IFIRE Bank Protest Reprt

Date: 2006/04/02 Sun PM 04:20:29 EDT
Subject: March 25 Bank Protest Report

v3/25/06 Bank Protest Report and links to newspaper stories
http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/ ... 01758b.txt

Greg Serbon, IFIRE co-founder, called my cell phone as I was driving to our 7th protest of Bank Calumet in Munster, IN. ?We have opposition,? he said. He hadn?t had a chance to thoroughly check it out since he was just pulling into the parking lot. He wasn?t sure how many of them were there but thought it was at least 20 and they had signs saying, ?No IFIRE.?

I pulled into the parking lot at maybe 10 or 15 minutes after 10 a.m. and could see a bunch of people gathered at the corner. Full view was obscured by the bank building. As I was pulling in from Calumet Ave., a larger Munster police vehicle (minivan/SUV?) pulled away. It was in my lane, facing me as I began to turn in. It pulled into the proper lane and drove away. I parked in the Jewell parking lot and saw Rick J., Michelle and Brian. I got the signs and Don?t Tread on Me flag out of my car and we headed towards the corner of Calumet and Ridge.

The scene at the corner was chaos. I couldn?t tell who was who. Both groups were mixed in together. I recognized some of our people but we also had some new supporters at the protest, some from Illinois and some from Indiana. Some had joined IFIRE after reading about us in the Times. As supporters introduced themselves and shook my hand, I reached into my bag and pulled out a sign for them. We had to speak loudly to be heard above the din. The entire time, the counter-protesters were hurling insults at us. The F-word punctuated almost every sentence. One Hispanic young woman got in my face and yelled, ?Who?s gonna wash your (expletive) dishes?!!? and I replied, ?Uh, I will? Just like I do now?? That was pretty much my last attempt at conversation with them.

The counter-protesters formed a tight circle, marching around us, circling like sharks. They were screaming and chanting something about ?workers of the world unite? and ?racists go home?. They called us Nazis and KKK. They used the F-word a lot and called one of our women a b****. The sidewalk on Ridge Rd. takes a steep drop down to the curb where I was standing next to the street. The sloped area is covered with brick pavers. They walked around me from the sidewalk down into the street, jostling us, trying to block people from seeing our signs by placing their signs and bodies between us and the passing cars. I thought they were trying to intimidate us and that they were trying to provoke and incident but I ignored them. Some people in our group started singing ?God Bless America.?

All of a sudden there was a commotion and I looked up to see Joe (in the brown jacket in the newspaper photos) near the corner of the bank building rolling on the ground in the midst of the counter-protesters. I saw fists and arms flying but couldn?t really tell who was who, except for Joe. He seemed to be surrounded by unfamiliar faces. I thought he was being attacked. I got the impression that they were attacking our people. I put my bag of signs down and ran up the slope shouting, ?Hey, what?s going on here? Where are the cops?? By the time I got up the slope, everyone was standing up and the punching had stopped. One of the counter-protesters, a white young man with glasses, brown hair, was standing on the American flag. My first though was anger and outrage that he was standing on our flag. My second thought was that the flag pole could be used as a weapon against us and I wanted to prevent that. The counter-protester looked into my eyes and then followed my gaze as he looked down at his feet standing on the flag. Then he looked back into my outraged eyes and took a step backwards off the flag. This encounter happened in an instant. I picked up the flag and continued running through the crowd towards the cop cars (I believe there were 3 of them parked there) yelling, ?Hey, where are you guys? We need you! Get over here, they?re beating up our guys!? And I motioned for the officer to get out of his car, which he quickly did. I didn?t notice any other officers around. I told him they (the counter-protesters) were beating up our guys and, together, we ran back towards the crowd.

The officer was asking people what happened. He could see Rick?s wounds. Rick B. had a bleeding wound on his forehead above his left eye and some swelling on his cheekbone where it looked like he had been punched. Later, I noticed the white of his eye had broken blood vessels. He told the officer that a counter-protester had grabbed his sign out of his hands and as he tried to retrieve it, he was jumped from behind and punched in the head and went down while being punched by several people, he really didn?t know how many. (Later, Joe told him he jumped in because 5 or 6 guys were beating Rick.) He said it all happened so quickly and he wasn?t sure but thought he had been kicked. He said this while reaching towards his puffy cheekbone. When asked if he could identify any of his attackers, he said yes, one was a Hispanic but he had apparently fled the scene. Rick was scanning the crowd but could no longer see him. He said he wanted to press charges. The black woman wearing the blue jean jacket with white sleeves butted in and said, ?Oh, so he was Hispanic, huh?? as though there was something wrong with identifying a stranger who had just attacked you by his ethnicity. He didn?t exactly give us his name. You can see a Hispanic male in a black baseball cap and jacket pulling his fist back to slug Joe in one of the newspaper photos. Joe had a knot on his head that matched with the trajectory of that guy?s fist. Then the cop asked the black woman who was in charge of her group. She had no answer. I spoke to a friend nearby and missed part of the next exchange. I didn?t catch exactly what the black woman said to the officer but I saw Darlene?s mouth drop open and she said, ?She?s lying! She?s lying!? At this point, the counter-protesters were continuing to press around us and I felt threatened and I yelled to the cop, ?Separate us! Separate us! Make them go over there and make us go over here!? The officer then set about to do that. Rick said he was okay but he looked unsteady. He looked a little ?out of it.? Dazed.

Things settled down and we continued our protest. Right after the incident, I walked down to where a single one of our people was standing. He was being circled by a white young man and an older Hispanic woman who seemed to have a little trouble understanding English. They were carrying signs. I told them that the police had separated us. She didn?t seem to understand, so I motioned and told them both that the police said they had to go stand down there. They hesitated, but left to join their friends.

An ambulance pulled up and I saw Rick being put on a gurney. Joe was walking with him and I went to see what was going on. I thought they were going to take him to the hospital so I went to tell Darlene. Rick said he was feeling dizzy and was just going to get checked out. A short while later, Rick was back with us. He said they had recommended he go to the hospital to have his eye checked out but he declined.

A couple officers attempted to keep the sides separated. I observed a young, white woman talking to one of our guys. This was allowed by the police. The counter-protesters passed out flyers telling lies about us. We passed out flyers about the bank?s lawbreaking. The police stopped both sides from stepping into the street to pass out flyers and warned us that we would be arrested if we persisted. One of the most important things we do at these protests is to pass out informational flyers informing the public of how the bank is breaking the law and telling them how to get in touch with us. I walked quite a distance away from the bank to the driveway since it?s a good spot to pass out flyers. A couple of us stood there with flags and signs, talking to motorists and passing out flyers. One man had seen my sign to ?Honk to stop illegal immigration? and had honked repeatedly as he drove by. Later, he drove back around to where I was passing out flyers and stopped to inform me that a policeman had told him not to honk. He wanted to know what was wrong with honking. I didn?t know how to answer him. I thought honking would fall into the free speech category. I mean, burning the American flag is considered free speech. Honking isn?t? I had a hard time believing the police would do that but later I did see an officer walk out into the street towards a car that was honking. I don?t know what he said but the honking stopped. One older woman passenger said she was a bank customer and that she disagreed with us about the bank making loans to illegals and that she would tell them so. I said that was her right.

We continued our protest until about noon, our usual time. While we were there, one Bank Calumet customer told us she cannot get a loan from the bank because she has cancer. Another female customer with blond hair got extremely angry and I could hear her shouting from all the way down by the entrance where I was passing out flyers. Apparently, she had just found out that the bank writes loans for illegal aliens and was not too happy about it. She pledged to join us on the picket line in April at our 8th protest. She also said her mother has $100,000 in the bank which would now be withdrawn. I ran down there and held out a flyer. She wanted one and I started towards her. The policeman tried to stop me because I would be stepping onto the bank?s sidewalk in order to reach her. When the woman saw that, she said something like, ?Give me that!? while looking at the flyer in my outstretched hand, so the officer let me pass saying, ?Well, if she wants it??

We gathered up our things and all walked together towards our vehicles. A police car kept an eye on us until we left the lot at about 12:15 p.m.

VICTORY!

http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/ ... 02f707.txt