As we circle Union Square, about twenty NYPD officers haul out orange plastic nets (the kind used to fence off construction sites) and close off the road, diverting the crowd. But the detour, too, is closed, leaving us only one option: straight down Broadway. The lighthearted carnival air begins to get very heavy as it becomes clear that we are being corralled. The main group, about 150 protesters, keeps on down the street, but the police are running behind with the orange nets, siphoning off groups of fifteen to twenty people at a time, classic crowd control.
A new group of police officers arrives in white shirts, as opposed to dark blue. These guys are completely undiscerning in their aggression. If someone gets in their way, they shove them headfirst into the nearest parked car, at which point the officers are immediately surrounded by camera phones and shouts of Shame! Shame!
Up until this point, Frank and I have managed to stay ahead of the nets, but as we hit what I think is 12th Street, theyve caught up. The blue-shirts arent being too forceful, so we manage to run free, but stay behind to see what happens. Then things go nuts.
The white-shirted cops are shouting at us to get off the street as they corral us onto the sidewalk. One African American man gets on the curb but refuses to be pushed up against the wall of the building; they throw him into the street, and five cops tackle him. As hes being cuffed, a white kid with a video camera asks him Whats your name?! Whats your name?! One of the blue-shirted cops thinks hes too close and gives him a little shove. A white-shirt sees this, grabs the kid and without hesitation billy-clubs him in the stomach.
At this point, the crowd of twenty or so caught in the orange fence is shouting Shame! Shame! Who are you protecting?! YOU are the 99 percent! Youre fighting your own people! A white-shirt, now known to be NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, comes from the left, walks straight up to the three young girls at the front of the crowd, and pepper-sprays them in the face for a few seconds, continuing as they scream No! Why are you doing that?! The rest of us in the crowd turn away from the spray, but its unavoidable. My left eye burns and goes blind and tears start streaming down my face. Frank grabs my arm and shoves us through the small gap between the orange fence and the brick wall while everyone stares in shock and horror at the two girls on the ground and two more doubled over screaming as their eyes ooze. In the street I shout for water to rinse my eyes or give to the girls on the ground, but no one responds. One of the blue-shirts, tall and bald, stares in disbelief and says, I cant believe he just fuckin maced her. And it becomes clear that the white-shirts are a different species. We need to get out of there.
The other end of the street is also closed off, and we are trapped on this one block along with about twenty frustrated pedestrians. My eye is killing me and Im crying, partially from the pain and partially from the shock of the violence displayed by these police. A shirtless young medic with ripped cargo shorts, matted brown hair, and two plastic bottles slung around his neck runs up to me and says, Did you get pepper sprayed? Okay here, tilt your head to the side, this isnt going to feel great, at which point he squirts one of the plastic bottles of white liquid into my left eye, then tilts my head the other way and does the other eye, then repeats with water. Then he unties the white bandanna from his wrist and wipes my eyes with it saying, Youll be okay, this is my grandfathers bandanna, he got through Korea with it, and if he got through that, then youre going to get through this. Just keep blinking. Thanks to the treatmentliquid antacid, pepper-spray antidotethe burning behind my eyes subsides.
