My bf posted some video to youtube of the view from our window.
The video kicks off with a lovely parade around six-ish, and as the night continued there were many different iterations of the crowd. Lots of neighbors, musicians, some people from the music school, activists, and kids looking for a party. The gathering started around 4pm in front of the library. Cops in riot gear had cut off 14th Street and put up barricades around Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza. (They are still there as of writing this post [1 pm Wednesday, approx 36 hours after the eviction.])
I joined up after 7 pm ish and stayed until much later. I saw many tear gas canisters detonated and brought what looks like a blasting cap from one home with me. I’d say for about every solitary projectile, be it a bottle, or ice cube or whatever, there were about 6-10 canisters launched into the crowd. (Of the three exchanges I’d witnessed, all of them were started by a person throwing a single projectile toward the police.)
Tear gas canisters are spectacularly beautiful as they’re being shot. They look like street fireworks. I’m not sure if it was the gas canisters, or another explosive, but there were giant booms that accompanied the fizzing bombs clattering on the street surface.
The thing that’s most terrible about them is they’re really huge, about the size of a can of beans and really heavy. You can’t tell if one is going to land on your head, because you’re busy trying to avoid the last one. It gets very smoky and everyone’s trying to run from the last one and shove a vinegar soaked bandana or rag over their nose.
After the first one, everybody had ran for cover, but then you had the realization that more, three, four, five, six, were crashing down, and that even if you’d managed to avoid the first few, all of the gas had made a thick fog on the ground and the breeze was lifting it in the air and floating it down the block.
It feels like fire, like straight up rubbing fucking cut onions on your motherfucking eyeballs.