Last Thursday --- Alberta

It was around 10:45 pm when I left my house at 15th & Alberta to see all of the cops in riot gear.

I actually live one block off of alberta and when I was heading toward alberta to go to a friends house, a cop whipped around the corner and almost hit me -- he had no lights on, not even headlights. I was like "what the hell???" Then when I got on Alberta there were cops up and down the street with riot gear on, pepper spray, guns and clubs out.

They definitly were not just trying to get people to drive home safe, they were blocking all of the intersections so that people couldn't drive off of alberta at all. They were at each intersection for several blocks. I walked down to the Starry Rose and none of the cops were paying any attention to the techno music at that time.

I've lived in this neighborhood for years and although Last Thursday is really annoying these days, I've never seen cops show up in riot gear for seemingly no reason. They weren't even telling anyone to leave or arresting anyone -- at least that I could see. They were just standing in the middle of the street for several blocks looking threatening.

I was sitting on the patio at the Alberta Street pub when i counted about 20-25 cop cars roll by so naturally i went to investigate. The riot police were using the parking lot accross the street (10th and alberta) as a staging area to get their gear on. The news vans showed up as well. Then they began piling into thier cars about 5 cops each and heading east towards last thursday. I heard second hand from somone leaving the area of last thursday that there were still many people in the streets and many were IN the street listening to someone DJing. The cops began trying to make people leave the street and they became defiant and, according to this person, began throwing rocks at the officers. They then did the onlything they know how: launch a massive showing of macho force because someone threw something. After all we can't have that many people in the streets celebrating art, building communities, having a good time, sharing ideas, or expressing themselves.

State sponsored guns were drawn. I heard one officer shout into his radio that they (the cops) were "surrounded by people with glass weapons". So much for having a beer while watching the cops completely blow any hope of rational procedure. I guess you go to war with the army you have, right?

on corporate news (sorry!) this am about a fistfight/"brawl" (thanks co. media) which broke out at Last Thursday and caused police response... then people "started throwing things at police" when they arrived to break it up.

That's all according to corporate media though, I figure it's just as likely the police don't want LT to go on any more so they pretended they were responding to a fight, then "had" to shut down the street because they were "assaulted" or whatever.

Anyone else actually witness this supposed fight or anything?

The "brawl," such as it was, was at 18th Avenue. The techno music in the street was at 24th, six blocks away. They had nothing to do with each other, except that one of the cop cars had to detour around the big dancing crowd in the street to get to the brawl.

In case anybody cares, this seems to be the evolution of the corporate spin on the event:

First the "journalists" at Channel 6 all but assert that "two men punching each other" were part of the "dancing" that "moved to the street at 24th Ave,"  http://www.koin.com/Global/story.asp?S=6437305

And the Oregonian, quoting a cop blaming "anarchist types," uses a Google Maps link to explicitly put everything in the same place:  http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2007/04/portland_police_report_unruly.html

But these are such obvious lies that the "UPDATED" version on another channel has to mention that, while "people were seen blocking traffic near Northeast 24th Ave," the "two men punching each other" were actually observed by "two officers near the area of Northeast 18th,"  http://www.kptv.com/news/13209252/detail.html

And eventually the most recent article has to admit in two places that these were "two separate unrelated incidents," one of which was merely a "street dance" that "was technically not permitted."  link to www.kgw.com

They never get around to explaining how the other "incident" differed from any other drunk fight in front of the Nest any night of the month.

You can see what i think at my workforf_ood.livejournal.com

Let's commit to policing our own.

I biked past all this on my way to a friends house around 11:00? p.m. last thursday. Still had loads of cops blocking all intersections around 10th and alberta. I had overheard something up the street about a person outside the nest picking up a cops taser, so it struck me as a little odd that they were blocking off an intersection 8 blocks away. I just assumed the person I overheard maybe got their facts hearsay like I did. But, what really threw me was getting to the corner of interstate and alberta and the whole parking lot on the n.e. corner being filled with cop cars(10+) and cops in full riot gear just hanging out and talking where there was obviously nothing going on. Don't they have loads of tax funded stations they could do something like that in? Instead of hanging out in riot gear on the corner playing intimidation games.

There are drunk fights at the Nest all the time. Not my favorite aspect of Northeast Portland culture, but it's not being imported from somewhere else. Nobody "invited" those "kids," they live here.

sooo many police.....sooo many undercovers....but sooooooooooooooo many peaceful attendees! Sorry guys better go elsewhere for your intimidation and "standing/walking around". I hope the nest doesn't go out of business because of this lame excuse for taser guns and control issues that really DONT exist or require such OVERKILL.

CHEERS for indymedia offering real local documentation of events that probably infuriate the "payroll" for its truthfullness but hey,"the truth is the truth" and we'd rather find it on INDYMEDIA then governvision or corposound. These comments are more accurate then any government or local police station could ever want you you to believe and quite liberating actually. Ever since the inception of LT it's been a good,peaceful,artful time. When you have this "artful time" its suprising how badly the uninvited want to bring it down which is all the more proof of how special it is. As long as we comment and keep THEM in check we will continue this tradition for many many years to come.