It's May! It's May! The Lusty Month Of May...

[Lord Jim]

A time to throw self-control away...:

Trashed Mission District businesses want answers

Vivian Ho, Ellen Huet,Jaxon Van Derbeken

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Business owners in San Francisco's Mission District, cleaning up after a night in which protesters damaged more than 30 stores and restaurants and vandalized cars, questioned Tuesday why activists had singled them out and why police hadn't done more to halt the rampage.

Among those dealing with the damage were officers at the neighborhood police station, where black-clad, masked activists threw paint and bashed the front door Monday night.

Even as they defended themselves from criticism that they had allowed the vandals to run wild - one restaurant owner said officers even appeared to be "escorting" the group - high-level police officials met to find a better way to handle out-of-control crowds.
Split from rally

The protesters split away at 9 p.m. from an Occupy rally in Dolores Park that was held in advance of Tuesday's May Day actions. Traveling down 18th Street and onto Valencia Street, they smashed windows with crowbars and signs, threw paint and eggs on buildings and spray-painted anarchy symbols on the hoods of parked cars.

"All I heard was, 'bang, bang, bang,' and some dude had the valet sign, trying to break our window," said Adam Koskoff, manager of the Locanda restaurant on Valencia. "I didn't even see the crowd, and I ran outside and got egged."

The vandals damaged restaurants, bakeries and clothing stores, along with at least 17 cars on Valencia and Guerrero streets. An expensive Aston Martin had its windshield shattered, but the protesters damaged everyday cars as well.

At the Mission police station at 17th and Valencia streets, pink and yellow paint was thrown on the barricaded glass doors, which someone cracked with a hammer or similar weapon.

"It was like the station was under siege," said an officer, who asked not to be named.
Just one arrest

Mission station Capt. Robert Moser said the vandalism had "unfolded quickly," and that 100 to 150 people had been involved.

One person was arrested on suspicion of a vehicle code violation and resisting arrest, Moser said. He was cited and released.

Some business owners said that given the extent of the damage, the arrest total should have been far higher.

J.H. Kostelni of Farina restaurant on 18th Street said he had seen squad cars at the front and the back of a group of about 30 people who threw paint and eggs at his windows and overturned his outdoor tables.

"It looked like police were escorting them," Kostelni said. "They didn't stop them."

Asked about the criticism, Moser said, "We wanted to ensure we had enough personnel for public safety and for the safety of our officers."

About 15 officers in riot gear stood guard in front of the police station Monday night, as other officers moved up and down the street, documenting the damage, leaving cards on defaced cars and speaking to business owners.

Police Chief Greg Suhr said officers had been at the Dolores Park demonstration before the violence erupted.

"This was a splinter group," he said. "They broke into a run - that's when they cracked out all the weapons and projectiles and they did all their damage. They dispersed within 15 minutes."

He added, "For us to mobilize to contend with a group of 100, especially running, takes longer than 15 minutes.[Yeah, give the cops a break...it's not as if anyone could have predicted in advance something like this would happen...I mean, it's not like there's ever been any violence at any other fleabagger event] ... By the time they got to the end of their run, there wasn't a group to arrest."

The chief said he was consulting with his command staff to "formulate contingency plans to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Wrong targets

Owners of vandalized businesses said they were hardly representative of the corporations targeted by Occupy activists.

"They're coming through the Mission, where there aren't any corporations, just a lot of small businesses, which is what they're all about," Koskoff said. "It doesn't make sense."

Jeremy Tooker, owner of Fourbarrel Coffee, said a friend had stopped a protester from smashing the glass storefront with a crowbar - and had taken a hit to his arm. Someone else splashed paint on the window.

"This just seems like they're frustrated with their impotency at this point," Tooker said. "It's like, 'Look at me, I'm still here, I'm still occupying.' "

Although the march sprang from a rally for an Occupy action, other Occupy protesters shunned its participants as outliers.[lie down with dogs, get up with fleas] Several said police must have been to blame, including one man dressed all in black[LMAO...He was probably one of the rioters! ] at Tuesday's May Day protest in San Francisco, who gave his name as Banana Mouse.

"I think it was infiltrators. I don't think it was Occupy," he said. "They (the police) were instigating."[well they certainly weren't stopping it...when the police behave this incompetently, they feed moronic conspiracy theories...]

Some business people, however, said Occupy bore responsibility for the damage.

"Occupy is saying it's not them, but we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Occupy, now would we?" Michelle Horneff-Cohen, a real estate broker, said as she surveyed the broken window of her workplace, Property Management Systems.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z1tq6CgJnc

[Scooter]

"Occupy is saying it's not them, but we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Occupy, now would we?" Michelle Horneff-Cohen, a real estate broker, said as she surveyed the broken window of her workplace, Property Management Systems.

And the Vancouver riots would not have happened if the Canucks hadn't been playing in the Stanley Cup, but that doesn't make the hockey team responsible.

[Lord Jim]

Not to be out done of course, the city of Oakland, now nationally known to millions as America's Riot Capitol, staged it's own bruhaha: (But at least they managed to arrest some people)

Twenty-five arrested as Oakland May Day protests turn raucous

OAKLAND -- Twenty-five people were arrested in Oakland on Tuesday after a day of protest against wealth inequality and for labor rights turned into a game of cat-and-mouse between police and demonstrators who clashed intermittently throughout the day.

Thousands of people flooded the streets of Oakland and San Francisco for what organizers billed as a May Day General Strike. The crowd -- a mixed group of labor organizers and union members, supporters of the Occupy movement and others -- ranged throughout the cities and staged rallies, many of them with a celebratory tone and feel.

But police moved in as night fell in Oakland and as many as 1,000 people remained on Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, the scene of earlier of violent clashes with police and the Occupy movement. Police issued a dispersal order about 8 p.m., then said about 300 people surged forward and started throwing bottles and other objects at police. Someone set off a flash-bang grenade and police converged on the perimeter of the plaza and told protesters to leave. Protesters held their ground for a few minutes, and police spread out through the plaza and then protesters moved down toward Telegraph. Protesters lit an unmarked police car and some trash cans on fire as they went.

By about 10 p.m., some 50 to 100 protesters were back at 14th and Broadway and nearly as many police officers stood sentry on the other side of the street. As the crowd became rowdy, police used motorcycles and
blared their sirens to move the protesters away from downtown. Police issued another dispersal order at 17th and Broadway, ordering people to leave the sidewalks and streets. Protesters seemed confused and many remained in the area while police retreated back to Ogawa Plaza -- setting the stage for a night of show downs with demonstrators.

More than two dozen were arrested on charges of vandalism, resisting arrest, failure to disperse and violation of court orders to stay away from Ogawa Plaza, police Chief Howard Jordan said. At least three of those arrested were facing felony charges -- one for assault and two for arson linked to a police car vandalism at 13th and Franklin streets and a car fire at 19th and Broadway.

Police weren't reporting any major injuries to officers or protesters, but several people reported that at least one protester had been injured, with some saying a woman had been struck by something. Another demonstrator was injured when he fell during the march and struck his head on a metal grate in the roadway; he was taken to a hospital for treatment but was expected to be OK.

Early on, Jordan sent a clear message that police would not tolerate violence or vandalism.

"If people are intent on hurting other people or property we aren't going to tolerate that," Jordan said in an afternoon news conference.

Jordan characterized the protesters as "a lot more assertive, a lot more aggressive," than those at Occupy Oakland protests over the last seven months.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-sto ... clash-bart

[Lord Jim]

Interesting factoid:

The phrase "Oakland riot" brings up 1,310,000 matches on Google....

[The Hen]

Off Topic ....

Happy Star Wars Day!!!

[dales]

Jim-

As long as the people of San Francisco tolerate out of control behaviour by psychopaths (no, I don't mean the board of supes) this sh-t will continue.

Time for SFPD to start cracking some skulls, hauling their sorry asses off to "the haul of justice" (as the late Herb Caen called it) and prosecute to the full extent of the law.

For too many years SF has turned into a cesspool, tolerating sh-t on the sidewalks, agressive pan handling, dirty and dangerous streets, and above all somehow believeing that by accepting this mess, they were somehow more "enlightened and compassionate" then us commoners out in them burbs.

SF used to be a beautiful. not so much anymore.

AND THE 49'ERS ARE HEADED TO SANTA CLARA - SF CAN'T EVEN HOLD ONTO AN NFL TEAM fergawdsakes!

[Lord Jim]

Here's my concern about this Dale....

A larger part of the reason that Oakland became such a mecca for the hell raising thugs that have associated themselves with the fleabagger movement is because the word got out that the cops and the political authorities had their heads completely up their asses, and your chances of being apprehended and prosecuted for hell raising thugishness there were quite low. This essentially amounted to the town putting up a big neon sign at the city limits that read "HELL RAISING THUGS WELCOME" ....and as a result, hell raising thugs from all up and down the west coast flocked to Oakland last summer and fall to involve themselves with Oakland's fleabagger festivities....

Now, it appears that the authorities in Oakland may at long last be starting to get their act together and are trying to create a less inviting environment for hell raising thugs. My concern is, that once the word gets out about the hellraising thug-friendly performance of the SFPD two days ago, it is San Francisco that will now see itself become the new magnet for west coast based hell raising thugs, at subsequent fleabagger dos this spring and summer....That the word will go out that if you want to go some place where you can terrorize people and burn and break things with little or no consequences that Frisco's the place to be....

If there were 150 hell raising thugs at the last get-together, I would now expect that there will be three or four times that many at the next one....

The one thing that we've got going for us is that our current Mayor, Ed Lee, is nowhere near as big a waste of space, shit-in-a-skin-bag as that moron mayor Quan in Oakland...

Hopefully, after this fiasco, both he and the police chief will realize exactly the problem I've outlined and not get caught flat-footed (no pun intended) again....

It took that idiot Quan months of navel gazing dithering to finally have the police work out the kind of preparation and response that should have been put in place at the outset. My take on Lee is that he will have a much steeper learning curve...(he was out of town when this happened) instead of 15 police in riot gear, I expect the next fleabagger event will see 200 police in riot gear, on prominent display.

[dales]

Agreed, Jim.

It wouldn't hurt to have the CA National Guard on standby alert (if they're not deployed in some gawd-forsaken middle east hell hole).



April 1992:


Back in 1992 it took the National Guard to finally quell the LA riots (which Chief Gates was unable or unwilling to do).

At least the KOREANS (after learning that LAPD was nowhere to be found) took matters into their own hands and guarded their stores with high-powered hunting rifles, shotguns and high-capacity semi-auto handguns.

MAY GOD BLESS THE SECOND AMENDMENT!

[rubato]

The sfpd did a superb job kicking ass and shutting down the riots before they started when the r king riots
Moved north. They were just taken by surprise here. It happens.

[dgs49]

Is there anything more vacuous than a public demonstration against "wealth inequality"?

These people need to get a life, starting with a job.

One of them was quoted on the radio the other day (a college "student") as saying that she thought we ought to be more like Cuba. Doesn't anyone up the chain teach these people anything about economics?

[Lord Jim]

I have seen some people being interviewed at these things making some mind numbingly stupid remarks as well....

I remember one young woman saying that we ought to get rid of money....

Yeah, an advanced post industrial society of 300 million shifting to a barter economy.....

[Jarlaxle]

These riots need to be stopped by any means required...if necessary, by shooting into mobs with machine guns & flamethrowers.

[dales]

An M1 Abrahms tank would be far more effective, jarl.

[Lord Jim]

These riots need to be stopped by any means required...if necessary, by shooting into mobs with machine guns & flamethrowers.

Now that's more like the Jarl I know....

[Scooter]

I don't know...he didn't advocate the use of tactical nuclear weapons, so can we really be sure...

[Jarlaxle]

An M1 Abrahms tank would be far more effective, jarl.

Kind of hard on the pavement, though.

[Lord Jim]

Kind of hard on the pavement, though.

That's a good point; the Apache Helicopter is probably the way to go here:

Armament:Hellfire missiles, Hydra 70 (70 mm, 2.75-inch) rockets and M230 30 mm chain gun

It's always important to have the right tool for the job.

[Jarlaxle]

Hmm...wonder what a helicopter (say, a nice big CH-47 Chinook) hovering 50' over the disturbance might do? I suspect that would disperse things nicely!

[BoSoxGal]

Ahem; what about that pesky 1st amendment?

[dales]

After a lawful order to disperse?

Send in the calvary!