Let me just say, I have the utmost respect for the CPD (Chicago Police Department) and for law enforcement in general. Nobody is perfect, but they do their jobs for the most part with distinction and honor.
Very old video I shot in 2003, the day war were declared on Iraq (yes… I meant to write it that way). Cut to a Radiohead song that I loved at the time… now it kind of hurts my left ear… don’t ask. I edited it together as soon as I got back from jail the next day at 9am with no charges (I was never going to be charged, they were just holding me).
I spent 2 hours in plastic handcuffs that got smaller the more you pulled on them, so by the time we got to jail, I had lost most of the feeling in my hands. However, when I was knelt in the line inside the prison while they processed everyone for detainment, I did ask a guard to take them off because of how much they were hurting me. He told me “Well, if your hands fall off, the Chicago Police Department will pay to fix em’”. That kind of upset me and a few others who were around me in line, but what could I do. Once a higher ranking officer noticed my hands as he was passing (they were turning purple) he right away put me to the front of the line and cut them off, asap. Really, the cops were because they had to deal with this protest, and it was to them, a pain in the ass. Understandable. Overall, they handled it as best as they could. There were 12 people in my cell, most of us standing because the 3 meter by 4 meter cell had half of it covered in mud and water from the leaking toilet line, and because the first person in the cell had muddy feet and walked everywhere. We had been in the jail since Midnight, and I was released at 9am. They had released people as they processed them with civil disobediance, and I was held because I had no charges. When I was released I found we were out at 111th street, outside downtown Chicago. I followed a person to a bus stop and made my way back. When I did get back, I hooked up my camera to my computer and started editing. This is about 6 hours of work, mostly trying to pull footage off of all the tapes I had, and selecting stuff that wasn’t too shakey. My camera itself had been damaged by the police ‘accidentely’ dropping the bookbag it was in, along with me Nikon FE2. The camera was damaged, but it still played back tapes. The FE2 was fine, naturally. So this is the result of all that, which started out as me just going to the protest after class to video tape it, not to get involved… and that didn’t turn out all how I had expected.
Duration : 0:4:9
[youtube 00eM9YDDiKg]
Tags: 2003, Chicago, Illinois, Iraq, Peace, Protest, Rally, War
