Miami Dispatch: 11/20

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Next to us a small group of about six kids, masked and dressed in black, runs up and tosses grappling hooks tied to ropes at the fence. The hooks don't catch too well, the ropes are too thin to pull the fence over and too short to allow the pullers to stay out of firing range, and there is a cherry picker filled with cops right next to them, who immediately begin firing indiscriminately at the entire crowd.

We hear loud explosions and the air is filled with smoke and an acrid, burning gas. Rubber bullets are flying and people start to run but a whole lot of us call out, "Walk, walk," and form up a line and move back slowly in a disciplined way. We fall back a ways, and a line of riot cops in full gear comes out and blocks our way back to the fence. Andy has been hit in the shoulder by a rubber bullet. I recognize that the noise is from sound bombs and suspect they are firing the new pepper spray pellets as my face and nose sting. We regroup the cluster, wait warily until we see, across the street, the line of cops trying to push back the crowd and some kind of altercation. Andy and I, Lisa and Charles, run over. The cops have someone down on the ground and they are beating on him and Andy and I and others jump in front and face them, trying to calm the situation, doing all the classic, nonviolent things, staying calm ourselves, looking them in the eye, talking in a soothing voice. Behind us the crowd is angry and we are trying to calm the more hotheaded before they make themselves vulnerable to the cops. Meanwhile the crowd pulls back the protestor who's been beaten. The cops are now shoving us with their nightsticks, yelling, "Get back, get back". I am now right next to Ryan and Sara, in a front line of black clad anarchists who are slowing the cops and trying to de-escalate them, giving the crowd behind us time to move away, keeping control of our retreat so that it does not become a panicked flight. I'm talking to the cop in front of me, who is snarling back. The cop behind him is the one who has been out of control and beating people, and the crowd begins chanting his badge number. One of the cops has a small, mean-looking gun with a long snout, and he aims it at me and shoots me directly in the eye with a stream of pepper spray.

The stuff covers my face and hair and streams down my arm. I still have my contact lenses in and my hands are now soaked in pepper spray so I can't pull them out myself. We all fall back, move away from the cops, who are shooting rubber bullets at us all. Lisa gets shot in the hip. The cops also stop, and I ask Andy to take my lens out but he doesn't know how. The stuff burns but half of all pain is panic and I'm not panicked, just concerned because lenses can trap the oil and cause permanent damage. Lisa comes over and pulls the lens out for me and I am washing my eyes with water and then they get the medics to wash them out with the liquid antacid solution we've found most effective. Elizabeth has been badly sprayed as well and I tell her, 'Fifteen minutes -- just remember it's going to hurt for 15 minutes, and then it will be all right."

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