Steps were taken to keep antiwar protesters half a mile away from a ship loading Stryker vehicles at the Port of Tacoma this weekend, Mark Jensen of UFPPC reports.[1]  --  The measures taken were extraordinary; whether they were legal is another matter entirely....

1.

TACOMA POLICE EXTEND PERIMETER AT PORT OF TACOMA
By Mark Jensen

** Protesters doubt legality of keeping protest a half-mile from ship **

United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
March 11, 2007

TACOMA, Washington -- Tacoma police took extraordinary measures Saturday night to keep antiwar protesters far away from the Port of Tacoma's Sitcum Waterway, where matériel for a soon-to-deploy Stryker brigade is the object of protests.

Longshore workers are loading a mammoth roll-on roll-off Military Sealift Command vessel that is scheduled to leave Commencement Bay in a few days for Iraq. The ship is being loaded with armored personnel carriers and hundreds of other vehicles for the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which has been ordered to deploy to Iraq by President George W. Bush.

But in the week since the Army's surprise decision to use the Port of Tacoma became known, a port militarization resistance movement has sprung up whose surprising vigor has taken authorities by surprise.

Despite what some are calling a police riot in the Port of Tacoma less than twenty-four hours earlier, about a hundred protesters, mostly young adults, braved the rain and Tacoma riot police to continue the port protest on Saturday night.  But they were blocked more than half a mile from the ship by a roadblock on the East 11th Ave. approach to the Puyallup River bridge leading to the Sitcum Waterway.

Most were inclined to believe the police's blockade of the bridge was illegal, since keeping protesters so far away from a legitimate object of protest is an obvious infringement on the First Amendment.  But few were inclined to test their belief after the unexpectedly violent response from police the night before.

The police on the bridge seemed to be under orders not to speak to protesters.  Even courteous questions from a mild-mannered middle-aged resident of Tacoma were met with stony silence.  There was not the slightest response from the menacing double line of black-clad truncheon-wielding police in full riot gear.

Back in the huddle, younger folk were struggling to reach consensus on a course of action.  Protesters, it was clear from listening to them, now view the police in Tacoma as a lawless bunch.  One said a lawyer had assured him the Tacoma police had acted illegally Friday night in arresting a man for carrying a backpack, but few thought the police or city officials cared.  "This is the illegal occupation of a bridge to protect the illegal occupation of a country," one protester laughed.

Sad to say, there was a lot of sympathy on the Port of Tacoma for the view that the United States is a police state, and if you'd taken in the scene on the 11th Ave. Puyallup River Bridge Saturday night, you'd have seen why.

Shortly after midnight, the group came up with the idea of sending four "ambassadors" to ask the police to explain themselves.  It seemed the civilized thing to do.  One of them, a young woman named Kaitlin Lindquist, 18, a first-year student at the University of Washington at Seattle, was particulary intrepid.  For more than ten minutes she stood at the police barricade, imploring police to explain on what grounds they were interfering with her rights.

The young protesters grew annoyed by the police's exasperating and contemptuous refusal to reply to reasonable questions politely addressed by citizens with every right to be there.  Frankly, speaking as a longtime resident of Tacoma, so did I.  It was all appallingly uncivil and seemed about to become dangerous.

Some of Lindquist's more daring companions began to inch the sandwich boards closer to the police line.  But even when police fired some pepper spray (I think) to disperse those rattling the barrier, Lindquist did not retreat.

It was an extraordinary scene:  well-spoken youths appealing to the rule of law, but facing only a hostile silence from the men whose vocation it is to enforce it.

Police began to don gas masks, and onlookers feared that another assault on a peaceful crowd was about take place.  But protesters pulled back.  Shortly thereafter, they decided to take up "plan B" -- a late-night march through the streets of Tacoma.  I decided to call it a night, the peace having been preserved.

I hope.

NOTE:  The crowd of protesters would certainly have been larger had police not turned away many by stationing a squad car at the intersection of Lincoln Ave. and Portland Ave. to turn back traffic.  Meanwhile, police continued to block Milwaukee Way at Lincoln Ave, the site of last night's sudden, spectacular attack on protesters peacefully singing "Give Peace a Chance."  They also pushed barriers back to Thorne St. on E. 11th Street, near the Sitcum Waterway, and blocked off the approach on Thorne St. from the south.