After the GWU encampment raised the flag of Palestine, the university responded with a huge US flag hung from a building. Students responded to this with a projector and a giant “Genocide Joe” image indicating what that flag REALLY stands for.
Also on video: Jewish students in the encampment demanding a ceasefire and not afraid to show who they are.
On Mayday (May 1), protesters assembled for a press conference at 56th and Fowler near USF. First up was a press conference, which was heavily attended by the corporate press. There was so much corporate press in fact, I was mistaken for one of these liars by one of our good people! Some of the questions they asked were quite hostile, crap about what parents would think of disrupted graduations etc. Well, nobody gets to graduate from a bombed university in Gaza, especially from under the rubble!
After the presser came a march. This time around,we went past the usual turnaround point for 56th and Fowler Palestine marches, going all the way to the big entrance to USF that goes to the library and MLK Plaza. Cops made a showy entry to campus at that point but the massive march had them heavily outnumbered. Awaiting orders that never came, they stood and watched as hundreds of marchers (maybe more) swarmed onto the campus.
Marching up almost the same approach route used on Monday save that it began at Fowler, protesters marched straight to MLK Plaza, scene of the previous days tear gas, rubber bullets, knee on neck incident et all.
Once on MLK Plaza, Muslim evening prayers were held. This was probably one of the things the administration least wanted to see on the Plaza. Any attempt to break this up by force would have been potentially very ugly international news, like cops raiding a church but between different religions. Even US embassy protests and/or rioting in US allies in the Middle East would not have been out of the question! After concluding prayers, protesters marched out in a single strong unit, staying together and leaving no stragglers for cops or other violent Zionists to pick off.
No attempt was made to pitch tents and stay the night. Doing so would have required very strong logistics support combined with shields and gas masks, not the sort of protest people want to bring their kids to. Since this was a family-friendly event, pushing that far was off the table, but this does not mean it was impossible by any means.
This was a “thunder run” against USF, a show of force to drive the flag of Palestine back onto campus and put the supporters of genocide in their place. This was a real “who run Bartertown? moment as in Mad Max for Tampa’s Mayor and IOF trained cops.
Note that Tampa has one of the largest Palestinian populations in the entire US, and for Palestinian students at USF this fight is existential.
April 30 was Day 2 of the Palestine solidarity encampment (tents and all) at University of South Florida in Tampa. Remembering the failed police attack the day before, this time police used far more force
Protesters had shield too, but not enough for everyone and obviously didn’t have enough if any gas masks to go around.
One of the worst gas canisters was picked up and thrown out of the encampment, but as it did not land in the cops any “assault” charge or warrant for this is crap. Drone footage proves it didn’t go into the cops.
The cops told everyone they were firing into with the gas canisters to “consider yourselves under arrest.” Arrest estimates range from 10 to 25, so there is a good chance at least some protesters were able to escape.
Cops warned further resistance would cause them to use injurious force, but they should remember that’s a game two can play. Any amount of force is justified in resisting a genocide like the one the US is funding in Gaza as far as I am concerned. Cop City is just the beginning…
Raid warnings the evening of April 30 proved to be a false alarm. The daytime scene was quite peaceful.
This was two days after an attempted late-night police raid was driven off and unarrests made. Note the piled up police barricades, ripped down as protesters went from defense to offense after the raid.
This protest that became the start of an encampment was on Nakba Day, the day set aside in Palestine to remember the loss of their land and destruction of their homes to make way for Israel. “Nakba” means “Catastrophe” and the Nakba can be thought of as 1492 in 1948.
Knowing their in-house police department would be overmatched by such a large crowd as Nakba day was sure to summon forth, they summoned the IOF-trained brutes of the Tampa Police Department to arrest anyone seen trying to set up a tent, maybe anyone in possession of a tent. Arrests began before any tents could be set up.
Note that to arrest someone for setting up a tent prior to any tent being set up and staked is probably unlawful.
There were two arrests relatively quickly, covered on this video. There was a later report of 9 violent arrests, unknown if the other 7 were again in response to tents or came from a later attempt to disperse the rest of the encampment. There were a number of pro-IOF/pro-Israel counterprotesters, one in an IOF T-shirt got quite close to the protest while fiddling with his phone, police of course didn’t bother any of them no matter what their presence had the potential to incite.
The encampment did continue without tents, the university and the cops told student protesters they were going to be “roughed up” if they stayed on past 5PM. Unknown to this author if the other violent arrests were after 5PM or a continuation of the tent arrests. Shortly after the first two, someone spotted police vans of the type used for mass arrests near the university, but this was either a bluff or just transportation for the huge number of cops that surrounded the encampment later. or if the encampment survived a second attack.
Maybe the USF football team should change their name from “Bulls” to something else? Comparing these cops to bulls is insulting to actual bulls.
(this is a day late as the server was down last night and I was deployed today to the big Tampa USF mess)
Early AM on the 29th of April, Campus cops and even a vice provost launched a failed attack on the Students for Justice in Palestine emcampment at GWU.
An attempted arrest was defeated by a sucessful unarrest. Next, the barricades placed by the university in an attempt to isolate the protesters were ripped down and piled up. This was an effective reprisal for the failed raid and sets up the joining of the core protest with the secondary camp just outside the former barricades.
Orlando’s Critical Mass bike rides are huge, this April was no exception
Note that Friday, May 31 will be the last ride to start at the temporary Lake Highland Park location, in June the rides move back to the usual spot.
Ford Fischer got the video above of the mock execution scene.
On the 27th of April, protesters laid siege to the White House correspondent’s dinner,blocking some road access routes and forcing corporate media to run a gauntlet of protesters to get into the famous “Hinckley Hilton” where the dinner was held.
There were a reported 12 arrests, including a 15 year old Black protester who was subjected to a cop sticking a flashlight down the back of his pants. This can be considered a sexual assault of a minor by a police officer but will never be prosecuted as such.
Part of the protest included a rememberance of all the journalists murdered by Israel. Bloodstained press vests were laid out with the names of the murdered journalists on them.
Some of the protesters staged a mock execution first of blindfolded and partially stripped civilians, then of the “journalists” covering the scene.
Video: a speaker at the GWU occupation on April 26 warns against arrests or suspensions, reminding everyone that students have the power to shut the school down.
On Friday, the 26th of April, DC’s Mayor Bowser ordered MPD to reject a demand from George Washington University that they forcibly clear the pro-Palestine occupation. Apparently such a sweep is illegal on the university’s private property unless proceeded by declaring the students to be “trespassers,” which in turn would require prior suspension, expulsion, or other formal orders to leave probably the entire campus.
The Washington Post reports the probable motive for this actual compliance with the law may be fear of an “optics” problem. MPD was set up for an early AM sweep against a relatively small group holding the protest area, but someone would have been guaranteed to either escape with video or shoot long range video with a zoom lens.
With threats of National Guard use at least at Columbia University and Kent State having been invoked, any use of MPD and Bagshaw’s violence against student protesters at GWU could create ugly publicity for Bowser. There would even be the risk of protesters marching on shopping areas such as Georgetown or Chinatown to shut them down. So far, the student occupations have been largely free of such spillover action.
Thus, MPD was limited to beseiging the protest, letting anyone out who needed to leave but trying to prevent anyone else from getting in.
On the 23ed of April, “Genocide Joe” Biden foolishly visited Tampa, home to the largest Palestinian community in Florida and one of the largest in the whole US. The largest pro-Palestine protest I have seen in months descended on his campaign event. Speakers called out not only his genocidal war in Gaza, but his do-nothing hypocrisy on abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and migrant rights. Biden came to Tampa to peddle the “vote for me or face a national abortion ban” message, but this message fell flat with the protesters.
It has been two years since the Dobbs decision to allow state level abortion bans. A Federal ban would presumably be blocked by a Democratic fillibuster in the Senate (assuming the Dems have any spine left at all). In 2021-2022 before the Jan 2023 Congress began, Biden could have rammed through Federal legislation to codify Roe v Wade, blocking the state bans in all 50 states. Manchin and Sinema could have been reeled in with threats to fund primary opponents against them, and on abortion they probably would have both kneeled. Instead, the only thing Biden has done on abortion or on the wave of anti-LGBTQ hate unleashed by Dobbs is talk. He cares about abortion VOTES only, not about abortion rights.
As for the rights of Palestinian women, Biden and Trump seem to speak as one on this issue: if you are Palestinian, your only “right” is to die under a storm of US bombs and missiles shipped to Netanyahu’s extreme-right regime in Israel.
Activists are not having it: Biden events are being protested everywhere, and the message “remember in November” has been going out since October. Trump and Biden both support genocide in Gaza. Remember Trump’s Muslim ban and move of the U$ Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Casting a vote for either major party candidate is consent to and endorsement of genocide in Gaza. Such a vote is tantamount to joining the IOF.
Also present in the area of the Biden event were a half dozen Trumpers including an “Ultra MAGA” flagged pickup truck. Note that “Ultra MAGA”is a dog whistle for neo-Naziism. A few pro-Biden protesters also showed up, and a dozen or two antiabortion extremists. None had anything close to the numbers of the pro-Palestine protest, not even within the same order of magnitude.