Another Encounter With The Police

Tonight as I was walking home from campus (four blocks south on Telegraph, six blocks west on Dwight) I was stopped, frisked and had my id run by five officers in at least three cruisers and a larger Ford Explorer-type vehicle.

I was on the northeast corner of Shattuck and Dwight, stopped and waiting for the crosswalk signal, when a cruiser – without its lights on – quickly swerved into the small off-street parking and came to a stop about six feet from where I stood.  I was surprised and gave a quick look around to see if something seemed to be going on nearby.  The street was next to empty and quiet.  I was standing still, with my sleeping bag (in its bag) sitting on the ground next to me, while I checked my phone for text messages.  The officer approached me.

“Have you seen anybody acting weird around here?” He asked.  The tone of his voice and the swift, yet non-confrontational, way with which he approached me did not immediately cause alarm.  I looked around and replied that I had not, asked him how the man had been behaving and informed him that I hadn’t really seen anyone on my walk.  I told him that I’d just walked all the way down from Telegraph.  He then informs me that it had been someone who “fit my description, is all.”  My hand had been in my front pocket, and he asked me to remove it.  It was at this point that I realized that I was, indeed, his target and potentially guilty of having, at some point during the evening “act[ed] weird.”  He then asked me if he could search me, to which I assented.

He asked me to take off my bag and put my cigarette on the ground (I took one more drag) and as I did he grabbed my elbows and worked his hands down my forearm sleeves, feeling, I’m guessing, for one of those spring-loaded gun popper-outers like in Taxi Driver.  He then placed my hands together palm-to back, and secured them with a tight grip.  For a moment I thought that he’d actually cuff me.  In the time it took for this to occur I noticed another cruiser sped up along his and another had pulled up silently behind me.  Somehow a rather large black cop had managed to take position directly behind me.  Out of two separate nowheres came the SUV looking vehicle with an array of antennae, lit up on the inside by various computer screens and a husky blonde woman cop who, after the first cop asked to remove my wallet (to which I assented), handed it to the woman who began asking me questions.

Was I still in Albany?  No. I live at XXXX Dwight Way.

Where was I headed?  Home, to XXXX Dwight Way.

The officer searching me kicked my legs further apart.

The questioning officer, holding my student ID in her hand, asked me if I went to school.  I told her I did.

Really?  What program are you in?  The Ph.D. program in English.

A very tall white officer approached swiftly, turned to the first officer and stated, with the inflection of a question “Joshua Anderson?”  Who said yes.  I said yes as well.

Where are you coming from where are you going?  Sproul Plaza on Campus to XXXX Dwight Way.

He informed me that someone thought that I’d been following them, that “every time they turned, you turned.”  I’d turned once – right on Dwight from Telegraph.  I went from a weirdo to a person-following weirdo.

They were done running my ID.  The woman handed it to me and said “thanks for your time.”

I took it and left.

Rights Are Rights Because They’re Rights

The nature of the definition of “human rights” is circular (and therefore fallacious): “we hold these rights to be self-evident” [i](a tautology), “Human rights are commonly understood as ‘inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being’”[ii] (another tautology).

Rights are rights because they are rights.

They are held as sacred or remain as functioning moral principles out of fear: “… disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.”[iii]

The most blatant irony of the reign of “human rights” is the fact that it walks hand-in-hand with the increasingly and historically secularized discourses and practices that gave birth to it.  It’s declaration in 1948 (that beacon year for humanity), boldly proclaimed that

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”[iv]

Instead of a divine being (the subject) giving us rights (the object), we are merely given (passive verb) our rights (object).  It is as though one is reading a sentence fragment.  It has literally subtracted the metaphysical or divine element (along with that part of the sentence), and yet somehow remains deontological (see passive verb).

Possible response: my argument is “mere semantics.”  It might be argued that the declaration was simply written in this fashion in order to be read in a language understandable and built or building on basic principles that were acceptable at the time (or something like this), and that my picking apart the language is topical and ineffective.  But wouldn’t this be a) turning the articulation of the supreme ethical standard into a mere figure of speech and therefor aiding in the b) absolute politicizing of the most fundamental ontological truth?

My first point here is simply to say that the concept of “human rights” is profoundly problematic – and I’d say problematic enough that we should do away with them and articulate an alternative.  But my primary point is to render a quick critique of critiques against capitalism (or simply the “status quo”) that appropriate or utilize not only the language but the ostensible reality of human rights to achieve their ends, either through argument or action.

The philosophy of Human Rights is a bourgeois philosophy built on capitalist foundations and therefore not able to articulate (or really change) the historical reality of the relationship between humans.  Therefore the evocation of the sanctity of human rights in a movement that would at once smash capitalism while advocating for the well-being of human beings in their real, actual, lived-lives (two sides of the same “coin”) is not only rendered problematic, but shown to be ineffective.  It is not a matter of whether one ought to “use the master’s tools” to dismantle the master’s house, but whether one can.  It is my hypothesis that continuing to lean on “human rights” in order to justify or perform apologia for any criticism of capitalism is self-defeating.

Field notes:

1. A sign that says “Education is a Human Right.”

… betrays at once the depth to which the aims of the movement to make it so cannot go; a sort of nostalgia for a mere restructuring of existing modes of education within the “given” world, and an unwillingness to actually “re-imagine” the university, let alone re-articulate the “base” on which it exists.

2. The Assertion that setting up tents is simply exercising our “right” to free speech.

I honestly can’t believe – after thinking about it for some time – that anyone would be so naïve as to honestly think that the establishing of an encampment is actually the pure expression of one’s “right to free speech.”  This is in violation of the general ethos of Occupy as a strategy AND a movement: the whole idea – the whole point – is to break a few of the rules.  That someone would actually be emotionally affected by the false perception that the state is simply repressing our pure act of free speech blows my mind.  When the police bashed in our ribs on November 9^th it was because we were striking a chord – we were showing that we were willing to transgress the hazy edges of a somewhat arbitrary policy to achieve our ends, transgressions that were directed precisely at that which they value the most: their money, their control, their power (even if only “symbolically”).  That’s why they beat the shit out of us.

The problem here isn’t of beginning with a false conception of our “rights,” as “rights” are already a false conception.  The problem is that we absent-mindedly pick up the weapon of “rights” as something that’s been dropped on the ground and wield it without thinking.  It’s ignorance at best, but mostly, I think, simply disingenuous.

This is not to say that I don’t stand in solidarity with many people who would disagree with me – not at all.  Or that I don’t support Occupy.  I absolutely do.  My desire is to immediately qualify what I mean by the rhetoric of “stand in solidarity” or the word “support,” but I’ll refrain and leave it to a level of ambiguity, because I believe that they’re close enough (though not close enough to NOT write this qualification, apparently).  The first questions should be WHO does one “stand in solidarity” and HOW does one “support” something; then it should be a question of what I mean by those terms.

For now I’ll merely apologize for the rambling nature of this exploration, with a promise that I’ll unpack some of its clunkier points at a later date.

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[i] Declaration of Independence

[ii] Sepúlveda, Magdalena; van Banning, Theo; Gudmundsdóttir, Gudrún; Chamoun, Christine; van Genugten, Willem J.M. (2004). Human rights reference handbook (3rd ed. rev. ed.). Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica: University of Peace. (Via Wikipedia.com)

[iii] Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

[iv] Article I of the UDHR

When The Police Come For You

While standing in line at Food Not Bombs at People’s Park this past week, an elderly Berkeleyan of the Santa Clause look-alike variety handed me a small yellow pamphlet.  It was a pocket guide from Cop Watch, “an all-volunteer organization dedicated to monitoring police actions and non-violently asserting” the rights of the people.

After being tear-gassed, flash-banged and beat down by police this last year; and after the detention of Cal Occupier Alex Kim, the arrest of Oakland Media Guru GeekEasy and other stories like these, well: in light of the state of things, to put it simply, I’ve decided to post the pamphlet’s information here.  You can find it in PDF from here.

Please tweet, re-tweet, post, re-post and share.

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT…

 •to be in a public place and to observe police activity.

 IF THE POLICE STOP ANYONE…

 •STOP AND WATCH.

•Write down officers’ names, badge numbers, and car numbers.

 COPS MUST BE IDENTIFIED BY NAME OR BADGE NUMBER (PC sec. 830.10).

•Write down the time, date, and place of the incident and all details as soon as possible.

•Ask if the person is being arrested, and if so, on what charge.

•Get witnesses’ names and contact info.

•Try to get the arrestee’s name, but only if they already gave it to the police.

•Document any injuries as soon as possible. Photograph them and have a medical report describing details of the injuries.

 IF THE POLICE STOP YOU…

•Ask, “AM I FREE TO GO?”

If not, you are being detained. If yes, walk away.

•Ask, “WHY ARE YOU DETAINING ME?”

To stop you, the officer must havea “reasonable suspicion” to suspect your involvement in a specific crime (not just a guess or a stereotype).

•It is not a crime to be without ID. If you are being detained or issued a ticket, you may want to show ID to the cop because they can take you to the station to verify your identity.

•If a cop tries to search your car, your house, or your person say repeatedly that you DO NOT CONSENT TO THE SEARCH.

 If in a car, do not open your trunk or door – by doing so you consent to a search of your property and of yourself.

If at home, step outside and lock your door behind you so cops have no reason to enter your house. Ask to see the warrant and check for proper address, judge’s signature,

and what the warrant says the cops are searching for. Everything must be correct in a legal warrant. Otherwise, send the police away.

•The cops can do a “pat search”(search the exterior of one’s clothing for weapons) during a detention for “officer safety reasons”. They can’t go into your pockets or bags without your consent. If you are arrested, they can search you and your possessions in great detail.

•DO NOT RESIST PHYSICALLY. Use your words and keep your cool. If an officer violates your rights, don’t let them provoke you into striking back. Wait until you are out of custody then you can organize for justice.

IF THE POLICE ARREST YOU…

•You may be handcuffed, searched, photographed and fingerprinted.

•Say repeatedly, “I DON’T WANT TO TALK UNTIL MY LAWYER IS PRESENT.” Even if your rights aren’t read, refuse to talk until your lawyer/public defender arrives.

•Do not talk to inmates in jail about your case.

•If you’re on probation/parole, tell your P.O. you’ve been arrested, but NOTHING ELSE.

 Police can arrest someone they believe is “interfering” with their actions. Maintain a reasonable distance, and if cops threaten to arrest you, EXPLAIN THAT YOU DON’T INTEND TO INTERFERE, BUT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO OBSERVE THEIR ACTIONS.

 

REMEMBER

You have legal rights, but many police will not respect your rights

BE CAREFUL – BE STREET SMART

 

 

IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS:

Bay Area Police Watch

(Legal Clinics) …(510) 428-3939 x224

IN BERKELEY:

COPWATCH ……………… (510) 548-0425

Public Defender …… (510) 268-7400

UC Jail ………………… (510) 642-6760

Jail ……………………… (510) 981-5766

Police Review

Commission …………. (510) 981-4950

IN OAKLAND:

Jail ……………………… (510) 238-3575

Public Defender …… (510) 268-7400

Citizens’ PRB ……….. (510) 238-3159

PUEBLO ………………….. (510) 452-2010

Critical Resistance … (510) 444-0484