Aug 20

Aug 20 DNC Dispatch 5

Chicago, Demonstrations, Protest, Public Declarations, Performance, Street

“Death, misery and tears
Calculated waves of fear
Drawn up by think tanks
There’s a darkness in the west

I am the fury, the spirit of outrage
I am the fire
I am the virus, I am the virus
I am the furnace where resentment glows
I am the bias
I am the virus, I am the virus”

— I Am The Virus, Killing Joke, from Pylon (2015)

Behind Enemy Lines (“BEL”) has been railing against the Democratic National Convention on its Instagram page for months The group scheduled a protest for 7:00 PM tonight outside the Midwest Offices of the Israeli Consulate General at 500 West Madison (located in the Accenture Tower).

On its website, BEL dubbed the evening “Make It Great Like ‘68.” The reference to ‘68 is an ominous one, but an August 12th post posed even greater concerns, with the group provocatively asking, “Who says protesting should be safe?” The question is preceded with some pointed criticism of the March on the DNC Coalition.

Even as the genocidal criminals in the Democratic Party prepare to invade Chicago, the March on the DNC Coalition promises to deliver a safe, family-friendly protest, and has spent months embarrassing itself begging the city for a permit. . . . In this case, “safe” means that they coordinate with the Chicago Police Department and push out anyone who intends to escalate the protests to confront business as usual.

Further into the diatribe, BEL, states:

hundreds, if not thousands of protests against police killings took place in the summer of 2020 . . . None of them were as effective in delivering a message than the burning of the 3rd Police Precinct in Minneapolis.

Nowhere does BEL explicitly call for violence, but the question about safety and the reference to the Minneapolis police station raise legitimate questions about BEL’s intentions. I read the language as an attempt speak under the cover of plausible deniability. The language goes right up to the line, but not over it.

Like all the other photojournalists who have been covering the streets during the DNC, I was not going to miss tonight’s performance. I arrived sometime around 6:00 PM. Traffic was still flowing westward on Madison, but the bicycle cops were already in position. As with past protests outside the Israeli Consulate, the cops and their bikes lined the sidewalk in front of the station, but there was a twist. A phalanx of bicycle cops also lined the street’s south side. Adding to the unfolding drama, CPD riot police were congregating on the northwest corner of Clinton and Madison.

The Opening Acts. While the main bout was at least an hour away, there were opening acts. The Holy Rollers brought their signs and a bullhorn, standing on the southwest corner opposite the riot police. Just west of Canal and Madison, several pro-Israel demonstrators stood behind a line of bicycle cops who were keeping the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian forces from mixing. One demonstrator waved an Israeli flag, drawing the attention of an occasional pro-Palestinian demonstrator, but he went unmolested.

While standing on the northeast corner of Madison and Clinton, I noticed a crush of reporters, several with boom mikes. I had trouble seeing through the tangle of bodies, but after enough bobbing and weaving, I finally saw none other than Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy. Earlier in the day, he had appeared at Park 578 with Rudy Giuliani, but Lindell apparently wanted more attention. Rudy was nowhere in sight.

Like many, I am not a Lindell fanboy, but I do give credit when due. He was good-natured and responsive to questions, exhibiting a friendly aura. His pillows and Egyptian cotton sheets must work—he appeared well rested. While Lindell may be an election-denying idiot, he is both intelligent and entertaining. I listened to him for a good ten minutes.

A little closer to the transportation hub’s mirrored walls, a young woman stood, also taking questions. She either had dyed her hair purple, or was wearing a wig. Holding one end of a banner that read, “Stop The White Replacement; Deport Them All . . . WhiteLivesMatterOfficial,” she apparently had swallowed the proverbial Red Pill.

Several young bulls in the crowd saw red. Eventually a scruffy young man charged to the front, trying to grab the banner. The woman and her partner who was holding the banner’s other end managed to repel the effort. The attacker, speaking to no one in particular, then gave a rambling discourse justifying his actions.

The Melee. At some point, Rabbi Yisroel David Weiss, a member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, made his way into the street, together with three or four of his acolytes. Like the rest of us, they would soon know what the evening had in store for the police,, demonstrators, and the media.

Seemingly from nowhere, a group, many clad in black, marched toward the Ogilvie Transportation Center—they had either passed over the Madison Street bridge, or walked toward Madison from Riverside Plaza. The police presumably hoped to immediately shut down what was an unlawful assembly, but the unwitting media provided the necessary cover, clogging the street as they rushed toward the marchers. The media, as much as the marchers, were responsible for Madison’s closure.

If I headed BEL, I would have deployed an entirely different tactic. Every member would have bought a roundtrip Metra ticket to someplace in the suburbs with a verdant park in proximity to the station. Disguised in shorts, sandals, and colorful shirts, the group would have picnicked, and then changed into their black clothes, riding the train back to Ogilvie. Voilà, the demonstrators would be inside the Accenture Tower as the riot police stood on the outside waiting for them to arrive.

When the BEL members and others gathered in the middle of Madison in front of the Israeli Consulate, several people clad in black stood with a black sheet behind them, wildly flailing about while they spoke. These were not speeches, but rather, inflammatory rants designed to unleash adrenaline, pumping up the rage.

At this point, I retreated to the southeast corner of Madison and Clinton Climbing a concrete planter overlooking the scene, I then spent much of the evening just watching. By doing so, I missed what I am told was a confrontation between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian forces near Canal.

On Clinton, more and more riot police joined what was an orderly formation. Expecting the riot police to lurch eastward, setting up a ‘kettle’ to trap the demonstrators, I waited for the inevitable clash. A bit of advice: Never get in the kettle.

After at least a half hour ticked by, an amoeba-like body suddenly moved westward toward the riot police. From my vantage point, the demonstrators appeared to plunge into the police line, at which point a melee broke out. Utter chaos. Some photographers captured much better images than I did—they had positioned themselves between the police and the demonstrators, something I was not prepared to do. One photographer friend was just north of the melee, so she captured some outstanding images, including three showing a photojournalist being arrested after she refused to vacate the street.

To my surprise, the chaos ended as quickly as it began, with those who had not been arrested gathering in a circle, where two American flags were burned as two dozen photographers jockeyed for position. I joined the circle, but quickly returned to my perch.

The demonstrators who had not been arrested somehow managed to circumvent the police lining Clinton. Over the police radios, I heard they headed south toward Jackson. I was one of the last photographers to leave Madison, heading toward State Street. Just before crossing the bridge, I was rewarded. The police were hauling one of the demonstrators toward a police transport wagon. Presumably, he was under arrest.

For me, the most impressive person I encountered this evening was the female police officer who functioned as a coxswain. Following the melee, she told the officers that they had served the city of Chicago well, also telling them they should be proud. She then asked them to check on each other to make sure everyone was OK. Throughout the evening, she spoke to the officers, telling them, for example, to turn on their body cams and to synchronize them to the date and time she read out.

Two Observations About the Melee. Two final observations about the incidents on Madison. First, the National Lawyers Guild is supposed function as neutral observers. Earlier this week, I heard a Guild lawyer tell a demonstrator that she could not assist him in moving his equipment because she was a neutral observer.

Whether the Guild members present tonight remained neutral is at best unclear. Their presence during the melee proved problematic, adding to the confusion and possibly hampering CPD’s response. They certainly can and should provide legal representation to people who are taken into custody once the people are under control and in custody, but the Guild members should have stepped aside while the police tried to retake the street.

Second, I have referred to what transpired as a demonstration for simplicity, but some of those in the street struck me as provocateurs and agitators rather than demonstrators. Their actions placed other people at risk. To my knowledge, the organizers had not obtained a permit for the demonstration, and at some point, the demonstration was apparently declared an unlawful assembly. CPD had every right to clear the street.

BEL now complains about what they view as unjust arrests, but as noted, before tonight BEL provocatively questioned why protesters expect to be safe while demonstrating. The agitators should accept the consequences of their actions. Like everyone else, they could have headed to Park 578 to air their grievances.

Events Earlier In The Day. Earlier in the day, I stopped by Union Park, where the RevComs (presumably short for Revolutionary Communists) were holding a small demonstration over the ‘murder’ by the police of people of color. While I sympathize with any family member who has lost a son, daughter, brother, or sister to gun violence, I will not engage in a blanket condemnation of the police. Moreover, I am unwilling to draw conclusions based simply on the testimony of relatives who in many cases were not present when the person in question was killed as a result of an interaction with the police. Yet, watching these people repeat their stories for the umpteenth time is emotionally draining.

After 30 minutes, I walked the three blocks to the corner of Madison and Ashland, where Chicago’s firefighters and paramedics were demonstrating. They have gone three years without a contract. With the Democrats in town, union officials decided to shame Mayor Brandon Johnson in front of peers.

[Click on an Image to Enlarge It. The Images Are Not Necessarily in Exact Chronological Order.]