BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Detainees at the Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Angola are on a hunger strike.
According to a release, 19 detainees at the new ICE facility, Camp 47, sparked a hunger strike against “inhumane conditions.”
The detainees are demanding medical care and prescriptions, mental health care, basic necessities, and visitation from ICE officers for assistance.
Organizations, such as the National Immigration Project (NIPNLG) and the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition (SEDND), have received reports about detainees missing basic hygiene products and neglected health conditions. The detainees also shared that the facility lacks key services, including a law library and religious services, which are required by the Performance-Based National Detention Standards.
“Governor [Jeff] Landry declared a so-called ‘state of emergency’ in order to reopen yet another inhumane detention center on Louisiana taxpayers’ dime. But the real emergency is what’s happening inside: people are being denied life-saving medication, and some may die as a result. These hunger strikers are bravely speaking out, risking retaliation from Camp J guards and putting their own lives on the line to ensure those around them receive the medical care they need,” said the Steering Committee of the Southeast Dignity not Detention Coalition.
“We stand with the hunger strikers as they demand basic necessities to which all humans are entitled. Angola’s not being able to provide necessary medical care, hygiene supplies, and access to other essential services is just another reason why this facility should be shut down,” said Bridget Pranzatelli of the National Immigration Project.
In July, Landry published an executive order to repair the facility formerly known as Camp J. The order stated that Camp J was in a state of deterioration and posed an injury risk for anyone in the facility.
On Sept. 3, Landry announced Camp 47’s opening, stating that 51 detainees were already housed at the facility.
Report on hunger strike organized by African detainees in the Bravo Delta dorm of the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center from Perilous Chronicle. by Ryan Fatica
On August 10, 48 African detainees in the Bravo Delta dorm of the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center declared their collective refusal to eat, continuing a yearslong saga of collective protest and repression that has characterized their fight for asylum on the continent. The majority of the strikers are English-speakers from Cameroon, where armed conflict is making the country increasingly unlivable, and where the English-speaking minority faces repression by the country’s authoritarian government. After crossing three continents and an ocean seeking safety in the US, their battle for human dignity continues within ICE detention. Sylvie Bello, of the Cameroonian American Council, situated the hunger strike in the broader context of Black August, a celebration that began in California’s prison system in the 1970s to commemorate the death of Black Panther leader and incarcerated intellectual George Jackson. “August is Black August,” Bello told Perilous in an interview, “and in the spirit of the ancestors before them and the elders before them who started what is known as Black August out in California, the Cameroonians at Pine Prairie led a protest in the form of a hunger strike.” The strike follows other significant protests led by Cameroonians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention this year, including one in February (Black History Month) and one on Juneteenth, a yearly celebration of the formal end of chattel slavery in the US. Citing the significance of Juneteenth, the strikers released a video and audio statement explaining their motivation for acting. The August 10 hunger strike was met with immediate violence by guards, according to detainees who spoke with the Southern Poverty Law Center. One striker reported that as they returned to their dorms after refusing to eat in the cafeteria, guards tackled three detainees, intending to take them to solitary confinement. A scuffle ensued as the remaining 45 detainees refused to return to their dorms until the three were released. “I stood up so strongly,” the detainee recalled, “they had guns, I tried to remove [the officer]’s leg from them, they were trying to put them in a choke hold, I ran toward them, he was pointing a gun at us, a long gun. I asked them to shoot me and kill me.” As a result of their courage, the three detainees bound for solitary were released and returned to their unit with the rest of the strikers. Detainees paused the strike when ICE agreed to negotiate, but these talks broke down, and by August 21st the strike was back on. Rose Murray of the Southern Poverty Law Center has been in touch with the strikers. In an email to Perilous, Murray outlined the repression they are facing as a result of their resistance. “All 45 hunger strikers have been taken to [segregation], and one Cameroonian who just came out of surgery who is not even on hunger strike, whose health is precarious, has been taken as well,” Murray wrote. “Earlier today officials in militarized gear came to take them to [segregation], ‘dressed as if they were going to war.’” Detainees also reported a lack of sanitation precautions in response to COVID-19. “In front of the strikers,” Murray wrote, “officials cleared out people from the rooms who had not completed their 14 day quarantine period, who had been transferred into Pine Prairie from other facilities. They did not clean out the rooms in between and instead the strikers were made to go into the rooms immediately after the quarantined individuals were escorted out.” Bryan D. Cox, ICE spokesperson for the Southeastern region, told the Louisiana Illuminator that “claims regarding an extended hunger strike by a group of detainees at the facility are not accurate.” ICE guidelines only recognize a hunger strike once a detainee has missed 9 consecutive meals.
Resistance to Indefinite Detention Louisiana is the center of the immigration detention boom under the Trump administration. Nine facilities in the state signed new contracts to house migrants in recent years, many of them cash-strapped parish jails in rural areas with few job opportunities or other sources of economic activity. The rapid rise in the number of immigrant detainees housed in Louisiana is in large part due to the low per-diem rate facilities in the state charge ICE. According to The Times-Picayune, the average cost of housing an ICE detainee in Louisiana is about $65 per day, as compared with the average national rate of $126 per day. According to detainees and their supporters, the motivations for the hunger strike are many, including the conditions of the for-profit Louisiana detention center and the dysfunctional immigration system in which the strikers are caught. Many strikers complain of gross medical neglect, saying their conditions have continued to worsen during their long stay in detention. According to newly-released detention data from ICE, during fiscal year 2020, the average stay in ICE detention is 61 days, which has increased from previous years. At Pine Prairie, the average length of stay is 86 days. Nonetheless, according to Bello, the majority of Cameroonians at Pine Prairie have been detained at the facility for more than a year, including one 23-year-old who has been held there for nearly two years. Similar conditions exist at Winn Correctional, another for-profit detention center operated under contract with ICE in Louisiana. At Winn, the average length of stay in fiscal year 2020 was 118 days, but 8 Central American detainees interviewed by Perilous reported that they had been detained at the facility for over a year. Detainees led a protest earlier this month, demanding basic information about their cases and an end to indefinite detention, among other concerns.
Seeking Refuge Halfway Around the World Although the majority of migrants seeking entry into the United States are Central Americans, a growing number began their journey much farther away, many boarding planes in various African countries to fly into South American airports with lax immigration standards, such as in Ecuador and Brazil. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the number of “extracontinental” migrants (those traveling to the Americas whose origin is not the Western Hemisphere) seeking refuge in the Americas has increased dramatically in recent years, due in part to stricter immigration policies put in place by European countries. (Source: Caitlyn Yates, Migration Policy Institute).
“Extracontinental migrants most frequently have the United States or Canada in mind as their final destination,” wrote Caitlyn Yates in a report last year on African and Asian migration to the Americas, “though given that this is an arduous, expensive, and often dangerous journey, some abandon their quest and instead remain in South America, whether by choice or circumstance.” According to Yates, “The top origin countries for Africans apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol are Eritrea, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).” However, she points out, these numbers do not include those migrants who turn themselves in at ports of entry, declaring their request for asylum. Data on migrants seeking asylum at ports of entry by nationality are not maintained by the government, so it is impossible to know the exact number. According to The Los Angeles Times, “Mexican authorities apprehended a record 4,779 migrants from Africa in the first seven months” of 2019, “nearly four times the number detained during the same period in 2018.” Many of those migrants are from Cameroon. When asked why Cameroonians were fleeing their country in such large numbers right now, Bello was very clear about where the blame lies. “The short answer: as a result of American foreign policy.” As the Illuminator reports, applications for the release of Cameroonians are denied at a rate 2.5 times higher than other applicants. According to Bello, the immigration system in Louisiana is particularly dysfunctional. “In normal process”, Bello observed, detainees are released shortly after being detained, and in many states Cameroonians are continuing to be released even under the Trump administration. “Let’s take Adelanto, or Otay Mesa [in California],” Bello continued, “or even in Arizona we have several Cameroonians in Arizona who have been released by bond. Who have been released by parole. Who have been released directly by asylum. Louisiana will not let up. They just will not.” Neither, it seems, will the resistance.
A Legacy of Resistance The strike at Pine Prairie is not an isolated incident, but the continuation of at least a year of consistent protest on the part of African immigrants against the failure of the global community to grant them refuge as they flee their often war-torn countries of origin. According to Sylvie Bello of the Cameroonian American Council, this legacy of resistance to unjust immigration policies stretches back to before these migrants found themselves in ICE detention. On July 9, 2019, African immigrants staged a protest in Tijuana, Mexico, blocking Mexican transport vans in protest of what they said was systemic discrimination against African asylum seekers in that country.
A month later, on August 19, 2019, another group of African immigrants staged a protest in Tapachula, Mexico, near the country’s southern border with Guatemala. The asylum seekers were stuck in the city for weeks where they were denied the documentation necessary to continue their journey north. The migrants, mostly women and children, held banners and laid in the road, blocking transport vans at the border through which they’d been denied entry.
Alain Tita Mongu, a Cameroonian emigrant who spoke with The Observer explained the status of legal limbo many Africans found themselves in: Two days after I arrived in Mexico, I was put in immigration detention in Tapachula for having entered the country illegally. Two weeks later, they released me and handed me a document that I thought would guarantee me freedom to travel through the country– some of the Africans who arrived in Mexico a few months prior had explained to me that’s how it works. So I immediately hopped on a bus going north. But about an hour and half into my journey, there was a security check and I was sent to Tapachula. It turned out that the document that I had didn’t even authorise me to leave Chiapas. I had to go to the Mexican immigration service in Tapachula’s Las Vegas neighbourhood. Once there, I realized that my document was utterly useless because it stated that I was “stateless”.
The hunger strike this month at Pine Prairie is at least the fourth major protest led by Cameroonians in ICE detention this year. In late February, female Cameroonian detainees at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas engaged in a sit-down strike in protest of indefinite detention, inadequate medical care and other issues. The women released a letter at the start of their strike, explaining the conditions they faced:
Some of our sisters are sick and not being well treated. Others are running mad due to trauma and stress. One person is on a wheelchair who needs surgery and many others with serious health conditions who also need surgery but are be neglected. The medical department is very rude to us, they tell us we’re pretending to be sick even when someone is in serious pain, they laugh and mock at your medical condition, they give wrong medication to patients and they don’t attend to you when you really need medical attention. Being in detention for more than 6 months as refugees we’ve never seen any Human Rights Official or Organizations for Refugees or even posts on notice boards. When we asked the ICE Supervisor, Mr. Nicholas Fawler, he told us he doesn’t have any connection with the Human Rights Committee or any UN Organization. We are being treated unfairly and there is a lot of discrimination between the African women and the whites. Almost all the white women we came in with and even others who came after us have been released on parole and bond but we’ve been denied both parole and bond.
The following week, on March 3, 2020, male Cameroonian detainees at Pine Prairie organized a hunger strike that lasted at least ten days in protest of their conditions of confinement and the dysfunctional asylum process they faced. In response, all of the hunger strikers were transferred to solitary confinement in retaliation for their protest. In the solitude of isolation cells, the detainees decided to end the strike. In an email, an attorney in touch with the strikers described the retaliation they faced: 43 of them were put in segregation to break up the strike, and while in [segregation] several of them reported that they were not given water and that they were forced to drink out of the toilet. This is unrelated to COVID-19, although the lack of basic sanitation is especially striking in the context of an exploding pandemic. Months later, the same migrants again find themselves in segregation for acting together to demand justice. As far as we know, their protest continues despite their transfer to segregation, but it is not clear how long they will be able to sustain their strike after all they’ve been through. Almost exactly a year after their protest at the Mexican-Guatemalan border and nearly two thousand miles further north, the migrants continue their fight for the dignity of a home and an end to a life of uncertainty and conflict. During their Juneteenth protest earlier this year, one Cameroonian held up a sign for the world to see, with the words “God is Watching” scrawled in thick, block letters. Neither a demand nor a plea, this simple statement of existential certainty was directed at the human community like a mirror held up, forcing us to face ourselves.
Guards at Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail deployed teargas and engaged in a mass beating of detainees to quell a mini-uprising, it was reported on Friday.
The allegations, made by at least three detainees in phone calls come as authorities race to empty the camp in compliance with a judge’s order to close the remote tented camp in the Everglades wetlands.
The incident took place after several migrants held there began shouting for “freedom” after one received news a relative had died, according to the outlet. A team of guards then rushed in and began beating individuals indiscriminately with batons, and fired teargas at them, the detainees said.
“They’ve beaten everyone here, a lot of people have bled. Brother, teargas. We are immigrants, we are not criminals, we are not murderers,” one of the men reportedly told Noticias 23 in a call.
The detainees claimed a fire alarm was sounding continuously, and a helicopter was heard circling overhead.
Reports of “inhumane” conditions and brutality at the camp, where migrants are held in metal cages as they await deportation, have become commonplace. Donald Trump and Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, celebrated its harsh environment as they toured the facility together when it opened last month.
Kathleen Williams, a federal judge in Miami, last week ordered Alligator Alcatraz to close within 60 days for breaching environmental laws, and on Wednesday refused a motion by attorneys for the state of Florida and the Trump administration to stay her order.
It was not clear when the latest incident is alleged to have taken place, and the Guardian was unable to independently confirm details.
The Florida division of emergency management (FDEM), which operates the jail on behalf of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), denied it had occurred.
“These reports are manufactured. There is no uprising happening at Alligator Alcatraz. Detainees are given clean, safe living conditions and guards are properly trained on all state and federal protocols,” Stephanie Hartman, the department’s director of communications, said in an email.
Protesters who have maintained an almost constant presence at the jail’s gates since its 2 July opening said they were unaware of any incident amounting to an uprising, but have chronicled other reports of abuse taking place there.
“People held inside the facility were on hunger strike for more than 14 days, despite the DeSantis administration denying it. What they apparently did was ship people who were hunger striking out to other facilities, Krome [in Miami], to Texas etc, to break it up,” said Noelle Damico, director of social justice at the Workers Circle.
“[An uprising] would not surprise me given the abuses that people have experienced.”
DeSantis told reporters on Wednesday that authorities have “increased the pace of the removals from there”, after Kevin Guthrie, executive director of FDEM, revealed in a memo, reported by the Associated Press, that “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days”.
The governor announced plans earlier this month for a new immigration jail in north Florida, to be called “the deportation depot”, while other states have joined the push to build detention camps with names mocking immigrants, including the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana, and the “Cornhusker Clink” in Nebraska.Unravel
We are aggrieved to report that the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office has arrested another member of the Dallas-Fort Worth community in relation to the July 4th Prairieland ICE Detention Center protest, bringing the total number of defendants in the case to seventeen. This person, Susan Kent, was also a member of the DFW Support Committee, the defense committee for the Prairieland Defendants. Like the rest of the defendants, their bond amount is set to an absurd and prohibitive $10 million dollars. We denounce this escalation by the state in its desperate attempts to criminalize people showing solidarity with those being kidnapped by ICE and to undermine dissent against rising authoritarianism.
From the beginning, this case has been rife with inconsistencies, unbelievable accusations, and violence against the defendants and their loved ones. We do not know the state’s allegations against Susan, but we believe this arrest is part of the state’s attempt to terrorize the residents of Dallas-Fort Worth. To arrest someone well over a month after the July 4th event signals the state’s dogged attempt to tear through this community. Susan was actively working to support the defendants, to advocate for them to get the best legal defense possible and encourage them to exercise their constitutional rights. Forcing this person to endure the same horrific conditions as the defendants they were working to support fits the state’s tactics of repression in this case: brutalizing defendants’ family members, conducting violent raids, subjecting defendants to solitary confinement, incessantly strip searching defendants, and other cruelty, such as forcing a defendant to clean feces off the walls of their cell. This case is emblematic of the outrageous arrests happening around the country, including in Spokane, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, as well as the unnecessary federalization of police in Washington DC, all while legal cases against protestors in Los Angeles are falling apart due to lack of evidence. These actions by the state are not meant to seek justice or truth. They instead intend to terrify us and fracture solidarity among our movements. But we won’t let them succeed.
Our friends and loved ones sought to show support for immigrants and ICE detainees facing brutal violence at the hands of the state. The Prairieland defendants are not terrorists. The real terrorists are the ICE agents kidnapping people off the street, destroying families and communities. We are devastated at Susan’s arrest, but we are not deterred. We call on all those who support resistance and seek a freer world to stand up against this brutality and repression. For more information about the Prairieland defendants and how you can help raise funds for their defense, please go to dfwdefendants.wordpress.com or donate to the crowd fundraiser at givesendgo.com/supportDFWprotestors.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is expanding its processing center in Folkston, Ga. to double the current capacity, establishing the largest ICE detention center in the country.
The federal government brokered a deal with private prison company GEO to contract a now-defunct prison in Folkston as an additional holding space existing ICE facility.
“They’re going to be brought together, and when they come together, some it will be a detention center. Some of it will be a processing center, and some of it will be just for them to get ready to transfer,” Rep. Buddy Carter (GA-01) said.
According to GEO, the facility is under contract with ICE as of June 6.
A protest against federal immigration enforcement escalated Saturday afternoon along Chamblee Tucker Road, where police used tear gas and arrested multiple demonstrators after declaring the gathering an unlawful assembly.
The protest, organized to oppose the Trump administration’s immigration policies and ICE operations, drew dozens of people waving flags and chanting along the road near a shopping center. The crowd soon filled the sidewalks.
The central effort of the DeKalb protest, organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation and local activists, was a march down Chamblee Tucker Road. The protesters reportedly wanted to march onto I-285, but a large law enforcement presence was massed to block them.
DeKalb County police say the demonstrators ignored repeated orders to stay on the sidewalk, prompting officers—many in riot gear from both DeKalb County Police and the Georgia State Patrol—to respond with crowd control measures.
Around 1:45 p.m., [news source] reporters saw officers in riot gear shooting tear gas to break up the rally.
After police threw the gas and moved the crowd, protesters could be heard chanting, “oink, oink piggy, piggy” and “stop cop city.”
DeKalb officials reported at least eight arrests as of 5 p.m.
Among those arrested was Mario Guevara, a prominent metro Atlanta journalist known for his reporting on immigration raids. Attorneys for journalist Mario Guevara say he was here on a work authorization and is trying to get a green card, but remains in the DeKalb County Jail on an ICE hold despite being granted a signature bond following his arrest on Saturday.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Tuesday night along Buford Highway in Brookhaven to protest recent immigration raids and deportations carried out under the Trump administration, joining a wave of unrest that has swept across the country.
The protest, held outside Northeast Plaza, drew a large and passionate crowd of activists, families, and community members. Many carried signs, chanted in English and Spanish, and shared personal stories of family members detained or deported.
Officials say they arrested one person around 7:30 p.m. and five people were arrested after the protest continued past the time that officers and organizers agreed for the rally to end.
Charges range from disorderly conduct to assaulting a peace officer.
In a press release Wednesday, the Brookhaven Police Department said their officers responded to the organized protest in the 3300 block of Buford Highway, which was led by the Atlanta branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Police said the demonstration began peacefully, and Brookhaven officers “maintained open and constructive communication” with organizers throughout the protest, which remained nonviolent for most of the evening.
Around 7:30 p.m., police said they made their first arrest of the night – a man who allegedly walked into the road despite multiple warnings from officers to stay on the sidewalk.
[News source] cameras were on the scene as clashes between officers and the protesters began around 9:30 p.m.
Protesters set off fireworks as officers moved to break up the remainder of the rally.
Brookhaven police say that the officers made multiple announcements of the agreed-upon cutoff, telling the remaining group that the “assembly would be deemed unlawful” after that time.
Once the cutoff arrived, authorities say several people began throwing rocks and shooting firework mortars, which led to the officers using tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Officials say that three Brookhaven Police vehicles were damaged in the incident; they described that as including “multiple windows being smashed in.”
The wave of resistance to federal raids that erupted in Minneapolis and spread to Los Angeles is generating shockwaves of revolt all around the country.1 As Donald Trump concentrates National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles in an effort to terrorize those who are bravely standing up for their communities, the best form of solidarity is to extend the battle lines far and wide, overstretching the mercenaries who serve him. In the following account, participants in a demonstration in Austin, Texas on June 9 describe how they escaped the control of party organizers who sought to limit the potential of the protest, then evaded police for two hours, escalating the pressure on those who seek to subdue us.
Melt ICE, Be Water
On the evening of Monday, June 9, over 600 protesters gathered at the Texas Capitol for a march announced by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. A revolutionary organization called for a parallel demonstration with a start time set an hour and a half later in front of the JJ Pickle Federal building, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility four blocks from the Capitol.
The PSL rally began marching, tailed by a police motorcycle escort, and reached the ICE facility by 7:45 pm. The group was energetic and angry. A huge crowd chanted outside the building. Drummers beat a rhythm to the sound of breaking windows. Some people dragged scooters into the street; others painted pro-immigration and anti-ICE slogans or threw balloons filled with paint. All the while, red-shirted organizers from PSL were urging the crowd to keep moving. Dozens of people pushed back, chanting “ICE is right here!” Nonetheless, by 8 pm, the PSL organizers had mobilized most of the crowd back towards the capitol, successfully convincing some participants to tell others that moving would keep the group safe. A splinter group of about 100 stayed behind and continued to express their feelings with art and music. The march was effectively split between those who were acting on their own initiative and those who were submitting to the authority of the PSL.
The march surrounds the JJ Pickle Federal Building in Downtown Austin, which ICE uses as a base of operations and temporary detention center.
PSL shepherded the larger group back towards the capitol building, to an intersection with nothing but high fences, mounted cops, and streets blockaded by police. PSL organizers got on the microphone to formally disband the march. They thanked everybody for coming and encouraged them to go home and rest up to do it all again later. The crowd grew uncertain, largely returning to the sidewalk in front of the fenced off capitol and very nearly ceding the street to the police except for a few insistent spirits who remained in the intersection, dancing with banners. Troopers blared their sirens on both sides and commanded them to get onto the sidewalk—but the dancers stayed, leading chants of “Chinga la migra! Chinga la migra!”
Meanwhile, at the Pickle ICE facility, police tear-gassed the remaining revelers and tackled some of them to the ground, pushing the crowd away from the building.
Unaware of this, the cheerleaders at the capitol continued to dance, especially when the walk signal was on, inspiring some of the crowd to flood out across the street. The crowd re-mobilized in waves. This first wave took a sidewalk route back to the Pickle, where it collided with the smaller splinter group that had just been gassed. Together, they created a barrier of scooters across the street behind them and began to square off with the police in front of them.
Protesters stand behind a line of electric scooters dragged into the streets to defend against police incursions.
Back at the capitol, a chant of “Whose streets? Our streets!” brought the hundreds still on the sidewalk back into the intersection and returning south on Congress Avenue.
Almost immediately, two motorcycle cops confronted the crowd. People hesitated but pushed on. The chopper cops tried to discourage them by blaring their sirens and driving forward. One motorcycle drove into the crowd at high speed, forcing protestors to jump aside. There were immediate consequences for his aggression: a crowd surrounded his vehicle and forced him off of it and to the ground. Meanwhile, the news arrived that the small group at the Pickle building had been gassed and dispersed with a few arrests made. Although this caused a moment of hesitation, when the crowd rounded 8th Street and came upon the barrier line of lime scooters, people became jubilant.
A state trooper pepper sprays a protester after a confrontation in response to officers driving their motorcycles into the crowd.
Faced with a line of police blocking access to the building, the mostly reassembled crowd turned around. When they reached Congress Avenue again moving west, there was a line of cruisers directly ahead and a line of bike cops to the left. Immediately, the crowd found a gap in the bike line on the sidewalk and flooded through it, embodying the watchword of the Hong Kong uprising of 2019, “Be water”—though many were too young to have heard this saying in the George Floyd rebellion of 2020.
The crowd quickly realized what a victory this evasive maneuver was. Suddenly, there were no flashing lights to be seen. They had broken out of the police cordon. For the next few hours, they were able to move freely through downtown Austin.
“Chinga la migra!” resounded throughout the downtown streets. Rambunctious and playful activity escalated, each gesture building upon the last. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was moved into the street: orange barrels, scooters, event signs. The muses sang to painters from banks and venture capital firms. Some downtown businesses lost windows, some parked Lexuses lost the wind in their sails.
The crowd proceeded south down Congress, reaching the Congress bridge and starting across it. At this point, the front of the march was far ahead of rest of the march. People were uncertain about crossing the bridge out of downtown; some started moving onto the sidewalk. There was a moment of hesitation before the crowd doubled back, heading back to familiar targets like City Hall, the capitol, and downtown in general.
Then they moved west on MLK along the river, stopping at City Hall to hang the Mexican flag over the balcony before traveling north ten long Texas blocks all the way back to the capitol. Fortunately, there, they encountered the remains of the group that had originally remained at the JJ Pickle building until they were tear-gassed and dispersed. There were chants of “LA—lead the way!”
Bolstered back up to two or three hundred people, the crowd finally returned to the Pickle building. More windows were broken. Some trucks showed up and the drivers did burnouts while blasting electrifying music. People emptied water from construction barricades, flooding the street. Everyone loved it. Raucousness, dance party, good cheer.
Protesters overturn construction barricades, emptying them and filling the street with water.
The crowd continued on down to 6th Street, the main drag for nightlife. A scooter shattered the custom neon sign of The Mothership, Joe Rogan’s comedy bar. Though the venue appeared closed with its shutter rolled down, it was later learned from Reddit that there was a show going on inside. After this point, the crowd struggled to decide on a route, which slowed it down. This indecisiveness led the crowd to fall back on habit rather than strategy. Memory carried it against its better interests back towards the capitol and the police.
After not seeing a single cop for nearly two hours, the crowd began to encounter motorcycle units at intersections again. Rather than pushing through these units as people had done at first—which the crowd easily could have done again—the crowd allowed the police to determine their route. This went on for at least twenty minutes. That was a fatal mistake: the crowd was permitting the police to guide them into an ambush. People could have moved farther away and dispersed with no arrests, but instead, they walked directly into a trap.
After marching back up 6th Street, the crowd continued west past Congress, the street leading to the capitol building. Within a few blocks, a line of state troopers on motorcycles confronted the march, blocking the way forward. Once again indecisive, the crowd began to split up into different groups—one going north, one south—before consolidating into a single mass heading south. They barely got halfway down the block before two unmarked white vans in the intersection ahead unloaded squads of APD riot cops armed with pepperball guns. Aware that they were in danger of being cornered, the crowd turned down an alley. Those running ahead quickly turned back as a side by side full of more APD riot cops blocked the intersection. The APD cops dismounted and chased people down the alley, grabbing people at random and shooting pepperballs that gassed protesters and some of their own officers for good measure. This pincer move dispersed much of the crowd and led to a handful of arrests.
Shortly after this, a part of the crowd regrouped in front of the downtown tower that hosts the offices of Indeed, the job search company. There, two LRAD tanks confronted them on a busy street full of cars. The crowd targeted the operators of these tanks, pelting them with projectiles, while some of the trucks that had been following the protest prevented the tanks from moving further. This combination of tactics ultimately led to the tanks backing off.
At this point, the remaining participants dispersed for the evening.
Why did so much time pass during which the police were nowhere to be seen? First, the blockading genuinely interrupted their ability to pursue the march. This was something that the Austin police had not experienced on this scale before. Second, they lacked the numbers to keep up with and corral the protest, and the combativeness of the crowd increased the costs they had to calculate for any engagement. And at the same time, while this crowd was marching, there was still a group surrounding and tagging the federal building and then clashing with cops, so their forces were split between that engagement, defending the capitol, and chasing us.
As a police officer described in response to the 2020 uprising,
We can handle one 10,000-person protest, but ten 1000-person protests throughout the city will overwhelm us.
Perhaps the police were told to stand down, or not to create a confrontation in the neighborhood that the march passed through, or to focus on the capitol and the federal building, but for now, we don’t know. The march didn’t experience significant confrontation with the police until we returned to the capitol, after which they were only trying to keep up with a single crowd. After that point, when the crowd continued marching, the police were likely clearing the streets and coming up with plans to disperse the crowd, leading to the ambush at the end.
A growing crowd occupies the street in front of the federal building.
We’ll conclude with some conclusions about the events of the evening and about what can come next.
The main takeaway from the evening is that this moment is explosive. A minimum of physical preparation and a bit of boldness sufficed to transform what would have been a predictable, toothless rally at the capitol into the most powerful demonstration against the racist and authoritarian regime that Austin has seen since 2020. The crowd was more tactically equipped than usual, with several individuals having brought gloves, goggles, art supplies, and respirators, but the most important thing is that right now, people feel urgency.
Also: it is important to plan for success. Demonstrators should arrive with an array of possible objectives in mind, in case they easily accomplish their initial goal; but once a march starts to repeat itself, doubling back on the same territory with diminishing returns, it may be time to conclude. In this case, the participants surprised themselves by getting past the police and opening up a new horizon of possibility. Yet after a while, they lost the ability to identify new targets and stay creative, instead becoming trapped in a loop circling the same few blocks of downtown. The crowd should either have dispersed earlier or identified a new target outside the territory they had repeatedly marched through. Once the crowd lost the ability to come up with new targets, move in new directions, or at least keep growing, it was only a matter of time before the police were able to regroup and launch an offensive.
Similarly, just as it is crucial to resist the efforts of self-appointed leaders to dictate what a demonstration can do, whenever possible, people should resist the efforts of police to determine their movements. When the crowd encountered a few chopper cops or a single cruiser in its way, some people would shout “they’re kettling us” and turn around rather than charging through. In fact, this is what enabled the police to herd the crowd directly into a situation in which they almost were kettled. It is important to be aware of efforts to kettle a crowd, but often the best way to avoid this is to move through police lines where they are thin, before they are reinforced.
Finally, it can help to have material reinforcements ready for delivery well after a march gets underway.
State troopers deploy tear gas in an attempt to disperse the protest, with some in the crowd launching the canisters back.
As the wave of resistance that started in Minneapolis and spread to Los Angeles unfolds into a nationwide revolt, we can anticipate more hot demonstrations to come. Now we know that people will turn out to combative mass demonstrations here, if they are invited to. Ahead of the next moment of possibility, there are a few things that crews could do now to prepare:
Find a minute to rest, heal, get grounded, share food, and reflect on your experiences, so you can be ready to act with all the resources at your disposal when the time comes.
Identify potential targets and what kinds of actions they could render possible. These could be specific buildings, institutions, neighborhoods, commercial districts. Generate flyers to circulate and build popular consciousness around these targets.
Decide as a crew what kinds of interventions you could make to help shift dynamics in the favor of the crowd. Could you decisively propose a new target and direct the crowd to it? Do you have a mutual aid project that could distribute gas masks, goggles, umbrellas, and other tools to help people continue to fight? Could you coordinate communications and outreach efforts to draw more people to the streets and reinforce the demonstrations? Can you mobilize simultaneous actions at multiple locations, especially locations at which nothing has happened before? Can you open up new spaces to reinforce and support frontliners? Can you help sustain the demonstration with food, medic support, water, transport, and other material needs?
The window of opportunity is open right now and the possibilities are endless. It is up to all of us to bring those possibilities into existence before the forces that seek to preserve a world of police, borders, and exploitation can slam it shut.
Graffiti on the federal building.
Liberals who feared that Donald Trump was intentionally provoking unrest in “blue states” in order to discredit Democratic politicians will have to come up with a new narrative as the unrest spreads to states ruled by Republicans.
