How to enjoy a DC Capitol Police All-Nighter Without Hardly Trying
I think I'll start with a with a partial cast of the leading characters, more or less in order of appearance.
Mike Ferner - VFP member from Toledo, articulate advocate of direct non-violent action, VFP Board Sec’y.Leah Bolger – VFP Portland OR, retired Commander USN
Thomas Brinson – VFP Long Island, Non-Violent Peace Force Sri Lanka alumnus
Adam Kokesh – Co-Chair (Elect) Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)
Elliott Adams – President VFP
Will Covert – VFP San Diego - “Each One Reach One” Organizer
Captain “Ironpants” - Shift Commander, Capitol Police Force
Officer “Sweetie” - Charming cop
Preface to The Action
There is a steadily increasing sense in VFP that carrying signs and marching in the streets simply isn’t enough in the face of increasing repression at home and aggression abroad. Although Veterans for Peace is not a pacifist organization (although many of the members are pacifists), non-violence is built into the statement of purpose. The challenge is to find creative, non-violent tactics which can propel the movement forward. What are the appropriate “next steps” that will get those who now passively support the objectives of VFP to become active?
Mike Ferner, from Toledo, is one of the VFP members who has been most committed for several years to taking steps beyond our familiar marches, signs, movies, lectures, concerts etc. Just a month before the invasion of Iraq, Mike was part of an Iraq Peacekeeping Team (IPT) that went to Baghdad and other parts of Iraq, including a four-day fast on the border between Iraq and Kuwait, to try to head off the war. He returned a year later to write about the aftermath of the war. The stories of both trips are contained in his book, Inside the Red Zone. (Mike’s wife, Sue Carter, incidentally is the president of the Ohio ACLU. Good thing, too, given the number of times Mike has been arrested for Civil Disobedience.) So Mike, who is now the Secretary of the VFP Board of Directors, has been goading us for years to step up the resistance.
VFP President Elliott Adams is also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and is a FOR-trained facilitator of non-violence training. So even though I am in the “slow reading group,” my well-spent time with Mike and Elliott has brought me around to the view that I need to push the envelope a lot more than I have in the past.
At one of the plenary sessions at the VFP convention in St. Louis a few weeks ago, Mike asked that anyone interested in developing a “Direct Action” for some time during the September 15 events in Washington get together for a planning session after the plenary. About half a dozen of us showed up to kick around some ideas. One was Leah Bolger from Oregon, a retired Navy Commander. (Think about that for a second. Here’s a woman, a 24 year active duty veteran, who joined the navy around 1980 and rose to the rank of Commander! Along the way she spent a year as a “Military Fellow” at MIT! And now is committing to civil disobedience in the cause of peace. What a woman.) Another one was Thomas Brinson, a Vietnam combat-vet and recovering alcoholic with severe PTSD who spend three recent years with the Nonviolence Peace Force in war-torn Sri Lanka. I think I may have been the most conservative — or at least the most “restrained” -- of the group. I argued that historically the direct action (or civil disobedience) events that had been most constructive were those which by their very nature made visible to the public some shameful injustice. That perhaps a rank below that exalted level were those which at least had some obvious symbolic link to a wrongheaded policy or practice. Otherwise an act of civil disobedience is likely to be perceived by the public as either misbehavior or, worse, a public nuisance.
Some of the ideas that got kicked around were clearly in the latter category — such ideas as driving very slowly on the beltway in all lanes to slow up traffic. I flat out rejected those. Eventually we came to an idea which seemed in principle to meet the second level criterion — message linkage. We will be having a planning session tonight to see if we can work out the final details of the idea in order to execute them this Thursday. I’ll come back to that at the end of this message. But at this point I simply wanted to provide some of the “mind-set” that led up to the events this past Saturday.
The week after the VFP Convention, Adam Kokesh — Co-chair (elect) of IVAW -- was in Santa Fe, and I got to spend a fair amount of time with him. Among other topics we discussed was the plan for the September 15 protest march in Washington. International ANSWER was the umbrella organization orchestrating the march, but they were counting on IVAW to design and lead the event. IVAW’s design was to have an “Honor Guard” of uniformed IVAW members in single file carrying an upside-down American flag (the official Flag Manual recognizes this as an international distress signal) followed by 5 black flags, each of which would have the logo of one of the major contractors profiting from the war. The honor guard would be followed by a mass formation of IVAW members flanked by a security line of VFP members. The march would proceed from Lafayette Park in front of the White House down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Peace Monument at First and Pennsylvania, near the Capitol. (The Peace Monument, incidentally, is probably the smallest monument in DC.) ANSWER had a permit for this line of march. They also planned a “die-in” at the Peace Monument and hoped to have enough volunteers for the die-in to have at least one per American killed-in-action. A boom-box would play a recorded gun salute followed by Taps to signal the start of the die-in. They also hoped to have the die-in persist long enough so the police would arrest at least some of the die-in people for obstructing sidewalks or whatever. This much was more-or-less public knowledge.
However, IVAW had a hidden agenda which Adam asked me to keep quiet. If they had enough people in the line of march, especially IVAW and VFP folk, they planned to march right on by the Peace Monument and up to the barriers at the foot of the Capitol to stage the die-in there. If that didn’t provoke the arrests, IVAW would penetrate the barriers and hoped VFP would follow. Adam asked if I thought VFP would do so. I said that I for one would be right behind him and that I knew of at least a handful of others who would, but I couldn’t estimate how many.
In the weeks before the event, ANSWER sent out a call for volunteers for the die-in, volunteers who recognized they were risking arrest. They received over 1000 volunteer forms. A day or two before the event they sent out a message asking all “die-in” volunteers to come to Lafayette Park at 10:30 for a briefing. They also provided a message about what to expect if you were arrested and how to prepare for the event.
At the briefing they asked all die-in volunteers to register again on paper with local contact information so they could track people who were arrested and make sure they didn’t get “lost.”
The Action
Saturday afternoon’s weather was about as beautiful as I’ve seen in Washington DC. It was a day worthy of Santa Fe. Deep blue skies, warm with a pleasant breeze to keep the flags unfurled, a great day for a parade. According to the Associated Press about 100,000 people took part. Spectators along the route were generally supportive, except for a two block area between 6th and 8th streets where a counter-protest group, “Gathering of Eagles” were concentrated, shouting that we traitors who didn’t support the troops. IVAW was prepared with a call-and-response: “Who are we?” “We are the troops.” “What do we want?” “Bring us home.” (Another frequent chant along the route of march was “No Justice, No Peace. US out of the Middle East.”)
The march went pretty much according to the IVAW plan, except that when we passed the Peace Monument the sidewalks narrowed, pretty much forcing the bulk of the 100,000 participants to spread themselves out on the grassy areas from one side of the mall to the other. So it became impossible to see how many people were actually responding to the signal for the die-in when it happened. IVAW, along with those of us in VFP who were in the security detail were all concentrated in a fairly confined space right in front of the capital steps, up against a barrier which consisted of a double row of movable metal gates that looked kind of like bike racks. I was right there with Mike Ferner and Ellen Barfield when the signal went down. We lay down on the warm concrete. It was actually very peaceful. I think I even took a little nap lying there. But at some point the action-hungry IVAW contingent got tired of waiting for an arrest and started to climb over the barriers. As soon as they did so, of course, the Capitol police nabbed them. I turned to Mike and asked, “Are you ready to go?” “Sure.” We worked our way to the front, up, and over.
As I have previously written to most of you, as soon as we cleared the barrier there was a Capitol policeman on either side of us, forcing us to the ground. I quickly found myself prostrate with a cop’s knee placed gently but firmly on my back while he put plastic cuffs on me. Under the circumstances he was remarkably considerate about it. He then stood me up and realized he needed to get the pack off my back. He called another cop over to help so he could cut the cuffs he had just put on me. “Don’t move. I’m cutting this plastic and I don’t want to cut you.” I didn’t move. Then more cuffs. He asked me if I had any weapons on me. I assured him I did not. He asked if I had an ID. “Back left pocket, in the wallet.” He found it. “Is that your wife?” (picture of Elizabeth and me with “Wily Coyote.”) “Yes.” “Very nice.” He removed the contents of all of my pockets and put them in my pack. Then he put the pack loop in my cuffed hands behind my back, grasped by left elbow firmly, and led me up the Capitol steps and to a sunny patio-like area to the right of the top of the steps where there were about 30 or so of my cuffed colleagues already sitting against the wall. The officer told me to have a seat and went off to get his next “collar.” Adam Kokesh gave me a nice sign of recognition. There were perhaps a half-dozen or so officers there keeping an eye on us. At some point not long after I got there, someone (it may even have been I, though I don’t remember) shouted out, “Let’s stand up for peace,” whereupon a rhythmic chant went up, “Stand up for peace, stand up for peace, stand up for peace” while all of us somewhat gracelessly found one way or another of getting to our feet and helping colleagues to do so in spite having our hands cuffed behind us. I sort of expected the police to make us get back down, but they didn’t. So we started walking around the area, conversing with our friends — old and new. As long as we didn’t get close to either an exit point or the balcony where the crowd below could see us the cops pretty much let us move as we pleased.
I think it was between 3:30 and 4:00pm when I was arrested. I had been up on the “patio” for about 20 minutes before Mike appeared. I asked what had taken him so long. Being more experienced than I in direct action arrest tactics, Mike had decided to resist arrest — non-violently of course. He had essentially gone limp so that it took four officers to carry him up the stairs. (He weighs about 205.) This occupied 4 officers instead of one, in effect requiring the government to expend more resources than my cooperative attitude had. An interesting point.
Arrests continued until close to 6pm. The patio got pretty crowded after a while. Finally, around six or so they led us around the side of the Capitol to a parking area where the buses would come in to pick us up. (Incidentally, these were “green” biodiesel DC busses.) But there was room for only 30 or so on each bus, and before you could get on a bus you had to be searched again, your possessions removed (including any water you happened to have) and placed in a plastic bag on which your name was written in magic marker. Your ID was put in your pocket for use in the next stage of the process. All this was obviously pretty time-consuming — a very familiar hurry-up and wait experience. As we stood in this long line, Elliott Adams discovered a crushed water bottle on the ground and kicked it. Someone kicked it back and a short game of kick-the-bottle ensued to fill the time. Eventually Elliott, Ellen, Mike and I all ended up on the same bus and off we went to the Capitol Police processing area in an old garage in southwest (or maybe it was southeast) Washington. Across the street a small crowd of supporters from the march had gathered to offer moral support.
There we sat and sat and sat — on the bus. When we arrived a policeman got on the bus and explained that there were two full buses ahead of us so we would be on the bus for quite a while. He told us that after we were processed, people who lived in DC, Maryland, or Virginia could be released without bail until their appointed court dates. Those of use from other states could be released on $100 bail — cash only — until a court date. Out of area folks without access to $100 were out of luck and would be transferred to jail until a Monday hearing. But to be released in any event required photo ID. Immediately people on the bus were offering cash to those out-of-area folks who didn’t have it. But there was one young woman who didn’t have any ID.
He said we could stand up and stretch and try to make ourselves as comfortable as we could. Some asked if we could get some water as a number of people on the bus were pretty dehydrated. He said he would do what he could. A woman said that she needed her medication that had been taken with her belongings. The cop said he could do nothing about that. Someone asked how long we were likely to be on the bus. “No idea. Probably an hour or two.”
The IVAW and VFP folks for the most part took this all in stride. After all, no one was shooting at us and we knew we had invited arrest. But some others in the bus were not mentally or emotionally prepared for the experience and the stress started to show on them. A young man in the seat behind me with a “smiley face” drawn on his forehead was particularly “unsmiley.” One of the women on the bus managed to work her hands under her butt and past her feet so her cuffed hands were in front of her. A policeman noticed and recuffed her. A young man across the aisle from me opened up the window and stuck his head out to talk to a friend on the sidewalk across the street. A cop quickly pulled him back and closed the window, explaining that this was for safety. A vehicle could come by and knock his head off. This made sense, but I decided to test the logic, since I was on the side away from the traffic. I opened my window as far as it would go — about four inches. No reaction. OK.
Joe Hayes from Grand Junction, Colorado, a retired federal law enforcement officer (Park Service), decided to stand up on his seat. He stood there for a while until the cops on the bus decided that probably wasn’t a good idea. An policewoman who looked a great deal like my niece, Trish Boyle, went over to Joe and asked him to step down. At first he was going to be non-violently resistive. But then she looked up at him and very sweetly said, “Please step down. I don’t want to hurt your leg.” He melted and cooperated. From then on among ourselves we referred to the policewoman as “Officer Sweetie.” We were all smitten.
But smitten though we were, after a couple of hours some of the natives were truly getting restless. We had gone through a couple of rounds of “No justice, no peace. US out of the middle east.” And “What did you learn in the service. War is not a game.” Then a woman police captain — as Henry Higgins might have said, “A large Wagnerian woman” got on board. “All of you sit down. I need to explain things to you.” Confronted by authority, a number of bus passengers started raising tough questions. “We’ve been detained for hours without food or water or access to medications. When you detain people you have a responsibility their welfare.” “I’ll see about water. We don’t have any food to give you. You can get your medications after you’ve been processed. Now close those windows and keep them closed. You can make this hard on yourselves or easy. We all want to get out of here, too.” She was big and tough. A counterpart to “Officer sweetie,” she soon got the nickname “Ironpants.” But still we sat.
Ironpants got off the bus and another good cop got on. When some people complained that the cuffs were too tight, he took them off one by one and loosened them a little. Others were getting very sore shoulders; he took the cuffs off and re-cuffed them in front. After all these hours they started escorting men and women to the bathroom one-by-one as they requested it. There was something of a “Stockholm Syndrome” in reverse going on. Some cops told us how much they respected what we were doing. One in particular was very articulate on the plight of immigrants and the poor. Nicest of all, he used his own cell phone to call a friend of the ID-less woman who could bring her her driver’s license from home!
I think it was about 8:30 or 9:00 when we finally got off the bus and lined up in the entryway to the processing center, essentially the driveway into the old garage. The evening was a beautiful as the day had been, with bright stars and mild air. A little on the cool side for those in short sleeves, but otherwise very comfortable as we stood in line for what seemed like an unnecessarily long time. Ironpants had explained that the lengthy delays were because they hadn’t expected so many customers. But this didn’t explain why about 50 cops seemed to be standing around doing nothing when they presumably could have been assisting on the intake process.
Eventually I got to the head of the line and was taken and searched for the third time with a very thorough “pat down.” A blue plastic bracelet and a yellow plastic bracelet were then secured on my wrist along with a stiff plastic strip that had a token with the number 128 attached to it. The colored strips apparently identified which bus I had been on. The 123 was my ID number for the process, including the number for my eventual mug shot. The contents of my personal effects bag were inventoried and I was led over to the booking table where about a dozen or so young policemen entered the booking data — although all bookings were “officially” signed by officer Dougherty, a very serious looking, unsmiling, blue-eyed, blond-haired, 250 pound football player. Most of the cops at the table were vets themselves; rapport was easily established and the bookings went smoothly. After booking, we were shown to plastic chairs that were set up “theatre style” facing the booking table.
For the first few hours, the police kept us in our own color-coded areas, but as the hours stretched on they pretty much let us move around the room at will. Every once in a while someone would raise a peace chant of one sort or another, just to remind both the detainers and the detained of why we were there. These most often followed an assertion of authority by Captain Ironpants. Over the course of the evening, her attitude seemed to change. Elliott Adams feels that she actually had an epiphany of sorts. At about 4:30 in the morning she ordered one of the junior officers to go over to a nearby cafeteria and see if they had any sandwiches left over from the night before. Soon he was back with a couple of hundred baloney and cheese sandwiches and several dozen doughnuts. Ironpants asked us to come up and get what we wanted in an orderly fashion which we greeted with both laughter and compliance. By about 5am the processing seemed to accelerate. We all got the impression they wanted to complete it all before the next shift change.
At about 5:30 am, number 128 was called for the mug shot. I sat down next to another grim faced officer who was holding a sign with number 128 on it. We were facing a small digital camera and flash. I asked the grim-faced officer if I could get a couple of 8X10 glossies for my kids, but he didn’t smile. Then back to the chair.
I think it was 5:45 when I number 128 was called again. First I was taken over to a table where my personal effects bag was returned to me. I was told not to open it until released. Then to another table where options were explained to me. I seriously considered staying in jail until Monday, just as a matter of principle. I had asked Mike about it. He had been in DC Metro jail a few months earlier with a couple of hundred Christians who had been protesting the war in front of the White House. He advised against it. I had brought along a couple of hundred dollars just in case I needed to pay cash bail, but I decided to hold onto the money for the time being since I anticipated another possible arrest later in the week if we are able to pull off our “No Exit” protest. It turns out that if you send in the fine about 10 days before your appointed court date, you don’t have to show up. That provides some flexibility; so I decided on that option and signed the citation to appear in court. The last step was finger printing. Actually just right thumb printing. Five times. Then the officer put some detergent in my left palm, told me to rub my thumb around in it a few times and wipe it off. Then I was free to go.
As each of us left, those still to be processed sent up a cheer. And after we walked out the door into the back alley behind the processing center we got our belongings out of the plastic bag, put the bag in the dumpster, and strolled out to the sidewalk where a small welcoming committee from ANSWER and Code Pink was waiting for us to “sign out.” I waited for Elliott, Ellen, Will Covert, and Mike to show up. By this time the sky was getting light, the dawn of another beautiful day. We all had breakfast together and then headed over to the Vietnam Memorial to join an informal memorial service for Dave Cline, former president of VFP, who had died just a few days before.
Now I’ve probably told you a lot more about the whole process than you wanted to know. But there it is.
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Kenneth E. MayersVeterans for Peace - Santa Fe
Sow justice, reap peace!