August 31, 2004
by Niels Alpert
Part One: Netted
At 6:11pm on Tuesday, August 31st, 2004, I stood on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue waiting to cross the street. I had just walked here from the subway stop at Grand Central Station, two blocks to the east. On the other side of 5th Ave, on the steps of the New York Public Library, several hundred people were gathered for a political demonstration. It was the second day of the Republican National Convention in New York City and concurrent protests were taking place in several locations around the city.
Many of today’s protests intentionally did not seek permits from the city to gather. A group calling itself “A31” (for August 31st) intended to create “a day of non-violent civil disobedience and direct action to confront the Bush Administration’s unjust policies at home and abroad.” I intended to photograph as many of these demonstrations as I could.
While I waited to cross the street, I took a picture of the crowd on the far corner; people were milling around, holding signs and raising their voices in chants and cheers. I know it was exactly 6:11pm at this moment because every digital photograph I take is embedded with a time stamp at the instant I click the shutter. In reconstructing some of the events described here, I refer to my pictures to determine exactly where I was at a given time.
During the week of the RNC in NYC, I was posting words and pictures online in a daily blog about my experiences at the events surrounding the convention. I also spent two days of that week doing freelance camerawork for the PBS program Frontline for a story related to the protests.
Right after I snapped my picture, a police officer in the crosswalk signaled the pedestrians to cross. When I reached the other side, I used my cell to call my friend John who had also planned to attend this demonstration to take pictures. He answered and told me he was on the library steps near the center of the protest. Because of the dense crowd, I decided not to try to reach him. There was a large number of police officers in the area; some rode bicycles, some wore riot helmets and others were dressed in standard police uniform. As I found out later, there were also undercover officers in street clothes circulating among the protestors. At this point, I could see no signs of unrest or conflict between protestors and police.
As I walked west along 42nd, I ran into the veteran photojournalist Gilles Peress, whom I’d worked for on a short documentary film about 12 years ago when I lived in New York. I took his picture and briefly spoke with him. Like me, he was there to photograph the protest.
At 6:18pm, I watched a group of police officers unload large rolls of orange netting from vans that were double parked on 5th Ave, below 42nd on the east side of the street. I photographed them as they carried the rolls across the street to the southwest corner of 5th and 42nd. Senior officers in white shirts pointed and gave orders to the junior officers carrying the rolls.
Earlier in the day, I had attended a “Defend Johnny Cash” demonstration at Sotheby’s auction house on 71st and York Ave. At this demonstration, the NYPD arrived and set up metal crowd barricades to keep the throng of protestors out of the street and away from the front entrance of Sotheby’s. While this containment was not greeted with much appreciation by the protestors, they were still allowed to continue their demonstration within close proximity of their target.
I wasn’t sure exactly how the police planned to use the orange nets at the library, but presumably they were for some sort of crowd control. I’d seen similar nets being used to corral pedestrian traffic around the site of the convention at Madison Square Garden.
At 6:20pm, without any warning, police officers began to unfurl the orange nets in a westward direction along the curb of 42nd St. To avoid being caught, I walked quickly away from the net, toward 6th Ave, shooting pictures as I went. A few people on the inside of the net started running to escape when they realized what was happening.
The officer at the leading edge of the net came to the end of his roll and closed the gap against the north steps of the library plaza. Anyone who happened to be on the portion of sidewalk between where he stood and the corner, i.e., protesters, photographers, videographers, pedestrians and bystanders, was now trapped inside the net.
When I saw the open hostility and physical menace certain officers showed to people inside the nets, I reflexively called out the NYPD motto: “courtesy, professionalism, respect!” A nearby bicycle officer yelled back at me, “That’s right!”
At 6:21pm, I photographed a man wearing a pink dress shirt and carrying a shoulder bag who’d been caught inside the net. He did not look like a protestor; he looked like someone coming home from work. He seemed stunned by what was happening. The nets had enveloped him so quickly that it was easy to understand his bewilderment. There were many other people inside the net who also had simply been walking on the sidewalk when the police spread the nets out. I don’t know if every one of these people was arrested or how the police went about deciding which of them to arrest.
At 6:22pm, a bicycle officer shouted to those people outside the net to move down the sidewalk toward 6th Ave. I complied with the officer’s command immediately and walked along the northern edge of the sidewalk. From about halfway down the way down the block, I could see a crowd of people and bicycle officers forming at the southwest corner of 6th and 42nd. When I came to the newsstand that sits a few yards from the corner, I walked around it to the north. I stepped into 42nd street, walking close to the curb. There were no cars coming toward me; apparently the police had blocked eastbound traffic.
When I reached the corner of 6th and 42nd, bicycle officers had blockaded the sidewalk with their bikes. One of them told me to step back on the sidewalk, and I complied immediately. I walked around to the south side of the newsstand where I was suddenly, and again without warning, corralled inside an orange net. The time was 6:25pm; exactly fourteen minutes after I’d arrived on the scene.
Part Two: Arrested
A fracas broke out as people tried to escape and were tackled and pinned by police. White shirted senior officers barked orders at nervous junior officers wearing riot helmets and clutching nightsticks. Undercover officers violently wrestled resistors to the ground. In front of me, the officers holding the net stepped forward to bring the end against the northern wall of Bryant Park, sealing off any opening. There was chaos and fear all around me.
Standing a foot or two above me, on the ledge of Bryant Park, a female officer held a small video camcorder and pointed it at the people in the net. She was having difficulty operating the video camera because of her long manicured nails. I raised my camera to photograph her. She took offense to my shooting her and swore while lashing at me with her camera. I quickly pulled my camera back and turned away, not wanting to give the police any reason to get physical with me.
The net I was in stretched from two points along the northern wall of Bryant Park around the newsstand, creating a wide crescent shaped enclosure that held roughly 30-50 people; possibly more that I could not see.
Another senior officer stepped forward and commanded everyone inside the net to sit down, which everyone did. A few of the people in the net were genuinely terrified. Their voices trembled as they pleaded that they’d been given no warning and no opportunity to disperse. The senior officer ignored their pleas and questions. I called my friend Jenny in Los Angeles and described what was happening.
After a brief discussion among the senior officers, they asked those people in the group who had legitimate press credentials to step forward. Their credentials would be examined, and if found legitimate, they would be released. Several photographers and videographers stood up to show their credentials. A couple of those deemed legitimate were allowed to stand nearby and continue shooting. Some with apparently illegitimate credentials were taken away and presumably arrested.
The senior officer pointed to a young man who had a red cross taped to his black t-shirt and told him to stand up. “You’re going to let the street medics go?” The young man said hopefully. Street medics are unofficial, self-declared medical personnel who carry first aid supplies to help wounded or sick protestors at demonstrations. When the young man stood up, he was spun around, cuffed in a pair of plastic handcuffs and taken away.
The officer pointed to another man who had rollerblades on his feet. He asked if he had any shoes. The man responded no. The officer made him take off his skates and he was cuffed and led away. I later realized that this was an old friend and co-worker of mine from when I lived and worked in the film business in New York years ago.
One by one, the senior officer pointed to people in the pen and had them stand up, turn around, get cuffed and taken away. At this point I was still hoping to be released since I had done nothing even remotely illegal and had obeyed all the police officers’ commands. I just did not believe that I was going to be arrested for nothing. At 6:35pm I took my last picture looking up at the riot helmeted police officers standing over me.
A moment later, the senior officer pointed to me. I stood up, stepped toward him, turned around and held my hands behind my back. He inserted them into a pair of plastic cuffs and tightened them hard around my wrists. The cuffs dug into my skin, causing immediate pain.
A young officer with a nametag that read “Alamo” came forward and took me by the arm. His demeanor was calm and friendly. I told him I would cooperate and did not want any trouble. The senior officer gave Officer Alamo three other men in addition to me to escort out of the net.
After a brief discussion among the officers about how to proceed, Officer Alamo led me out to the middle of 42nd Street where I was loaded into the back of a brand new maroon colored Ford van. My friend John somehow found his way to the sidewalk on 42nd close to the van and photographed me being led over and loaded in.
Inside the van, metal benches and seatbelts had been installed in the cargo area. The officers put nine of us inside. I sat at the end of the bench, directly behind the front passenger seat but separated from it by a metal and plastic wall. None of us were seatbelted, although there were seatbelts on the benches. Once inside, we all began to sweat profusely as the heat was stifling in the cramped space. Two officers climbed in the front seats and started to drive eastbound on 42nd.
Before the van could go more than a few feet, I saw a chase and scuffle of officers in front of us. Several photographers and videographers jumped into the street from the north side of 42nd to capture the incident. I later learned that a group of protestors had formed a human chain in an attempt to block our van from leaving. Once the police dragged these people out of the away, we continued east on 42nd, then turned south on 5th Ave.
The officers in front turned on an air conditioning vent that blew a small amount of cool air into the back of the van, but this did very little to alleviate the swelter of our nine hot bodies in the August heat.
Part Three: Pier 57
The van drove downtown and over to the Westside, to the Hudson River piers. At Pier 57, the van passed through a series of barbed wire topped fences and metal gates into the warehouse like expanse of the pier. Through the windshield, I could see a large crowd of handcuffed people lined up along the north wall of the pier. We came to a stop behind an MTA bus that had been used to transport large numbers of arrestees. After sitting in this spot for a few more sweat-drenched minutes, we were let out and taken over to the line. Officer Alamo, who had apparently followed our van to the pier, accompanied me and the three other men he’d been assigned as we entered the line.
An officer came down the line with a Polaroid 600 instant camera. He took three pictures of each prisoner with their arresting officer. As he reloaded the camera with more film, he tossed the empty cartridges on the floor.
I jokingly asked him what I should say when he took the picture. “Shut the fuck up,” he said gruffly. I smiled as wide as I could and repeated, “shut the fuck up,” back to him as he snapped my picture.
After about 45 minutes or so in this line, Officer Alamo took me and his three other charges up to the front where there was an available post to process us. The officer here walked us over to the south side of the pier where our bags and persons were to be searched. When my turn came to have my pack searched, I could not remove it because my hands were cuffed. The officer assisting in the search process saw this and went to retrieve a pair of wire cutters. At first, I was afraid he was going to cut the straps of my pack, but thankfully he only cut off my plastic handcuffs. He warned me that if I tried anything he’d have a dozen cops all over me in a heartbeat. I replied that I was not that stupid. Evidently, he sensed my willingness to cooperate and did not re-cuff me during my bag search, nor was I cuffed again until several hours later when I was transported to 100 Centre Street.
The officer who searched my backpack went methodically through each pocket, examining my camera, pens, notebook and some political flyers I’d been handed on the street during that day. When he was finished he placed it in a large clear plastic bag and handed it to Officer Alamo.
I was told to proceed to the body search and metal detector lanes in the center of the pier. There I approached a large, hostile officer who barked at me like an angry drill sergeant. The following is a brief approximation our exchange:
“Stand on the X! You will do what I tell you, when I tell you! If you don’t move your hands when I tell you, I will move them for you! Do you have anything sharp in your pockets?”
“No.”
“Empty your pockets!”
“Do you have anything that could hurt me in your pockets?”
“No”
“Check again, take everything out!”
“That’s everything.”
He circled around behind me. Instinctively, I turned to watch what he was doing.
“Did I tell you to turn around? Don’t look at me!”
He patted me down through my clothes over my entire body. I had a neoprene sports brace on my knee that he had me remove. He looked through everything from my pockets then put it all in a brown paper envelope. He ordered me to turn to the side and grab the top bar of a metal crowd barricade with both hands. He told me to step my feet back from the barricade and spread them apart. “Spread ‘em wider!” He yelled and kicked them apart.
I was stretched out as if I’d fallen forward and grabbed the metal barricade at chest height to break my fall. It was an awkward and vulnerable position from which I had no leverage or strength. He patted me down again in this position.
He commanded me to walk through the metal detector. Another officer stood on the far side of the metal detector holding a hand wand. The detector did not beep when I walked through. The officer on the far side motioned me to continue walking. I asked if I could get my knee brace back.
The first officer shouted at me to come back and pick it up. The officer in front told me to keep walking. I hesitated for a moment, not sure exactly what to do. The first officer then yelled at me with spittle spraying vexation to come back for the brace. The officer with the wand relented and motioned for me to get it.
The entire operation at Pier 57 took place in an atmosphere of severe disorganization bordering on chaos. Officers openly questioned one another about procedures or necessary paperwork only to receive shrugs or dismissive retorts from colleagues or senior officers. No one seemed to know what protocol to follow and no one appeared to be in charge. Prisoners and officers alike openly complained and scoffed at the disarray. At one point during the night, Officer Alamo even said to me, “you’re getting treated better than me.”
After leaving the body search area, I was led to one of several large holding pens. The pens were freestanding enclosures made of small gauge chain link fence about 15 feet high and topped with razor wire. They were roughly square in shape and were divided in half, creating two rectangular sections. There were two porta-potties in the front section, while the rear section held the detainees.
One of the fascinating details of the makeshift processing center at Pier 57 was the myriad and creative uses that had been found for the plastic Tuff Cuff handcuffs. Tables, chairs, fans and lamps were leashed together by daisy chains of Tuff Cuffs to prevent them from being taken away. Tall stacks of paper cups were held to the fences in makeshift dispensers made out of Tuff Cuffs. Another less fascinating detail was the vast amount of litter that was accumulating on the floor. From the officer with the Polaroid camera to the officers separating triplicate forms, any trash they created was carelessly tossed on the floor.
At the entrance to the pen, an officer gave me a paper cup then unlocked the gate to the front half of the pen. She walked me to the second entrance at the middle divider and opened it. Inside the rear section were about 50 or more male prisoners. In the back of the pen two metal benches were filled with seated men. Other men sat or lay on the floor while still others stood or paced.
Once my time in the pens and jail cells began, my grasp of time started to fade. The inevitable tedium that accompanies incarceration and the fact that it was night made it difficult to chart the passage of time. I still had my watch on, but my interest in checking it waned as the hours dragged.
I went over to the water jug on the side of the pen. The jug was actually outside the pen, but a plastic spout poked through the fence. I gulped down a few welcome cupfuls. I found a spot on the floor where I could sit with my back against the fence. Once I sat down, I discovered that the concrete floor was coated with a thick layer of oily dirt. Anyone who lay on it wearing light colored clothes was covered with dark sooty stains when they got up.
The men in the pen ranged in age from teenagers to senior citizens. The majority of them appeared to be in their 20’s or 30’s. Most of them were white and probably middle class like me. One man wore a priest’s collar.
The prevailing sentiments of the men in the pens were frustration, anger and betrayal. Many of them told similar stories of being arrested without warning or being told by police that an unpermitted march they were participating in would be allowed to continue if they crossed the street. When they complied with the orders to cross the street, they were surrounded by the orange nets in the middle of the crosswalk and arrested en masse.
A number of the prisoners had been captured near Ground Zero, where their demonstration march had started. They said they had peacefully walked only a couple of blocks before they were netted, ostensibly for blocking pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk. Other protestors had been arrested in similar circumstances at Union Square, and others near Herald Square.
While we waited in the pen, new detainees were brought in or called out every few minutes. I closed my eyes and listened intently for my name to be called; I did not want to doze off and miss my chance to get out of here.
An hour or two into my time in the pen, the guards had us line up at the gate where they passed out plastic baggies containing white bread sandwiches with either baloney or cheese on them -round and pink filling versus yellow and square. I took the latter and smeared it with a foil packet of mayonnaise to offset the dry crumbling bread.
Sometime after the meal, I asked for permission to urinate in the porta-potty. While I was inside the plastic cabin, I heard my name called. I unlatched the door with my free hand, shoved it wide open and called out that I was present and ready to go.
Officer Alamo met me outside the pen and led me to an area where my bag would be searched again and its contents catalogued. I waited in a line with the same three men as before. Officer Alamo expressed frustration at the disorganized operation at Pier 57. He said the system was extremely overloaded and that scores more protestors were streaming in. “The city is burning,” he said. At the time I wasn’t’ sure what he meant by this. I assumed it meant that street battles between police and protestors had broken out, obviously this turned out not to be the case.
An officer at a table waved us over with a plastic gloved hand. Officer Alamo put my backpack and the brown envelope from my body search on the table. He showed me his paperwork that indicated my charges: Two counts of disorderly conduct, which are considered “violations”, and are below a misdemeanor in seriousness of crime. As I had done several times already, I told Officer Alamo that I’d done absolutely nothing illegal and had been obeying police orders at the time of my arrest. The officer standing behind the table asked if I had any proof that I was a photographer. I told him to take one of my business cards from the pocket of my backpack. My card has only my name, address, website and email on it, but no indication that I’m a photographer. The officer took my card and said he would show it to a sergeant. He returned a minute later and said nothing could be done for me. I wasn’t surprised. He began searching my bag and cataloguing the contents on a triplicate form. He examined and counted each piece of my camera equipment, address book, notebook, pens, paper and everything else in the pack.
Officer Alamo thoughtfully put the contents of the brown paper envelope inside my pack so all my possessions would be held together in one place. The officers allowed me to take the key to the apartment where I was staying off its keychain and keep it. I was also permitted to keep my driver’s license and the cash that was in my wallet but nothing more. They put my backpack into a clear plastic bag with a peel away glue strip at the top and sealed it. They gave me the bottom copy of the triplicate form they’d filled out, which was completely illegible.
Later that night, when I spoke with other prisoners, I discovered that they’d all been allowed to keep different amounts of their possessions. Some of them had their full wallets and key sets, while others were allowed one or two keys and only some of their cash.
Officer Alamo led me to the south side of the pier where there was a row of pens nearly identical to those I’d come from on the north side. I talked and joked with him as we walked, and he responded with empathy for my situation. At the easternmost pen, the officer in charge was seated at the entrance on an old rolling office chair tethered to the fence by a chain of Tuff Cuffs. I took a fresh paper cup from the improvised Tuff Cuff dispenser and was let into the pen.
In this new pen, it was still nearly impossible to sleep or get comfortable on either the grimy floor or the limited number of benches available. I passed the hours rotating through several activities: pacing in circles, hanging onto the fence, watching the activity of the pier, chatting with other prisoners or trying to lull myself into unconsciousness.
I observed three prevailing reactions to confinement among my fellow prisoners and myself: outrage, resignation and listless stupor. The longer I was in the cage, the deeper my outrage became.
Since our pen was nearest to the entrance of the pier, we were the first to see new groups of prisoners being led to the pens further down the row. People of all appearances and ages were brought in throughout the night. Many wore shirts with anti-Bush and anti-war slogans on them. Some were dressed in elaborate homemade costumes and some had musical instruments that were carried by their accompanying officers.
Every time a group of cuffed protestors came walking by with their police escort, the men in our pen would start slowly clapping in unison. The tempo of the clap would increase as the prisoners passed close to our cage, building to a crescendo of applause, whistling and cheering. This gesture of solidarity and support was greeted with smiles and nods of appreciation from the passing prisoners. It was energizing and uplifting to participate in these group acts, but there was also an element of melodrama to it that made me feel a little uneasy; it was like we were all acting in a cheesy prison movie.
Nonetheless, with each successive group of prisoners that came by, I clapped and whistled louder, fueled by my growing indignation. Chants and songs also broke out frequently in the pens. At times, the whole pier was filled with the chorus of hundreds of people singing “power to the people, people power”, “this is what a police state looks like”, “let us go”, “We will, we will sue you,” and others.
At one point I was standing up and hanging onto the middle divider of the pen. From down the row of pens, a forceful chant of “let us go!” began. I joined in and several other men came up to the fence and together we chanted and violently shook the fence back and forth. Since it was only a temporary fence, it swayed easily in our hands. The chant built to a level that boomed throughout the pier. I saw some officers looking uncomfortable and uncertain how to respond. When the chant died down, a senior officer stormed over to our pen. He had the guard open the first gate and he charged right up to the middle fence where we stood. His neck veins bulged as he apoplectically bellowed at our faces that if we did not stop shaking the fence he would send officers inside the pen to isolate the troublemakers and take them down to the “tombs” where they would be locked in isolation. He yelled that the police were doing the best they could to process us and get us through in a decent manner.
I wanted to shout back at him that I did not care how decent and efficient they were trying to be, the simple fact was that they had arrested us for doing nothing other that which we are entitled to by the constitution of our country. Not to mention that by now many of us had spent eight hours or more imprisoned in this grimy pier, getting shuffled around their pathetically disorganized mess. From where I stood, we the prisoners had far more of a right to be furious than he did.
But I said nothing and instead just retreated back to the middle of the pen. I did not want to risk a trip to the “tombs”, whatever they were. I just wanted out as soon as possible. I returned to pacing, sitting and standing quietly in the pen.
From time to time I looked at Officer Alamo who was waiting off to the side of the pens with a group of about 30 other officers. They looked as bored as the prisoners. I made eye contact with Officer Alamo a couple of times through the wire of the cage, but he gave no indication what might happen next or when. I considered him an ally in this place, but he could do little to help me; he was also powerless amidst the chaos.
Sometime after midnight, they started to take small groups of prisoners out of the pens and board them onto New York City Department of Corrections buses that were headed to central booking at 100 Centre Street. Presumably, the sooner we got on that bus, the sooner we’d reach the end of our incarceration. I craved to hear my name called. I craved any change or movement that would break up the oppressive monotony, but hours came and went, as did busload after busload and my name was not called.
At one point, the officer in charge of our pen asked to speak to any of the men who’d given the name John Doe at time of their arrest. Five or six men stepped over to him. The officer said they would probably not be arraigned for at least four more days if they did not give their real names. The John Does did not appear to change their minds at this information. I tried to imagine four more days of this; it was inconceivable.
When the number of detainees became too great to humanely fit in the back section of the pen, the guard opened the middle gate. We now had nearly double the space. I gravitated to the front fence, where I stared out at the business of the pier and the continual processing of prisoners.
At around 4am, my name was finally called. A dozen of us were lined up single file outside the pen and the officer in charge of our pen recuffed us with plastic cuffs. This officer had maintained a remotely avuncular manner during our time in the pen. He’d even smiled wryly a few times at some of the jokes and banter that went around the pen. I did not see him treat anyone harshly or disrespectfully.
When the officer cuffed the man in front of me, the man immediately began complaining that the cuffs were too tight and were hurting him. The officer checked the cuffs and responded that they were just as tight as they needed to be. The man continued to complain and accused the officer of intentionally hurting him. The officer was not convinced by the man’s performance and was clearly peeved, but he stepped back, thought it over and cut and recuffed the man.
“Ten years ago I wouldn’t have done that,” he said looking the man in the eye. “You’re lucky.”
The man gave him a grudging thanks. I was next in line and said nothing as the officer cuffed me.
Once we were all cuffed, they led us onto the bus. These corrections buses are nearly identical to yellow school buses, except they’re painted orange, blue and white and have cages built inside them and metal grating welded to the windows on the outside.
The prisoners were seated in pairs in the small cages that enclosed each double seat. I was in the front cage beside another man who was about my same age. Before leaving, the driver came around and padlocked the cages. The area inside was so small that it was impossible to comfortably sit with your hands cuffed behind your back. I had to sit in a contorted position, near the front of the bench with my knees pressed against the hard edges of the cage. This made me strain on the cuffs and now they began to dig painfully into my wrists.
When the bus started moving, we had no way to steady ourselves from the inertia. We all bumped and rocked uncontrollably as the bus sped through the early morning streets. Less than a foot in front of my face was the sharp metal grill of the cage. If the bus were to suddenly brake, I would smash my face into it.
I thought of what would happen if the bus were in an accident. I pictured the bus resting on its side in a heap of shattered glass and metal. I would be unable to stop myself from crushing the man beneath me, or from being crushed by him. If a fire broke out, we’d be roasted.
Part Four: 100 Centre Street
The bus lumbered to a stop before a large metal door at the loading dock to the Manhattan criminal courthouse at 100 Centre St. The door inched up and we pulled inside. Through the front window, I saw Officer Alamo and a few other officers whom I recognized from the pier. The prisoners were taken off the bus one cage at a time and lined up against a wall. I nodded to Officer Alamo, but we did not speak. When we were all unloaded, a new officer led us into a dimly lit stairwell as another one followed behind our handcuffed procession.
We started climbing stairs, and kept climbing and climbing until we passed the 12th floor and came to a locked door that indicated it let out to the roof. The young crew-cutted officer at the head of our group swore irately at the door and banged on it with his fist.
He yelled to the officer at the back of the line, “He told me to keep going until I couldn’t go any further! What the fuck?”
When he realized that no one was going to open the door to the roof, the young officer cursed and punched at it even harder. Then he dialed his cell phone and held an unprintable conversation that revealed the fact that we were supposed to have gone only to the fourth floor. We turned around and marched back down.
On the fourth floor, we were led into a holding cell and our cuffs were removed. This was the first actual concrete and iron barred cell, of more than ten holding areas, including the pier 57 pens, that I was to go through during the course of my detention. The cell was square and about thirty feet per side. As I entered, I was offered another baloney or cheese sandwich and a pint of milk. Again, I went for the cheese.
There were several faces in this cell that I remembered from the pier. I recognized my friend, Paul, whom I worked with nearly ten years ago in the film business in New York. We sat and talked and realized that we’d been arrested in exactly the same place; he was the guy wearing rollerblades. After my release, when I looked at my photos, I discovered that he’d been right beside me in the net and I hadn’t even noticed.
I even remembered watching Paul get arrested. He had been ordered to stand and be cuffed only moments before me. He’d been shooting video and taking stills of the demonstrations around the city. Now he sat beside me wearing nothing but filthy black socks on his feet. He said they’d been pure white when he’d put them on yesterday morning.
An officer asked into the cell if anyone wanted to make a phone call, I piped up with a yes along with several others. It was about 5am, nearly 11 hours since I’d been netted and this was the first communication with the outside world I’d been allowed.
I decided to call my friend and co-worker Raney. We’d just worked together two days before on a shoot for Frontline and her apartment is in Tribeca, not far from 100 Centre Street. I almost never dial her number from memory and I racked my drowsy brain trying to recall it. When my turn came, I gave the officer my best guess at her number. He dialed on a phone outside the cell and passed the receiver through the bars.
Wrong number.
I passed the phone back and told him I got it wrong.
With a look of disgust, he offered me one word, “asshole.”
How badly I wanted to sneer back at him I cannot describe. His crack annoyed me far worse than forgetting Raney’s number. She would still be asleep at this hour anyway and I was not in grave danger. Besides, the transfer to 100 Centre Street had given me hope that the process was moving more quickly and might be over soon.
I walked back to the bench where Paul sat and we continued chatting. Within an hour or so, my name was called. I said goodbye to Paul but did not ask for his number or email to keep in touch since I had nothing to write on or with. I figured we’d find each other again when we reached the outside world. An officer opened the cell door and led me to a desk inside a tiny cubicle. Another officer instructed me to empty my pockets onto the desk. He then searched me and returned me to a cell directly adjacent to the one I’d just left. It hardly seemed like progress.
From the second cell, I had a view into the working area of this floor. I studied the officers as they filled out paperwork, talked on phones and walkie-talkies and escorted prisoners from place to place. This was not riveting entertainment, but it was better than staring at the wall. I took a pee in the metal toilet in the corner; it had a single short wall for privacy.
When they next called my name, I was lined up outside the cell along with four other prisoners. Our right wrists were cuffed to a chain that held us all together. The distance between the cuffs was so short that you could not take a full stride without stepping on the person in front of you. You had to walk either to the side or in a short shuffle step. An officer led us down a hallway to a small room where there were four electronic fingerprinting machines, each one about the size of a refrigerator. We were lined up against the wall, uncuffed, and sent one by one to officers who manned the machines. The tall muscled officer who seemed to be in charge of this room took my wrist in his hand like it was a fragile toy and scoffed, “What are you a vegan or something?” I told him no, I was not a vegan. He shrugged in disbelief.
The fingerprint machine requires you to place each of your fingers on a piece of glass where a scanner reads your prints and displays them in black and white on a monitor. Presumably, the prints are immediately stored in an electronic database available to all branches of law enforcement. This thought of made me livid; for committing no offense, I was now, probably permanently, being recorded into a criminal database. The officer took prints of all five fingers on each of my hands.
After this, we were led further down the hall and locked in the center cage of a visiting room that had stools and cubicles on either side. There were a few plastic chairs here and our group passed them down the line so that we could all sit. In the adjoining cage was another group of five men sprawled out on the stools. A few minutes later, the officers brought a group of five cuffed women into the cage beside ours. It was the fist time we had been near female prisoners since our arrest. No one had much energy to talk, but a few words of frustration and solidarity were exchanged. Shortly after, we were taken out of the cage and down a dingy stairwell to a narrow hallway where we were lined up behind a red tape line on the floor.
The officer at the head of the line informed us that we might as well sit because it was going to take a while to get to us. The five of us slumped to the floor together. About a half hour later, the officer took us one by one to have our mugshots taken. The mugshot room was a tiny, dark and cluttered basement room. A chest-high metal post topped by a crossbar indicated where to stand. A video camera mounted on the far wall of the room pointed back at me. I was lit from the center and both sides by three crummy track light fixtures. In front of me, seated at a desk, an officer glanced back and forth from me to his computer screen, evidently processing my video mugshot.
I thought of Holly Hunter shouting, “Turn to the right!” in Raising Arizona. I tried this line out on the mugshot officer.
“Actually, turn to the left,” he responded. There on the wall was a sign that read, “Look Here.”
After everyone in our group was mugshotted, we were taken through a series of electric gates and gloomy hallways that ended up at the entrance to another set of holding cells. An emergency medical technician standing at a podium gave each of us a twenty-second interview regarding our physical condition and health. I told him the only thing I was suffering from was a bruised ego. Then we were let into a crowded holding cell with about 20 other men. Bodies covered all the available benches and most of the floor.
This cell had a payphone in the corner and I had somehow managed to retain a pocket full of change. I conjured Raney’s cell phone number in my head and left her a message explaining my situation. It was now about 8am. I also called Jenny in Los Angeles again and left her a message to try and reach Raney for me in case I couldn’t get to a phone again.
I was so exhausted at this point that I had to try to sleep any way I could. I still did not want to fall too deeply asleep because now legal assistants were circulating around outside the cells and conducting short interviews with each detainee through the bars. It was never clear to me who exactly these people were, but they asked us basic questions, i.e. name address, phone number, phone number of someone in New York who could be contacted, etc. They had Palm Pilots on which they tapped the responses to the questions. Their presence felt like a good sign that we might soon be arraigned and released and I did not want to miss my turn when it came.
I slid off the bench and wriggled my head underneath it so I had enough room to stretch my whole body out. I tried to hold my feet still so I wouldn’t bonk the head of the kid sleeping next to me every time I dozed. I managed to get in a couple of winks like this, maybe ten or twenty minutes. I heard my name being called in a dream, of what I don’t remember, but I snapped awake and was freshly reminded of my unfortunate circumstances. I answered the legal assistant’s questions in a delirious fog. It was difficult to find words to speak and to recall basic information. He offered no clues about what was happening or when I might get out.
After what could have been an hour or three, I was called out with several other men and led across the hall to another cell about 30 feet from the previous one. Sitting and sleeping men occupied nearly all the bench and floor space in this cell as well.
This cell was painted a light pistachio green; I wondered how they chose this color, was it meant to be soothing? In the walk over here I’d lost my craving for sleep. I started pacing and sitting and standing again. I experienced the same cycles of energy and emotion I’d felt at Pier 57: from sluggish to jumpy to angry to beside myself with fury to resigned to listless to stupefied. Sometimes when I sat on the bench I managed to achieve a state of half-sleep for a few isolated minutes.
Later we were offered breakfast: a walk back to last cell where we could pick up a baloney or cheese sandwich, a pint of milk and an apple or a peach. I took a peach; I could not eat another cheese sandwich. I tried the phone again and got Raney’s voicemail again. I checked my own voicemail. She’d left me a message that she’d gotten my message and was working with the people at Frontline to get me released. This was encouraging news, but with so many detainees and so much moving around amidst so much disorganization, I felt like a needle in a haystack. The idea that anyone could locate me and obtain my release seemed improbable at best.
After breakfast, a young kid with a green mohawk and fake leather boots with a “vegan” tag on them asked another guy for the uneaten bread from his sandwich.
“What for?” The guy asked.
“So I can wipe my ass with it. There’s no toilet paper,” the kid responded.
The guy handed over his uneaten sandwich.
I stood and clenched the immovable bars at the front of the cell. I wondered how many people had held these same bars and wished with all their might they could bend them like pipe cleaners and walk out, or that they could step through them like a ghost through a wall.
I observed the uneventful comings and goings in the hall. A young kid came with a mop and bucket, swabbing the floors. He was let into the cell across from ours to clean the floors. As he passed close to where I stood, he offered cigarettes for sale. This was absurd since there was nowhere to smoke, however, I felt a certain satisfaction to have witnessed prison lore firsthand.
Some of the protestors in my cell spoke out loudly against the guards and the police and the government. They vowed to be back on the streets protesting harder and louder than ever before as soon as they were set free. The bored corrections officers paid them no attention. I’m sure nothing would have made them happier than for us to be out of their hands as soon as possible.
After several hours in this cell, my name was called and I was put on the chain with four other men again. We were led through another labyrinth of stairs and hallways to another holding cell on a higher floor of 100 Centre Street.
Each time my name was called, my spirits would lift with hope that soon, maybe now, I was going to actually go somewhere, to a courtroom to see a judge, a lawyer, a district attorney, a desk sergeant, a bailiff; anyone who could actually do something or tell me something to get me the hell out of here. But each time I was told nothing and taken nowhere but to another cell.
This next cell was the smallest yet. It was square, about 15 feet on each side and at the end of a row of cells in a narrow hallway. Across from the bars a frosted window was cracked open. Looking out through the open sliver at the bottom, I surmised we were about ten floors up and facing south. You could see the U.S. courthouse building down below and a section of Centre Street in front of it. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of City Hall or the Brooklyn Bridge but could not.
It was a beautiful sunny day outside and pedestrians scurried below on the lunch hour streets oblivious to the jealous eyes watching from above.
One of the worst things about being in these holding cells is that there is simply nothing whatsoever to do; no interesting corner of the room to study, nothing to write with, nothing to read, no activity to observe and no physical position to be in that affords any comfort. All you can do is try to sleep, sit, pace, stand and/or talk to your cellmates. Even hunching over to stare outside through a cracked open window gets boring.
One of my cellmates was from LA and had been filming the police chasing a protestor when the officers decided to tackle him instead, smashing his camera on the pavement. Another young kid was an undergrad at the University of Wisconsin, my alma mater. The other men were from around New York City. We told arrest stories to each other. We talked politics. We vented our frustration. We joked. After we ran out of energy for talk, we stretched out on the benches and the floor and tried to sleep. The concrete floor in this cell was much cleaner than Pier 57, but it was no less hard.
The guards came by and offered us another phone call. One by one, we were led out and around the corner to an old wooden desk with a phone. The guards here were relaxed and I was permitted to make two calls. I checked my voice messages and then finally got a hold of Raney. She told me that the Frontline legal department was writing letters and making calls on my behalf, but nothing so far was working to get me released. I hung up and trudged back to the cell.
After several hours with no sign of any progress, the five of us in the cell agreed to accept no more food until we were seen by a judge; we would make our own pathetic attempt at a hunger strike.
Shortly after we made this decision, four men dressed in suits and ties with New York Dept. of Corrections badges slung around their necks came over to our cell. They looked in and talked among themselves. I jumped up and tried to engage them in conversation, hoping to learn something about our situation. The leader of the group was friendly enough and explained that they were a delegation from the department of corrections sent to observe the conditions of detainees during the RNC.
I struggled to compose coherent, meaningful pleas and questions for him, but my brain was dopy and feeble. A couple of my cellmates joined in the discussion. We complained of the unjustness and illegality of our detention, and the corrections man listened sympathetically.
“They shoot protestors in Northern Ireland,” piped in another of the delegation. “You’re lucky.”
He was the youngest in the group, probably under 30, with buzzed short hair and thin slits for eyes. I tried to explain that just because we had not been shot, that was no reason for us to be thankful. He was not convinced. To him, we were trouble-making protestors who’d gotten what we deserved; we should be happy we weren’t dead in the street.
The fact is, when you look at someone behind bars, especially in this country, you want to believe that they deserve to be there because you want to believe you live in a country where there is justice. It’s akin to when people look at plane crash victims and secretly think, “they got on the plane, they knew the risks.” Our minds default to a palatable explanation that safeguards our own personal need for security.
Also, protestors are generally not portrayed very sympathetically in the media; you usually only see protests that have turned violent or gone awry. This promotes an image of protestors as far-flung dangerous radicals who smash Starbucks and burn cars. Of course, this is not a fair or accurate characterization.
Outside our cell several padded mats were piled up on the floor. I asked the lead corrections officer if we could have a couple of them to sleep on since we’d been on crowded and dirty concrete floors for 18 hours. To my dismay, he said no.
“Then what are they for?” I asked.
“Pregnant women,” he called over his shoulder as the delegation walked away.
My cellmates and I passed the afternoon languishing in this cell. Every so often there would be a small stirring down the hall where we could not see as people were moved from one cell to another, but in general, the day passed in the utmost tedium. When the light of the day began to fade into evening, I felt like I was going to lose it. It was simply preposterous that I/we had been stewing in these cells for so long with no arraignment, no explanation and no idea how much longer we’d be in here.
At around 6pm, a guard came and finally swung open the door to our cell. We were led out to a hallway where an irate and unpleasant corrections officer cuffed our wrists to the chain again. He led us downstairs and into yet another holding cell. This one was larger than the last, though unevenly shaped and populated with more men. At the far end were caged booths where prisoners could meet with their attorneys. For the first time, I was in a cell with men other than protestors. I gathered from their conversations that they were in for things like breaking into cars and violating parole. One man who must have been severely drunk lay face down on the floor and barely moved.
I called Raney on the payphone and got another update. She’d come down to 100 Centre Street and tried to make progress in person, to no avail. As could be expected, plenty of people were trying to locate and help friends and family who might be inside. She told me that Frontline had called the ACLU and they were interested in my case, but it seemed that very little could be done for me at this point.
A female voice called out my name from the consultation cages. I went over and sat across from a woman who introduced herself as Rosemary and told me she was an attorney from the Legal Aid society. I summarized my story for her and told her about Raney and the Frontline letters.
She told me I was being offered an “ACD” by the district attorney. ACD stands for “Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal”, which means that my case is adjourned for six months, and if I don’t get in trouble with the law during that time, it is dismissed. If I wanted to fight my case and seek a straight dismissal, I would have to come back to New York for at least one more court appearance. If I took the ACD, I’d most likely get out of here sooner. Rosemary left me to think it over and said she would call Raney.
For reasons unclear to me, a group of us was taken out and moved to a nearly identical adjacent cell. I waited there for an hour or so then called Raney to check in. She told me they might not be able to get me released until tomorrow. I slumped to the bench beside the pay phone. I tried to imagine spending another night in here. On one hand, I was practically used to it by now, and I’d just have to numb myself a little further to deal with it. On the other, it was absurdly unthinkable; I would lose my mind. I was certain that other people who’d been arrested at the same time as me were getting arraigned and released. Would my case actually take longer because I had help from PBS? Nothing made any sense in here.
While I sat by the phone, I listened to the other prisoners discuss their cases with the outside world. One of them who sounded like he was talking to either his mother or his lover said he’d been caught out on two warrants “this time” and probably would get at least a year.
“Maybe I’ll get out by April. I’ll see you then,” he said and hung up.
It was the first of September.
Rosemary called me over to the cage again. She’d gotten the letter from Raney and given it to the D.A., who was not willing to dismiss my case because of it. I had to make a choice now whether or not to take the ACD and be done with it or to plead not guilty and come in for another hearing. I had a friend’s wedding to attend in the city a month from now on October 9th, so conceivably I could request a court date for Friday the 8th and hope the judge would grant it.
I spent a good minute agonizing over this choice with my attorney. “It’s your decision,” she stressed. I wanted so badly to be out of there, but I also wanted justice, which to me meant getting a full dismissal of my bogus charges. I was half-delirious with fatigue and making this decision felt practically impossible. I squeezed my head in my hands, held in a deep breath, clenched my teeth and made the choice to fight. Of course, this meant more waiting. Rosemary left the cage and I returned to the doldrums of the cell.
Maybe an hour later, an officer called my name into the cell for the last time and led me out to the courtroom. He seated me on a wooden bench beside a few other men waiting to be called. In the back of the courtroom I saw Raney sitting and reading. After a minute she looked up and we exchanged smiles of disbelief.
When the bailiff called my case, I rose and stood beside my attorney facing the judge. My charges were read aloud: Parading without a permit and obstructing traffic. The D.A. stated that “the people” were offering an ACD. I declined and pleaded not guilty. Rosemary requested my next court date for Friday, October 8th. The judge granted this request, then looked me in the eye and told me if I did not show up for this court appearance that a warrant would be issued for my arrest.
“Do you understand?” The judge asked. Yes, I did. And with that, my sixty-second arraignment was over and I was allowed to walk out of the courtroom and into the free world again.
It was now about 8:30pm on Wednesday, September 1st; more than 26 hours after I’d first been netted on 42nd Street.
Part Five: Property reclaim
I walked outside to Centre Street with Raney. Immediately tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted to cry my eyes out right there, but from what emotion I could not tell. Relief? Anger? Sadness? I eked out a sniffle and gave Raney a big hug.
In front of 100 Centre Street, a man from the National Lawyers Guild approached me and took down my name and contact information. He said the guild was planning legal action against the unlawful arrests that had occurred. Across the street was a group of people holding a vigil for those who remained inside. I was starved and desperate for a shower and a soft bed, but I had one thought on my mind: Get my camera.
I had a piece of paper from the NYPD that gave directions where to go to reclaim my possessions. Raney accompanied me on the ten-minute walk to this location where we found about 40 people waiting in a zigzag line inside a maze of metal crowd control barricades. At the head of the line was an aluminum sided temporary office trailer sitting in a parking lot. There was one small sliding window on the front that had been blacked out from the inside by a trash bag. Every so often, an officer would pull back the trash bag, slide open the window and take one of the property reclamation forms from the person at the front of the line. Raney and I took our place at the end, hoping that this wait would be mercifully brief.
I went on a search to for food while Raney held my place. This area of town is fairly desolate at night, but nearby I found a small Italian deli that was still open. The chummy old man at the counter proudly made me a Genoa salami sandwich with lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, oil and vinegar.
Back at the line, I sat down on the pavement and devoured my tasty meal. Raney waited with me for about an hour during which the line did not advance at all. I insisted that she not stick around, since this was shaping up to be another NYPD organizational catastrophe. She agreed to go but kindly left me her cell phone.
The line moved so slowly as to be maddening. I calculated that if the line kept up its current pace, it would take me ten hours to get to the front. This seemed inconceivable, but I was determined to wait. My tolerance for ennui and stasis had become more developed in the past 26 hours. If the line was this bad now, how much worse would it be tomorrow?
The others in line were mostly protestors who were just as exhausted and beside themselves as I was. A few people cried when they showed up and realized how long they would have to wait. I couldn’t blame them. Some people waited a couple of hours on the nearly motionless line and then left in exasperation. Some people actually managed to sleep on the lumpy asphalt of the parking lot. I picked up a magazine off the ground and tried to read. I could not. I tried a newspaper and had the same reaction. I could not focus my eyes or my mind.
I asked the young couple next to me to hold my place and I went in search of a bathroom. This being lower Manhattan late at night, I was not hopeful. Thankfully I found a clean bathroom at a nearby hospital emergency room and made good use of it.
I used Raney’s phone to call my sister in Boston and tell her what had happened. Then I called a few friends in New York and LA to tell my story and pass the time. I chatted with a few people in line and again heard the same stories of unexpected arrest that I’d heard innumerable times already. I sat, cross-legged on the ground, hung my head in my hands and tried to empty my brain of all thoughts and become indifferent to time and place. I was not successful.
At around midnight, someone broke out an acoustic guitar and people started singing. “Keep on rockin’ in the free world,” by Neil Young was played more than once. I did not sing, nor did I find the singing to be inspirational or soothing. I just wanted it to stop. After the singing, a couple of young protestors took turns reciting their interminable anti-establishment poetry rap/rhymes. It was unbearable. I had heard so many people grandstanding and complaining for the past 29 hours that I could stand no more. I found their bitter righteousness to be infuriating and embarrassing. Though I do share certain social and political views with them, I could not stomach their bleating, plaintive rants. All I wanted was a cold beer, a hot shower and a real bed.
At 2:10am, more than five hours after I’d gotten on line, my backpack with all of its contents intact was handed over to me at the back of the trailer. Once again, tears welled up in the back of my eyeballs. I bid a quick farewell to those whom I’d had good conversation with and hoofed it to the street looking for a cab. Luckily, it did not take long to find one. I had the driver take me to the west village to a deli near the apartment where I was staying where I rounded up a couple of beers to drink before bedtime.
The water that ran down the drain as I took my long-awaited shower ran black and grimy for a solid minute before clearing up. The soap and hot water were heavenly. My head was too disoriented and buzzing with perturbed and discursive thoughts to get to sleep right away, so I sat and tapped around on my computer for a little while then savored my beer as I gazed out at the quiet city. I finally lay down to sleep at about 4am, and at last I slept very very well.
Part Six: Epilogue
Early Friday morning, September 3rd, I flew home to LA. The following week, my attorney Rosemary asked for some material proof of my work as a photographer to send to the D.A to corroborate my letter from Frontline. I sent her copies of my magazine tearsheets and press credentials. After that, we emailed back and forth a few times, but she had no further news about my case.
On Wednesday, October 6th, I flew back to New York City for my court date and the wedding that weekend. On Friday the 8th, I put on my suit, packed my laptop into my backpack and returned to 100 Centre Street for my hearing. Rosemary met me in the courtroom and took me out to the hall to talk. She informed me that the district attorney was not willing to dismiss my case in spite of the evidence I’d sent. I could still take the ACD, but if I wanted to fight for a straight dismissal, I’d have to schedule another court date and hire an attorney. Since I was a “working person” I was disqualified to use her free services as a Legal Aid attorney.
I was stunned that the D.A. would not dismiss my case. I reminded Rosemary of the time-stamped photographs that I had with me on my laptop. She asked to see them. She looked them over then made a call to the D.A.’s office and told them about the pictures. Miraculously, the D.A. agreed to meet with us in her office right then.
Contrary to my expectations, the D.A. was friendly and sympathetic and listened thoughtfully to my story and looked closely at my pictures. As soon as I finished, she said she would dismiss my case. She asked for a copy of the photographs as well. No problem, I said. She wanted the photographs not for my case, but because her office was going to be facing many cases from arrests at the RNC and these pictures might be useful.
She sincerely apologized for my ordeal and insisted that the police and the District Attorney have no desire to wrongfully arrest or prosecute people. I said, yes, that may be true, but what happened to me, and hundreds of others, was unjust and contrary to the laws and principles of our country.
After this meeting, I went back to the courtroom, where my case was called and the prosecuting attorney read the freshly typed request for a dismissal. The judge granted it before the prosecuting attorney could even finish reading.
Although my criminal case is finished, I continue to monitor the efforts of the National Lawyer’s Guild, The People’s Law Collective and the New York Civil Liberties Union so that I can participate in the civil cases being filed against the city and the NYPD. While I do no relish the though of tying up the court system with these cases, it is the only way to fight back against the illegal arrest tactics and violations of civil rights that occurred during the RNC.
Incidentally, many of the people arrested on August 31st have already had their cases dismissed, including a mass dismissal of all 227 people who were arrested near Ground Zero.
Without a doubt, getting arrested was a bad experience, to say the least. However, I am grateful for the firsthand lesson I got by going through the entanglements of the police department and the legal system.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that despite the fact that we live in a nation that calls itself a “free country”, our freedom and civil rights that are supposedly guaranteed by our constitution can be taken away without warning or explanation. The implications of this fact are vast and have permanently altered my understanding of the meaning of freedom in America.
Part Seven: Thank you’s
To Raney, for your priceless friendship and support while I was in the clink.
To everyone at PBS and Frontline, for your great efforts on my behalf.
To Rosemary and The Legal Aid Society, for your work on my case that you did for nothing but a thank you.
To Lisa, in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, for agreeing to meet with me and for listening to my case with honest concern.
To Officer Alamo for your respectful treatment of me.
To the National Lawyer’s Guild, The New York Civil Liberties Union, The American Civil Liberties Union and The People’s Law Collective.
The photo chronology of my arrest:
http://homepage.mac.com/nielsalpert/PhotoAlbum43.html |
