Seattle, WA: Cops vs. The Party

The following account was written by an individual who was attacked with a shovel by the police at a party in Seattle on July 22, 2011.

The party wasn’t very large, but it certainly wasn’t small. Several dozen people milled about inside a house, drinking, laughing, sharing stories, and smoking. Outside, a fire burned in a pit someone dug the night before using a shovel that had been borrowed from a friend. Most of these people had known each other for years and had come to a house-warming party for their friends. Around the fire, a curious dog wound between dozens of legs, catching little pats on the head. Joy and freedom and ambient music filled the air. Everyone was happy. And then the pigs arrived.

A lone cop with a flashlight wandered through the gate and into the backyard, responding to a noise complaint. The music vanished and everyone quieted down. Then the cop spoke, accusing us of doing all sorts of things. He had entered the backyard without a warrant, bringing with him the wind of death and slavery. And so, everyone screamed the same thing: “Get the fuck out!” The bloated little man did not like this, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not intimidate the dozens of people surrounding him. When two back-up cops arrived, they were shouted down and silenced. No one was afraid of them, they just wanted them out of their presence and out of the party. The police could not stand the simple fact that these people were not terrified or cowed by their attempts at intimidation. The people in this party were free and strong together. With their words alone, they pushed the three cops out of the backyard.

In their anger, the cops who had retreated into the front yard suddenly attacked one of the people from the party. When the people from the backyard stepped into the front yard, a cop grabbed the shovel that had been used to dig the fire pit and began to swing it wildly. He hit several people, many of whom later required hospital treatment. Behind him rushed several more cops, their tasers and batons out. The pigs began to savagely beat whoever was closest to them. In their cowardice, they threw people to the ground and took cheap shots on their heads, backs, and rib cages. The only true power these pigs had was their weapons, their cages, and the threat of execution, and they used this power to beat free people whose only weapon had been their words. Without their guns and jails, these pigs were weak, spineless cowards.

The pigs dragged seven rebels out of the party and into jail, leaving behind the bloodstained shovel. As they took some of them to the cruisers, the cops continued to beat their captives. They bragged about using the shovel against the party, told everyone they were going to be raped in jail, and drove them off to a weekend in hell. The rest of the story will be told later.

The struggle against the police transcends anarchism, ideology, or politics. This is a struggle that involves thousands of people that are ground down through the King County Jail every year. The police trap people in an endless cycle of cages, get away with murdering innocent wanderers, and break the backs of the poorest and most resilient residents of Seattle.

Let it be said, the cops dug their own hole with our shovel. The cops have gone too far and have attacked the wrong people in their own home. They have made so many mistakes so far that everything is stacked against them, including the department of justice investigation. The story they have invented, that they were attacked with a shovel, will not withstand the evidence of hospital records, the bloodstained shovel, or the words of the dozens of people at the party. They will bury themselves with the shovel that we used to dig the fire pit that warmed our celebrations that night. We are free, wild people, and we will not be tamed. This is just beginning.

Long live the party!

They can’t bring us down…
even with a shovel.

http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/825