story by KEN HECHTMAN
photos by RACHEL GRANOFSKY

Forty-eight hours before being picked up by police as part of Monday morning's mass arrest of 340 anti-World Trade Organization protesters, Scott Weinstein was describing the street safety workshop he teaches. "We set up and role-play conflict scenarios that copy actual protest events," he explained. "Afterwards, I debrief the participants and I always ask the same five questions. First, what happened? Surprisingly, people's accounts are often incorrect or incomplete.

"Second, how did you feel? And I'm not looking for touchy-feely hippie crap here, I want to know if your emotions affected your ability to think, act and communicate. Third, what decisions were made? To turn and run? Stand and confront? Remember that the decision to stand there and do nothing is also a decision.

"Fourth, who made the decisions? The group's alpha male? The most aggressive person? The most panicked? The police? Last, what other options did you have?"

The common themes are awareness and responsibility. According to Weinstein, these attitudes make the difference between being in control of the situation and being controlled by it.

Using a pseudonym to protect his identity from police, Mike Malatesta, who describes himself as an anti-authoritarian facilitator - a euphemism that conceals a multitude of sins - also stressed awareness, though at the group level rather than the individual. "Our first priority in any street action is finding the riot cops' staging area. We send out scouts [on bikes] to do that."

During business hours, the scouts blend into the downtown traffic, but before a 6 a.m. event like Monday's, when there are no bike couriers on the street, they stand out. "The cops know about them," says Malatesta. "They call them les dépisteurs [French slang for undercovers]."

Know thy enemy

They don't actually use the SALUTE (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment) acronym for recon reports. That's a neo-Nazi thing, not an anarchist thing. Anarchists don't salute anyone and they wouldn't think to use it as a mnemonic device, but their method is the same.

Malatesta explains, "A report isn't just, ‘I see cops.' A report is how many vehicles, what equipment, the numbers on the vehicles [indicating their station], and maybe most important, the mood and activity - are they sitting around drinking coffee, are they putting their gear on, are they already suited up and in ranks? From that the scouts can tell how quickly they can be brought in and how much time the protesters have to do what they want to do."

They've also gotten to know many of the riot squad's patterns. The squad never allows itself to be seen standing around doing nothing. According to Malatesta, at a static event, the staging areas will always be out of sight. On a march, the intervention squads will follow on parallel streets.

"Another part of the doctrine," he says, "is that they never talk to civilians. The only words they ever say are, ‘Bouge! Bouge!' When they show up, it's not talking time anymore."

He also lists the common tactics from their playbook. "Sometimes they just want to move a crowd down the street. They'll form one line and push. If they want to break up the crowd, they'll move into the centre of it with a flying wedge and then re-form into two parallel lines pushing in opposite directions. If they want to do a mass arrest, like Police Brutality 2002 or G8 2002, they'll try to close the circle and pen people in. There's a brief period - 30 to 60 seconds - where they're as disoriented as we are, they have unfilled gaps in their line. That's when you can get out, because two or three cops can't hold a whole street."

Keep busy

Geneviève the blue-haired street medic - also requesting that her last name not be published for fear of possible police reprisals - describes what the riot squad calls the Continuum of Force. "Their first mode of intervention is psychological, simply showing up in their gear, then banging on their shields and shouting, then pushing, then beating with batons, then pepper-spray."

She also notes the irony that, "People who are doing stuff are less likely to get injured than peaceful people. They're more aware, more prepared and expecting a violent response. Peaceful people think that if they don't hit the cops, the cops won't hit them - and that's not true. If the cops are taking shit for a long time, like the March 22 peace march, yeah, they get mad and they try to injure people."

So one might well ask: what went wrong? How did these people, so confident in their skills and knowledge, get caught with their pants down and their hands around their ankles? Maybe Scott Weinstein's five questions can shed some light on that.

Speed, surprise, victory

What happened? At the end of the march, the organizers gave the order to disperse and regroup at the Green Zone, the appointed safe, secure and non-violent area in the parking lot next to the Alternative Bookstore on St-Laurent below Sherbrooke. At 9:30 a.m., the riot squad surrounded the Green Zone on two sides, then backed off to staging areas a block away. At 10:15, they moved in quickly from four directions at once, surrounding the nearly 200 people there and pushing them against the glass of the Just for Laughs Cabaret where the mass arrest was made.

How did I feel? On top of things and in control - right up to the minute it became painfully obvious that that wasn't the case. Full disclosure: this reporter was walking recon around the Green Zone. Every few minutes reports were sent in stating the number of riot cops surrounding it (all there are), their locations (the Esso station on Sherbrooke and the fire station on Ontario) and their profile (helmets off, standing and talking in small, loose groups).

Rumours in the Green Zone that the cops are coming were being put down. "No," it was explained, "We're watching the cops. We know where they are and what they're doing. Don't panic and don't panic other people."

When the riot squad did move, it was so fast and so precise nothing could be done. The last report phoned into the Green Zone said, "This isn't a report. Get the fuck out of there, right now!"

According to Gretchen King of CKUT radio, almost no one made it out.

Run, can't hide

What decisions were made? First, the decision that the Green Zone was going to be a safe, secure and non-violent area. They can call it the Fluffy Bunny Park if they want to, the police will still decide what happens there. Second, the decision to disperse and regroup at the Green Zone. That only makes sense if the first assumption holds. Third, the decision to keep an eye on the cops and last, the decision to take their relaxed profile at face value and discourage people from leaving the area.

It should also be mentioned that the police decided to enter private property (the Green Zone was a rented lot, not a public park) without a warrant and round up and charge nearly 200 people on the possibility that the half-dozen who committed some misdemeanour vandalism two hours earlier and 12 blocks away might have been among them.

Who made the decisions? A lot of that information is unknown, except to say that the assumed sanctity of the Green Zone wasn't so much a decision as it is an article of faith in the movement.

What could have been done differently? An assumption that an anarchist-declared no-violence zone would be respected about as well as a police-declared no-protest zone would have helped. Protesters in the Green Zone could have been dispersed on rumour, but most of the time rumours are just that. On the other hand, if the police can grab their gear in a few seconds, form into ranks in a few more seconds and sprint into action in a few seconds after that, then a warning that takes two minutes to act on isn't going to help. Score this round to the police, but the game goes on.