Which turned out to be a very good thing, because otherwise there would have been no one in a position to come get anyone who was in JAIL until 4am. Basically, it happened like this: the bicycle protesters got off of their intended route and the police let them wander for a while. Eventually the police decided to end the ride (again, reasonable since they were off course and had been allowed to go a good long way without resuming it). But when the bike cops zipped out in front of the protest and barred the way, telling everyone to halt, a bunch of wise acres ignored them and zipped around the police line. Eventually the line fell apart as bike cops peeled off to chase riders who had slipped past and the whole group of protesters just kept on riding.
Two blocks later, there were police cars everywhere and everyone who broke through the police line and kept riding got taken in.
According to Reed the police were mostly pretty polite about it. Once the situation was under control and everyone was in the gymnasium at the police academythey went through everyone they had picked up and if you weren't wanted for anything, they didn't actually book you, they just wrote you up a citation for failure to obey a police order and let you go. It took them until 4am to actually start releasing people, but from their point of view it was paybacks. If the cops don't get to sleep and they have to be out on the mall on Saturday, the protesters don't get to sleep either.
From my point of view it was all rather amusing. Reed called me at 6:30pm to tell me he thought the police were about to arrest them all. No time to tell me why, just look for him in the DC Jails in a few hours. I panic for a couple of hours and then realize it's all probably fine and really it's pretty funny. I call the DC non-emergency switch at 10:30, explain politely that my husband may have been arrested with the Critical Mass rally. She transfers me to the Police Academy. The officer I speak to next and I have a small chuckle over how much I'd rather he had my husband than that I'd need to start calling hospitals. He is sympathetic and toddles off to see if Reed is on the arrest list. Sure enough. No need to call the hospitals. They've got him. No ma'am. I have no idea when you can come get him yet. Try to get some sleep.
So, just as I'm FINALLY dozing off around 3:30, the phone rings. It's Reed begging for a ride home. I go pick him up.
Moral of the story: When protesting, if you are given a police order, unless you have 100 bucks for the fine and all night to spend on it, FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS. Reed also learned from watching other people that really bad things happen when a. you have no id. b. you are from out of state and c. you have no cash. These three factors could make it impossible to get out of jail for either an extra day or two or even until the judge can hear your case. ALWAYS carry ID unless you WANT to rot in jail.
So that was the exciting thing that happened this past weekend.
Posted by karen at April 24, 2002 12:00 AM