For this year’s NYE noise demo we set our sights on the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the Loop. We battled bitter cold and embittered pigs to ring in the new year beneath the city’s skyscraper jail, chanting and dancing with passersby in the street beneath the El tracks. Banners, fireworks, drums, pots, pans, spray paint, the whole megillah. After a few hours we decided to move the party into River North and headed up State St. before we got penned in by the pigs and had to make our various escapes into the bustling crowds.
Fuck The Pigs
Fire To The Prisons
By the time we rolled up to MCC, there were already four pigs out, three fingers on three triggers of paintball guns (pepper balls) and a rifle (rubber bullets). The fourth pig in his manager’s jacket seemed to be sweating already, nervous of having already lost control of the situation.
By my estimate, it was around 10pm and the majority of the crowd– maybe around 50 folks– were on the opposite side of the street while 5-6 folks held two banners in front of the pigs. Some folks had already tagged the wall with “intifada,” “ftp,” “burn this jail,” and “acab,” so we knew the night was off to a good start.
We held the street until just after midnight, occasionally shooting off fireworks to our folks flickering lights through their windows, but mostly dancing in the street, hanging up banners, banging pots and pans, and sharing snacks. Some folks were dressed in some form of bloc– including someone in grinch bloc– but some folks weren’t, which is something we want to share here, not to judge anyone or cause shame, but to remind each other with love and anger that the state is not fucking around, and every time we go out and give them any information, we are putting ourselves and our loved ones at increased risk. It is worth the effort to bloc up to keep ourselves out of the ever-peering eye of the surveillance state.
A few highlights from that time:
- Hats off to the banner-makers! There were a lot of good ones, but three highlights of the night included: “criminals are better lovers”; “jails prisons and detention centers are the colonizers’ tools of genocide”; and “fire to the prisons,” with a (I assume) hand-painted machine gun and upside cop car on fire. If one investigated the latter banner with a careful eye, they would have seen a pig in the front seat of the car. We gotta commend comrades with an eye for detail!
- We eventually took over the street and blocked off the intersection. At one point, a car pulled over and someone got out and started shaking hands and thanking us for being there, saying that they were in that very detention center about a month prior and it meant a lot to them that we were out there. We welcomed them home, and we wished each other well for the new year.
- The scene at midnight was a powerful one: we shot off fireworks up into the night sky! We flipped off the pigs watching from inside! We busted out a bottle of champagne! We pulled down our masks for a quick kiss! There were a few folks who’d pulled over and gotten out of their car to join us right before midnight, dancing in the intersection and catching the festivities on IG live. By that point, some pigs had joined us in the intersection in a futile attempt to intimidate us, and were approaching the partygoers– I was glad to see our folks respond quickly by surrounding the pigs to make sure they didn’t escalate and ruin our fun. The pigs backed off, the partygoers danced with us a bit longer, then off they went to enjoy the rest of their night.
- In response to another attempt at intimidation, one of our folks loudly declared “I don’t speak pig!”
A little after midnight, a small crowd broke off to take to the streets, carrying banners and waving to folks who had gathered downtown for fireworks and general NYE tomfoolery (and hopefully some trouble, too!). Spoiler: the night ended in us getting kettled and two of our folks getting arrested. Here, I want to share some observations and criticisms, not from a place of condescension but from a place of concern and, frankly, responsibility– we have a responsibility to each other to be honest about our mistakes and missteps so that we can move smarter next time. And so that we can be sure that there is a next time. In no particular order:
- The marching crowd lost numbers as we moved further towards the downtown core. This is more of an observation than a criticism– we know of the ongoing tension at marches to stay and keep numbers up, but to also leave when you and your crew’s spidey sense starts tingling. Folks peeled off from the crowd, and by the time we got kettled, we were down to maybe 15 folks.
- This one IS a criticism: we should have left when our spidey sense started tingling. We were approaching a major intersection that led into a bridge, and right before we crossed, a few of us had half an instinct to disperse. We didn’t, and about 30 seconds later, those fucking bike cops kettled us and arrested two of our folks. This happens! It’s not the first or the last time that the night gets flipped around in a split second. But it was an unfortunate way for the night to end, especially how close we were to calling it a night, and especially how many of us already had an inkling to leave. (The two folks were released later that night!)
- Marches have lots of overlapping and complicated dynamics and there aren’t ways to keep everyone abreast of every decision and every risk. It is difficult if not outright impossible to practice horizontal decision-making in a crowd, even a smaller one. You just have to trust that folks who are there will do what is best for them based on their risk level, etc. and that folks are crewed up and have some amount of experience with being out in the streets. But next time, we will be more strategic– we will have better eyes looking out for cameras and undercover pigs, we will scout out intersections and routes up ahead, we will notice how the pigs are moving and be one step ahead. Fuck those bridges.
- We were marching on a special night– NYE has that feral energy, kind of like Halloween. I wish we had been more strategic about taking advantage of that night– could we have retreated into the chaos and reemerged later? Were the pigs understaffed that night? What parts of downtown could we have visited where folks might have joined our festivities?
- Fuck those bridges though, seriously.
