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\nToday, after nearly a year of suspense, the first six J20 defendants to go to trial were declared innocent of all charges. They are only six of over 200 people mass-arrested at Donald Trump’s Inauguration, nearly 200 of whom still face the same identical charges of six felonies and two misdemeanors—charges that could put them in prison for sixty or more years each. The fight is far from over. Indeed, in response to the verdict, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced that “they look forward to the same rigorous review for each defendant.” We must redouble our support for all the other defendants and show that it is the state itself that is guilty.
\n\nThe fact that the defendants have stuck together up to this point represents a tremendous feat of courage, solidarity, and mutual aid. To be subjected to the whims of the criminal justice system is already to be punished. In this case, that system was used in ways that are unusually egregious: mass-arresting so many people and blanket-charging them with felonies is practically unprecedented, and for months the defendants faced charges that do not even legally exist. This victory shows that Trump and his supporters throughout the legal system have not yet been able to consolidate their progress towards making that system even more oppressive than it was. But we should not conclude that any part of the legal system is ever capable of delivering real justice.
\n\nThe criminal justice system exists chiefly for the sake of intimidating and persecuting dissidents and targeted communities. It could go on doing that effectively even if no judge or jury ever reached a verdict of “guilty” again. Think of the over 1000 people murdered every year by police without standing trial; the tens of thousands who languish in jail for years before they go to trial; the millions who are forced to accept unjust plea deals because they cannot obtain proper legal representation; the tens of millions who are routinely harassed by police and other state institutions.
\n\nAs far as we are concerned, those who stand up to this system are always innocent, whatever means they employ, and those who maintain it are guilty of perpetuating one of the greatest atrocities on the face of the earth. Permit us to make our case.
\n\n\nhttps://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/943902452599881728\n\n\n
Let’s review some of the ways that the J20 defendants have already been punished by this groundless prosecution, long before they went to trial.
\n\nFirst, some of the felony charges that the J20 defendants faced did not even exist. On Wednesday, November 1, Judge Leibovitz reduced two of the felony charges that everyone faced to misdemeanors, acknowledging that felony versions of those charges do not even exist on the books. What legitimacy can the criminal justice system hold when defendants are threatened by nonexistent charges for half a year?
\n\nLikewise, on Wednesday, December 13, the judge dismissed the charge of inciting a riot for each of the six on trial. Again, the defendants were terrorized for months by charges that the judge knew were not valid.
\n\nSince the beginning, the prosecutors and the state have flagrantly lied to advance their strategy of judicial persecution. On December 13, attorneys for two defendants filed a motion to dismiss the charges against them based on false testimony that the lead detective on the case presented to the grand jury that indicted the defendants. According to the grand jury testimony obtained by the attorneys, the detective told the grand jury that everyone who was kettled and arrested “participated in the entire march,” which the detective, after reviewing hundreds of hours of video footage, clearly knew was false: the two defendants whose attorneys filed this motion only participated in the last three blocks of the march, not the sixteen blocks the detective claimed.
\n\n\nhttps://twitter.com/HuntedHorse/status/943896298314502144\n\n\n
Over the ten months since their arrest, J20 defendants have lost their jobs as a result of these groundless charges. People applying for school or jobs usually have to disclose the charges against them on their applications, and that this often leads to employment or education being denied them. Some defendants have not been able to renew their professional licenses. Renewing and applying for licensure includes a review of pending charges—and you risk the possibility that whatever you say in that review will be used against you in trial later on. Most of the defendants have had to put their lives on hold entirely.
\n\nOne of the defendants who was just declared innocent, an oncology nurse, had to quit her job in order to go to trial. Her boss came to testify as a character witness, but not everyone has such a supportive and understanding boss—bosses tend to identify with the police and the state. What about the patients who should have been receiving care from this nurse, were it not for this groundless prosecution?
\n\nThe defendants have had to spend thousands of dollars each traveling to DC, often for cancelled hearings. They have had to miss work while incurring additional costs securing housing and other resources in Washington, DC.
\n\nAltogether, this adds up to well over the already inflated $100,000 that the government claims was caused in property damage on J20, almost all of which was covered by insurance. Just as the US military inflicted ten times as many civilian casualties on Afghanistan in the war that followed the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US government shows no compunction about making random people pay tenfold for any supposed interruption of imposed law and order.
\n\nOn the day they were arrested, even before they were taken to jail, J20 defendants were made to wait in the cold for eight hours with no access to food, water, or toilets. The area around them filled up with bottles of urine and even feces. Later, at least one arrestee was unlawfully rectally probed by police. As one reported:
\n\n\n\n\n“I felt like they were using molestation and rape as punishment,” Horse said. “They used those tactics to inflict pain and misery on people who are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.” He added: “It felt like they were trying to break me and the others—break us so that even if the charges didn’t stick, that night would be our punishment.”
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During trial, it came out that one arrestee went to the hospital because a police stinger grenade blew up beside her leg. In a situation like this, arrestees cannot even speak freely to doctors about their injuries without fear that what they say will be used to convict them, even fraudulently.
\n\nPolice violence during the J20 arrests.
\nDC police released information about the defendants to far-right trolls who published it, “doxxing” them,” resulting in a flood of online threats to defendants. Although it is not known whether any right-wing attacks have successfully been carried out against J20 defendants as a result of this doxxing, the state is responsible for creating conditions in which the defendants have had to live in fear.
\n\nFacing decades in prison for ten months—with those who hold the highest political offices in the land calling for the worst possible consequences against you—is stressful to say the least. Such stress and anxiety have had a serious impact on the defendants; some of them have wrestled with suicidal thoughts. While not a DC J20 defendant, Nathan Hose, one of the J20 defendants in New Orleans, took his life in August. The groundless charges that Nathan faced have just been dropped for the surviving defendants in his case.
\n\nIn this regard, those who press groundless charges are murderers with blood on their hands. They would doubtless welcome more suicides from those who face these charges; it speaks to the deep care that J20 defendants and supporters have shown each other that no one else has committed suicide yet.
\n\nAll this stress has rippled out to affect countless communities that care about the J20 defendants and about freedom of assembly. Indeed, the chief goal of the J20 prosecution has never been to achieve specific guilty verdicts; it has been to set an ugly new precedent for judicial persecution of all who participate in protest activity. If there are convictions in the J20 trial—or even if there are no more convictions, but there are no serious consequences for the mass arrest and blanket charging—we can be sure that the police will continue to use the same strategy to terrorize other protesters in the future. Imagine if they had used this approach to crack down on Occupy or Black Lives Matter demonstrations!
\n\nSome defendants have been prevented from traveling to other countries, trapping them in territory governed by Trump. Long before they came to trial, the charges served to separate people from their families and loved ones and to prevent them from building international ties of solidarity.
\n\nThe conditions of defendants’ pre-trial non-incarceration include not being arrested in DC again; any additional legal trouble they incur can be used against them in court, even if it also turns out to be groundless. This is another way that the J20 charges have been aimed at sidelining and disabling social movements. Think of all the effort that has gone into support videos, podcast episodes, and fundraising to support the J20 defendants this past year, effort which would otherwise have been focused on anti-fascist activities and proactive attempts to create a better world by providing resources to those in need.
\n\n\nIf the defendants in the J20 case—more than 200 people—had not been incapacitated, many more of them would surely have been on the front lines in Charlottesville and elsewhere, preventing the far right from mobilizing to intimidate and murder people of color, Jewish people, undocumented people, and other targeted groups. In this regard, the police, the judge, and the prosecutors have Heather Heyer’s blood on their hands, and the blood of others who have been killed by fascists recently—and many more people who will soon be killed, if the state does not stop targeting anti-fascists. The state always functions to enable fascists to go about their murderous business.
\n\nThroughout this entire ordeal, the defendants have had to endure opprobrium from those who are still so ignorant as to misunderstand the state as a beneficial force—who do not realize that to be charged with resisting the ever-increasing encroachments of the state on our freedom is, if anything, an honor.
\n\nWhat would constitute real justice for the J20 defendants? If we understand justice as retribution—poetic justice—the police, prosecutors, the judge, and all the other state officials who are implicated in the past ten months of intimidation would be subjected to the same treatment they have inflicted. The police officers would be rounded up and imprisoned; the detective who lied to the grand jury would have his own life ruined by calumny he was powerless to counteract; the prosecutors would be publicly humiliated and forced to face the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in prison. Donald Trump would walk across the desert on a broken ankle, pursued by helicopters and armed men with dogs, before dying of dehydration, terrified and alone, within miles of hospital facilities—as he has forced others to do in the Sonoran desert simply in hopes of rejoining their families.
\n\nOur oppressors should be grateful that we do not believe in retribution. We aspire to transform society from the bottom up, not to mete out supposed justice. If ever we are the ones to determine their fates, we will aspire to forgiveness.
\n\nBut the first priority has to be to interrupt the harm that they are perpetuating. Support the J20 defendants.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2017/12/21/2.jpg\")
\nJanuary 20, 2017 saw the fiercest resistance to a presidential inauguration in US history. The day also saw well over 100 demonstrators surrounded by police at the intersection of 12th and L and arrested. This was the largest mass arrest in DC since the People’s Strike 15 years earlier, before some of this year’s inauguration demonstrators were even born. The gap between this group and previous generations who had experienced mass arrests was apparent. Some unintentionally enabled the police to collect intelligence about them; many lacked basic knowledge of what an arrest process entails. As we enter a new phase of mass resistance and mass arrests, we want to pass on some lessons from the kettle at 12th & L.
\n\nSome did escape the kettle on Friday. A courageous countdown and umbrella-led charge allowed some comrades to break free and fight in the streets for the rest of the day. The key to their success was that the charge took place while the police were still forming their line at 12th and L. The longer a kettle has been in place, the more difficult it is to break out: the police will have established their forces and surveillance, people in the bloc may have changed clothes, demoralization and inertia will have set in. If you want to make a mad dash for freedom, your best chance is to take advantage of the chaos before a new order is imposed.
\n\nThe march and the kettle at 12th and L on J20.
\n\nOnce definitively surrounded with no chance of escape, you should change outfits immediately; try to do so without being filmed. In any black bloc, it’s important to wear a layer of normal clothes so you can quickly shift your appearance. In a mass arrest scenario, the most secure way to do so is to move to the center of the crowd where you can’t be seen, shed any suspicious objects and black bloc attire, shift to your civilian clothing, and move to the outside of the crowd to provide cover for those who haven’t changed outfits yet. This should happen as soon as the crowd is definitively kettled. Two rotating spirals of demonstrators and bam: a whole new crowd.
\n\nIn changing outfits, be cognizant of details that might give you away, such as your shoes or backpack. You could carry your bag inside another bag or under your black gear, for example, or cover identifying features on your shoes with black tape. To learn more about dressing securely for demonstrations, consult Fashion Tips for the Brave.
\n\nWhen the crowd detained at 12th and L was told to put their hands in the air, most did. This is not the only thing they could have done.
\n\nWhat safety we can find in captivity will not come from following orders, but from how we leverage whatever cooperation the police require that is still under our control. If they tell you to do something, it’s probably because it makes their job easier. Ideally, a detained crowd should establish a process for deciding together how to respond to police commands. Standard guides to nonviolent direct action suggest a police liaison system, but this can be difficult in some scenarios. During one of the mass arrests at The People’s Strike in 2002, detainees locked arms immediately until the police told the crowd they would allow people to leave the kettle with their hands up. This was a lie, but the experience of coordinating disobedience together built morale and rapport between the participants that was useful throughout the rest of the lockup process. On J20, all police had to do was walk through the crowd and point at people for them to go willingly into a wagon. Some just volunteered to get arrested out of boredom, falsely believing that it would speed up their release.
\n\nThe anti-globalization movement experienced a lot of mass arrests; there are many creative anecdotes to learn from. A generation ago, the tasks of the police were obstructed by arrestees refusing to give names, swapping clothes once in custody, just plain getting naked in custody, singing in the jail, chewing through identifying bracelets, and locking arms around each other to form a “giant snake” of arrestees. Many of these instances of solidarity and disobedience ended in police violence against arrestees, but sometimes they compelled the authorities to release batches of “John Does” and “Jane Does” without charges. Honestly, there is no sure way to calculate what kind of disobedience will be most favorable for arrestees in any given situation, and most people don’t want to get whacked in the ribs for the sake of symbolic defiance—but we shouldn’t forget that even under arrest, we can still continue to resist.
\n\nAt 12th and L, some took advantage of the largest arrest in DC in 15 years to organize anti-authoritarian declarations from some of the detainees. Another idea that circulated was a hunger strike to call attention to the No DAPL struggle at Standing Rock. Many of us went without eating for over 30 hours anyway, with nothing to show for it. With the eyes of the world focused on DC that day, the gravity of the mass arrest offered another opportunity to clarify our message and intensify its impact.
\n\nLater, in a holding cell, some forty of us were lying around bored and anxious when one person proposed that we hold a discussion about how we might come out of the experience feeling more powerful. That immediately changed the tenor of our time there: from an assortment of isolated, scared individuals, we cohered into a courageous collective force.
\n\nWhile the mass arrest at 12th and L resembles previous mass arrests from a decade and a half ago, one thing is new: the police kept the majority of people’s phones. All of the associations, conversations, and social media accounts of arrestees who carried their personal cellphones that day may now be available to the authorities without even a subpoena. At this point, we don’t know how they will use the information gathered from all of the phones against us, but this already signals the importance of secure etiquette around cellphones for future protests.
\n\nPlease don’t bring your personal cellphone to a black bloc. Please don’t take pictures in the streets—this can help police identify where you were and who you were around, as well as giving them photographic evidence with which to investigate and prosecute others.
\n\nThere are plenty of options for burner (single use) phones under $50. This is a good option if you want a phone not tied to your number or name—for example, so you can still stay up to date with the text alerts, tips line, and legal hotline that were organized for J20. Here is a simple guide to setting up and using a burner phone.
\n\nIf you are arrested, try to destroy, ditch, or conceal your SIM card so the police cannot gain access to all of your information. Some of the lawyers for J20 defendants have suggested that remote-wiping a phone once it is in police possession can count as tampering with evidence. Even after removing the SIM card, much may still be left on your phone. We can’t emphasize this point enough: don’t bring your personal phone to an action with a high risk of arrest.
\n\nOnce surrounded, there is no guarantee how much time you’ll have together. Some of us were at 12th and L for eight hours, but had the police been better prepared they might have hauled us off immediately. While you have the chance, it’s important to pass on skills like the ones described in this primer to the less experienced. Getting everybody on the same page while you are still all together means that everybody will be equally informed—it makes more sense than hoping that the same conversation will take place in all of the vehicles in which arrestees are transported.
\n\nIf you are a movement veteran with plenty of experience, don’t be too shy about outing yourself by speaking up—the risk of letting those ignorant of basic security culture make easily preventable mistakes may be more dangerous to you than the risk of being identified as a potential leader. It only takes one person making a dumb mistake to put everybody in danger. The sense that everybody is on the same page will embolden people to keep their mouths shut later under police pressure.
\n\nOne thing people in the kettle at 12th and L did well was care for each other. Medics treated folks for pepper spray, asthma attacks, PTSD, and injuries from the concussion grenades that the cowardly police fired into the trapped crowd. National Lawyers Guild attorneys helped explain the arrest and possible booking procedures to less experienced demonstrators in the crowd. Some of us were in the kettle for nearly eight hours, so when people couldn’t hold it in any longer we used our bodies and banners to give people privacy to relieve themselves.
\n\nOf course, there was still room for improvement. Once the heterosexist binary of state-assigned gender was introduced through the jails, cis-gendered folks uncritically internalized this binary without taking into account those in our ranks whose lives defy the gender they were assigned at birth. Imagine how it felt for a trans-woman to survive the heteronormative nightmare of captivity only to hear, upon her release, someone saying over a megaphone, “They’re just releasing dudes now…”
\n\nIn any mass arrest situation, it’s a good idea to check on people who seem isolated and offer support to them; this can reduce the likelihood that anyone will cooperate with the prosecutors. Anxiety can be our worst enemy; acknowledge it, but don’t let it rule you, and do what you can to put others at ease. When one person has access to a resource (a phone call, a lawyer visit), ask around to see how that could benefit others.
\n\nIt can’t be said enough—nothing you say to cops can help you. “Sorry officer, my lawyer tells me I shouldn’t tell police anything but my name and address.” It’s as easy as that.
\n\nOnce we were in jail, the cops were doing their best to get us to talk. This ranged from more innocent-seeming, “So, what happened down there?” to obvious traps like, “If anyone is nervous about their charges, we can go have a conversation about your charges and what comes next… we’ll just have to waive your right to remain silent.” Even if you are certain you haven’t done anything illegal, what you say can put others at risk—and the more that the police see you as someone who is willing to talk with them, the more pressure they will put on you. Seemingly unrelated conversations can be used to determine associations between detainees and used against you later on. Stay focused on getting through until your release. Afterwards, you will have plenty of time to decompress from what happened, with the benefit of guidance from your lawyer.
\n\nBear in mind that you are probably being audio recorded and/or video recorded in your cell. Inside the holding cells, many arrestees relaxed and began to chat openly about their lives, their organizing, the day’s events, and many other topics that, if not directly incriminating, could give our enemies information about our projects and interconnections that can only hurt us.
\n\nThe cops and corrections officers will likely be acting unjustly. They’re trying to provoke you. You may find yourself wanting to tell them exactly where they should go to and other despicable historical figures they bear resemblance to. Save it. If you can’t hold it in for yourself, hold it in for the rest of the people you’re arrested with. No kind of interaction with the police can improve your case or the cases of the people around you.
\n\nOnce arrested, you are in a condition of uncertainty in which you have very little control over your situation. The anxiety that this uncertainty can cause is one of the main weapons the police have against you. If you can hold off on emotionally reacting to potential outcomes while you’re in custody, you take away much of their power over you.
\n\nCops are bullies. They will tell lies just to scare you: that you will face years in prison, that you will be assaulted in jail, that other arrestees have talked to them about “what you did.” Don’t believe a word. I personally had two cops talking about how they saw me throwing stones and breaking windows when I knew that all I had been doing was carrying a banner the whole time. The evidence in your case will become clear later on. While you are under arrest, focus on making sure the police get as little information from you as possible and pay no mind to what they say.
\n\nEven if you somehow met a good cop with genuinely good intentions, they can’t make any decisions or commitments anyway. They probably have very little idea what is actually going on. They don’t call the shots, they just pass information up the hierarchy.
\n\nOn Friday, the police lies began before we were even in cuffs. People in the kettle were asking the police what we could expect to happen to us regarding charges and processing. Much of this information changed later on, and the contradictions between what different cops were saying created a lot of anxiety and confusion. Since we can’t trust anything the police say, let’s focus our attention on surviving the arrest process together.
\n\nEvery arrestee I’ve spoken with since the kettle has complained about the songs. Mostly it was just “Baby I’m an Anarchist”—and the chorus of “Solidarity Forever,” since nobody knows the rest of the words. Those are fine songs for some circumstances, but J20 saw the greatest mass arrest in 15 years in DC, and those are literally the same songs that people sang during the mass arrests a decade and a half ago.
\n\nWe need new songs that feel fresh and contemporary. Of course, it’s impossible to find a song that everybody likes, but let’s at least keep it interesting by expanding our range of options. Our collective songbook should include chants for various moods and circumstances: rejoicing, yes, but also gathering power, somber solidarity, ridiculing the police, and spreading determination in the face of uncertainty. We also need other ways to maintain morale while passing time together, such as games, storytelling, and humor.
\n\nWe owe a special thanks to all the people who rallied across the street from us and kept our spirits up by waving and shouting their solidarity—but by far the most uplifting support was the smoke and the stench of burning rubber coming up 13th Street from the burning limousine two blocks away. The sound of fierce resistance elsewhere on the streets was sweeter than any song.
\n\nAll of these tips will be more effective with a little forethought. For example, perhaps the statements from the detainees could have been more eloquent if a little planning had taken place in advance; the same goes for the aforementioned proposal of a hunger strike. Plan ahead in your affinity group as to what you will do once a kettle is set in motion—whether to break out, how to get clean, who will carry burner phone(s) and how they will dispose of them.
\n\nOne of the reasons jail solidarity tactics achieved some victories during the anti-globalization movement is that they were planned publicly in advance, during the organizing leading up to mass protests. It is possible, in theory, that you will be able to discuss and employ the same solidarity tactics once you are under arrest, but it will be difficult to get buy-in from others on such short notice.
\n\nMost importantly, prepare yourself emotionally and mentally for police custody. Familiarize yourself with your rights and with typical police lies and tricks. Practice a line like, “Until I have a lawyer I will only give you my name and address,” or however you’re most confident expressing that you will not be speaking to cops. Rehearse it. Get used to saying it.
\n\nAfter you are released, you don’t have to talk to cops, detectives, or district attorneys who call you. Refer them to your lawyer, and report any police contact or harassment to your lawyer and your comrades.
\n\nAlso, don’t do anything that is effectively the same as talking to the cops. Don’t talk to the media after getting released—whatever they publish with your name on it is just as useful to the police as if you had spoken with them directly. Speak with your lawyer before signing on to any class action lawsuits—some can require depositions with forced testimony that can be used against you if your criminal case is still ongoing. Practice good security culture and consider what information the police might have gained about you and your associations if they confiscated your smartphone. Change your passwords. Get your number to a new phone as soon as possible so that incoming calls don’t keep going to the phone they have in their possession.
\n\n![](\"https://cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2017/01/30/make-racists-afraid-again.jpg\")
\nThese suggestions offer a starting place—but don’t take our word for it. Newer folks, ask previous generations of protesters about their mass arrest experiences. Times have changed, but many of those lessons remain relevant—including some we can’t include in an account like this. Some important mass arrests you can ask people about include the ones at the A16 demonstrations against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (Washington, DC, 2000), the protests against the Republican National Convention that same year (Philadelphia, 2000), and the People’s Strike (Washington, DC, 2002).
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