On Friday, March 13th, approximately 50 people gathered in front of City Hall on Main Street in Northampton to protest the Business Improvement District [which the City Council approved two weeks ago]. The BID is a consumerism-based rather than community-based piece of legislation. Many of the same activists were vital in the overturning of the anti-panhandling ordinance this past fall.
The original idea for the protest was for it to be a street theatre piece which would turn into a march. We chose not to get a permit in hopes that there would not be police waiting for us, controlling our movements before we even got started. However, by 4 p.m., the time the protest was scheduled to begin, three cops were already on the steps of City Hall. My fellow organizers and I proceeded with setting up tables of free food and passing out handmade signs. The police said we were supposedly blocking the sidewalk. We complied with all instructions they gave us, which included not blocking walkways and holding onto our signs rather than propping them up against the steps.
As more protesters began to arrive, people got instruments and we started a jam session. I use a wheelchair to get around, and on this particular day was using my manual wheelchair, which gives me more flexibility in terms of traveling in cars, but subsequently less independence than my motorized wheelchair gives me in terms of moving myself around over great distances or uphill.
I am an autonomous, thoughtful individual, and I was not treated as such by Northampton police that day. While my friends and I were still gathered in front of City Hall, I heard an officer say to someone, "Can you move her?" I informed him that I was a cognizant human being, capable of receiving instructions and requests, and he looked defensive, telling me that he asked someone else to move me simply because I was engaged in conversation.
Soon after, we began our march down Main Street. We stopped in the courtyard area by the bus stop in front of Urban Outfitters. With an amp and a microphone, surrounded by happy, cheering protesters, some of whom were laying down a beat on homemade drums, I performed a poem I had written called "We are the Wolves." The cops had followed us this far and were parked and standing next to their cars watching this performance. After this we proceeded across the street and down Pleasant Street. Some of us (myself included) marched in the road while others marched on the sidewalk just to our right. We were not obstructing traffic. Three cops were walking briskly with us just to my left. As David (who was pushing me) and I led chants like, "Poverty is not a crime, stop the BID," and "Food, shelter, freedom! No new station! No more cops!" I heard them threatening to take out handcuffs. I had no idea what they could arrest us for at that moment, so I kept chanting.
One cop was getting very close to me and pushed my chair with his body as he yelled at us to get on the sidewalk. Something that is important to understand is 1) I was leading this rally and 2) once someone in a wheelchair has been traveling adjacent to a sidewalk, they have to wait until a curb cut comes up to get back onto the sidewalk. My friend Arturo was walking in front of me, and the cops were closing in on him, too. As two cops got close enough to touch him, Arturo stepped slightly to the left. Immediately three officers tackled him to the ground, smashing his face into the pavement and handcuffing his wrists. Arturo showed no resistance.
For a moment I was at a loss, and as a news camera filmed him on the ground, all I could do was stare in disbelief and chant, "Who do you serve? Who do you protect?"
Our march continued. We marched under the bridge, paused to regroup on the corner, and then proceeded back up Pleasant Street on the other side of the street. While we were under the bridge a second strange thing happened. Most of the protesters had walked up the raised sidewalk underneath the bridge, but because I was already in the road and there is no point of access (the curb cuts are at either end, not anywhere in the middle), David and I continued to march in the road. Three or four officers had parked their cars in the middle of the road under the bridge, and despite the fact that David and I were as close to the wall and as far out of the road as we could get, the police screamed at David to get on the sidewalk.
I addressed the police, telling them that there was no access until the end of the bridge. The cops continued to yell at David and ignore me, and David was not answering them because I was speaking. We were halfway under the bridge and walking uphill when two officers ripped David off of the handlebars of the chair, swung him around violently and put him in handcuffs.
This action ignored my autonomy and put me in danger. I screamed at them, asking why they were arresting him, asking if they understood the accessibility issue. But they would not acknowledge me. Finally a female cop asked if I wanted to go too. I told her yes, if they were going to arrest my friend for no reason, then I wanted to go too. Would it mean people would address me like a person and answer my questions? She just shook her head. An arresting officer laughed at me. Another one of my friends jumped down from the rise to push me up the rest of the hill and onto the sidewalk, and while this was happening the police stopped yelling at me to get out of the road.
What was so upsetting about these incidents, besides the violent nature of the uncalled-for arrests, was the fact that none of the cops considered me an arrest-able person. They all refused to address me, and would only address and arrest those surrounding me. I am my own person, and I take responsibility for my own actions. I intend to continue to stand as a force of vocal resistance against oppressive and classist legislation in my community, especially the Business Improvement District. If cops see it as their duty to protect elite wealth rather than community members exercising free speech and the right to assembly, then they can clap handcuffs on me, not my male, able-bodied fellow organizers and friends.
Beatriz "BB Sunshine" Bianco
via email
