John Ross and the cops
John Ross reads at Modern Times
By Tim Redmond
John Ross, the legendary poet, writer and shit-disturber who has been our Mexico City correspondant for years and broken numerous big stories, called me last week to say he’d been knocked around by the SF cops.
Now, that’s nothing new for John -- he has never done well with authority and has been beaten badly by police officers in San Francisco, Mexico City and numerous other locations over the years.
But today, John is 71, blind in one eye, deaf in one ear and recovering from surgery and chemotherapy for liver cancer. He’s physically weak and has a hard time walking. He’s certainly no threat to law enforcement.
And somehow, he tells me, he wound up on the wrong side of a violent police confrontation, right on 24th and Valencia.
There was no protest; he wasn’t in the middle of a riot or disturbance, trying to get a story (as he’s done so many times before.) He was walking -- slowly, with a cane -- to a café to buy a bottle of blueberry Odwalla, which he figured was good for his liver.
Read his account after the jump.
Here’s the account of what happened next that he has filed in a complaint with the city’s Office of Citizen Complaints:
A few minutes after three p.m. yesterday April 9th I was walking up the east side of Valencia street towards the corner of 24th street - my eyesight is poor (I have only one eye and it does not function well - I am also deaf in one ear) but I noticed a commotion right at the corner - two officers were "rousting" a gentleman on the far side of the traffic signal box under the streetlight pylon - I could not walk around the incident because the intersection was blocked - at any rate the gentleman was crying out for someone to help him and also making ferociously injured sounds - I was leaning on my cane and the last of three newsapaper boxes in front of the natural food store about five to six feet away - in no way did I interfere with what was going on although im concerned that undocumented workers and youth are being regularly "rousted" by the sfpd in the neighborhood in violation of the citys sanctuary city laws - I considered that I had walked into a story but didn’t identify myself as a reporter and indeed I was really resting on the boxs until I could get around the corner - while the officers were cuffing the "suspect" a black and white SFPD car number 1280 screeched to curbside and two officers jumped out - without a word the passenger cop slammed me in the chest with both his arms and shoved me back several feet shouting that I should step back - when I tried to show him my hospital bracelet he shoved me violently again and stated "I'll put you back in the hospital" - I staggered into the banana boxes on one side of the doorway of the food store - my legs had turned to jellyfish and my liver was pounding violently - I felt as if I was going to collapse right there but held on to the banana boxes to keep from falling - then the two officers got back into 1280 and drove off down Valencia.
A few minutes later, Ross wrote,
Two younger officers sidled over to me and affirmed that the "suspect" was high on pcp which surprised me because its not a common street drug here anymore - how did they know, I asked, and they said he was standing rigidly and his eyes were dilated and that I should study the "literature" - I suggested that maybe he wasn’t on any drugs and in fact was not taking his meds and was maybe having a psychotic moment - he had not started yelling until the cops grabbed him - anyway they walked away and then returned and asked me for my name and my i.d. which I told them I didnt have to show or tell them - then they asked me if I had ever been arrested before and I said yes many times - I was first arrested during the civil rights demonstrations at the Sheraton Palace hotel and on Van Ness auto row in 1964 and then later by the FBI and was the first American to be sent to federal prison for refusing induction in the Vietnam military ... we were indeed standing across the street from the old Mission police station where I was repeatedly brutalized by S.F. police during the 1960s - one beating resulted in the loss of my left eye - anyway the cops just said well I guess he doesnt want to be a witness and the other yah he’s part of the problem and pretty soon it was all over and I was able to continue to the Café Boheme to buy an Odwallah monster blueberry, very good for liver cancer I’m told and then went home and collapsed into bed.
I called the Mission Precinct station and asked to talk to Captain Stephen Tachinni, but the officer who answered the phone refused to put me through, saying I had to call Public Affairs, where Sgt. Lyn Tomioka told me that if an OCC complaint had been filed, nobody from SFPD would comment on the incident.
She told me that officers Derek Byrne and Micha Hope were assigned to car 1280 at that time, but there’s no guarantee they were in fact the officers involved: “If there had been an emergency call for assistance, anyone [at the Mission station] could have jumped in the nearest car and come out,” she said.
So we don’t know, and may not know for some time, who actually got into the altercation with John.
But I know this: They guy has been on the front lines of social justice movements all over the world for most of his life. He deserves better treatment from the city of San Francisco.
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Comments (2)
I was strolling through the Presidio down Battery-Caulfield Road. Just before the construction and refurbishment of the Mariners Hospital into expensive condos, there are two brick out-buildings that appear abandoned.
On the side of the road next to one of these small brick buildings with huge monterrey pines looming above, sat a cart full of belongings with a couple of police cars next to it. Two Park Presidio police were walking away from the police vehicle toward a barefoot homeless man sitting on the brick steps of the building.
i approached one cop and politely asked him what was going on. He immediately ordered me to stand across the road or he would arrest me for "interfering with police business." He said they didn't know "the situation" yet. I did not identify myself as Press or take out my press pass. I said, "He's barefoot. How much of a danger could he be?"
I knew as media I had the right to stand closer and watch, but the tone of the whole thing told me I shouldn't mess with these cops. Also, there was no one else around. The officers were laughing and talking together, apparently unconcerned about my presence.
I walked across the road, not enjoying the thought of being arrested, roughed up or hurt. Being disabled already, I am very vulnerable, and I know the police are getting bolder and bolder. Personally, I am aware we are in a Fascist state.
As the police questioned the homeless guy, two men strolled past me on my side of the road. I pointed out "SF's Finest" and the fact that they were harassing a barefoot homeless man across the street. I explained that I knew they would do less to him if I was witnessing this event, and that they would do even less to the guy with the "the two of you standing here." I asked them, "How much danger could a shirtless, barefoot homeless man pose to them? They said, "It's illegal to sleep in the park," but they hung around a little while to see what would happen.
The officers finally walked away from the homeless guy, leaving him sitting on the steps. As they drove off, he ran over to the three of us saying, "Thank you! Thank you!"
The men asked him what they said to him. He said, "They told me if they arrested me it would be because of her," pointing at me.
I knew exactly the opposite was true.
The men said, "Have you been arrested before?" He said, "Many times. They bother you for everything if you are homeless."
"I'm not a criminal," he said.
I pointed out to the men that the homeless guy's First Amendment rights of Assembly under the Constitution had been violated. They walked off repeating, "It's illegal to sleep in the Park." However, he had not been sleeping, only pushing his cart through the park.
The homeless man thanked me profusely and we parted company.
Posted by carol harvey | April 14, 2009 07:01 PM
Stand by,
Newsom needs cop unions across the state to have a chance in his run for governor. That's why you have a Republican incompetent (that's what George W. Bush thought anyway when he fired him) ... why we have Kevin Ryan as Public Safety Czar.
It's why Gavin can pop oxycontin like candy, be a registered drunk (my area of expertise) and oppose pot.
I have to hammer something home about Greg Suhr again. He's been harassing Mesha Monge-Izirray since the cops murdered her son at the Metreon. He came up to her at a Police Commission meeting smiling broadly and asked: "How's your cancer, Mesha?". What a prick. This guy is the POA's choice for chief.
h.
Posted by h. hbrown | April 15, 2009 07:52 AM