Seattle: Cops vs. The party

July 26, 2011 Anarchist News

The following account was written by an individual who was attacked with a
shovel by the police at a party in Seattle on July 22, 2011.

The party wasn't very large, but it certainly wasn't small. Several dozen
people milled about inside a house, drinking, laughing, sharing stories,
and smoking. Outside, a fire burned in a pit someone dug the night before
using a shovel that had been borrowed from a friend. Most of these people
had known each other for years and had come to a house-warming party for
their friends. Around the fire, a curious dog wound between dozens of
legs, catching little pats on the head. Joy and freedom and ambient music
filled the air. Everyone was happy. And then the pigs arrived.

A lone cop with a flashlight wandered through the gate and into the
backyard, responding to a noise complaint. The music vanished and everyone
quieted down. Then the cop spoke, accusing us of doing all sorts of
things. He had entered the backyard without a warrant, bringing with him
the wind of death and slavery. And so, everyone screamed the same thing:
“Get the fuck out!” The bloated little man did not like this, but no
matter how hard he tried, he could not intimidate the dozens of people
surrounding him. When two back-up cops arrived, they were shouted down and
silenced. No one was afraid of them, they just wanted them out of their
presence and out of the party. The police could not stand the simple fact
that these people were not terrified or cowed by their attempts at
intimidation. The people in this party were free and strong together. With
their words alone, they pushed the three cops out of the backyard.

In their anger, the cops who had retreated into the front yard suddenly
attacked one of the people from the party. When the people from the
backyard stepped into the front yard, a cop grabbed the shovel that had
been used to dig the fire pit and began to swing it wildly. He hit several
people, many of whom later required hospital treatment. Behind him rushed
several more cops, their tasers and batons out. The pigs began to savagely
beat whoever was closest to them. In their cowardice, they threw people to
the ground and took cheap shots on their heads, backs, and rib cages. The
only true power these pigs had was their weapons, their cages, and the
threat of execution, and they used this power to beat free people whose
only weapon had been their words. Without their guns and jails, these pigs
were weak, spineless cowards.

The pigs dragged seven rebels out of the party and into jail, leaving
behind the bloodstained shovel. As they took some of them to the cruisers,
the cops continued to beat their captives. They bragged about using the
shovel against the party, told everyone they were going to be raped in
jail, and drove them off to a weekend in hell. The rest of the story will
be told later.

The struggle against the police transcends anarchism, ideology, or
politics. This is a struggle that involves thousands of people that are
ground down through the King County Jail every year. The police trap
people in an endless cycle of cages, get away with murdering innocent
wanderers, and break the backs of the poorest and most resilient residents
of Seattle.

Let it be said, the cops dug their own hole with our shovel. The cops have
gone too far and have attacked the wrong people in their own home. They
have made so many mistakes so far that everything is stacked against them,
including the department of justice investigation. The story they have
invented, that they were attacked with a shovel, will not withstand the
evidence of hospital records, the bloodstained shovel, or the words of the
dozens of people at the party. They will bury themselves with the shovel
that we used to dig the fire pit that warmed our celebrations that night.
We are free, wild people, and we will not be tamed. This is just
beginning.

Long live the party!

They can't bring us down...
even with a shovel.