Under Arrest
Hall, Marcellus
UNDER ARREST Words & illustrations by Marcellus Hall On the Friday before the Republican National Convention, bicyclists gathered at Union Square for the monthly Critical Mass ride through...
...Here they catalogued my possessions: one cellphone, one sketchbook, one backpack, one bike, one comforter, etc...
...Many had tattoos, and the average age looked to be twenty-five...
...Riot police faced the crowd...
...Eight hours passed...
...Most were white, but all races were represented...
...I walked to Police Plaza three blocks away to regain my possessions, which were given to me in a large plastic bag...
...We watched as the cops stood in line at makeshift desks where other cops filled out forms...
...There were benches for twenty-five people, but fifty to sixty of us filled each cage...
...The woman looked at me and said, "Oh, do you mean from riding the bike...
...I had just come from meeting friends in the West Village and stopped to see what was going on...
...Move along," they shouted...
...They gave us paper cups to drink water from a water cooler in the corner...
...You're under arrest," I was told...
...At midnight, I saw an attorney from the National Lawyers Guild...
...Along the route, people applauded us...
...A skirmish broke out here and there...
...Some of us took to lying down on the dirt-blackened cement floor...
...jumpsuits doled out sandwiches and mopped the hallways...
...We endured more searches, roll calls, waits, cell transfers, and a new batch of indifferent cops...
...There was not a computer in sight...
...The police were poised for a crackdown, however...
...A cop wrinkled his nose, "Are you the protesters...
...Her eight-year-old son began bawling when he saw his dad handcuffed...
...There was a boy of sixteen with us...
...A wellfed, perspiring officer took me to a desk...
...he asked...
...It was midnight...
...The handcuffs dug into my wrists, but I was able to reach my cellphone in my front pocket...
...I don't have to give you these," a cop told us...
...They loaded us onto a prison bus and drove us to a pier on the Hudson River...
...At 4 in the morning, my name was called...
...We were given bologna sandwiches and milk...
...Mark's Church in the East Village...
...I was brought before a judge who set a court date for me in November...
...For what...
...I asked...
...At the giant warehouse on Pier 57, we waited like cattle behind barricades that led to a metal detector...
...Suddenly, after twenty-eight hours, I was free...
...A cop told me to move...
...A woman with a baby in her arms pleaded frantically with cops to release her husband...
...My comforter was intact...
...Another interviewed arrestees and complained of the smell...
...Having lain on the floor all night and without sleep, my cellmates and I appeared deranged and criminal...
...This way," he said, and led me into the arms of nearby cops, who pulled my wrists behind me and snapped plastic handcuffs around them...
...I said to a young cop...
...A comforter I had just bought at Bed Bath & Beyond was tied to my bike...
...Minutes became hours as we waited for our names to be called...
...Trading stories among ourselves, we found that most of us had had the same experience: a random, inexplicable arrest...
...Emergency Medical Service workers asked us if we were sick...
...My name was called again at 4 p.m...
...ON COP BUS...
...The word from the mayor's office was zero tolerance for unsanctioned demonstrations...
...He explained that I was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest...
...After an hour, I was assigned to an arresting officer, with whom I was photographed while holding my bike...
...We received boxes of wheat flakes and half pints of milk...
...The police separated the women from the men...
...When the bicyclists were eventually thwarted by police in Midtown, they reconvened at St...
...I asked him if I should go up on the sidewalk or could I proceed along the street...
...He gave me an apologetic shrug as I surrendered the contents of my pockets...
...You know we're innocent, don't you...
...I was then transferred to another cage on the other side of the room...
...I said I was suffering from exhaustion...
...Countless people held video cameras...
...The police cuffed me with others and took us to a prison bus...
...I still didn't know what I was being charged with...
...I walked my bike down the street away from the church...
...Marcellus Hall is an illustrator in New York...
...The rest of us remained, while hundreds on the sidewalk chanted, "Let them go...
...The night shift had gone home, and a new shift of showered and shaved cops stood guard...
...Days later, I went to a designated lot in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to get my bike...
...Pedestrians cheered as thousands rode the streets...
...UNDER ARREST Words & illustrations by Marcellus Hall On the Friday before the Republican National Convention, bicyclists gathered at Union Square for the monthly Critical Mass ride through Manhattan...
...Saturday, I was called again...
...A water bug crawled across the floor...
...One female cop related to us how, when she was young, her parents brought her to a Vietnam War protest where she was hit by a cop's club...
...Their ranks swelled as war protesters from out of town came to ride, too...
...I was told that it was being held as evidence until my trial...
...And don't make a fucking mess or you're going to stay here even longer...
...It was here that the arrestees got better acquainted with each other...
...We rode with a police escort to Central Booking in Chinatown...
...I sent a text message to a friend: "ARRESTED...
...At 10 a.m...
...Our bikes were thrown onto a pile, mine with the comforter still tied to it...
...CUFFED...
...I was chained to four others and taken to be photographed and fingerprinted...
...Each of the young officers around us was given five arrestees of his own...
...Young black inmates in D.O.C...
...We were transferred from cell to cell...
...I guess we'll see you back here on Sunday," he said, referring to the planned anti-war protest...
...One by one, we were ushered into newly built chain link cages festooned with razor wire...
...The cops seemed rattled by the boy's screams, and they released the father...
...Eventually, daylight seeped through the dirty windows overhead...
...Sit down...
...a cop said, and forced me onto the asphalt, where I knelt with other handcuffed people...
Vol. 68 • October 2004 • No. 10
