In a beautiful occupation, self appointed leaders definitely took a toll. There were a lot of people starting convos about who to let in. Mostly informal, but some attempts at solidifying it in weird meetings. Some people decided to work the door. Instead of focusing on welcoming people, giving them encouragement to act autonomously, and making sure they have skills to stay safe from repression, many decided to try to sus out who’s a cop or not with it and turn people away.
Major movements draw out a lot of new people. Witnessing the horrors unfolding in Gaza will draw out a lot of new people. Whenever people are pushed away for bullshit, I’m reminded of Julia Butterfly Hill, who was doubted by everyone and looked over. She still sat in that tree for 738 days. What could the people turned away at the door have gone on to do?
Its pretty clear having one group set on acting as security and showing up with radios leads to some fucked up dynamics. Why ask the people near you if they can when you can hit a radio button. Sure radios helped with hearing reports from scouts and lookouts, but most of the chatter was people playing security against others. Take a shot every time someone says “deescalate” into one of those things.
We can keep each other safe without people acting as a self appointed security force. At one point a man was creeping on people in a really gross and sexual way. I’ll withhold the specifics, but he needed to go. It wasn’t anything to talk out. People asked the people around them if they were comfortable helping. It took less than a minute to find people. The guy slipped away for a bit but he got removed. Working together with the people around us helps us to develop the experience and skills needed to take care of each other in a way taking on rigid roles doesn’t.
A neat thing is you can take their radios. They leave them everywhere. A radio is definitely a thing to be cautious of. You’re holding something that connects directly with the cops and everyone’s discovery file. Its probably not a risk worth taking, but you can heckle wannabe managers, clog up the channel with that annoying ringing, or know what they’re up to. When the radio call to “deescalate the black bloc” went out, it was met with some heckling and warning to leave them alone. That pissed one guy off and he threatened to “deescalate” the hecklers. At at least one point people were trying to give radios away, but the same personalities dominate the airwaves and it just helped recruit. Where an assembly allows us to seek consensus and embrace autonomy in its absence, radios are even more easily dominated by a small group.
The May Day bloc went through a lot of bullshit from peace police, but no one searched via radio, unless those playing security switched their channels. After leaving the spot where the altercation with peace police happened, some of the returning bloc did run into a couple anarchists who were leaving from trying to take some heat off the bloc after overhearing on a radio they had scooped up. They we’re met with a vaguely threatening but mostly just annoying response from one person while trying to get past them. Keeping your head on in frustrating situations is important. No need to be aggro to everyone who isn’t your crew, especially if they showed up expecting and willing to fight to keep you safe. This is probably the origin of that rumor.
If some asshole peace police are hassling you under bright fluorescent lights in a crowded spot after a May Day stroll, don’t linger there and dont brag about how long you’ve been doing things. They’ll never listen.
There was a small night time meeting announced the night before May Day where a “facilitator” suggested coming to a “consensus” on who to exclude from the library the next day since May Day would bring a crowd. There were at most 2 dozen people in the room. After a little bit of push back, it was suggested cops could be in bloc too as a reason. I’m guessing they moved this discussion to closed circles or had more tiny poorly announced meetings that contributed to the reaction to the bloc getting there. It probably also contributed to the low numbers at night. The idea that we could sniff out infiltrators and that was how to stay safe was pretty prevalent point of discussion among younger people.
While people were being turned away, abusers and right wingers were weaseling their way around some with little push back. This includes, Alex Lilly/Riot Cop(stalker/abuser), David Rovics(friend of nazis, terf), Solar(rapist and serial abuser targeting trans women), and Mac Smiff(abuser). There were also some local right types like Brandon Farley, Angela Todd. Lilly was able to film a whole music video in front of the library and showed up to film people fighting the police after the raid. Its important to think about how so many shitty people reared their heads and how to keep them away from radical spaces in the future. One thing to think about is how we help people who are new, bad at recognizing people, or just stressed out, recognize people like this.
Lots of this occupation felt beautiful: the movie screenings, seeing young people realize the space is whatever they make it, finding cool cross stitch supplies, tankie tags getting fucked with, tankie anarchist unity tags getting fucked with, just hanging out, seeing friends’ old zines in the spread. A favorite was being approached by a group of students who heard they had missed an open mic wanting to set up a second one and asking who to talk to about it. They thought it was cool the space could be what we make it and they should talk to whoever they want to make it happen with. I thought it was cool seeing them realize for once they don’t have to ask permission. The occupation got raided before they could. There was a lot that happened, some of which was cool so it’d be nice to see more reflections.
The occupation ended when cops sent in a SWAT team to strategically raid the library. An elevator had been ineffectively sabotaged and the basement had been barricaded short of the tunnel to an adjacent building. What PPB has said is the first floor staircase had been barricaded shut and was the hardest to get past. After that, oil and wet paint coated the floors, and trip wires had been set up. They allege people were holding shields and they were sprayed with a fire extinguisher before people left the occupation. We know cops lie and the people in the library that morning can never tell their story.
How many university occupations are there going to be? We’ve seen Berkeley Free speech, Anti Vietnam War, the 1970s CUNY trans and queer occupation, 2008-10, etc. No matter what is happening, we know what side the universities are on. Fuck a less shitty university via demands. The university system must be destroyed.
35,000 people killed. 78,000 wounded in Gaza. Countless more mourning their loved ones. Its difficult to think on this scale. The attack on Rafah is beginning. Don’t stop because the spectacular protest event ended.
Shout out to those who stayed in the library after the cops announced they’d be arrested, blocked the paddy wagons, retook the library, showed up to court to support the captured. And of course, those facing charges and disciplinary action. Solidarity means attack.
Thanks for writing this up. The internal policing is unfortunate to hear about, and it’s telling that stalkers and rapists were let in, while black bloc were bounced. What else are police for?
In Denver during the George Floyd uprising, the main street medic crew, who also engaged in marshalling and peace policing, were working directly with FBI informant Mickey Windecker. He had them soliciting phone numbers and names from activists and fed them directly to the Denver Police Department and the FBI. Every number and name given to one of these street medics was handed over to law enforcement. Mickey was trusted because he was a “serious” and “disciplined” communist despite obvious signs he was some sort of op by experienced radicals. Much of the compromising info Mickey soliciting for law enforcement was sent over walkie-talkies. Mickey also effectively cop-jacketed people who didn’t fall in line. He even tried it with our crew after we blew his cover.
Peace police are useful assets to state counterinsurgency efforts, not only because they try to deescalate unrest, but also because they’re easy to trick into working with law enforcement.
What folks need to understand is that any public protest, like an occupation, will have infiltrators in it. It’s not possible to know the face of every cop, fascist, and snitch in town. This is why many radicals, anarchists in particular, have developed security practices that assume there are infiltrators in their midst. The only way to marshall every undercover out of the public demo, is to marshall every protester you don’t know either. Even then, there is a good chance peace policer officer is working with an undercover because they don’t understand threat modeling or security culture.
In solidarity,
Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists