Tucson: Prisoner Strike Solidarity March

Submitted to It’s Going Down

On September 10th, Tucson anarchists initiated a march in solidarity with the national prison strike, and with the intention of highlighting the ways that prisons and policing saturate our daily lives, and the generalized resistance that this fosters.

A group of roughly 70 people, with a 15 person black bloc, converged in downtown Tucson during the monthly “Second Saturday” shitshow. After a period of rallying and distributing hundreds of copies of the strike call as well as a pamphlet specific to this action, the crowd began marching through traffic in an attempt to evade the type of police corralling (or ‘facilitation’ as they’d term it) that we’ve experienced with recent marches.

This time, however, the policing strategy was much more aggressive and assertive in attempting to deny us any opportunity to take the street. Traffic and construction signage was dragged into roadways to try and impede police on bicycles with minimal effect, but with much more confidence and coordination than in the recent past.

Still, the police were relatively quickly able to confine the march to crowded sidewalks, as they themselves shut down streets to prevent us from being in them – this is a typical policing approach where it’s fine that traffic is obstructed as long as we are not the ones doing it, or being seen as capable of doing it.

As the march went on, there were a couple attempts to take the streets again by pushing through police lines, all of which were unsuccessful. But, when police did try to make arrests, the bloc was able to immediately get targeted individuals back through a combination of physically pulling them away from police while simultaneously shoving aggressive officers away. Such actions would probably have been less possible without the anonymity provided by black bloc tactics.

Even in situations where we’re clearly being outmaneuvered while outnumbered, we will not let them take anyone from us without a fight. These de-arrests were among of the few tactical victories of the night.

TPD bike patrol officer Ryan Sachs proved to be a particular, tremendous thorn in our side as an individual, so here’s some info on that motherfucker.

Let’s hope that sooner or later we can push that piece of shit into the full on coronary attack he’s so clearly on the edge of. Fuck the police. You can find some more photos and a weird student perspective here.