An anarchist group recently posted a video that documents the vandalism on Valencia Street that caused more than $150,000 in damages to businesses on April 30.
YouTube user AnarchaLA, which identifies itself as an anarchist group aimed at “building an egalitarian world,” posted the video, titled “Scenes from a Black Bloc,” on May 7. The contents of the video have not been independently confirmed, but the targets shown in it are consistent with the aftermath photographed by Mission Loc@l.
The video does the not capture the identities of the aggressors, but it does give a clearer picture of what exactly happened that night.
My takeaways:
* It is clear that the police department felt “under siege,” as it told the Chronicle.
At the 1:28 minute mark, two protesters attacked an occupied police car, which then drove away after one of the protesters approached the car and punched the windows.
* It’s clear that the group was having fun with the destruction. After an Aston Martin’s windows were smashed (4:30 mark), one of the protesters can be heard laughing and saying, “Should have left it in the Marina…”
* It wasn’t just a small group of aggressors; you can see at the 5:30 mark that there were more than a dozen people in “Black Bloc” clothing.
* A Good Samaritan tried to stop the protesters, following them for a few blocks and confronting several of them.
“You don’t know who those cars belong to,” he said at one point. “If you want to fuck up rich people’s shit go for it, but you don’t know who those cars belong to.”
We made a copy of the video, in case it is taken down.
To jeff and all the other intellectual dumbaszes.
Your just trying to justify gentrification and the change of demographics in the neighbrohood. Your just justyfying it by saying that all threw the history of the Mission District that it has seen change in the demographics of the population. That it way indian and then irish and polish and who are the latinos to be in the MIssion District. But even in your argument you mention that the Spanish were here orignially and the yelamu indians. The spanish founded MIssion Dolores, the staple of the neighbrohood. The spanish are Latino smart guy. To be latino means you nativily speak a language coming from the latin languges like spanish, french and italian. As compared to the angle saxon languges like english and german. So the original Mission District founders where latino. The yelamu indians while they might not be around today share the same indegenous blood of the Americas with the Mexican people who by the way are a cross between Spanish and Indegenous indians.
So you can say that indegenous/latinos have always been in the Mission District since day one. Look at our murals that tell our story. We are just living under American occupation a the current time(remember California was stolen by the USA from Mexico in the Mexican-American War after the USA invaded Mexico City.) So you hipster and yuppies feel entightled to be in our neighborhoods and open your business here and live here while simoultainiously kicking out the natives latino/indegenous population and then you justify it by telling yourself that times change and so do demographics and populations.
You can put all the gang injunctions you want, you can try to criminalize our youth and put them in jail never giving them a chance at an honest fair life. You can deport our illegal bretheren, you can take down our murals and close down our buisness. But you know what.
When people are oppressed and marginalized for long enough, sometimes you get a violent reaction.Thats what happened the other day on Valencia street.
Dont look at it as hey these anarchist are stupid because they vandalize and break things, no. Look at it as why did this particular area(Valencia Street) attract this time of energy, this type of vioent responce. Why not 24th street? What is going on here(Valencia street) that triggered this type event and lets get down to the root cause of it instead of blaming the actors(anarchist). Next time it could be militant hispanics or gang members or who knows, get what im saying.
cityboi, there are just so many ways you don’t make sense… I like how you are down with both the colonizers (the Spanish) and the colonized (the Yelamu) when it serves your purpose. That is a basic paradox of Latin American identity, I suppose. The indigenous peoples of Mexico and the Yelamu have no real connection beyond being human beings (and you’ve made it clear you are not interested in connection on that level) – really none, so you really can’t claim to be originally from the Mission. Sorry buddy. More accurately, they would have been looking to wipe each other out if they ever came into contact with each other, which they almost certainly did not. I also like how people imagine that there was no warfare, murder, invasion and cultural and territorial conflict among indigenous populations – where there was contact, all of these things occurred.
And then you call out the Spanish missionaries and colonizers as your own because of the common history of Spanish colonization in the Bay Area and Mexico – maybe you want to think about what they did and what they were about before you want to connect yourself with them – colonization, territorial expansion under the flag of a white European country, murder, religous conversion, total subjugation of native peoples. These are issues and problems that stem from the shortcomings of humans in general when they obtain power, and (unfortunately) it’s happened throughout time and regardless of the culture or color of skin. It goes on today in Africa but it happens to be people of color raping, torturing, killing other people of color for power, resources, land – honestly maybe that’s why there isn’t the outrage against it, because it’s hard for a lot of people to come to terms with the fact that Africans are killing Africans – it just doesn’t fit neatly into the white = perpretator, non-white = victim easy and simple way of thinking. Hopefully we are slowly evolving beyond these kinds of behaviors… it depends how much of an optimist you are.
Anyway, you really aren’t connected to the original occupants the area. Again, if you grew up in the Mission and maybe are a child of Mexican, Central or South Americans, at most you could go back 60 or 70 years, more likely less. Even if you could directly connect yourself to the Yelamu tribe or the original Spanish colonizers of the area, it wouldn’t make the Mission your neighborhood.
Should anyone from Mexico or any other non-European country who immigrates to Europe be considered an intruder because they weren’t among the first peoples to inhabit the region? If so, you are endorsing racist, anti-immigration, xenophobic thinking and there are some neo-nazi skinheads that agree with you… I really doubt that’s your point, though maybe it is… there’s a good deal of racism in Mexico and Latin America and that includes the U.S. Latino population as well – see the recent example of the Oxnard, California school district banning the race-based insults of Oaxaquita, indio, indito, etc. used by Spanish-speaking Mexican and Mexican-American students against darker, indigenous students from Mexico. I am sorry, but Mexico is not an ideal example in the way the Spanish-speaking mestizo population treats the indigenous population.
I said it before – I don’t the Mission to be homogenous and bland, I want it to be diverse, culturally, socioeconomically, ethnically, in all ways. I want real Latin American culture to persist in the neighborhood, but that’s not about gangs of teenagers killing each other for territory. No one group owns the Mission or any neighborhood of San Francisco or the world, and you are going to have to come to terms with that. “Native” San Franciscans need to come to terms with it in general. If you want to stick around in the Mission, you probably will need to come to terms with multiculturality, the gays, the hipsters, the hippies, the techies, intellectuals, Asians, whites, blacks, bi-racials, tri-racials, rich people, poor people, whatever. It’s easy to sit back and hate on everyone else, but it’s not going to get you very far… In my opinion, if you want a good example – look at Artillery on Mission St. between 23rd and 24th. Owned and run by young Latin Americans (one of whom grew up in the Mission), they reach out to and bring together people in the neighborhood from all backgrounds. If more of the old school businesses did the same, they’d be doing better. And cityboi, like it or not, the new economy is a knowledge-based economy. If you don’t hit the books or learn a trade, you might get left behind… So keep up the studying and learn something useful, OK? Good luck!
Very well said, Jeff.
The whole situation around the 7 minute mark was when I realized, these people don’t even live here! They pick a neighborhood and destroy it. A guy stands up for his neighbors and is met with a defensive confrontation. Then you see someone has tagged a mini van. Yeah, rich people drive mini vans and Hondas. The only thing they accomplished was raising people’s insurance rates and giving more money to the 1%.
In the words of Rodney King, “Why can’t we all just get along?” This whole episode just makes me sad. Sad because it subverted the real issues. Resolution and progress is always lost in anger.
I have lived in the Mission for 8 years. Yes, I’m a transplant and not “native”, but I consider this neighborhood my home. I was sort of in the middle–I definitely love the history of the Mission, it’s working-class and latino community. It saddens me to think it is getting pushed out in order to make room for a richer and well-off population. I would much rather go to a local taqueria than Tacolicious. BUT someone said, you have to expect change. Change happens, this neighborhood can’t stay the same forever. I think the bigger issue is how people from either side are approaching the issue. Although i think side more along the lines of keeping the yuppie businesses out of mission, I don’t think the point and logic is understood by destroying property and damaging bystanders cars, etc. It then degrades your platform for having a valid place to stand on. These “anarchists” are not from the Mission, because if they were, they would take care of their community. Rather than break windows, why not have a community forum to discuss it? Why not get involved and volunteer to help the working-class? Why not create co-ops and organizations to bring independent stores/businesses that can be affordable to all? Don’t sit there and scream and throw tantrums and expect people to fix problems for you, participate in the community and become a solution, rather than invading my neighborhood and creating destruction.
Black Bloc, Next May day please storm the cididel on Mission and 15th. That will have real symbolic meaning on several levels I.e. The Storming of Bastille.
That place films the most perverted porn and exploits already exploited women in demeaning ways.
July 14th is right around the corner 😉
First of all you can tell that all you commentators on here are not realley from the Mission District. Just because you live in the Mission dosnt mean your FROM the Mission. Big diffrence, that being said let me say I am Mission District born N raised. So I have another perspective.
First, let me be the first one to say right on Anarchist!! Yall trashed and broke the windows of the Mission District police station. That takes serious balls. Much props. As any real Mission district native will tell you its “… the police” all day, everyday!!! …. them and their racist gang injunction.
Second of all, …. the hipsters and their gentrification. Valencia street has been the epi-center for the getrification of the Mission District. ….their expensive ass stores that no real Mission district natives and residents can afford to go into. The stores that got trashed were damn near exclusivley hipster/yuppie ass places. Just because they where not large corperate chains dosnt mean they are not causing damage to the neighborhood. All of the stores that were trashed better belong in the Marina or in some other yuppy neighborhood. Not in the working class, hispanic Mission district. San Francisco can not afford to loose its historically working class and revoultionary neighborhood to the run of the mill, status quo yuppy/hipster population.
San Francisco is turning in to a playground for the rich, an elitest place where families and the working class are countinously being pushed out of the City.
The Mission District isnt going down without a fight!
Shouts out to the Nortenos, the Anarchist and all the other organized resistence movements that call that San Fran Mission home.
The way you are conceptualizing gentrification and ‘owenership’ of the neighborhood is a blatant tell that you are not the person you claim to be. You’re a hipster academic and you fit in on Valencia way too well.
That’s gotta be the worst spelling and grammar I’ve ever seen from an academic. Not likely.
Before the influx of Latino immigration in the 1940s-60s, the Mission consisted largely Irish, German, Italian and Polish people, and before that, European Spanish missionaries and the Yelamu tribe. Were the Latinos who came mid 20th Century intruders who ruined the neighborhood? Should they be considered “not real” or “native” Missioneros? Or were they part of local and regional demographic change that is part of the reality of the modern and not so modern world. Change makes the world interesting, I think, though I appreciate people who advocate and act for positive change – which does not include the Black Bloc, Nortenos or Surenos – please. Just because you were born in the neighborhood doesn’t make it yours, I am sorry to tell you. I probably speak better Spanish than you but it doesn’t entitle me to any better place in the neighborhood than you or anyone else. The anarchists and gang members you give shout outs to are doing more damage to the neighborhood than the yuppies or hipsters. If you think that the entire Mission should look like Mission Street between 20th and 24th then support those businesses and get your friends to do the same. Maybe part of the reason the Mission has changed demographically is because many Latinos and other residents who made money over the past 60 years have moved out to the suburbs or bought land and a nice house back “home” where they were born or their parents were born – are you mad at them, or is that just a choice they made? Maybe not all of your people that lived or live in the Mission are that revolutionary or all that committed to the neighborhood? I certainly don’t want to the Mission to be like the Marina, but I don’t want streets full of dollar stores, trash, chicken bones, shit and condoms, gang violence and close-minded people who think they are more entitled to exist in the neighborhood because they happened to be born there.
Well said. Anyone who would commend the actions of the criminals and gangs is not part of the solution. Latinos don’t want their kids getting shot, their daughters being raped, and their car windows smashed out either.
Yep.
You need to learn to spell.
it’s amazing that people think they are anonymous on the Internet and can post evidence of crimes with impunity – have fun when the Party Van shows up, anarchists.
I think most of these people took Bart to get to the Mission, great detective work SFPD/Keystone Kops!
Btw, BMW 3 series loaded with navigation are $38,000 out the door and only $475 a month to lease, you don’t have to be rich to drive one!
How does this help the world in any way? Why did no one stop this? I would have been out there with a bat but used it on the people wearing the black.
LKJik…..This forum does not appreciate your colorist comments! 😉
Note the perp’s username: AnarchaLA. I’ve met several people in LA who’ve told me that taggers, graffiti ‘artists’, and “vandals with a cause” like to take weekend vacations up to SF because they’re so lax on vandalism, and you can get away with defacing private property.
This angers me so much to see!!!! It’s all such pointlessness, an obnoxious, idiotic display of profound ignorance!! I’m so tired of this miscreants being destructive in my neighborhood…I’d *love* to see them try to get away with this kind of crap in the Marina, Cow Hollow, Pac Heights, Russian Hill, etc.!!! Instead, they continue to pick on one of the few neighborhoods in this city that fosters uniqueness, creativity, lack of chain/box stores, etc. They prey on the liberalness of Missionites, assuming we’ll applaud them as they bash in our car windows and deface our local restaurants…and sadly? They seem to get away with it 🙁 I love this neighborhood, but sometimes it’s downright exhausting to live here…
Dont you ever call a Mission District resident a Missionite ever again, you here!! The proper term is Missionero you …..transplant. I hope you do move out of the Mission!! You should probably move to Marin. I hear they like to call themeselves Marinites. You should fit in good with them.
Wow…: The Hundred Acre Woods Autonomous Cell of Nothingness.
MANNNNN the SFPD and FBI must be ordering sooo many pizzas right now!
I definitely disagree so strongly with the author’s acceptance of the SFPD’s claim that they were “under siege” and didn’t know what to do, a claim that seems even more ridiculous after watching this march drone on for yourself. I have personally been on the receiving end of sudden mass police mobilizations, and there is absolutely NO WAY that this march was not allowed to proceed–if not outright encouraged/infiltrated/etc.
Thousands of people can be kettled by very small amounts of police, and SFPD has used violence in front of me on plenty of peaceful protesters since Occupy began–so the lack of reaction here is completely inexplicable. Wish blogs like this were *questioning* these very strange circumstances instead of blindly accepting them.
Hats off to the citizen toward the end of the video who confronts this “black bloc” of spoiled tantrum-throwing babies. Just one guy, and he at least stalled / gave pause to a number of the vandals.
What’s depressing is that the local Police seemed to be caught off guard and even more disorganized than this band of hooligans! Really?!?! C’mon guys, get it together!
A complete bureaucratic fumble and a complete lack of practical wisdom in dealing with this situation.
Here’s where I differ with these “protesters:” I for one am glad that the police are in my community, it’s just that I expect much better of them.
By the way, to the dude who confronted these idiots, I would like to buy you a pint of beer.
That Missionite reminds me of that guy standing in front of the tanks in 1989 at Tiananmen Square!
One gunshot in the air and these kids would have scattered running like the cowards they are
I don’t think the SF Politburo would back the police force if they tried to stop this.
It was very smart not to do anything, so now the fire is out. They won’t come back for another 365 days.
The police should have at least escorted them through their Riot Route for their safety.
Dude that spraypainted the anarchy symbol, then below that, “Fuck this shit”: Bravo. Your poetic statement will move the hearts and minds of many. Your poignancy will undoubtedly bring flocks of supporters to your movement.
So absolutely childish, counterproductive, and misdirected. The man that follows them for blocks, trying to reason with them, however, is a saint. I hope he’s identified and given a key to the city.
I HATE these assholes. Hate them. However, having witnessed how aggressive and organized the cops are toward peaceful protesters, both in our city and elsewhere, there is no way…ABSOLUTELY NO WAY…that the cops were helpless. They let this happen, and I’d guess have done nothing since to find the aggressors.
I’m all for the cops stopping vandalism, but I also get that they’re between a rock and a hard place. People bitch at them for doing nothing, and bitch at them whenever they do something. And ANYthing is crossing some complainer’s line.
I totally agree with you. The Police just followed and watched the mayhem. They even let them get away with damaging the Police Station. Sad when you can’t even rely on the police to stop this kind of stupid violence in the open.