San Francisco, March 21 -- Cops in riot gear spent the day following around protesters, becoming progressively more aggressive in terrorizing and brutalizing people walking on the sidewalks of San Francisco. Hundreds were arrested throughout the day attempting to shut down the city for a second day. Many of those arrested were marching on the sidewalk when they were ambushed by cops, surrounded and then isolated from any onlookers who were threatened with arrest if they didn't move away. Hundreds are still being held after arrest yesterday and they were joined by hundreds more today.

Todays demonstrations started out slower than Thursdays, without the series of organized direct action. Numbers grew throughout the morning with an 11 am convergence bringing thousands. But cops were out in much greater force for a much smaller crowd and were able to keep the march on the sidewalks for most of the time. The first attempt to take an intersection over led to cops surrounding the area and then one force charging in to quickly isolate a small group of protestors. This incident led to many arrests and a closing of the intersection by police for some time. During this time protestors were roughed up a bit, and one arrestee was beaten by SFPD officer number 477.

One tactic used to prevent the large march from reaching others being arrested for civil disobedience was to require searches of bags at check points along the sidewalk. This plan didn't last long as many recognized this was illegal. One lawyer had the crowd repeat, "I do not consent to a search. You have no probable cause. PLease call my lawyer at the National Lawyers Guild." He also pointed out that the PATRIOT Act does not allow unwarranted searches without cause. RAIL is currently engaged in a battle, making this argument against administrators at UC Santa Barbara.

After the first set of arrests the cops continued to divide the rally efficiently creating panic that led to crowds running through shopping malls and alley ways to avoid arrest. As cops hid around the corners of a small gathering one business man encouraged another on the street to go down to the area and check it out, "It's not dangerous, tehre's 10 cops for every protestor." In reality there were no reported incidents of protestors endangering people, while they often ran from fully armed pigs charging at them in formation.

At 5pm there was a reconvergence and thousands gathered for a rally downtown. The crowd marched down the sidewalk escorted by cops on foot and in cars. A segment of the marchers was isolated and ambushed by cops on one sidewalk where a few hundred people were arrested and charged with failure to disperse. Dispersal was of course impossible with armed riot pigs surrounding them. The rest of the march continued into the street until cops ran at the crowd. Everyone jumped onto the sidewalk and those in the front of the march found themselves surrounded by cops. Another several hundred were arrested. At that point the police began chasing down protesters who weren't caught in the dragnet.

Those who escaped split into smaller groups and continued marching through the city. These groups kept to the sidewalks but were frequently seen flanked by marching cops in riot gear. One group of about 5 protesters with one sign and a drum was marching down the sidewalk of Market Street (a main street in San Francisco) around 6pm followed by about 50 cops also marching along the sidewalk. Eventually some of these cops stopped in front of a donut shop, standing in formation apparently guarding the donuts. In spite of some apparent disorganization and unexplained actions such as this, the police were clearly under strict leadership and very well organized in their ambushes on the activists today. Helicopter surveillance no doubt helped locate groups of activists. And MIM witnessed groups of cops hiding in wait in various locations, either on foot or on motorcycle, waiting for orders to attack.

Small groups of 20 or so activists marching through the streets were picked up by cops on foot, on motorcycles and in cars. The cops first followed behind the marchers, then sped up and overtook them, marching both behind and to the side. Then another group of cops would come around a corner to close off any exit surrounding the marchers, leaving no escape. Some groups of protesters caught on to this tactic and tried to change directions repeatedly. Others split off running trying to lose the cops. Many people were frightened and expressed concern about being arrested, but the police presence also increased peoples conviction. One man said "I can't leave and let the cops keep me from walking on the sidewalk" when his friend asked if he was prepared to get arrested.

At one of the intersections where several hundred people were arrested MIM found the street still blocked off by the cops a few hours later as they were still arresting the last of the demonstrators. We spoke to one man who said his wife had just been walking down the street when she got caught in the police ambush. While she was sympathetic to the protest, she hadn't been a part of it. She had called him and told him to come there but he didn't know where they had taken her or if she was still there in a bus. Other onlookers said police told them they could be arrested for just standing on the sidewalk there watching.

After escaping one police ambush activists handing out MIM Notes approached a crowd waiting in line at the Bill Graham Civic Center to see a concert. They had watched the march go by earlier so we approached them to tell them much of that crowd was being arrested for walking on the sidewalk, and to offer them copies of MIM Notes. A security person from the building came out and asked us to stop distributing the paper claiming that the sidewalk belonged to the building. He said activists on sidewalks deserved to be arrested "that's Amerika" according to him. While we agree that this is what Amerika is about, we definitely don't support it. Nor will we give up our supposedly guaranteed civil liberties without a fight. We challenged his assertion that we couldn't hand out literature to people in line on the sidewalk, telling him that the Supreme Court has ruled otherwise and that it is legal to distribute literature on sidewalks. The crowd, however, was not at all interested in our literature so after a fruitless argument we moved on. In general people on the streets were eager to snatch up the special war edition of MIM Notes well into the night.

The city of San Francisco is now on a lockdown by police and anyone who appears to be protesting the war is subject to arrest for the crime of walking down the sidewalk expressing their opinion. This is a clear demonstration of the willingness of the imperialists to take away supposedly guaranteed rights, like the right to free speech, in times of war. We need to take advantage of our ability to speak out and we can not be intimidated by the police when they illegally arrest people for walking on the sidewalk expressing their opinions. We also need to point out to people that this police state is what many people around the world live under on a daily basis around the world under military dictatorships propped up by Amerikan money and guns. The relative freedoms that we (sometimes) enjoy here are bought by the suffering of people around the world. And these are freedoms only guaranteed to those at home who play along with the imperialist system.