I'll be there. I was beat up by two cops on 5th Street and Ave. B that night and sued the city for $1,000,000 but settled for somewhat less (enough to pay off my credit cards at the time -- those were the days).
I was standing around 5th and A with friends watching the spectacle but not participating when a battalion of cops attacked us. Everyone else ducked into doorways but I freaked and ran down 5th. One cop clubbed me on the head and I fell, but got up and ran down to B where two other cops shoved me against the wall and beat me on the legs saying "we'll teach you a lesson." The street was deserted until a woman (or a drag queen) in a polka-dot dress appeared and they stopped and ran away. So did my savior so I stumbled back to my friends and one told me to go up to his apartment to lie down but otherwise no one was concerned. I found that a lite motif in the art world. While the ACLU, the police, the CCRB and my union co-workers at the type shop where I worked believed me, people in the art world tended to think I was either lieing or, worse, deserved what I got. Though some of my friends did testify to what they saw happen the general belief was that I'd got the million bucks and didn't give it to someone "more deserving" that me, an artist with debt.
What I got along with the bit of cash I shared with my ACLU lawyer was a case of "essential tremors" that makes my right hand shake from being hit in the head. And I've mined the experience in my art work ever since, which may explain its weirdness. What I realize now is that I was trying to visualize an intense sense of abandonment, something young black males feel all to often. What happened to me in an isolated incident happens all the time with the same physical results.
It took weeks of looking at all, and I mean all, of the video shot of the police riot to find myself in the red laser light (which I never could). So it should be interesting to see this footage (in the Gibson sense).
Murphy
CAPTURED twice.
Also listed here.
