This is part three of three. If that doesn't seem right, go back to page one.
Chaplain.
The media guy seemed nice enough but wasn't really in his comfort zone. Update: Turns out he's Ken Pritchett, KTVU Channel 2. I'll put a link to his video at the end. Notice to give his report he puts his coat on, so he doesn't have to worry about his outfit as much as the female media folks, who end up taking their protective coat off to give their report. Amazing what you learn when you go to these things.
The police were doing their thing - here they're clearing the street. Folks would get a bit close to the cars and get moved back, or not quite be careful enough about not blocking the sidewalk. The police also made it very clear that all parking laws must be obeyed so the riders were doing some kind of complicated shifting around of bikes to deal with one hour zones. As far as I can tell they were fair - enforcing the law, keeping things to the bounds of the permit, not being too rude to honest people who maybe took a step too much into the street or back into the sidewalk but at the same time making sure they went back where they belonged.
I'm not always 100% thrilled with the actions of any one Berkeley PD member, and sometimes they're a bit ruder or unkempt than necessary or would be considered normal in other local cities, and I frankly think they bungled some things with earlier protests here and at city hall but generally speaking since then they've been patient as saints with this office attracting every cause in the area. I know that kind of sounds like damning with faint praise - but really, they're human but basically do a fine job under difficult circumstances.
I do believe these folks have more fun than the code pink ladies. That's Melanie Morgan on the left, by the way. How often do you get to say that?
Concerned bystanders. This isn't about you, I promise.
A gold star dad, I believe.
Hey, I warned you there were four of them. If you're a regular you may remember her in a "fuck bush" t-shirt. By the way - part of why I'm posting the code pink gals throughout the report - other than to spread out the shock - is that it's basically in chronological order. And they arrived in dribs and drabs, quite late, desperately trying to get some signs up. They were totally unprepared - and this event wasn't some big secret. I originally found out about it in a Google search although a couple of people were also kind enough to email some info to me. And later somebody actually posted it to the calendar of a left-oriented protest site. And there were comments saying it must be a hoax - they just did not believe there is this kind of support for the troops in the east San Francisco bay area, even if people did drive from exotic places like Fremont. (For those out of the area: Fremont's not super close but it's in the same county as opposed to Marin which is where a lot of the Code Pink members live).
Update: The left-oriented protest site I mentioned above (a subset of Indymedia) now has a report about this event in which it is claimed this whole thing must have been funded by the government because otherwise why would all of these people show up? (They really don't get it at all). My check appears to have gone missing - could somebody look into that for me?
Unfortunately I didn't get great pictures of the Berkeley High students, but this is one of the regulars. When they can, they come out during lunch or after school to support the troops and counter the image that all Berkeley High students are useful idiots.
Um, yeah. A surprising number of folks went over to chat politely with the code pink people, but you could tell it was like "Well, we're in Berkeley, we might as well get the full experience".
There were plenty of regular Berkeley folks wandering through, by the way - obviously most Berkeley folks are far to the left but I want to assure everybody that they're basically normal - the people featured in these reports are a fringe element, that's why you see the same folks over and over again. There's 6-7 million people in the bay area, after all. Some of them are bound to be nuts.
Isn't the reflection on his helmet cool? No, it wasn't on purpose, oh well.
And to conclude, I'm not really a video guy, but here's a token video:
If you don't see the video, go here to see it in higher quality.
I hope you enjoyed the report - I enjoyed the event and I'm glad I was able to share it with people.
Oh, and here's the KTVU report if you want their take on things.
You can contact me at info (at) ProtestShooter.com
