It is some time later that 100 of us are rounded up and mass arrested on Broadway under the lights of the Paramount theater and police helicopters. It’s the rubber bullet gun that looks like a rifle in the hands of an anxious pig that puts our untouchable mob into a frenzy that makes us vulnerable. Maybe we are too cocky. Maybe the fact that we are mostly young and inexperienced in street tactics is becoming apparent. Whatever the reason, most people panic and OPD takes its opportunity to close in on us.
A hundred of us enter into the custody of the state. We are partially booked on the street. We wait about two hours. Shivering as one by one we all remember our obligations for the next day.
Hey officer! Do you think I’ll be out by 10 am? I gotta go to work.
“I don’t have any information for you.”
What about three? I’m definitely getting fired for this shit…
Lemme call my mama. She thinks I’m getting my sister from school tomorrow. No one’s going to be there to get her. I need to call my mama! Goddamn it! I don’t give a fuck if I’m 26. I gotta call my mama!
There is no security culture. A few people are excited and bragging—all sorts of who’s and what’s and where’s. We tell each other to keep quiet, talk about other things.
Other people occupy themselves by trying to slip out of the zip-tie cuffs. Freeing a wrist is a small joy.
Later in the holding cells we continue shivering on cement blocks as we try to get some rest and wait for our release. We are all too grumpy and tired to congratulate one another. We finally get a glimpse of riot’s significance when newly arrested people join us in the holding cell and ask us what we are in for. People give us props, excited about our riot charges, which seem out of place. They’d all seen it go down on the news and say they wished they’d been there too. Congratulations.
End Scene.
