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What follows is footage I shot of the Farmers Market drummer arrests in Santa Cruz California on Wednesday September 17 2008. The video playlist is under 5 minutes total, in chronological order, with one or two of the clips being quite short.

Here’s the Sitrep: A group of drummers who have consistently attended the Wednesday Farmers Market at a tree in an area of the parking lot nearby where Food Not Bombs feeds in downtown Santa Cruz for NINE YEARS running, is being harassed and told they might be cited under Santa Cruz’s ‘15 minute in a parking area’ law, or city noise ordinances, etc.

It IS notable that the city of Santa Cruz, with it’s overweening desire to turn the city into a commuter/tourist-oriented ‘mecca’ complete with open-air downtown shopping mall containing no businesses that directly serve the local community, intends to turn this open air parking lot into a FIVE STORY PARKING GARAGE within just a few years or less, and this incident may be the opening volley of a city-led campaign to make sure there will be no occupation by the citizens of Santa Cruz preventing that development, by ‘chilling the air’ with the potential for police initiated violence against protesters of the garage.

Last week push came to shove (after two or three relatively non-confrontational encounters during the preceding weeks) between the drummers, passer-bys, and the Santa Cruz police.

The Santa Cruz Sentine Forum on the issue gives insight into the redneck nature of our ‘Progressive’ community:

“Vagrant filth! RUN THE SCUM OUT!”

“Unwholesome degenerates! Worthless corrupters of peace and innocence! GET OUT! WE DON’T WANT YOU OR YOU KIND HERE ANYMORE! The UNwelcome mat is out for all vagrant filth to GET OUT OF SANTA CRUZ! ”

“My biggest complaint is that no one got tasered. One dumb dumb getting 50,000 volts can straighten out a whole bunch of dumb dumbs real quik.”

…and maybe more to the point, from a former resident, “Pleasure Point Rodent” (Pleasure Point being a popular surfing spot near Santa Cruz) now living in Phoenix Arizona:

rangefinder wrote:

… Go down to the beach and play your drums and don’t add to the noise pollution of the downtown area. best!

LOL “noise pollution”. You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me. You people are pathetic.

Follow the discussion here, if you have the stomach for it.

Public statement by one of the arrested:

Wes Modes was jumped by three officers while playing a drum in protest of a fellow drummer, Jack, being arrested. As he was choked and forced to the ground, his leg was hit with a baton after he was already restrained. He was placed in the same car as Jack. By the time the car arrived at the Country Jail, Wes’ leg was tender and his sock was full of blood.

At the jail, the arresting officer presented Wes with charges stemming from last week’s protest — five infractions prepared by City Attorney Barrisone, all dealing with standing in a public area not customarily used for this purpose, violation of the 15 minute law, trampling grass or plants, and destroying city property. The paperwork was already waiting in the police car when they arrested him.

At county jail,medical personnel saw his leg and would not accept him until he’d been cleared at the hospital. He spent 4 uncomfortable hours at the hospital, most of it with his hands handcuffed behind his back. His leg was photographed, x-rayed, sutured, and bandaged. He spent much of the evening at Dominican.

He was told he was being charged with battery on a police officer,resisting arrest, and lynching. The first two are misdemeanors, the last is a felony. Normally the bail would be $5000, but the city and SCPD had used Barisone’s charges to argue that if released he was likely to commit these infractions again, and that his bail should be$50,000. The judge rejected this, and still set it at $15,000.

Jack was released, and Wes spent the night in the jail’s housing unit.

At about 3:30pm today (Thursday September 18 2008 //dbitm), Wes was released with very little explanation. It seems the charges are now ‘pending investigation,’ meaning the DA is deciding whether to file, and if so, which charges.

Police usually recommend battery charges when someone they are arresting is injured, so it is likely Wes will still be facing serious charges. Jack’s similar charges, minus the felony, are also in limbo.

Wes is resting now, and thankful for the support of the community.

This week, police have shown a willingness to escalate the amount of force they will use to squash people’s freedom of expression in the form of drumming. Additionally, they have shown a willingness to use violence against those who resist the efforts to remove public space and limit freedom of assembly.

Who IS this smilin’ FatBoy?

Believe it or not, he’s an SCPD supervisor!

It’s hard to believe he can pass the physical…

Maybe police supervisors with tear gas launchers don’t have to?

It’s good to see he setting the physical standards for the rest of his men, along with ALL of the other ’standards’ of the job, like being able to display a ‘LOOKIT ME MOM! BIG GUN!’ smile whist wielding a tear gas launcher.

Good work occifer! MORE Fresh donuts for YOU back at the fortress!

What would have happened if he was actually stupid enough to pop off a round or two with that thing?

In short, it would have effectively shut down the whole Farmers Market for the week and most of the buildings on that block of Pacific (and Cathcart, and the Catalyst, and the Perg, and the Red Church, and Jacks Burgers, the Boys & Girls club, and…) would have to be evacuated for a day or longer.

They get stupid when put under intense POLITICAL PRESSURE to perform extra-legal acts.

Speaking of extra-legal and all that:

Can anyone ID this thug?He seemed quite comfortable lined up with the police as they were cornered against the UC Town Center’s wall by a horde of criminal hippie drummers, and moved in synch with them as if he had ‘been there’ before and ‘had the t-shirt’ (and badge).

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