December 2014

On the 17th of December, hundreds of people, mostly Pakistani-Americans, gathered in Dupont Circle to remember 141 people, mostly young students, killed in the Dec 16 Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar. There was a call for solidarity with this vigil on the DC Ferguson Twitter feed and no march that would have conflicted with it.

On or before the 16th of December, cardboard Christmas ornaments appeared on trees outside the Church of the Pilgrim Presbyterian near Dupont Circle. The ornaments read "Black Lives Matter." This is in contrast to ugly things hung from trees or gates in other places such as Berkeley, where a dummy in an "I Can't breathe" T-shirt was hung in public.

On the 16th of December, DC police chief Cathy Lanier appeared on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt, and complained that the DC Ferguson protests are "very expensive" to MPD, requiring up to 400 cops a night to be detailed to them. She specifially complained that the protests are "a strain on the department" and reduce their ability to "police the neighborhoods.

Well, fewer cops in neighborhoods has to lead to less ability to harass residents and to fewer jump-outs, which are DC's version of Stop and Frisk. Although DC cops have actually become more violent in the neighborhoods since the protests began, if there are fewer cops to carry out this violence the protests may be achieving one of their goals by directly keeping the cops busy elsewhere

On the 15th of December, DC Ferguson civil rights protesters asssembled in Chinatown for the nightly round of street blockades. This time one of the targets was I-395 and NY Ave. For the second night in a row police attempted to bypass the legally required "3 warning" rule for mass arrests. This time they tried to say that warnings given at the 395 tunnel were still valid in Chinatown and could be counted against the required three warnings.They tried to go straight to the 3ed warning and got out zip ties, something not previously seen at these protests. Finally someone got police chief Lanier on the line, she said three new warnings were required at every intersection so the cops were thwarted in their hoped-for arrests.

On the 14th of December, civil rights protesters stormed into the Wal-Mart on H st for the 4th time. This time they stood their ground, and soon the cash registers were shut down. Some of the shoppers joined the protest. One of the cops or security guards claimed protesters would be arrested after ONE warning, not the three required by DC law. After a tense ten minutes and call by protesters for reinforcements, the activists exited the store and no arrests were reported.

Video of Wal-Mart occupation raw clips courtesy Netta and DeRay McKessa