Police riot in Pittsburgh

The following article is based on eyewitness reports. Full reports and more updates, along with a petition supporting the release and amnesty for those arrested, can be found at the www.bailoutpeople.org blog. According to the Sept. 28 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 190 people were arrested and lawsuits are being threatened against city officials and police.

Cindy Sheehan, John Parker and Larry Holmes carry Bail Out the People banner at the front of People’s March of 10,000 in Pittsburgh against G-20 summit, Sept. 25. WW photo: Sharon Black

More than 1,000 young people gathered in Arsenal Park in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 to resist the G-20 meeting taking place in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The effort was coordinated by the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project.

Protesters began their march through the working-class neighborhood of Lawrenceville towards a bridge leading to downtown. The unpermitted march took over the streets with banners that read “No hope in capitalism,” “No bailout—no capitalism” and “No borders—no banks.”

The marchers were eventually stopped by police, who confronted them with high-frequency sound blasts and orders to disperse. The protesters then doubled back and confronted cops again in the middle of a residential community. Anarchists grabbed a dumpster on wheels and sent it rolling down the hill directly into the police barricade, not harming anyone.

The police reacted with more violence, attacking the entire neighborhood with several canisters of OC gas (oleoresin capsicum), a new police weapon meant to cause temporary blindness and breathing pain. From then on many different groups broke away in different directions, some marching together back towards Oakland, home of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

Youth march, Sept. 24.

Armed guards with camouflaged Humvees were stationed at every exit of the beltline around the city, blocking off entry. Most downtown businesses were completely boarded up, following Mayor Luke Ravenstahl’s suggestions, putting many out of work for the two days the G-20 met. All buses and trains into and out of the city were canceled during the meetings.

At the universities and museums all monuments were also boarded up or covered with bags to promote an atmosphere of fear.

At one point, protesters stopped police with a stream of projectiles. Police responded by launching beanbags, causing injuries. Protesters defended themselves by blockading the street with a large chain-link fence, obstructing the road.

Massive police presence, Sept. 24.

At 10 p.m. the group Bash Back! organized a protest for LGBTQ liberation in the community of Oakland near Carnegie Mellon University. At the nearby University of Pittsburgh, students gathered close to the bridge to Schenley Plaza.

Heavy-handed police repression ensued, including the usual electronic dispersal order and teargas, but this only attracted more protesters and onlookers. Soon the crowd numbered close to 1,000.

Over the next few hours cops were chasing students into their dorms, attacking people who were leaving bars, and arresting folks who had not earlier participated in the protests. By the end of the night, more than 60 had been arrested.

More police repression on Sept. 25

Near the University of Pittsburgh around 10:00 p.m. the next evening, a huge crowd of over 1,000 students, most of whom were not political at all and certainly were not involved in G-20 protests, gathered in Schenley Plaza, where a concert was going on as part of the G-20 protest events.

The police began to occupy the park and forcefully removed everyone. As students began to gather around to check it out, the riot police got more hyped up. There were no chants, no signs, no banners, no folks dressed in black and no provocation, yet the police threw several teargas and smoke bombs at the crowd and pushed them down commercial streets where there were bars and restaurants. They also began chasing people into the huge dormitory towers and attacking students as they left. Students were hanging out of windows, taking pictures in stunned disbelief.

Forbes Street was blocked off by hundreds of riot cops. Others moved in on the other areas of the campus to corral people. Folks were thrown to the ground and shot with rubber bullets. Members of the media were pepper-sprayed and gassed.

An estimated 150 arrests occurred over the two days. [Later reports raised this figure to 190.] Protesters and students alike were being held in the dorm towers, unable to leave for fear of being arrested. Other students couldn’t cross Fifth Avenue to get to their residences without being thrown to the ground.

Several students said they had never seen anything like this in their lives. It was really interesting to hear people say, “F—k the police!”—people you would never have expected to hear this from. Even some more conservative students were really angry and confused.

Sean O’Sullivan, a senior at the University of Pittsburgh, told this reporter, “Most people have been saying that the violence and any disruption by the protest was a small fraction. Most protesters were peaceful. It was the police who started the violence and ended up finishing the violence.

“It felt like a war zone. The police became more and more violent, taking over more and more of the street. I couldn’t get to my house until 3 a.m. on Thursday. I saw multiple people that needed to have pepper spray washed out of their eyes. The police wouldn’t let students cross the street or enter their dorm rooms. I saw violent use of police dogs to intimidate.”

Jillian Dowis, a sophomore at Ohio University, shared the following experience of her arrest on Sept. 24 in the same location: “People walking by were thrown to the ground, maced and arrested. They put on handcuffs way too tight. They searched us, put us in vans and wouldn’t tell us what was going on. They wouldn’t read us our rights. They only had snarky comments to say to us.

“We were in transportation vans for about three hours. Then we got to the State Correctional Facility, where we were in the van for another five hours, still with plastic handcuffs on. They turned the air conditioning down to 55 degrees to make us feel as uncomfortable as possible.

“There were girls on periods that they would not let go to the bathroom. There were girls in tears because of how bad they had to pee. You can get urinary tract infection or toxic shock syndrome. We were there until 6:30 in the morning. Then they searched us, had us take off all our jewelry—but our hands were swollen from cuffs and they were being real aggressive taking off rings. They didn’t answer any questions we had.”

The police repression both Thursday and Friday night in Oakland was incredible. This neighborhood houses the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon, two universities with mostly white, mostly middle-class students. As Larry Holmes, an anti-G-20 organizer of the tent city that dramatized the plight of the unemployed and homeless at G-20, commented, on any given normal day the police usually target and harass the Black community. But these two days not only were Black people under normal occupation, but the police were targeting young white folks.

An emergency protest took place on Sept. 26 at the Allegheny County courthouse against the police violence and arrests.

Strobino is a member of the Raleigh, N.C., branch of the youth group Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST).