Reiniku Films

"My First Protest"

This 4 minute short was shot on a Samsung Hi-8 (that explains the quality) on November 18 & 19th of 2003. During this time, I had taken off a semester at USF to attend Miami-Dade College's film school and it just so happened that a protest was brewing. I had seen a lot of news coverage on the local police preparing and having public drills to prepare for the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) conference. The police had been preparing because of the chaotic protest that ensued in Seattle during the World Trade Organization meeting sometime back. The City of Miami police had also received $8.5 million from the Bush administration to assist in helping them fend off the protesters.

On my first day there I had skipped school and made my way toward Downtown Miami near where the meeting was being held. It took me a while to bump into some protesters but eventually they hit the streets, there weren't many I saw mostly union laborers from the United Steel Workers. I talked to a few people and gained a little info on the purpose of the rally. I was told by collective sources that the FTAA gives jobs to overseas countries for cheap labor thereby gaining a larger profit and the result of that is us Americans being left jobless. On that day, I saw police officers on bikes and horses, there were also quite a few dressed in riot gear blocking off certain streets.

On day two, everything went mad. I skipped school, of course I told my teacher were I was when this was all over. Now back to that Thursday, there were thousands of young hippie-looking protesters marching through the streets of Downtown Miami in front of the hotel. There had to be at least some 300 police officers, most outfitted in riot gear while others on bikes. There was an armored car and many barricades blocking the protesters in and also a gate blocking them from approaching the hotel any further. The day started smooth with the protesters chanting their anti-FTAA slogans, waving their banners, and playing their homemade instruments. Then I don't know what happened, but on the local news it was reported that protesters tried to pull down the gate and that was why police fired tear gas. They shot about 3 cannisters of tear gas and I was pretty far away from the commotion and I still got hit with some of it. Everyone scattered but still came together and continued protesting peacefully, then the United Steel Workers came and the protesting proceeded. It went on for a good three hours without interruption, so I left to go home and came back around 5pm b/c my battery went dead.

When I got back, that's when everything went crazy. From what I heard from some other protesters was that someone threw paint at a policeman then the police fired tear gas, then a couple of the protesters defended themselves, in what way I don't know. However, the police just decided it was enough and really begin to corner the protesters and I was right there in the middle. Suddenly, as the protesters were walking away from the police in a different directions, police cars come zooming down the road narrowly missing a couple people including myself. Police started blocking off three directions of the 4-way street then the riot police started marching towards us with their batons, of course we all backed away. There were guns facing from another side of the street where there were more cops in riot gear. Eventually, the City of Miami police achieved their goal and pushed the out-of-town protesters out of the city. What I captured on film has been edited but as you'll be able to see it was the City of Miami police who were clearly overzealous. I mean whatever happened to the First Amendment and the right to assemble.

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