For those of us who had a pretty heartbreaking day four years ago, yesterday was a moment of needed release. On Wednesday it became clear that Biden was going to win Pennsylvania and the hand wringing over Georgia, Nevada and Arizona wasn’t going to matter. But cable news networks had people in a panic that lasted for two more days. I had my camera bag packed that entire time just waiting for the moment we could celebrate in the street.

As soon as I left my apartment I saw people celebrating. My elderly Dominican neighbor who I have become friends with even though her English is even worse than my Spanish started pumping her first at me. My neighbors were standing on the street and yelling out their windows. It was pretty great. I decided to head to Washington Square Park but I got on the J train instead of the M because I wasn’t paying attention and instead of switching trains I decided to just get off in the Lower East Side and walk up a couple of miles to the park while photographing people in the street. Weirdly enough when I got into the city people were celebrating a bit but nothing really worth photographing. I got up to Houston Street and I saw some people across from me dancing so I walked over to them and realized one of them was my friend Ronen. He had already called an Uber and was headed to the park so I jumped in with him.

We got there before noon and there were a lot of people there but it wasn’t quite as crazy as I imagined, fortunately more and more people started showing up and it became the exact kinda party I was looking for. People were popping champagne everywhere, dancing to music and swimming in the fountain. Who would have thought the global climate crisis would come in handy and give us warm day in November. 

I have posted some of these photos already to social media and my followers on the right keep going off about “super spreader events” so let’s address the Covid concerns right away. There has been very little outdoor transmission. If you look at the science, the combination of being outdoors while wearing masks makes it incredibly difficult to transmit covid. There were also a lot of people there but it wasn’t exactly packed in and most people were wearing masks. Obviously there were some exceptions but as someone who is very paranoid about Covid I felt much more concerned on the fairly crowded subway ride home than I did at the event. 

Anyway, yesterday was so much fun, but today we gotta start working again. I did a lot of text banking for Biden but he is certainly not my choice of candidate. I wanted someone much more progressive, but even if a candidate that I liked won it wouldn’t have mattered with all of the down ballot races we lost. We had no pick ups of state legislatures and because of that Republicans will be able to continue to gerrymander the fuck out of their states and that can’t be changed for another decade. Any court reforms will have to wait because we only picked up one senate seat and even if we manage to somehow win both Georgia runoffs nothing will get done without Joe Manchin’s approval which means the most watered down policy imaginable. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and win those races.

I bet a friend $200 Biden would win and I immediately donated half of my winnings to Fair Fight Action, Stacey Abrams Georgia based voting rights organization. She lost her Georgia governor’s race in 2018 because of voter suppression and she has spent the last two years registering voters and trying to turn out the vote and there is no doubt Biden would have lost Georgia without her. You can donate to Fair Fight here. If you want to donate directly to the campaigns you can split your donation between Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock here. This is going to be the most expensive senate fight in history and I am just glad I don’t live in Georgia because they are gonna get so many damn texts and calls and TV ads that it’s going to consume their life for the next two months. 

Okay, enough of me ranting about politics. Let’s just look at some fun photos of people finally getting to enjoy themselves after a very painful year or four. 

Click here to see photos from the Biden victory celebration yesterday in Washington Square Park. 

I am leaving NYC tomorrow for the first time in January. I honestly am the most excited about any vacation I have ever been on despite the fact that I am not really taking a vacation from anything but sitting on my couch watching 8 hours of Netflix a day. I am just kinda losing my mind. Because of this trip I have been quarantining so I can hide out in Delaware with some friends from childhood and see my parents who retired there. That’s why I spent last night watching the fucking Republican National Convention instead of out taking photos of the protests for the attempted execution of Jacob Blake. But watching the RNC gave me an idea for an update before I left town that has (almost) no nudity in it.

When quarantine first happened I had this idea of being productive and trying to better my life, which I obviously gave up on, but one of the things I did was buy a negative scanner and start scanning a bunch of old 35mm negatives I found in a box. It was a range of eras of photos, but pretty much high school and college. I think the earliest stuff is from the mid 90’s and the latest stuff is photos from the 2004 RNC when it was in New York. I wouldn’t move to the city for two more years but I was managing a band at the time and we booked a show in New York so we could join the protests. The photos aren’t very good, and the scans are worse, but it is very cool to see photos of Union Square before I even knew what Union Square was. 

After a couple of hours of scanning I realized that the scans were pretty garbage and gave up. I probably shouldn’t have bought a negative scanner for $100. I posted a few of the images to Twitter and then moved on with my life. But the RNC reminded me I had this folder on my desktop and I figured this would be a good post before I skipped town for a week. So let’s break down what you are looking at… 

The first group of photos I didn’t even actually take. I started a punk record label when I was in high school and our first, and by far most successful release was a 7″ compilation of DC punk bands called Raise The Flag harDCore Volume 1. Someone actually uploaded it to YouTube if you want to hear it. I was only 15 when we put the record together. Raise The Flag 2 was in the production stages when my business partner’s car broke down. Without telling me he spent all the money we had for the record on fixing his car. That ended the label and our friendship. (We did actually reconnect in college and are still close friends. Check out his new band!) These photos are from the Raise The Flag 2 cover art photo shoot. I am not sure who took these photos or why I didn’t do it. The whole reason I picked up a camera in the first place was to shoot DC punk bands but I guess I wanted to be in it. The actual label of the record was going to be a photo of me wearing only a DC flag so I sort of spun around while you listened to the album. Oh, all these photos were taken at the very steep stairs made famous by the movie the Exorcist! 

Up next in the gallery is the RNC protest photos, the only stuff color in the group, followed by some of the earliest nudes I ever shot. I had an assignment in college to shoot something with infrared film. For some reason it makes veins look really pronounced so I shot some nudes of a friend of mine and I think somewhere I still have the prints of these that I made for the assignment and they actually look pretty cool. An old Polaroid I took of her is actually on the inside cover my Instaxxx book and might actually predate these photos by a few months. 

The next photo is of this band the Infertil that were on that first Raise The Flag album. They ended up getting in a fight during their set and their drummer jumped over his drum set and into the crowd. I didn’t want to stop taking photos, but obviously I wasn’t gonna let fellow AV PUNX crew members get fucked with, so I am actually kicking someone at the same exact time as I am taking this photo. It was the first, but not the last time I had to fight with a camera in my hand. Twenty years later that same drummer actually ended up playing drums for my old band Fucking Bullshit. After that we have some photos from the Rolling Thunder bike rally in DC. I believe these photos are from the 2000 rally. And then there is a single photo from a WWF Monday Night Raw taping I went to in college.

From there there is a mix of band photos and protest photos (Edit: I realized after I posted this that there’s only one protest shot here. There were more scans but I guess I didn’t include them in the gallery) which is pretty much 99% of what I shot in high school. We  got a Leonard Peltier protest, photos of Rancid, Motörhead and Nashville Pussy, plus some shots of my friend Crazy Willy and a single self portrait! Check 16 year old me out! The gallery ends with some photos from Warped Tour 2002. These photos were actually on a CD I found in the box with the negatives. I covered Warped Tour ’98 for the zine I ran in high school and I think I went in ’97 too, but I got invited in 2002 by a girl I worked with at Ben & Jerry’s. I didn’t really want to go, but I did want to hang out with her so I requested a press pass so that I could at least shoot some bands at the same time. The CD had shots of the Casualties, Bad Religion and NOFX, but the BR & NOFX photos sucked, probably because I don’t like pop punk. I shot digital photos of these too and some of those are better but the camera was such garbage that they aren’t really worth looking at.

Okay, this is a weirdly long post for some shitty scans of some decades old photos. I still need to plug the shit that is paying my rent right now. If you like 35mm work you can check out my latest gallery on Girls of DBB which is all the NSFW 35mm stuff I have shot since February. I also uploaded a 3 minute compilation of old Vines from when nudity was allowed on Vine. You can buy that whole clip for $5, or you can see the three parts that make up that longer video on my OnlyFans. You can get access to everything on my OnlyFans for $5 so that seems like the better value, but you gotta make your own decisions. Oh, and speaking of OnlyFans I queued up posts for the next week so while I am on vacation you will continue to get content. Gonna try to find a gallery for Girls of DBB to upload when I am gone as well.

Now, if you wanna see all the old 35mm photos, click here!

Back on Juneteenth I went to a Unite NY march to celebrate the holiday and I joined back up with them for their 4th of July march. Unite NY is a collection of different activist groups that have been putting on marches around the city. This march went from Madison Square Park in the city all the way to Dumbo in Brooklyn. I made the full march this time after quitting a little early on Juneteenth because I am a broken old man. The march stopped at different points around the city to talk about the foundation of the country and how that did not include black Americans. 

I consider myself a patriot. I love the idea of this country and that’s why I love activism. My hope is that one day we can realize the vision the founding fathers had for this country, but for all Americans, not just white men. I grew up loving the 4th of July, and I am not going to stop enjoying it, but that’s really easy for someone who has always been part of this country. The idea of a bunch of people who hated being governed by leaders who didn’t represent them fighting back and creating a system where the citizens had a say in their governance is a powerful one and it’s exactly what the Black Lives Matter protesters are trying to accomplish. 

Patriotism isn’t just for the right, and I promise I won’t be burning any flags any time soon, but observing 4th of July as a day of activism instead of an excuse to BBQ and set off fireworks seems like a very good one to me. I want to see the American Dream possible for every American and that won’t happen until we make huge changes in our government, our class system and deal with our legacy of racism from day one of this country. 

Click here to see the photos from the Unite NY 4th of July March. 

Last night after midnight the New York City Council passed a new budget for the city despite calls from activists that the defunding of the NYPD didn’t go far enough. I am not going to pretend to know anything about the intricacies of doing the budget for one of the biggest cities in the world, but I do know that protesters wanted to see the NYPD budget defunded by at least 1 billion dollars, and the budget theoretically does that, but half that amount was just a result of moving the NYPD’s Department School Safety Division to the Department of Education. The entire point of defunding the police is to move those resources to other areas and this budget doesn’t do that.

Occupy City Hall started as a response to this budget so last night was a big night for the protest. It ultimately failed to get the results demanded, but a significant chunk of the NYPD’s budget was removed compared to de Blasio’s original budget and last night as hundreds of people gathered around a projector screen to watch the City Council vote, the vast majority of Council members, even the ones that voted yes on the budget, mentioned the protesters. They mentioned wanting to do more to improve the way NYC is policed and how this was just the beginning. So ultimately these protests are working and hopefully won’t stop any time soon. And Occupy City Hall is still there today.

I probably could have more to say about specific stuff that happened yesterday but I think I will just let the photos speak for themselves and there are a lot of them…

Click here to see my photos from the NYC budget deadline protest at Occupy City Hall. 

With New York City’s budget deadline on Tuesday, Black Lives Matter protesters have staged a live in at City Hall in lower Manhattan. I went down yesterday for day three of the protest and plan on returning to take more photos and support the protesters this weekend. Occupy City Hall already has a much better vibe from Occupy Wall Street with a more organized, more diverse crowd who seems angrier, but ultimately more hopeful. 

I spent a few hours yesterday taking photos, listening to speakers and talking to friends who I ran into down there. It was pretty cool to see so many people I know including fellow photographers Marcus Price and Mel D Cole. Both of them are doing great work but Mel has been traveling the country covering the movement and made news himself a few days ago in Philly when a counter protester attacked him and was charged by progressive DA Larry Krasner. I also ran into my friends and activists Justina and Molly Crabapple. Molly was actually inspired by Occupy Wall Street years ago to start painting protesters and has made a career as an activist and a journalist and her work is just so fucking impressive. She was also in my sold out zine Arts!

The protesters are asking NYC to defund the NYPD by 1 Billion dollars which seems like a lot until you realize that it would only be one 6th of their budget. That money could do so much for the city if used in other places and I truly hope the demands are met, however I have a feeling that even if that somehow happens this protest will not end. You heard over and over again from speakers yesterday that a billion dollars was just the beginning. This country, and particularly NYC, needs a complete reimagining of what the police do and the very positive results for progressives in Tuesday’s primary elections show that New York is ready for change.

On a personal level I would love it if there was some sort of people I could call to get the constant party that is happening in the AirBNB behind my apartment shut down, but I am not going to call someone who might end up murdering the people that I just wish would shut the fuck up at 3am. Maybe I can figure out how to put that on a sign. 

Expect more coverage from Occupy City Hall and the Black Lives Matter protests soon, but I promise I have some “sexy” content coming for you guys too. I’ve also been updating my Only Fans every day and I just scanned 80+ polaroids for Girls of DBB. Just saying. 

Now click here to see my photos from Occupy City Hall. 

Yesterday was Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the day that slavery was outlawed in Texas. Slavery was still legal in the United States until the 13th amendment was ratified in December of 1965 but Texas was the first state to celebrate the end of slavery as a state holiday. (Of course slavery is still legal as a means of punishment and if you somehow haven’t seen it yet, The 13th is free on YouTube and is required watching.) The holiday was celebrated yesterday with Black Lives Matter protests being held across the country. I decided to march with Unite NY, a march featuring organizers from a bunch of different groups working together to throw a huge rally that marched from Brooklyn, across the Brooklyn Bridge and then north up to Central Park in Manhattan.

The group featured Justice For George NYC (probably the best Instagram for finding out where protests are happening in NYC), Black Lives Matter, McCarren March (who I marched with the other night), Riders 4 Rights, a group of bicyclists who help block traffic and support protests, and I believe some other groups but I am not actually sure all the details. As one of the organizers said yesterday, it’s not about any one person or group, but the voice of the people.

I joined the march at City Hall in lower Manhattan on just the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was running late so I couldn’t make the meet up at Camden Plaza but after walking in circles a bit trying to find them I finally made it and walked with the march from the Lower East Side up to Radio City Music Hall. The march continued on until Central Park but the foot that I injured in the very first protest I went to was killing me and I had to call it a day. 

The march was really amazing and hopeful and it was great to see the huge amount of diversity in the crowd. I photographed the 90 year old wedding cake icon Sylvia Weinstock and a little kid marching with a NYPD EAT MY SHORTS sign. Every race and religion was represented from the Sikhs passing out food at City Hall to the Muslim women marching near the front. At every protest I have been very impressed with the gay community using these events to celebrate Pride month in solidarity with the black community and this march was no exception. Seeing thousands of people coming together gives you so much hope for the future even when things seem so bleak. 

One of the most impactful moments of the march was everyone taking a knee at Bryant Park. As everyone kneeled I could look down 6th Ave and it was just protesters as far as the eye could see all kneeling in silence. One of the organizers read the names of dozens of black people killed and everyone repeated their names. Part of Martin Luther King’s I Have A Dream speech was played after that on speakers and the march continued. 

The only real negative that I could say about the protest was that as it got later in the day a lot of people were taking off their masks. In all of the protests I have been to so far I think I saw less than 10 people without masks and I saw dozens yesterday. The vast majority of people still had their masks on throughout but a couple of times I got caught near people loudly chanting along without their masks on which risks the lives of everyone around them. And I think part of that was unfortunately the group’s leadership, several of whom were not wearing masks the entire time. I get pulling your mask down when you are speaking on the microphone, but having it off the whole time sets a bad example to the crowd. It also means that these photos of the front of the march, which are the most likely to be featured in the media, will feature protesters without masks which I think detracts from the movement. They flyer for the rally specifically told people to wear their masks and I wish the organizers did more to encourage people to keep their masks on during the rally. It’s because of this that I am going to do my best to self quarantine for the next two weeks which means I can’t cover more of these protests for a while.

Okay, enough complaining, the march was a huge success and I am so proud to be able to have been part of that. If you have ever asked yourself would you have been part of the Civil Rights movement, you have your answer. Are you protesting? Are you part of this? I hope so. Keep it going. 

Click here to see all my photos from the Unite NY Juneteenth March.

The Black Lives Matter protests continue and since my foot has healed and I had no Covid symptoms for two weeks after the first protest I went to I decided to go back out again and get some more photos of the movement. There were protests happening all over NYC yesterday including a huge one for Black Trans Lives and the canceled Puerto Rican Day Parade became protests for Black Lives Matter. Seeing the support from the LGBTQ community during Pride has been inspiring and seeing Puerto Ricans express solidarity as well is really incredible, especially after seeing the Trump administration turn its back on the island. I had a bunch of stuff to do during the day though, so I ended up going to the protest at McCarren Park which happens every evening. 

The McCarren Park protests are socially distant and people sit in the park and listen to speakers and it’s a honestly a great way to show support and hang out in the park and stay safe in the process. I met up with some friends I haven’t seen since Covid started and got to pet a dog for the first time in months and it was really nice. I brought my digital camera but I had a film camera on me and decided since it was just people sitting around the park I wouldn’t shoot any digital photos and I just snapped a few film shots and a couple on my phone for Twitter and I figured that would be it. But around 8pm when the speakers finished a group gathered for a march and I decided to join them and as it got too dark to shoot with 400 ISO film I broke out the digital camera. 

The march went from McCarren Park, through Greenpoint and eventually over the Pulaski Bridge into Queens. It was not as socially distant as the park, but people still stayed a few feet apart and I only saw two people without masks out of the 100-200 people there. It was a much smaller march compared to others  that day and for the last two weeks, but it was very well organized and the guy leading it was honestly very impressive. I wish I knew more about him because I have been to a lot of protests in my life and he was one of the more charismatic leaders. The protest was led and backed by people on bikes who blocked traffic as we passed through intersections and for most of the march the police followed from behind and led the protest but at a distance and there were absolutely no problems. If the NYPD had adopted crowd control like this two weeks ago I think things would be very different right now.

As we got to the Pulaski Bridge, we took a break and everyone came together. A couple of guys with guitars performed for everyone and the protest leader asked everyone to meet someone they had never talked to before. I talked to the guy nearest to me. I told him I had been taking photos of protests since 1995 and it turns out that was the year he was born and we both happen to be from the DC area. We both have lung problems where we might be more susceptible to Covid-19 but we both thought this was too important to stay inside for. He works in marketing but wants to be a writer and we talked about that and photography and how inspired he was to tell the stories of this movement. It was just a cool moment in the middle of all this. 

Walking over the bridge was a really nice moment as the sun was going down. We completely blocked off Queens bound traffic during the break and as we walked over. It’s a short bridge compared to walking over the Manhattan Bridge like I did the other week, but I was right at the front and seeing it empty of cars and then turning around to see everyone marching together was a pretty powerful experience for me.

Once we got to Queens a lot more police were waiting for us, but they didn’t bother anyone. They had a few cars in front and a few behind and a handful of cops walking with everyone. It was still completely peaceful and it started to get dark enough where it was hard to take photos. We happened to be right by the G train and my apparently still fucked up foot was starting to hurt so I left at that point.

On the train ride home two guys just started smoking a Black and Mild on the mostly empty train car. A guy at the other end saw them and lit a joint. I wasn’t super happy about being in an inclosed space with people who had taken off their masks to smoke but I wasn’t that close to them so I wasn’t too worried about it. As we pulled up to the next stop I saw some cops about to get on and I yelled out to the guys smoking and they managed to get everything put out before the cops could get on the train. It was just one of these NYC moments of solidarity that really made me feel connected to the city in a way I don’t always feel anymore. 

The last few months have been truly fucking horrible, but hopefully something better will rise from the ashes of 2020. I have some home. Stay out there. Keep protesting. Make your voice heard. Stay safe. Black lives matter.

Click here to see my photos from another Black Lives Matter protest.

Last night I was in my apartment when I heard people yelling outside. It sounded like the cheers people in my neighborhood do when at 7pm every day to thank health care workers but that had already happened. I realized it was 8pm and the curfew had just gone into effect so I assumed people were cheering to protest the curfew. But then the sound got louder and people started chanting “Black lives matter! Black lives matter!” I looked outside and there was a huge protest outside of my house so I grabbed my camera and a mask and I ran outside.

I walked a few blocks away from my apartment so people don’t know exactly where I live since it would be ideal if the right wing lunatics who attack me every day on Twitter knew where I lived. Everyone was taking a knee and it was a pretty incredible thing to see in my neighborhood on the southside of Williamsburg Brooklyn. Despite Williamsburgs reputation of being a hipster hotbed (it hasn’t been in a decade), my neighborhood is mostly Dominican and Hasidic families. 

I hurt my foot during the protests on Monday and I was in pretty bad shape. I was just gonna stand in the corner but I ran into a friend of mine so I walked with her for a few blocks. Eventually I had to stop but not before running into two other friends including my artist friend who goes by The Sucklord (more on that in a minute). After the protest had passed I limped back to my apartment before realizing I had left my wallet and keys inside. Fortunately one of my neighbors let me in because it would not have been an ideal time to get arrested for breaking curfew. 

Now, there aren’t a ton of photos here and nothing interesting happened while I was with the protest so I wasn’t even going to publish these as a post on my site. I posted some of my favorites on Twitter and I thought that was going to be it. Unfortunately my buddy Sucklord got attacked by the police later that night so I am doing this post to highlight another example of police brutality even if I didn’t get shots of it.  Here’s the story, paraphrased from both his Instagram story and from my conversation with him as well as what I have read about the specific protest on Twitter.

There was a rally earlier at McCarren Park which is on the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint Brooklyn. As the rally ended a spontaneous march broke out with people just winding through Williamsburg. Because it was unplanned there was no specific leadership but the protest was completely peaceful. When I marched with them for a few blocks I didn’t see any laws being broken but the curfew. The police were following them and directing traffic ahead of them but had no other altercation. At some point the police stopped the protest and wouldn’t let anyone go any farther. Sucklord went to the front of the line because the idea with these protests is to put white people in front to protect the black protesters. Since the march was leaderless and Sucklord was at the front he tried to negotiate with the cops but they wouldn’t listen to him and started yelling at him so he backed up. Eventually they were at a standstill and the protesters turned around and started leaving. That’s when the cops attacked.

They started just hitting people with clubs, grabbing them and arresting them. Sucklord was beaten fairly badly and tried to escape by crawling onto a car. Several cops grabbed him and pulled him off directly onto his head. It knocked him out and he laid on the concrete bleeding as they continued to hit him. Fortunately one of the other cops stopped them and protected him. He said the cop seemed to have genuine concern for his safety and was the one that took him to the hospital. Of course the same cop arrested him and Sucklord doesn’t know what he was charged with. Fortunately other activists bailed him out and drove him home and he is recovering at home and is going to be fine. 

But the fact of the matter is that once again the NYPD has attacked a peaceful protest that is protesting the exact brutality that they are responding with. The police officers who do this shit need to be held accountable, and not just fired, but prosecuted. And I don’t think these protests are going to end until something is done to hold them accountable, not just for these incidents but systematically. Laws need to change.

Maybe for once they will change. This is going to sound awful but it takes white people like Sucklord, and the 75 year old man that was attacked last night in Buffalo to get hurt by police for everyone to wake up to this brutality. A lot of people see cops killing black people and they think “oh well, I am sure he deserved it somehow” or “well if he hadn’t resisted…” but when they see middle class white people on TV every night getting attacked for non violent civil disobedience, maybe people will realize that this is the shit that black people have been going through since reconstruction. Maybe the police aren’t the good guys after all. Maybe something will change and we will finally make some steps to fix this broken, racist judicial system. Black lives matter.

Click here to see some photos from about 20 minutes of last night’s George Floyd protest in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

PS. If you have been a victim of NYPD violence or witnessed it, here is a good breakdown of what to do to report it.

I don’t need to tell anyone about the murder of George Floyd or about the protests and riots that have broken out around the country in response to his death. I will tell you that I have spent the last few days with an overwhelming sense of guilt for not being out there in the streets both as a photographer and someone gives a huge fuck about equality and systemic oppression. I have been going to protests for 25 years. My high school photo portfolio was just photos of punk bands and leftist protests. I needed to be out there and I needed to be sharing my images. 

Unfortunately the coronavirus is happening and I have spent the last 10 weeks inside my apartment not seeing any of my friends or family because I have horrible lungs and I don’t want to risk the lives of the elderly people in my building just because I want to go do things. I spent my 40th birthday on my couch. But after three days of seeing my friends out there and seeing journalists being attacked by police I just had to do my part. I just couldn’t justify sitting on my couch any longer. 

I got to Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn right as the march was starting. We wrapped around the neighborhood for a while and everything was peaceful. I overheard a protester talking to a cop and he was telling her how bad he felt about Floyd. He and a number of other cops stuck to the outside of the crowd with cops on bikes directing traffic and keeping the crowd moving. As I mentioned I have been to a lot of protests in my life and it was well organized, very passive crowd control. As we returned to Barclays, however, there was a much larger police presence with cops in riot helmets trying to look intimidating. I saw one arrest but I didn’t see what happened leading up to it. I did take a billy club to the ribs trying to photograph it. It wasn’t hard and just meant to keep me from getting closer, but it’s the kinda shit that is totally unnecessary. 

After that the protest was still peaceful up until it reached the Manhattan Bridge. I wasn’t at the front so I am not exactly sure what happened but their was almost an altercation. I don’t know if police were trying to stop people from reaching the bridge but if that was their goal they failed miserably. I will say that both the police and the protesters managed to deescalate the situation well and I actually saw a cop hand a protester their sign back after it was dropped in the brief shoving. 

Moments later another protester was arrested, and again I missed what happened, but they seemed to really be going to work on him under a pile of cop bodies. Other cops stood in front of the photographers intentionally blocking our cameras. You’d think if they weren’t using excessive force they wouldn’t mind if we were documenting, given that it is the duty of the free press, but what do I know?

Protesters took over the entire Manhattan bound side of the Manhattan Bridge and half the Brooklyn bound side. I was on the Brooklyn bound side so I got to watch all the cars pass and nearly every one of them was honking in support, some stopping on the bridge to take photos and cheer people on. The sun was setting and it was so god damn joyful on that bridge. Despite the anger and the pain there are still these wonderful moments when you are taking part in activism. When the two sides of the bridge merged I saw two friends run into each other and just jump into each other’s arms in the middle of everything and it was just another amazing moment.

Things got a lot darker once we reached the city, both metaphorically and literally. It was night now and the city cops were way more aggressive. Everything was completely peaceful until we reached the big post office building in Chinatown. The crowd was chanting “let them go” when I got there so I assume someone else had been arrested. I noticed cops had started coming from all sides surrounding everyone. Keep in mind that before this moment the only “crimes” I had seen were jaywalking and I saw one person spray painting the bridge. It was completely peaceful. 

The protesters walked to meet a police line that had formed and I got right in between the two factions. The protesters had their hands up, chanting, about 10 feet from the police. An ambulance appeared and both lines separated to let the ambulance through. Moments later I noticed some police talking and it seemed like they were plotting something so I got out my phone to record some more video. Before I could even hit play they rushed the crowd trampling people, knocking over a bike and arresting at least one person. Apologists on Twitter seem to think someone through something but I certainly didn’t see anything. It seemed coordinated. The video I published of the attack as 2 million views as of this post. 

From there shit started to get ugly. The crowd got split up a bit and I saw people running north so I went that way. When I saw why people were running it was because a couple of people tried to break into Balenciaga. The other protesters stopped them. Someone had a damn fire extinguisher and hit them with it and then other protesters gathered in front of the store. As we went north a liquor store and a bank both had their windows smashed as well but the people who were causing the damage were being stopped by everyone else. I heard from friends still out that people returned to SoHo to loot, but none of this happened until the cops turned a completely peaceful demonstration into chaos. 

When we got to 11th street and Broadway police were waiting for us. They blocked the crowd and told people to disperse. It was the first time cops had told anyone to leave. Much of the crowd took a knee at that point or had their hands up. I was on the side of 11th street and I saw one of the cops who seemed to be in charge walk down the street so I followed him to see if there was another group of cops coming. I got about halfway down the block when I decided to go back to the crowd and all of a sudden people just started running. I didn’t know what was happening so I just took off with them, firing off blurry photos behind me. At some point I turned around and cops were just sort of pushing people down the block but didn’t look like any huge thing. I saw later on that a cop had pulled out a gun around that time on 12th street and people took off running so I think that might have been what caused the commotion. 

At that point I was spread out from the crowd that had been spread in different directions. I could have tried to meet up with people again but my feet were killing me after walking all day after not walking anywhere in months and I was right by the subway so I just went home. It was probably for the best because my feet were bleeding when I got home and I have about a dozen blisters and am just limping around my apartment today. Maybe I shouldn’t have worn combat boots after not wearing them since winter. Whoops. 

Okay so that’s my write up of the night. I tried to talk about the events as unbiasedly as I possibly could, but obviously I am biased. We have set up a system of oppression in the United States that started with slavery and ended with black people being put in prison in much higher rates as anyone else. We went from slavery to reconstruction to Jim Crow to a Civil Rights movement that got the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. My parents were born in 1947. They grew up in segregation which means any black person my age had parents who were legally subjected to worse education, worse housing and worse treatment because of the color of their skin. That means they had less money, lived in worse neighborhoods which means they had access to worse education just like their parents. How do you expect an entire group of people to recover from something that horrific in one or two generations?  So much needs to change in this country but it should start with our police and criminal justice system. Black lives matter.

Click here to see all my photos from last night’s protest for the murder of George Floyd.