Long Johns Brown

The cops spent the day enacting a program of violence and intimidation on us, with no provocation whatsoever. This came in three stages: pre-parade, once we arrived at City Hall Plaza, and after the conclusion of the Straight Pride rally. 2/28

I want to collect some videos to give people a fuller understanding of how things played out yesterday. As many have said, the thread by @socialistdogmom gives a really fantastic and frightening look at what happened: https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1167814316432744448 … 3/28

When protesters arrived at their staging area at the Boston Public Garden, the police had already set up an extensive line of barricades setting a channel through Boylston Street. Protesters took up position behind these barricades. 4/28

But for some reason, this wasn’t good enough for the cops, and they started harassing protesters almost immediately, making arrests for no discernible reason: https://twitter.com/steveahlquist/status/1167859790392856576 … 5/28

In his article, @steveahlquist notes that a protester was detained because the cops claimed they needed a permit for their bullhorn, which the cops promptly stole from them: https://twitter.com/steveahlquist/status/1167813078345486336 … 6/28

Cops claimed a protester had a weapon and took him down (he was carrying a water bottle): https://twitter.com/sailbotes/status/1167875981056462849 … 7/28

Another one of these arrests: https://twitter.com/pixelsand8/status/1167877747915415561 … 8/28

Even though the cops had set up their barricade in the street, they decided that the street needed to be cleared and protesters needed to move onto the sidewalk. This would lead to even more escalation and arrests: https://twitter.com/two_knocks/status/1167873432756731905 … 9/28

Why did the cops decide that the barricade that they had set up was not acceptable, and that it was appropriate to violently move the crowd out of the street? Things got pretty rough: https://twitter.com/two_knocks/status/1167874044500135940 … 10/28

But that wasn’t enough, because a few minutes later the cops went through the newly moved barricades to arrest more protesters, again for no discernible reason: https://twitter.com/deluxian54/status/1167855283252674560 … 11/28

During this charge, the cops pepper sprayed people (unfortunately, not for the last time that day) in an uncontrolled manner: https://twitter.com/SeanAllenFisher/status/1167995119989121024 … 12/28

Shortly after the cops withdrew, they moved through the barricades again, rushing for the back wall where medics were treating people who had been sprayed and making even more arrests: https://twitter.com/MORK_MORK_/status/1167859653016817666 … 13/28

Another video of this attack: https://twitter.com/two_knocks/status/1167883454148567040 … 14/28

This was as the parade was passing by us. After they passed by, we trailed them on their path towards City Hall Plaza. When we arrived there, this was the sight we were greeted by: https://twitter.com/feralgrass/status/1167851525923885058 … 15/28

We took up a position on Congress Street, which was already closed, across from where the Straight Pride rally was happening. About 10 minutes after we arrived, cops decided to have a motorcycle parade through us: https://twitter.com/talkwordy/status/1167846867650207745 … 16/28

I want to highlight how loud those motorcycles were, it was seriously painful to be that close for an extended period of time. As you can expect, some people did not take too kindly to this police parade, and police decided to get violent yet again:https://twitter.com/broderick/status/1167848969516589057 …

Things remained relatively calm throughout the rest of the Straight Pride rally, besides chasing random right wingers out of our space. 18/28

After the fash had left the plaza, we were just milling around, there was no real appetite or direction to go after them. People were hot and tired, and the crowd had already thinned a bit. If the cops had given us another half hour, we would have dispersed on our own.19/28

But no, they apparently had to open the street right away, the street that was closed all day and never should have been closed in the first place. So out came the motorcycles again, and this time a lot of people didn’t move for them: https://twitter.com/lizzieheintz/status/1167923401681334272 … 20/28

Bike cops made their way to the front and started making arrests. But they quickly realized that wasn’t going to disperse the crowd, so rather than back down they chose to escalate. That’s when the pepper spray came out: https://twitter.com/lizzieheintz/status/1167918463995633664 … 21/28

Here you can see some of the earlier arrests, and cops assaulting people including @socialistdogmom : https://twitter.com/JJMurphyBOS25/status/1167963069487599616 … 22/28

Here’s another video of the pepper spray, and a cop throwing a sucker punch: https://twitter.com/broderick/status/1167848969516589057 … 23/28

More: https://twitter.com/MORK_MORK_/status/1167897168092397568 … 24/28

Cops went hog wild: https://twitter.com/pixelsand8/status/1167898655187038209 … 25/28

There’s no other way to describe what happened except for a police riot, which went on all day in various forms. We know why they did this, we know what they think of us: https://twitter.com/AntiFashGordon/status/1168190345936551938 … 26/28

We need to demand consequences and serious changes. There was no reason things had to happen the way they did. There was no need to issue a permit, no need to call in this many cops, no need to allow them to do what they did. 27/28

Things need to change. We cannot let officials, especially Mayor Walsh, off the hook. We cannot allow cops to continue to terrorize and victimize us and the communities we stand in solidarity with. 28/28

So it seems like cops started shit even earlier, harassing and attacking people in bloc and trying to de-mask people:https://twitter.com/JankyTT/status/1167950571011108864 …

A closer video of the bullshit happening in my 11/28 tweet:https://twitter.com/AESparrow/status/1168539858085842950 …