Update: Photo Gallery of Anonymous #OpBART Protest
Photo by lmc_sf
BART’s disruption of cell phone service last Thursday led to the hacking of myBART.org by the group Anonymous, who also promised a live protest today at BART stations. We followed the coverage from our best sources as it happened.
Missed the madness? A photo gallery of the #opBART protest via Instagram:
Photo by tigerbeat
Photo by tigerbeat
Photo by miscellania
Photo by jaredhanson
“Guy Fawkes, looking dapper.”
Photo by joycesu
“SF shut down #BART. I hopped onto MUNI, and landed in the middle of this”
Photo by abautista11
The blow-by-blow coverage from our excellent sources and Twitter followers:
7:30 p.m.: From SFMTA: “As of 7:30 p.m., Muni Metro service has resumed service at Powell Station. Cable Cars will return by 8 p.m.”
7:22 p.m.: On Twitter, BART is reporting that all stations are now open.
7:04 p.m.: MissionLocal has more coverage and photos of the #OpBART protest.
6:48 p.m.: SFMTA reports that “As of 6:48pm, Muni Metro is not stopping at Embarcadero Station due to BART protest.”
6:37 p.m.: On Twitter, KGO Radio snapped a picture of protesters outside of the Embarcadero Station.
Photo: KGO Radio
6:32 p.m.: SF Examiner reports that all downtown stations except for Powell Street are reopened. SFMTA also reports that trains are now stopping at Montgomery and Civic Center.
6:26 p.m.: SFMTA reports that Civic Center station has reopened.
6:19 p.m.: KGO radio reports that protesters have made it to the Embarcadero station and that the station is being shut down.
6:15 p.m.: On Twitter, @travel4food reports that, at the San Francisco public library parking lot, “the number of cops waiting in the parking lot was quite impressive. Must have been at least 30-40 people.”
5:57 p.m.: From SFMTA: Muni Metro not stopping at Montgomery, Powell and Civic Center due to BART protest closures.
5:50 p.m.: On Twiter, @c_los007 reports that “3 choppers in the sky watching them from Yerba Buena gardens.”
5:45 p.m. Via SFAppeal, you can listen to live BART police scanner.
5:40 p.m.: SFWeekly reports that protesters are heading up to 16th Street.
Protesters have a clever, albeit plagiarized slogan. SFWeekly’s Caroline Chen reports:
… a couple of protesters are walking around the station now with detached phones, saying “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”
5:30 p.m.: The SFAppeal is reporting that as of 5:30 p.m., Civic Center station is closed. Watch the live cam coverage from SFAppeal.
Earlier:
Frank Chu showed up, according to BoingBoing:
Ustream guy: “Do you want help from Anonymous?”
Frank Chu: “I usually get help from CBS News.”
On Twitter, @jared_willis sent in this informal protest sign.
Sigh, why is it they have to disrupt people’s routines to make a point?
It would be nice if the people who click ‘Thumbs Down’ would also post a comment explaining why they don’t agree. Oh. That’s right. They don’t have a reason or an opinion.
Agreed. Thumb voters: be our guest and air your opinion, please.
I thumbs-upped this because I agree.
I didn’t thumb up or down, but I’ll share my opinion. Today, BART, Muni, and the SFPD demonstrated that if you want to cripple transportation in San Francisco, you just need to grab a couple dozen of your friends and march down the street. The vast majority of the disruption I saw had nothing to do with the protestors, but came from the police’s decision to turn this into a war and BART’s efforts to punish as many commuters as possible by suspending service across the downtown core.
I watched the protesters approach Market+Montgomery from my office on the 7th floor above that block. I was listening to the BART scanner and heard them scramble to shut down Montgomery Station, pushing hundreds of commuters onto the streets because “the protesters are coming down Market.” As crowds of angry commuters formed on the streets, the protesters arrived: about 50 people marching in a nice contained clump. The station remained closed and Market St. was blocked by police long after the protesters were far gone. Police were intimidating motorists and stopping all busses for seemingly no reason, as protesters were nowhere near the area concerned.
In other words, BART and Muni shut down because 50 people walked down Market St. Somehow, the city has managed to endure the World Series, the Giants Parade, Critical Mass, the firefighters’ funeral, marathons and races, and numerous other events with a relative minimum of disruption, but because 50 people went for a stroll, we had to shut everything down.
Imagine how this would work in a city like Washington DC which sees frequent protests. DC Metro would literally have to shut down every single day out of fear for what could happen. Heck, Muni has far more than 50 riders vehemently angry with the SFMTA on any given workday, yet there’s no public safety threat.
Had BART and Muni actually done their jobs by operating their regular service and staffing the platforms with police to ensure reasonable order and access for commuters, virtually all the disruption would have been eliminated. As far as I’m concerned, 80% of this mess was caused solely by BART and Muni’s absurd decision to punish us ordinary commuters for their inability to handle the smallest of protests over a legitimate concern.
lol to the thumbs-downer of my previous comment. humanity!
After reading coverage of the protest, I am lead to believe that Anonymous might have a legitimate beef with BART, BUT why do they have to drag BART and Muni riders into the dispute? Most people could care less about the demonstration and hate being stranded. I doubt that the average commuter is going to cheer Anonymous. I know I won’t.
That’s actually a pretty easy one to answer. You’ve got a couple of options to take your pick from (and I’m not implicitly endorsing either BTW):
1.) If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. By riding BART and not protesting you’re giving your implicit approval to the BART PD killings of Oscar Grant and Thomas Hill. As long as BART PD doesn’t target anyone in your demographic, you’ve nothing to be concerned with, right?
2.) Peaceful (which this gathering /was/) or not, nobody accomplishes anything by standing on the sidelines. How many people know where BART HQ is? Anyone? Civic Center station is both symbolic and highly visible. Embarcadero station is the most used station in the system. You’ve got a lot more eyes watching Embarcadero than any station in Oakland by a large margin.
I mostly agree with Zach here. The vast majority of chaos was created by BART and BART PD. There was no looting, no burning, no physical violence. The closest I saw to violence was earlier in the evening with a not-so-subtle agent provocateur. Otherwise it was just a lot of shouting. SFPD cleared the streets, kept protesters on the sidewalks, and generally tried to maintain a sense of order. Amateurs versus professionals really.
BART themselves put out misinformation about station openings in an attempt to move the protestors around. If you’d like to express your anger, how about telling BART how irresponsible it is to tell everyone that (for instance) the Market & Main entrances to Embarcadero Station are open when they’re really not. There were a lot of angry commuters walking back and forth between Montgomery and Embarcadero trying to catch that elusive open station.
IMO the entire overreaction was an attempt by BART to cast the protesters in as awful a light as possible.
I’m not convinced it was Anonymous. Anonymous seems to do things on a global scale.
Why would Anonymous have any interest in this? A local shooting?
And even less so about the cutting of cell service that’s a gift, not something the public is entitled to?
I think it’s some local group using the name ‘Anonymous.’
Anonymous is global, exactly. There is no distinction between the global actions and local ones. Anonymous is whoever decides to wear that banner.
In other words, there is no proving whether it was Anonymous or not. If they say they are Anonymous they are (even if they are not).
It’s even more complicated than that. If they say they are Anonymous, they are Anonymous. It’s not an organization, just a label that people apply to themselves and their actions if they wish.