Bay Bridge Protesters Say They Were Mistreated by CHP

Update, Wednesday, Jan. 20: The California Highway Patrol is acknowledging that the two dozen protesters arrested Monday afternoon for blocking the Bay Bridge were handcuffed for six hours after they were detained, but says the treatment was appropriate.

Protest organizers had complained Tuesday that the arrestees, who shut down the westbound lanes near Yerba Buena Island for about an hour on Martin Luther King Day, had been mistreated.

Mia Birdsong, spokeswoman for Black.Seed, the group that organized the action, said on KQED's Forum program that handcuffing the detainees for six hours was "pretty abusive and terrible."

"They were nonviolent protesters, and the police could have taken care of their bodies," Birdsong said.

CHP spokesman Sgt. Vu Williams told KQED's Sara Hossaini the protesters were held in plastic zip ties for the six hours they were in custody.

"But we never received any complaints while they were here of any injuries," Williams said. "We did everything we could not to make that situation worse."

Original post, Monday, Jan. 18: A small group of protesters -- an offshoot of the Black Lives Matters movement -- blocked westbound lanes of the Bay Bridge on Monday afternoon, the climax to a day of demonstrations that activists say are intended to lay claim to the activist legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Martin Luther King Day protests included a rally and march in Oakland and Emeryville that focused on police violence and shut down one major entrance and exit to Interstate 80. In San Francisco, demonstrators demanding that police be held accountable for the Dec. 2 killing of Mario Woods shouted down Mayor Ed Lee as he began a King Day speech. The mayor left the podium as the heckling intensified.

The Bay Bridge shutdown took place just before 4 p.m. and appeared to be carefully coordinated, with cars aligning themselves across all five lanes of traffic on the westbound span east of Yerba Buena Island, then slowing to a halt. A handful of demonstrators chained themselves to the five vehicles that blockaded the bridge. The vehicles, too, were chained to together to complicate the task of removing them.

All traffic headed from the East Bay to San Francisco was halted, and major delays were also created for eastbound traffic. The blockading vehicles were moved out of the traffic lanes by 5 p.m.

The protesters identified themselves in social media posts as members of Black.Seed, which describes itself as a "black queer liberation collective." From the group's announcement, posted on the Oakland-based Anti Police-Terror Project site:

Today, January 18th, Black.Seed has shut down the west-bound span of Bay Bridge. Cars are blocking lanes and individuals are chained across lanes to demand investment in the wellbeing of Black people. Motorists on the Bay Bridge can follow the action by tuning their radio to 107.9, a temporary radio station broadcasting the event. The action can also be followed on Twitter: @APTPaction

Over the last few years, we have seen San Francisco and Oakland destroyed by police murders, rising housing costs, rapid gentrification, and apathetic city officials. Last year, we saw dozens of police murders throughout the Bay Area; since June of 2015 in Oakland alone there have been eight Black men murdered by police.

Today Black.Seed celebrates and honors the radical legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Historically, our people have had to take drastic and dramatic measures to highlight the systemic abuses that harm our communities. 51 years ago, those who came before us participated in direct action in Selma, Alabama, to speak out against the harms of racism and oppression. It is this very spirit of resistance that flows through our lives and actions, in the Black Out Friday, Black Brunches, and highway shutdowns of today.

Black.Seed spokeswoman Mia Birdsong told KQED's Andrew Stelzer that the Martin Luther King protesters' aim is to "take him back from the whitewashed, sanitized, only 'I Have a Dream' rainbow coalition version of King and to really recognize that his legacy is a legacy of folks taking direct action and protesting and agitating."

Birdsong said 40 to 50 people had taken part in the Bay Bridge blockade. Police arrested 24 protesters.

"For us it was about kind of disrupting business as usual," Birdsong said. "The state of Oakland and San Francisco for people of color, for black folks, for other marginalized people is a constant disruption. "Our lives are being disrupted all the time by white supremacy and racism, and we wanted to do something that was going to be disruptive for a much larger group of folks."

“Our priority is always and, in this instance, the safety of the protesters, the safety of the CHP, the safety of people in traffic," said Leah Robinson-Leach, Caltrans spokeswoman for the Bay Bridge. "And we are doing everything we can to move this along”

Robinson-Leach, Caltrans spokeswoman for the Bay Bridge, told KTVU the blockade "was highly unusual, but quite peaceful."

"Yes, it is an inconvenience," Robinson-Leach said. "From the moment we were aware, we put the processes in place to address this ... quickly and effectively."

Earlier in the day in San Francisco, demonstrators appeared at the city's annual King Day gathering at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The protesters were part of a continuing campaign to keep public attention on the Dec. 2 police shooting of Mario Woods, 26, in the city's Bayview neighborhood.

Here's an account from Steve Rubenstein of the San Francisco Chronicle of what happened when San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee began addressing the crowd:

Lee had barely finished welcoming MLK Day celebrators to San Francisco when the small group stood about halfway back in the audience and began chanting slogans.

“Your police chief needs to be held accountable,” one heckler shouted. “You think Martin Luther King would be proud of you?”

... Lee tried to wait out the shouting and at one point broke in.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am also working for a better city,” he said. “I appreciate your listening to me. I heard you. May I speak now?”

But when it became clear that the hecklers weren’t going to stand down or be removed, Lee departed.

KQED's Sara Hossaini, Andrew Stelzer and Marisa Lagos contributed to this post.