May 25, 2005

Back to the table of Contents Page

Classifieds

Palo Alto Online

Editorial: Dumb demonstration award to 'anarchists'

The streets of downtown Palo Alto were once again filled with shouting, dancing, traffic-blocking crowds of young persons last Friday -- for the first time in more than three decades.

But they had no lofty aim of their protest, other than to "reclaim the streets" at the behest of a loosely organized group calling itself Anarchist Action -- an apparent outgrowth of the Critical Mass bike-ride protests that started several years ago in San Francisco.

Between 150 and 200 persons gathered about 8 p.m. in the old Lytton Plaza at University Avenue and Emerson Street. Then about 20 minutes later a large portion of the crowd spilled into the streets and began marching around downtown.

Palo Alto police, alerted Thursday because of flyers announcing the event, had developed a response plan. Aided by reinforcement units from other police agencies, when things started getting out of hand and some car windows and a business window were smashed, they moved in, cornered the demonstrators, reportedly whacking some with batons. A 19-year-old man and a juvenile were arrested for felony vandalism.

According to witnesses and a young marcher -- who declined to give his name because he didn't want his mother to know about his participation -- the event got out of control after someone "did something stupid" and whacked a police car with "a flag thing."

Not a good move.

It seems the police response was by and large appropriate, or at least efficient, although we have questions about a reported significant number of persons with bruises and contusions -- swollen bruises, indicating a really strong whack -- that may indicate some officers were doing some street-reclaiming of their own.

What was not efficient was the police department's putting out information about the event. Repeated phone calls requesting a call-back from a public information officer (PIO) with the department went unanswered until well after the story had been posted on Palo Alto Online, the Weekly's community Web site, using details provided by the young participant, a student at Los Altos High School -- details which by the way were pretty accurate.

In terms of the demonstration itself, it seems a sure bet that final exams are approaching -- historically the time when the biggest turnouts occurred for street demonstrations back in the romantic-seeming demonstration years of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In prior decades, shortly before finals fraternity members rioted, set bonfires, threw beer bottles at police and firefighters and conducted panty raids on sororities and girls' dormitories.

In this case, the young participants who may think anarchy is cool should read some history of the bombings, murders and violence perpetrated by real anarchists. It is sobering.

But the more serious matter is the delay in releasing even basic, preliminary information by the police department -- from the mountain lion incident a year ago, when 18 hours passed before any official announcement was made, to the recent standoff with a suicidal man in south Palo Alto, where media waited in vain for hours to talk to information officers.

Our primary, urgent concern is that if the department is unable to coordinate timely information release in relatively minor cases, how will it perform during the next truly serious event -- a major earthquake, plane crash, flood or life-threatening situation in which timely public awareness is critically important?

It's time to fix the problem.

Citing cyclists should emphasize education

But we we don't think short, once-a-year crackdowns will truly change cyclists' unsafe behavior. And such crackdowns may be counterproductive to parental efforts to get their kids to ride bikes even after they hit driver's license age.

As a community, we should concentrate on programs that promote bicycling and bike-safety awareness, and use warning citations as educational tools all year long.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.