We are sitting in a circle.  There is a warmth among us that could melt the polar ice caps.  The warmth is two-fold.  We are about fifteen people genuinely high in body temperature as well as body odor.  It has been a long day.  Moreover, though, we are filled with the warmth that accompanies great love and great understanding for one of our own. 

“Multnomah County Juvenile Correctional Facility”, the sign reads.  Many of us, myself included, have been brought here against our will before, but things are different today.  We bussed here, we drove here, and we found rides here.  Sally had to be freed.   I sit, holding hands in what would appear to an onlooker to be a prayer circle.  In many ways, this is a prayer circle.  The only difference being no God, no heaven.  There is only hell here, and we are sitting at its gates.  Our Lucifers are long since gone.  They prowl the streets looking for their next victim.

Worried for Sally, the others of Student Activist Alliance, and even myself, the scene replays over and over again in my head.  The whole lot of us stood in Pioneer Courthouse Square, laughing and discussing the night’s rally.  It was to be considered a mild to moderate success as far as education rallies go. 

We got perhaps a little over 200 students and around fifty adults to join us in speaking about the current disastrous state of the education system in Oregon.  We then began to walk on the sidewalk toward the Oregon Federal Building, when our march began to veer left, onto the street.  Reclaiming the streets has always been one of the most fun events for me as an activist, so I was more than willing to follow suite.

Our enemies in blue, on the other hand, had another plan.  20 March, 2002 had changed protest mentality forever in this city.  It was then that they had then been foiled by a better-prepared if less equipped group of protesters.  Tonight, the fascist presence immediately made itself known.  A police car smashed into a bicyclist who had been riding next to the curb, presumably legally, causing the bicyclist to fall down.  He then continued to push his car up against the man, challenging him to run or be killed.  The man rolled out of the way of the police car, where at least three officers picked him up and threw him in the back of the police car.  The crowd was none to be reckoned with, however, as they were already screaming “LET HIM GO!  LET HIM GO!”  with a voice echoing the solidarity that had been hovering in the air all night.  The police did not let him go, but instead drove off with him.  We searched the crowd only momentarily to find out if there was contact info for him so that we could perhaps run some jail solidarity.  No information was found, and the march continued…on the sidewalk.

When we got to the Federal Building the police presence was astonishingly clear.  There were a minimum of five police cars, most with two officers in them.  We spoke to Measure 30, the latest of a series of attacks by the ruling class, who can’t see fit to fork over to education even a small portion of what they’ll pay for a Baseball stadium.  We marched back to Pioneer Courthouse Square where we were met by those who had shown up drastically late (“Anarchists are always late, except when food becomes involved”, is the truism within the activist community) met up with us.  We then folded up our banners, set down our signs and sat on the steps of the square while the rest of the crowd dispersed.  I had gone over to the police to get the information about the arresting officer of the man earlier, and to generally give them a hard time.  All at once a call came into their walkie-talkies and they picked up and left, leaving their cars behind.  “Absurd,” I told myself “but then again, what isn’t absurd about these men?  They’ve been paid around sixty dollars each, not including overtime, to be a sort of well-armored babysitter”

I began walking back to the group when I saw the police heading down the steps in one big cluster.  There were at least ten of them, more than I had seen in one group all night.  They were presumably coming down to scold us for taking the streets, as they always do, but this time they seemed to be more pointed, and focused on a specific direction.  They were headed toward Sally, who was standing in a quasi-circle with three or four other activists discussing the events of the night.  “Sally!” I yelled out, trying to focus her attention on the presence now only a few feet behind her.  She finished her sentence and looked up at me, but by then it was too late.  One of them had grabbed her upper body and one had grabbed her legs, the rest were fighting off angry, inquisitive activists.  “Why is she under arrest?” one asked.  “Where are you taking her?” another inquired.  They threw her into the awaiting car like a rag-doll and one officer quickly hopped in the driver seat and sped off, tires squealing.  People reached for their phones and called cop-watch, but there was no answer.  We had done little to prepare for jail support that night.  At that moment, a state of utter panic and chaos hit us.  Many of us had been arrested at protests before, those who hadn’t had seen it happen a million times, but we weren’t protesting.  We were innocently standing around, waiting for night to fall and each of us to head our separate ways. 

Those from Students for Unity who were there took charge by telling us we can come back to their on-campus dorms to plan for our next step.  Looking for any sense of direction we could get, we followed them back in the direction of PSU.  We had gotten a few blocks before Marko told us something we hadn’t seemed to think of yet, due to our zombie-like stupor, “We don’t have the time to sit down and think about this,” he told us, “We have to do something now.”

“Which jail was she taken to?  The downtown holding cell one?” I asked. 

“No, she would’ve been taken to the one in Northeast, juvi” Somebody answered. 

“Well, why don’t we just go there and plan things out from there?”  I said, trying to throw some direction into this terrified plot.

“My mom says she can give us a ride” Hannah offered, speaking both to us and into a cell phone, “or at least a few of us”

“Good, ask her to come.”  I said, but Hannah made it clear that her mom was already on her way.  We sat around discussing who should get the ride and who should bus, since too many of us wanted to go to all be driven.  I and two others decided that since we know the bus routes well, we should be the ones to bus.

We walked down to the Max stop, leaving the others behind, and grabbed the Max that was immediately there when we needed it.  Sometimes my timing is the greatest.  From the Max stop at Pioneer Courthouse Square, we rode to Rose Quarter Transit Center and caught a bus that took us almost to juvi.  We could see juvi across the field, so we ran across the field to see most of SAA already there. 

So this is where we sit.  Almost everyone is either crying or holding back tears.  Those not crying yet are trying to offer some comfort to those who are.  There is a photographer from FOX here for some reason.  He must’ve followed us from the protest.  He continues to take pictures of people crying without their permission until he is asked to leave if he can’t respect our wishes.

For over an hour we sit under a bright street-light with at least two people on cell-phones calling everywhere for information at all times.  Finally, Matt, Sally’s then-boyfriend, while pacing around on a cell-phone gets word and lets everybody know as it comes in.  “She isn’t here.  She’s downtown and she is being let out” A half-hearted cheer is let out from the utterly exhausted crowd.  We exchange hugs and decide to put down the issue until our next meeting, Wednesday, two days away.

I escorted home a friend of mine who lived only a few blocks away from my house, and come home to sit on the couch and eat cold pizza.  The news anchor-woman makes a quick light hearted reference to some kids who thought they could make a difference.  “Fuck that cunt.”  I say softly to myself, drifting to sleep.  It’s not in my nature to use that sort of misogynistic language, but that night, I wasn’t having any of it.

That was the night I stood up for Sally.