belated

The problem with this whole story is that there are two very separate issues at play here. You can probably guess why there were 1000 people on the Congress Avenue Bridge on Thursday night, but the fact isn't really relevant to the conversation. What you should know is that we went there legally, and that the bridge had been blocked off from traffic ahead of time.

You should also know that the event itself was fairly uneventful -- mostly drumming and chanting, which only holds my interest briefly. I took a few pictures earlier in the day, but they were in no way outstandingly different from ones I've taken in the past. I was rather uninspired by the whole affair until people decided to hold an all-night vigil on the bridge. On the bridge -- not the sidewalk. The idea, I think, was to prevent business as usual, as the Congress Avenue bridge is one of about three main thoroughfares between north and south Austin.

Shortly thereafter, the police department decided it was time for the protestors to leave the bridge. What looked like an army of motorcycle cops -- over a dozen, in any case, rode up in impressive formation to order the protestors to leave the bridge, but the crowd refused. One police officer started talking on a megaphone, but from my vantage point, no one could understand him clearly. The gist, I gathered, was that those who did not leave the street would be arrested.

The crowd was given a couple of warnings before two or three city buses full of riot police arrived, fully uniformed. On the north side of the bridge, they lined up in phalanx formation, and after several minutes, they began to march slowly toward the people on the bridge. The crowd, for the most part, held its ground. The police lined up across the bridge, on the sidewalks and the road, trying to force the crowd back, but the protestors didn't budge.

I stood on the sidewalk at this point, well within legal territory. The police were trying to back up the people on the sidewalks, too, since they flanked the protestors in the middle who had made the decision to be arrested, rather than leaving the bridge. On the east side of the bridge, where I stood, I was fifteen or twenty feet from the officers. The other people on the sidewalk were fairly calm, though many were trying to talk to the police officers. I had my camera on and was taking pictures of the riot police -- it seemed so unreal that full riot gear was needed to handle the peaceful crowd that I had been a part of for most of the afternoon.

At that point, I vividly remember seeing the first officer lift his container of pepper spray very suddenly and shoot it indiscriminately into the crowd, presumably trying to make it disperse. I was far enough away that I could see the mist approaching me, and I turned around and closed my eyes, avoiding the brunt of the pepper spray. The mist covered my arms and hands, as well as my hair to a lesser extent, and I inhaled some of it, causing me to cough for several seconds.

When the officer sprayed the crowd, mayhem ensued. No one was certain at first what the chemical was that he had sprayed. Those who had been sprayed in the face had red, irritated eyes, and most appeared to be crying. People were passing around bottles of water to flush others' eyes, and though the crowd retreated briefly, it quickly reformed several feet back.

I couldn't find C, and I was frantic. I imagined her having had some asthmatic attack as a reaction to the pepper spray, but I didn't see her anywhere in the crowd. As I was looking for her, I saw what appeared to be another cop spraying the group of people still sitting in the middle of the bridge. When they didn't disperse, the officers began handcuffing them and dragging them to the bus brought to the bridge for that purpose.

I finally saw C standing on a post on the side of the bridge, where it is flanked by a hike and bike trail. She was fine, but we both had co-opted our extra shirts to wear as masks, in case more pepper spray was shot at us. In the end, we stood on the sidewalk for close to another hour, until the riot police finally left, having dispersed most of the crowd on the other side of the bridge.

Analysis is still to come, but that'll have to wait until later.