity takes a variety of forms, but it often involves protesters refusing to give their names in order to demand equal treatment for everyone. Cops don't know what to do when they are confronted with a huge family of 600 Jane and John Does. When we refuse to give our names, the machine breaks down. We no longer have individual identities, and we become indistinguishable components of a monolithic mass. We cannot be isolated from our cellmates if we don't technically exist. We cannot be intimidated if we absolutely refuse to cooperate. Jail solidarity works because when done well it is totally debilitating. Cops can’t afford to clog up their jail system with hundreds of minor offenders. As individuals we would be powerless in jail, but if we collaborate as a group, we bring the system to its knees. Our organizational structure is inspired by these machine-jamming solidarity techniques. Cops donít know how to deal with a group that has no real leadership and makes decisions by democratic consensus. When officers stopped a group of protesters in DC on Friday, the first thing they asked was "Where are your leaders?" Cops act this way because they themselves are firmly entrenched in the rigid hierarchy of their own police department. In their world, directives always come from the top, and everyone else is expected to practice blind obedience. Asking too many questions is considered insubordination. The notion of shared power is completely foreign to them. When the cops detained many of our prime organizers the evening before the protests, they thought they had cut off our lifeline, but since none of these organizers had a monopoly on information, we were barely affected. Our decentralized power structure gives also gives us the advantage of mobility. The cops thought they could cripple us by shutting down our convergence center on Saturday. Unfazed, we simply picked up and moved to an alternate site. The police want to treat us like an organized crime ring. They think they can bust us by nabbing the all-knowing mastermind and raiding our secret hideout. But we are nothing like the Mafia. In fact, our organizational structure more closely resembles a guerilla army, for our incredible flexibility makes us all but invincible. If we extend the concept of solidarity even further, we start to close in on the true essence of the movement. As middle-class college students, we may not be direct victims of IMF and WB policies, but we stand in solidarity with people who experience these injustices first hand. One of the popular chants in DC was “Injury to one is injury to all!” Solidarity transcends artificial political borders and crosses the social barriers of class, race, gender, ethnicity, and sexual preference. Ultimately, solidarity will destroy the oppressive machine and free us from the chains of the modern police state. Until then, we continue moving forward. Together.