Occupy Los Angeles – a week to remember

California-based writer and photographer Steve Fine, who has been actively involved in the Occupy demonstrations in Los Angeles, gives Mediapart a revealing first-hand account, with pictures, of how the street protests unfolded and were forcibly ended, and explains the new tactics of the movement as it enters into a "version 2.0".

(Scroll down for photo and text reports on the Occupy LA movement)

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Steve Fine writes: As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to develop in the US, there has been a shift of tactics in those cities where the government's crackdown on encampments has occurred, courtesy of the local police departments. As a result, the anti-Wall Street message is being brought home to more Americans, literally so; for example, stopping foreclosures is the new rallying cry, people defying the banks to repossess their homes. So, as the winter deepens, the OWS movement morphs into version 2.0.

A good example of this is found in Los Angeles, where the occupation of the City Hall grounds ended on November 30th in a police raid. Since then the action has shifted to organizing online while committees meet at coffee shops during the day and the OLA community spirit is maintained via nightly general assemblies on the west steps of City Hall to coordinate actions.

In a way, the city has done the occupiers a favor by liberating them from the burden of running an encampment, which devoured so much time and resources over the past two months. They would rather still be there, of course, but now at least the focus is on actions and the next steps for the movement.

For example, on Tuesday, December 6th, OLA participants were engaged in two events simultaneous. They went inside City Hall, packing the City Council chambers to support the adoption of a resolution calling for legislation to overturn Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision which gives the same rights to corporations as "persons", opening the floodgates to corporate spending in electoral campaigns as a form of protected free speech. Another group of activists brought the Occupy message to the suburbs, assisting a homeowner to re-occupy his home after the bank had foreclosed on it rather than grant him a loan modification he qualified for.

The OWS ‘occupations' around the country is a socio-political uprising in tune with a global anti-austerity movement. In the United States the phrase anti-austerity is rarely heard, but it is fundamentally the same thing. The targets of the movement are the greedy oligarchs of Wall Street and ‘the banksters' as they continue to benefit from a corrupt political process and trillions of dollars in bailouts while the rest of the population is expected to make sacrifices. The government is not in danger of default . . . yet . . ., but the same players are behind all the mischief. "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!" is a popular Occupy slogan and chant. The use of the word "occupy" itself is a deliberate bit of irony. By transforming a word normally associated with military occupations into an act of liberation, the protestors have redefined it and made it their own. The tactics have a loose, anarchic streak to them merged with the digital age.

In essence, this uprising of "the 99%" against "the 1%" is a last ditch effort to revive democracy. (As mentioned, one goal along those lines is to reverse the recent "Citizens United" Supreme Court ruling giving corporations "free speech" rights, which has had the pernicious effect of opening the floodgates for corporate money in election campaigns). It began in New York City on September 17th with the occupation of Zuccotti Park near Wall Street, lighting a fire under an entire generation deprived of jobs, crushed by student loans, and facing a looming environmental crisis. Their prospects for the future are bleak.

Although the movement spans generations, this youth factor is the most important element from which all the others derive, from the superficial, such as the Guy Fawkes masks to the incredibly ambitious: the horizontal, leaderless organizational structure, the consensus decision making process, the spontaneous creative style of the actions, sophisticated use of social media, and the refusal to be defined by the mainstream media.

In the U.S., finally, after nearly forty years, "the kids are all right."

• Steve Fine is a writer, photographer and peace activist who lives in the North Hollywood section of Los Angeles with his French wife. "I went to the LA City Hall Sunday and Tuesday nights as a photojournalist and a supporter, but I have also been an active occupier," he says. "I didn't pitch a tent at OLA, nor was I there every day, but in October I spearheaded an OLA march to the Bank of America plaza in downtown Los Angeles for a protest rally and have taken part in events at City Hall."

The movement in pictures and text (all text and photos copyright Steve Fine):

1: The showdown at City Hall

Monday, November 28th, one minute past midnight, was supposed to be Los Angeles's turn in the nationwide crackdown on Occupy Wall Street encampments. By then, most had been raided already, people forcibly removed, many brutally in surprise early morning sweeps, with the most violent incidents receiving a great deal of play in the national media and in some cases gaining more supporters and traction as a result.

The Occupy outpost at City Hall had been fairly unique. Since inception on October 1st, a comparatively cordial relationship existed between the occupiers and city officials, including the police. In late November, Mayor Villaraigosa reversed course, falling in line with the national crackdown by serving notice on Occupy LA to vacate the grounds around City Hall. The majority remained defiant, refusing to leave until the city did something about its list of demands (in Occupy parlance that translates as: "grievances not addressed").

These photographs cover the period on Sunday leading up to the 12:01a.m. Monday morning deadline and the first hour thereafter, during which roughly more than one thousand supporters filled the streets in front of City Hall and the same number of "occupiers" remained in the encampment, several hundred prepared to be arrested in a peaceful act of civil disobedience. The tense standoff in the streets lasted until five a.m. when the police withdrew, but it was not the massive display of force anticipated, so there was still an expectation they would be back.

The following day the Police Chief, Charlie Beck, told the press the LAPD was going to "wait out" the occupiers to avoid the violence that had marred other police actions around the country; thus it did appear OLA had won the first round and that when the LAPD did move in it was going to treat these people differently than it did other demonstrators throughout its checkered history.

2: The night of the raid

Late on the evening of November 30th, at around 10 p.m., police began barricading the streets around City Hall in a two-block perimeter. This gave little time for OLA's supporters to organize another support action. By midnight the entire area was sealed off and the police raided in a display of massive force, with 1,400 officers exploding Trojan Horse fashion by bursting out of City Hall, where they had gathered inside, onto the south and north lawns. The arrests went on all night, the last protestor removed by a crane from a tree-house at 5 a.m. However, the operation was not as squeaky clean as the Mayor and police chief claimed in the media. (See the links bottom of page for a first-hand account from an arrestee with a different story to tell.)

As for the nearly six hundred supporters who had gathered in the streets, they were trapped between the police in City Hall and those manning the barricades behind them. Initially they split into two breakout groups to go off on spontaneous protest marches but then regrouped outside City Hall, at which point few if any media were left. The gathering was declared an illegal assembly and the protesters were chased, some into skid row where there were reports by some protesters of beatings.

Me? I missed all this action. (See links at the bottom of this article to videos that can fill in the gaps of what transpired inside the encampment during the raid and in the surrounding streets.) My photographs are low key by comparison, but give a feel for the kind of night it was for a supporter trying to get in. By the time I arrived downtown all the barricades were up. I first tried a location south of City Hall where I encountered three young ladies who had been "nonviolence monitors" among the occupiers. I videotaped their story of the raid and their escape.

Then I walked many blocks through skid row following someone's tip about a location the police had neglected to seal off, learning from others coming back that not only was it sealed off, but they had observed people fleeing the area from the police who appeared hell bent on beating the shit out of them. About face and return to the car. I drove to an intersection northwest of City Hall, at Temple and Broadway.

3. Aftermath: Stay Calm & Occupy

This first group of photographs, above and below, is of the grounds around City Hall as it was on December 6th, a week after the raid. The entire site is fenced off except for the east side (not pictured) which is the entrance used by the public to access City Hall.

This second group of pictures below is of the December 6th evening meeting of the Occupy LA General Assembly, which has moved to the West Steps of City Hall fronting Spring Street. The ‘GA' meets every night; it used to be held on the South Steps of the Front Lawn.

and finally...

Additional links:

"My Occupy LA Arrest", by Patrick Meighan.

Video of LAPD late night raid on Occupy LA

LAPD Raids Occupy LA

Occupy LA/YouTube page: OLA Raid, Tree POV, (when arrests began).

My video from November 30th, 1:30 a.m.:

Occupy LA Nonviolence Monitors describe raid