What happened in Olympia--Some notes on opacity

On April 8, 2010, the metropolis finally opened its arms to us. With a history of somewhat homogenous anarchist events in Olympia, WA, we attempted to detach ourselves from the traditional mode of collective attack that the city has become familiarized with. Rather than bloc up, cause some destruction, and try to run away before the police snatch us, we decided to have a march in response to recent state violence wherein smashing a few windows and avoiding arrest wasn't the purpose of the action. Instead, we hoped to create something of a fairly calm spectacle that the police would be drawn to, creating potentialities for rifts elsewhere in the metropolis while the police tried to contain our march. All in all, the march's main goal was to maximize damage elsewhere while minimizing risk at the march itself. With this objective in mind, the action was a complete disaster.

A Synopsis

Around 7:30 to 8:00 PM, around 35-40 people met up in a parking lot on the West Side of Olympia. People entered the streets and proceeded to head downtown, taking up two lanes of traffic. The usual anti-police chants were shouted and people passed out literature and fliers related to state violence specifically centered around the West Coast and in general. As we headed through a roundabout, a photographer for the Olympian (local major newspaper) was rightfully harassed after attempting to take pictures of people doing graffiti. He quickly slinked away from the scene while shouting threats of assault and theft. After marching for some time, the first police car showed up in response to the photographer's call. And yet, the car eventually drove off and the police presence remained minimal as we proceeded to the downtown area.

As we headed down 4th Ave, people continued to pass out information and shout chants. The march veered towards 5th Ave and someone took advantage of the low police presence to attempt an attack on US Bank—unfortunately missing their target. A street later, someone successfully smashed a different bank window. The general sentiment of the bloc was noticeably unenthused by this attack, as the purpose of the march was to remain fairly unrowdy. However, beyond a couple police cars passing us by occasionally, the police response was remained unusually minimal. Some people pulled dumpsters into the street as the march turned around a corner and headed back down 5th Ave. Notably less people are on this street, but police activity is still relegated to sneaking around the side streets of downtown as we passed by the new city hall and jail that is currently under construction in the middle of downtown.

A rock is thrown through a construction building on the site of the new city hall. Shortly thereafter, two motorcycle cops begin to trail the march, but take some time to follow us as we turn. Someone attacks the Manium, a venue owned by a notorious Olympia slumlord and we proceed to head towards State Ave. We barely make it half way up the block before the two motorcycle cops behind us transform into a significant number and several police cars drive down the street in front of us to block us in. People lock arms and attempt to move to the sidewalk in a futile attempt to minimize police aggression, but this does not stop them from pepperspraying a couple of us and beating everyone to the ground.

The 29 of us are slowly all arrested and taken to the city jail. Everyone is charged with riot and a few of us get charged with malicious mischief and felony assault on an officer. Almost everyone is released over the next 10-11 hours. Realistically, the riot charges will most likely not hold up in court. However, while sitting on the ground with my hands on my head, I didn't spend time considering how miserable of an action the night was, but instead reflected upon the fact that while the majority of the police's on duty unit surrounded us, the metropolis elsewhere was left wide open and unguarded. And here we were being arrested.

The anarchist march is dead, long live the anarchist march!

While sitting in police custody, my first thoughts drifted towards wanting to blame the people who escalated the situation above a relatively calm march—but this logic is the same logic employed by those who talk of material conditions and readiness for their reasoning behind inaction and blame their allies for state repression. It's completely rational that the Olympia police claim that if the march hadn't turned “violent,” they would have permitted us to continue walking the corridors of the city for as long as we wished. We know this is false. Although the riot charges may have been avoided, there is a strong likelihood that we still would have been mass arrested under pedestrian interference, the charge that some officers told us we would be receiving in the first place. And it's not difficult for the state to throw riot charges on practically any action. So how should the march have functioned instead?

If the purpose of the march had been to localize the maximum amount of damage possible, then we could have made the action much more devastating than it was. The police practically handed us this opportunity. Perhaps we are at fault for not better seizing these potentialities and only smashing a few windows. But the real problem lies instead at our inability to completely communicate the march's intention as being a demonstration, rather than a riot. Because of this lack of communication, the results fell sloppily somewhere in between these two poles.

Now that the aftermath of the march is starting to die down and analysis and critique begins, people may have the tendency to completely abandon the idea of an anarchist march in Olympia. After all, no other action in recent Olympia history has ended with so many people unintentionally arrested (therefore excluding non-actions of civil disobedience wherein people willingly sacrifice themselves to the police.) The typical unsuccessful action in Olympia (and many other places) is often characterized by the typical black bloc meet up, destruction of property, and attempted escape. This night, however, was an extreme version of this model. This does not mean that the entire model should be laid to rest, though—it must be redefined.

Maximizing damage, minimizing risk

Differentiating between a demonstration and a riot (or a Plan B-type action) is a critical first step. If we had more time to plan for this march, perhaps we could have better established this distinction. Maybe we simply didn't realize at the time the importance of this distinction. There is still the variable of police response that we cannot always calculate at an action, but this makes the drafting of complete exit strategies and contingency plans even more important. More discussion went into the subject of escape methods for this action than ever had before in Olympia, but we clearly did not prepare for every possible outcome, and because of this, 29 people were arrested. Lastly, the end result of this action signifies a new approach for Olympia police in handling these types of events. Never before have they worked with the mass arrest model and to their credit, it worked perfectly.

When a number of us ventured to Portland on March 29, we witnessed the straw man model work perfectly. While a large part of the city's police force was focused on containing the relatively small bloc in the heart of downtown, rifts sprang up elsewhere in the metropolis, and the police union headquarters was attacked successfully, without arrest. Clearly, what worked in Portland did not work in Olympia. Why did the Portland action end with a minimal amount of arrests (none of whom were in black bloc) while the Olympia march ended with three-fourths of the participants being thrown in jail? A number of things should be taken into consideration for the straw man model to work more effectively:

1. Numbers. Over three times the amount of people who showed up for the march in Olympia showed up for the march in Portland. This is not to say that things can't happen with smaller groups of people or that a larger amount of individuals necessarily equates to a lessened likelihood of mass arrest, but a greater multitude of people tends to draw a larger police response and presents a much more unmanageable problem for the state.

2. Careful attention to the direction and mobility of the march. Just because a march continues to move in more populated areas does not mean that it is safe. But a march that remains fluid and visible to a general audience is one that has the potential to exist longer without total disruption.

3. Differentiation between demonstrations and more militant action. With an unambiguous understanding of what the march's objective is, we stand a much better chance at achieving our goals (whether they be that of distraction, destruction, or otherwise). We must find new solutions to the inherent problems of communication in these plans.

4. Clearer exit strategies and contingency plans. Hammering out all of the possibilities and details of the march is a step that is never fun, but one that is completely required to reduce the probability of arrest or interference.

This critique does not intend to discount the possibility and efficacy of a planned intersection of individuals who desire to make war on the objects of a specific location in the metropolis. Plan B is a model that can and has worked before. However, momentum and quick dispersion are virtues for this type of action—a traditional march does not carry these characteristics. This is not to say that one cannot commit similar deeds and get away with them in an anarchist march, but the risk is always greater and the damage is often substantially minimized from its potential (see: the majority of summit protests.)

The opacity of attack

Contrary to some critiques of insurrectionary thinking, there are models of attack that do not necessitate arrest or even conflict with the police. The straw man and Plan B models work when executed properly. What happened in Olympia was not the result of our lack of Sun Tzu-inspired war strategy or understanding of the complex intricacies of the metropolis. There was no lapse in common sense or failure to commit to exploring the open chasms of the metropolis. Rather, we simply failed to relegate enough time to plans and establishment of intentions.

There is a time and place to make war on state and capital. This is not some petty concession to the arguments of material conditions, but rather a proposal for a more critical examination of how we act in the metropolis and the locations (temporal and spatial) we deem most appropriate for militant action.

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