On Tuesday evening at the Port of Olympia, 41 women, including myself, were arrested for forming a human blockade of the exit of the port to the street. The point of an all-women blockade was to stand in solidarity with the women of Iraq. We held a banner that had a women's symbol and the word "solidarity" written on it. We were waiting for the riot cops or the military shipments to come through- whichever was first, and it turned out to be the riot cops.
We forms a blockade by sitting down on the street and linking arms. We were told by police repeatedly to disperse or we would be arrested or have force used against us. We were shouting, among other things, "we are nonviolent, no force is neccesary" "we will not resist arrest" "we are mothers we are sisters we support the war resisters" "no justice, no peace, US out of the middle east". In return, our supporters chanted, "thank you sisters, you are not alone" "sisters, united, will never be defeated," etc.
The riot cops came forward, after about 20 minutes of our blockade. This was the most difficult part of the experience, because we were not sure if they were going to use force against us. Apparently, as a lawyer pointed out to our friend on the megaphone, if you state that you are not resisting arrest, it is illegal to use chemical weapons such as pepper spray or tear gas against people. So, the riot cops dragged or walked all 39 of us away over the course of an hour or so. I was the third to last to be arrested. We all chanted until the end, with the last remaining woman chanting by herself.
Since there were so many women arrested and only one paddy wagon, the last 17 of us were held, in plasticuffs, on an intercity transit bus. What is important about this is that TJ Johnson, the city council member, chair of the Intercity Transit Authority, and vocal anti-war activist was out of town on Tuesday. He had said repeatedly that intercity transit busses will not be used during protests, but they did this night because he wasn't there to say anything about it.
While we were held on the bus, a counter-protester exposed himself to us. We yelled out the window to passing cops and they all ignored us, when finally one told us to just "not look then." Finally one officer walked over to tell him to put it away, which he did, but he was not arrested. This is particularly disturbing because he was doing a blatant illegal act, to the extent that the offender has to register as a sex offender, but he was not given more than a slap on the wrist. This may have been a good thing in some ways, however, because if he were arrested then he would have been on the bus with us.
From the windows of the bus, we could see the action taking place outside. This is incredibly traumatic for the arrestees, because we could see our nonviolent supporters, friends, family, etc. being pepper sprayed and have tear gas used against them. We saw them running down the street to block the shipments that were going out the other exit, and the utter chaos that broke out. It was, of course, very difficult to watch, especially from the vantage point of having nothing to do with it.
We were taken to Olympia City Jail (the same building where you may have paid your city of olympia water bill) and held for about 3 hours. None of us left with charges, and none of us have received charges yet.
We heard from our clandestine telephone calls on the bus and from after being released from jail, the hell that broke loose after we were arrested. People were throwing dumpsters into the streets, unsuccessfully attempting to block shipments by any means possible. A few protesters threw rocks at cop cars and at the US Bank downtown. However, just because of few activists threw rocks does not mean it represents the entire group! In return, the police used pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, and rubber bullets.
The media's portrayal of these events is, of course, skewed in a lot of ways. First of all, most mainstream outlets are not reporting that it was 41 women and three men that were arrested, and that human blockade was quite obviously a "women's blockade." One of the AP photographs from that night shows one of the three men that were arrested, rather than one of the 41 women that were. They also make it seem that the 45 people that were arrested that night were arrested because of the things that happened after we were all handcuffed!
This is the best video I could find of the women's blockade:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rwG5UYY7OM0
