There was a tornado warning on Thursday, December 20th, with a cool front marching down south. The tornado that touched down though, was the incredible spirit, will and determination of those fighting for public, and affordable housing in this city, and taking on the NOPD and New Orleans City Council in the process.
We were prepared, Thursday, to challenge what we already knew would go down: the vote in the affirmative by the New Orleans City Council to demolish over 4000 units of critical, public and affordable housing in New Orleans. Our intent was to keep the meeting from happening, to prevent the vote, by peaceful, but loud, raucous protest. There was no intent to commit violence. Many of us were quite willing to be arrested. One of the principles decided on by public housing residents in this struggle is that it will be a non-violent struggle.
There were not now, nor have there ever been, plans to commit violence by any of our people. However, when people are physically attacked by police, sometimes you fight back. You can call it instinct, survival, or foolhardy, call it what you will, but human nature being what it is, sometimes people fight back. The first punch was thrown by the NOPD however, which you can observe by watching the above video.
I was one of those locked out that day. I brought my camera, fully intending to document even though locked out. We were behind and to the side of council chambers, locked out by virtue of a pair of handcuffs on the gate that encloses a covered driveway behind the chambers.
Police lined that covered driveway, and we knew there were significant numbers in the chambers. We received phone reports that our colleagues had prevented the meeting from beginning, by chanting and shouting and demanding that those locked out be allowed in.
Suddenly, from the outside, we saw at least 10 police officers rush into the building. We knew it was going down inside. We all began to scream and some of us shook the gate violently. We wanted in to help defend our sisters and brothers.
Several officers converged on the gate. We continued shouting to let us in, as we saw our friends and colleagues dragged out of the back of the chambers and into paddywagons in handcuffs. Some of our sisters and brothers shouted at us defiantly to “keep it up.”
Soon, someone shook the gate violently enough to break the handcuffs easily. Several pulled the gate open, but the police converged right there at the opening. Someone was immediately arrested. There were no punches thrown at officers, no objects were hurled to hurt officers or anyone else. But there was raucous shouting and determination to keep that gate open.
A woman I know, a skilled activist who has spinal injuries from abuse by the police, hobbled to the side of the gate and positioned herself between the police and the rest of us. Several others were attempting to hold the gate open.
That was when the pepper spraying began. I was at the front of the group with others, right up against the gate, and we got the first full face full of pepper spray.
Believe me folks, this is some nasty shit. I and others immediately turned and ran, by instinct, and begged people for water to pour over our faces. The pepper spray is a form of chemical torture: our faces turned red, mine began peeling almost immediately, and when the stuff leaked in our eyes, all we could do is stumble and blink.
The jostling continued at the front of the gate, with events happening quickly. My activist, disabled friend was yanked to the ground by the NOPD and tasered in three different places on her body. Unfortunately, one jolt landed on a vertebrae, and cracked it. She has a neck cast now, but is still determined, and functioning fairly well.
Another young woman who was trying to hold the gate open was tasered, and in the below video you can see her fall to the ground, then several people struggling to pick her up and move her while being doused with pepper spray.
This young woman went into convulsions and began to turn blue. I watched as luckily, an EMT who was in the crowd, turned her on her side and kept her mouth clear. She began to breath again. Some of us went up to the ambulance parked on the street in front of city hall, just steps away, and pounded on the doors, but no one was inside. It took several minutes, way too long, for an ambulance to answer our distress call for this young woman.
Several people called Common Ground, and they responded within 30 to 45 minutes, bringing several gallons of milk to the sight. We all began to apply the milk to our faces. Milk is a natural antidote to pepper spray. The burning on our faces, hands and in our eyes began to taper off.
The Times Picayune reported the next day that we had been prepared for trouble, because we already had the milk ready to go. This was completely false. We weren’t prepared for pepper spray or tasers, and it took, as I said, 30 to 45 minutes for milk to arrive.
Soon the mounted police arrived and they positioned themselves just behind the now locked gate. We all began tending the wounded, and ourselves, and some continued chanting and shouting through a bullhorn.
The local news media was on top of the story, and indeed, some of them were sprayed with pepper spray as well. WWL-TV has the best coverage and video, and were the only local station, to my knowledge, that reported the serious injuries sustained by the young woman who went into convulsions after being tasered.
At least two people inside city council chambers, we learned later, were tasered also. It should be noted as well, that there was an attempt to keep several African American public housing residents out of the meeting. They were allowed in only after others came to advocate for them, including Tracy Washington, one of the attorneys on the lawsuit to reopen public housing.
15 people were arrested that day. One of my colleagues was arrested and charged with a felony, inciting a riot.
I was arrested a couple days before, after reoccupying a building, peacefully, at the B.W. Cooper Housing Development. The charges against me and my colleagues from actions that day are serious, as they are attempting to stifle the grass roots movement, and in particular, the white activists who are supporting and protesting for the reopening of public housing in New Orleans. Below is a short documentary on our reoccupation that day.
Demolitions are ongoing at the B.W. Cooper Housing Development. While reoccupying the building, I noted the strength of the interior of those apartments. They are constructed like bomb bunkers, composed of concrete and brick, and do not need gutting to reopen. The belongings of the residents were still inside of the building, including clothes still on their hangers, personal papers and mail scattered about the vandalized and looted apartments.
I think the Los Angeles Times had an excellent, concise report of events inside of City Council Chambers that day:
The fate of the 4,500 public housing units has become a flash point as this city struggles to piece itself back together after Hurricane Katrina damaged more than 134,000 homes, many of them in poor, mostly black neighborhoods.
Tents line the Interstate 10 underpass and a homeless camp has settled outside City Hall.
Even before New Orleans’ seven City Council members took their seats for the public meeting, protesters were booing and pumping their fists.
“Why y’all standing behind the curtains?” a woman called out to council members who waited at the back of the council chambers for protesters to calm down. “This ain’t no stage show! Get out from behind those curtains and tell us why you want to demolish our homes.”
The hearing was, in many ways, political theater. Protesters, who complained that many residents had been locked out of the packed public meeting, fought with police almost immediately.
City Council members — some sipping water, others leafing through file folders — looked on impassively as a man was tasered, handcuffed and dragged from the council chambers.
Outside, dozens of locked-out people tried to force their way through iron gates and clashed with police, who used pepper spray and stun guns on them.
The Homeless Encampment across from City Hall in Duncan Plaza, btw, was dismantled the next day, in what is to be planned demolition of an adjacent building. Many of the homeless have moved under the I-10 overpass where a huge tent city is exploding.
I visited Duncan Plaza the next day, and noted that for some reason, workers had left up a Christmas tree that the homeless had set up and decorated on the gazebo in Duncan Plaza. There were a couple of abandoned tents, and we spoke to three homeless people who were wandering around; at least two were members of the Homeless Pride organization that formed around this encampment.
A very large flock of birds were circling, rapidly, City Hall and Duncan Plaza, now emptied of the homeless and activists defending housing. The large flock circled again and again, as though paying homage to the souls now displaced from the area. For a time, we had Duncan Plaza, we had City Hall, through sheer will and determination, we had her in spirit.
Demolition is scheduled to begin at the C.J. Pete Development within a few days. That is my update for now.
Further video footage of events that day, including close-up footage of people being tasered:
