#OWS, What happens when the police wake up?

Last night was a wonderful night in Foley Square in New York City. The canyon of tall buildings we stood in are dedicated to power and its authority. We were also cordoned in by police barriers and the unmistakable presence of the police, three deep on the streets, with their riot gear and protective clothing. There was nothing menacing in what we were doing in the square. Yet the size of the police presence was in itself a provocation hard to ignore. Above us the helicopters whirled and I read on my twitter feed that an NBC helicopter had been told to clear out, that the air space above the demonstration was a no-fly zone.

While the voices and the mood in Foley Square was definitely celebratory, as in, you really can’t evict an idea, the overwhelming force around us was lost in another world that must see their end is near. The task now is to disarm the police and make them see they are on the wrong side of the barricades.

One encouraging sign of how this might be cracking is the number of articles coming out about the Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, who some say is thinking of running for Mayor at the end of this horrible third term Bloomberg bought for himself (I wonder if he isn’t waking up every day with buyer’s remorse). As the news trickles out about how Kelly has been running his department, and as more news has been coming out about how the police department is filled with corruption, perhaps, some of the more honest cops will take a step back and say, hey, this is not the way things should be.

Unions are waking up. They are there, in force and visible. They weren’t there in these numbers or with this kind of activism during the last large set of demonstrations against the run-up to the war in Iraq. Police belong to a union too and the city is also trying to eat away at their benefits. Like the teachers, the fire department and other vital services that the city must negotiate with and against whom Bloomberg has taken a hard line, it may be time that the cops standing there in the cold, having been on duty for too long, might be wondering just what it is they are protecting. Or who? And why in the midst of such obvious peaceful protesters are they being asked to take such a militarized stand?

It was such a hopeful sign that the former police commissioner from Philadelphia was there yesterday and was arrested. It is great to read articles by police saying that the militarization of police doesn’t work. Let’s organize a rally so we can sit down with the cops and talk to them and help them to see why they aren’t on the right side of that line. Once we have broken through to them with the message of peace, hope and understanding, the battle will be on a completely different footing. It will then be time to be in charge and put into effect all this hard work leading up to that moment.

Talk to a cop today and make him/her see whose side they should be on.