Monday, August 4, 2008

Protester Arrested


I watched this happen. Freaked my shit out

It was the old guy who has been protesting at the white house for 20 odd years. He seemed like he might have been intoxicated? Not sure. Later on his friend said something about him being diabetic. Anyhow, another guy had brought a PA system, and the old guy was on it, yelling at the cops to arrest him. "Arrest me, you dammed monkey!"

They did. Hard.

His friend got on his cell phone, claimed he was calling 911 to save his friend. Who knows. Cops took him too - hard. They grabbed him, told him to get off the phone (I think?) and he said hell no don't touch me. They tackled him and he fought back.

I talked to a couple of fellow loiterers. Everybody thought it was fucked up.

The old guy had had another friend occupying his tent. I went towards him, to ask him about the whole thing, and a cop stopped me. "Where you going" I told him I was going to read the sign and talk to the man. He said no you're not, get out of here. I turned away, and then asked if I could ask why. He said NO, you want to join them?

I left.

I wonder what will become of the pair? I did not know it was a crime to yell, or even to insult the police. The second guy - all he did was make a phone call, as far as I could tell. But they both gave each other what they wanted. The protesters wanted attention, the cops wanted resistance, they resisted, the cops got an arrest and a scrape elbow to prove they fought back, and the protesters got a bunch of people standing around taking pictures on their cell phone.

1 comment:

elaine harris said...

how scary! i didn't know this was illegal either! Well, public intoxication? noise violations? i wonder if the guy who has been protesting or living there for twenty years has gotten arrested before? Shoot! that the police were so rude?