Slog
News & ArtsTuesday, May 1, 2012
City In San Francisco, Protesters Attack Mission Police Station and Businesses
Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, May 1, 2012 at 8:15 AM
Via the San Francisco Chronicle:
A large group of protesters marched from Dolores Park shortly after 9 p.m. Monday night and vandalized parts of the Mission District, including the San Francisco Police Department's Mission station at 630 Valencia Street.
At least a dozen businesses, including Tartine Bakery at 18th and Guerrero streets and Locanda restaurant on Valencia, had their windows broken out and were splattered with paint and food. Vehicles along Valencia and Guerrero streets had windows broken out - an Aston Martin had its windshield shattered and brown paint covered the hood.
The report, which was filed at 11 p.m. last night, doesn't make clear whether these were self-identified May Day protesters, but big May Day rallies are set for that city today, too, leading to plans by San Francisco authorities "for nothing and for everything."
UPDATE: More from the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which connects the protesters to May Day but also features rejection of their tactics by the local Occupy movement.
Neighborhood residents were angered and confused by the destruction. One man who did not wish to be named said, “They kept doing it while other people in the march were trying to get them to stop. It was childish.”
SF Weekly connects the vandalism to May Day as well, saying "the chaos broke out shortly after 9 p.m. after occupiers marched from Dolores Park through the Mission District in preparation for today's May Day general strike."
1
Gee, I dunno, Eli, but given that it happened on April 30th, they probably weren't "May Day protesters".
4
Nonviolence is the ONLY answer to a successful protest. Small businesses don't deserve this. Use your heads.
6
No doubt they're self-identified May Day protestors, fundamentally warped interpretation of the movement & message be damned. Sad.
7
@1: To be fair, people who just want an excuse to break windows tend to not have much patience. I would not be surprised if this was some bullshit May Day "vanguard"
It is too nuanced and difficult to take on the real problem, so they smash up Ma and Pa's bakery instead.
Or maybe once you win a Pulitzer you no longer have to check your dates, HUH ELI?
It is too nuanced and difficult to take on the real problem, so they smash up Ma and Pa's bakery instead.
Or maybe once you win a Pulitzer you no longer have to check your dates, HUH ELI?
11
@10: Ha, it's just a joke my friend.
Congrats on the award, I was just ribbing you and mocking the haters.
Congrats on the award, I was just ribbing you and mocking the haters.
12
This event was sponsored by Occupy movement. They took down the notice shortly after the incident, but others got screenshots.
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/joshbarro…
http://blogs-images.forbes.com/joshbarro…
14
@8 It being cops would assume that they find occupy serious enough to warrant such tactics.
The police or their purported bankster backers have no need to make Occupy look bad. They do that well enough on their own.
The police or their purported bankster backers have no need to make Occupy look bad. They do that well enough on their own.
16
@8, I think its both--the undercovers enable the idiots and help select the targets to further discredit the occupy movement in the eyes of working people
18
So lame. Tartine is great, too - who could get mad at a bakery? Maybe there's a class-warfare message about $7 loaves of bread?
Naw, just a bunch of soused idiots, probably.
Naw, just a bunch of soused idiots, probably.
20
The left, unlike the right, works hard to keep its tent wide open. Unfortunately, this means we let some of the stupidest, brain-dead people into the party (youngsters with poor impulse control, etc) because they have an often-useful "fuck the man!" mentality. Hence, pointless destruction and shooting ourselves in the feet.
21
@15 With the exception of the T-mobile store, the businesses on Valencia Street are exclusively independent and locally owned.
22
These people sound like morons, but also, why was an Aston Martin parked in the Mission. Don't those cars cost as much as some homes?
25
I'm far more worried for NYC. I hear Comrade Mitt "Frenchie" Romney and Bloomberg are meeting.
The risk to America could be beyond measure ...
The risk to America could be beyond measure ...
27
@22, homes in Dallas, maybe. Not San Francisco. Aston Martins are expensive cars but not million-dollar-plus, which is what it costs to get indoor plumbing in SF.
30
@21 "innocent"? Since when did locally owned mean that you couldn't be an obnoxious gentrifying exploiter of labor? Borracchini's is a local business and they've proved quite capable of being cartoonishly evil to their workers.
31
@30: You do realize that no one used the word "innocent" but you, right?. You have set up your own straw man to knock down, good for you.
If you hate all free enterprise, just say so, you don't have to couch it in this bullshit rhetoric.
In the meantime, look up what an "idiom" is. When people say "Mom and Pop," they do not literally mean it is owned by two grandparents.
If you hate all free enterprise, just say so, you don't have to couch it in this bullshit rhetoric.
In the meantime, look up what an "idiom" is. When people say "Mom and Pop," they do not literally mean it is owned by two grandparents.
32
There's been similar May Day episodes in the Mission in years past. This one was probably especially nasty, however, because our precious little black-clad Patches Pals had a larger, more organized movement to sidle up to (OWS).
The Mission District, for the record, is ~95% locally-owned, non-chain businesses—it's one of the defining features of the neighborhood, and the local business associations have taken great lengths to keep it that way. It's also one of the reasons the children responsible for lasts night’s violence hang out in the neighborhood to begin with.
Of course the local Occupy Wall Street can disavow the anarchists and vandals actions, any intelligent person would, but given that OWS advertised the rally on their site (the flyer has since been pulled down), "it wasn't us!" is far from acceptable response to last night's violence. (“it was agent provocateurs sent to discredit our movement!” is even less acceptable. Baring the suburbanites that come in to the City sporting Che Guevara shirts to wave signs, you know damn well who is capable of this. Especially given the fact that there we similar episodes long before the genesis of Occupy.)
How would OWS react to an operation where a minority of its members took advantage of an amoral or criminal opportunity? Ah, yes.
And to whomever shattered the window at the Latino dental office by my house; I'm sure if you'd just got that pole all the way through into the lobby, economic reforms would be right around the corner. Maybe next year.
The Mission District, for the record, is ~95% locally-owned, non-chain businesses—it's one of the defining features of the neighborhood, and the local business associations have taken great lengths to keep it that way. It's also one of the reasons the children responsible for lasts night’s violence hang out in the neighborhood to begin with.
Of course the local Occupy Wall Street can disavow the anarchists and vandals actions, any intelligent person would, but given that OWS advertised the rally on their site (the flyer has since been pulled down), "it wasn't us!" is far from acceptable response to last night's violence. (“it was agent provocateurs sent to discredit our movement!” is even less acceptable. Baring the suburbanites that come in to the City sporting Che Guevara shirts to wave signs, you know damn well who is capable of this. Especially given the fact that there we similar episodes long before the genesis of Occupy.)
How would OWS react to an operation where a minority of its members took advantage of an amoral or criminal opportunity? Ah, yes.
And to whomever shattered the window at the Latino dental office by my house; I'm sure if you'd just got that pole all the way through into the lobby, economic reforms would be right around the corner. Maybe next year.
33
@30 Please do not put your ill-informed words in my mouth. You have no idea what you're talking about.
34
@31 merely commenting on how people are treating one side like criminals without knowing any particulars besides that someone broke windows. When the certain elements smashed windows on broadway at last years gay pride, it was anything but random.
I'm not couching anything but if you want me to take a position I don't like Capitalism, precisely because it is NOT free enterprise since it relies on and creates uneven/unjust social relations between people.
I'm not couching anything but if you want me to take a position I don't like Capitalism, precisely because it is NOT free enterprise since it relies on and creates uneven/unjust social relations between people.
35
Stopped by Munroe Motors this morning. Sad to see the carnage just a little down the street. Fuck black bloc, et. al.
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