Riot Police Raid Gezi Gardens and Evict Treesits

As police in Turkey con­tin­ue to try and remove peo­ple from Gezi Park in Istan­bul, last night over 100 riot police raid­ed the encamp­ment at Fell and Lagu­na, arrest­ing 7 peo­ple, removed tree sit­ters, and destroyed crops and struc­tures. A seen in one video, one tree-sit­ter fell from their tree while being removed, although it is unclear if they have any seri­ous injuries.

Accord­ing to Lib­er­ate the Land, “Folks are gath­er­ing at Patricia’s Green on Octavia Street between Hayes Street and Fell Street now after a night time light­ning raid by SFPD on #Gezi­Gar­dens, the for­mer site of Hayes Val­ley Farm on Oak and Lagu­na Streets, with guns drawn. Folks who just went through the raid and sup­port­ers need food, a kitchen, sleep­ing bags, ban­ner mak­ing mate­ri­als, paint, etc. Come gath­er with us today, meet up for a dis­cus­sion at 6pm, and def­i­nite­ly plan to come here Fri­day at 6pm for a recon­ver­gence. Let it build.”

 

Police appear to have the area around the gar­den blocked off while they destroy the rest of the encamp­ment. As was planned, peo­ple will con­tin­ue to gath­er at Octavia and Fell Streets to pre­pare to retake the land on Fri­day at 6pm. Peo­ple are encour­aged to take part in the mobi­liza­tion and bring sup­plies if they are not able to make it out. Occu­piers have planned a week­end long fes­ti­val from Sat­ur­day to Mon­day, to coin­cide with the con­struc­tion of the new devel­op­ment on the site of the gar­den.

As usu­al, most main­stream media reports are now herald­ing the raid, por­tray­ing pro­test­ers as out of town idiot hip­pies with no com­mu­ni­ty sup­port what-so-ever. Inter­est­ing how when hun­dreds, includ­ing many locals came through the gates for a fes­ti­val last Sat­ur­day, most media was remark­ably absent. The media loves a good protest sto­ry, but they love the hap­py end­ing of the gov­ern­ment com­ing in, crack­ing skulls, and send­ing those that would dare resist to jail. It’s a tale that they con­stant­ly repeat and it serves as a warn­ing to any­one else that would dare stand up to the forces of the state and busi­ness as to where strug­gling will get you.

The lux­u­ry con­do devel­op­ment which is slat­ed to take place where the gar­den now stands will be part of an onslaught of devel­op­ments which will add to the gen­tri­fi­ca­tion of San Fran­cis­co and the con­tin­ued dis­place­ment of many of the cur­rent res­i­dents. As the Guardian recent­ly wrote: “Region­al plan­ners want to put 280,000 more peo­ple into San Fran­cis­co — and they admit that many cur­rent res­i­dents will have to leave.”

While the con­struc­tion plans call for half of the site to be “afford­able hous­ing,” this is based on half of the medi­an income of the city, which is around $60,000, still much more than many peo­ple, includ­ing many fam­i­lies are able to make in the city. Trust me, if some Hayes Val­ley Res­i­dents are uncom­fort­able rub­bing elbows with Occu­py pro­tes­tors work­ing a toma­to plant, they aren’t going to allow a fam­i­ly from the Ten­der­loin or Hunter’s Point to move in next door.

San Fran­cis­co is still a city swim­ming with thou­sands of vacant prop­er­ties. Accord­ing to the San Fran­cis­co Busi­ness Times, “[The city] has more than 30,000 emp­ty homes accord­ing to 2010 U.S. Cen­sus data. That means about 8.3 per­cent or about one in every dozen homes is vacant — more than any oth­er sur­round­ing coun­ty.” There is a rea­son for all the vacant homes as many are tak­en off the mar­ket by land­lords so they will not be rent con­trolled or pur­pose­ly made emp­ty so they can be con­vert­ed into con­dos through the Ellis Act. As in Turkey, the strug­gle at Gezi Gar­dens is not just over green space or a few trees, but a class strug­gle over the pow­er of wealthy and pow­er­ful peo­ple to con­trol and exploit our lives.   

The strug­gle at Gezi Gar­dens is still far from over. See you on the streets Fri­day!