KKK Stephenville : Houston Indymedia

My personal account

--I went to it. It was in a small redneck town called Stephenville. As soon as we entered the town, we got pulled over. Apparently our windows were too tinted. OK, that seems dumb but whatever. Five minutes later we get pulled over again. Our friends driving in the other car also. They try to give us a ticket for the same thing, and we tell the state troopers that we already got a ticket for that. So he asks us "where are yall going" we tell him to meet up our friends. "but what are yall doing here?" we eventually just told him there was a klan rally and we were going to watch. Looking around at the town (we were pulled over in front of a tractor shop) we realized how "different" we looked from everyone in that town. The cops knew we were going to protest and seemed determined to take us in no matter what the charges, all just so we couldn’t get to the protest. Undercover cops, state troopers and local police now show up at this parking lot. They give the driver of the other car a bullshit sobriety test (he was completely sober, as everyone else, this was early afternoon) and supposedly failed, apparently that gives them the right to search. So they search thoroughly, and VERY thoroughly, and after say 25 minutes they find "paraphernalia" and arrest 4 of our comrades. this is all bullshit and we figure they planted something in there (when they were released they told us that the "paraphernalia" was a little simple scale thingy that was "a device used to weigh marihuana", for sure it was planted and for sure that a scale is NOT paraphernalia, unless it has a bunch of weed in it or something, which it didn’t.) So after that one of us goes over and asks why are they being arrested, the cops tell us to step back, and it's "none of your business". A fat guy with a tacky "media" tag around his neck asks if he can take a picture of us, we tell him NO. And he tries to take pictures of us. He says "well, yall are in a public place" as he does so, against our will. Later on we find out that this guy as many others were undercover cops.

--So we head to Cici's pizza and on our way walking the cops try to get us to tell them where we parked our cars. They obviously wanted to give all the rest of us the same type of problem as they gave our friends just arrested. In the Cici's restaurant we explained to the manager our sticky situation and if we were to go back to our cars we would be arrested for some bullshit charges, and that we hadn’t even got to the fucking rally yet. The maroon undercover cop car and marked police vehicles stayed around the area and literally drove in a circle around Cici's. At this point i was completely shocked by the extent the police were trying to stop us from going, since freedom to protest is protected under the U.S. constitution. Three friends went outside and walked to a music shop and bought a CD. The rest of us in Cicis begin to get nervous about them walking around by themselves with the pigs trying to arrest us before we even got to the protest. Of course on their way back some cops tell them that their sniff dog “barked at your car”, which is enough to grant them a search. They search the car thoroughly, make a mess, and then claim to find one shriveled up marihuana seed and a half. They write the driver a warning and tell him that they are going to send the seeds to a lab, and if they grow into plants then he will be in big trouble for possession with intent to sell. At this point I am really pissed, upset, startled, totally stressing over the 4 people in jail and 3 others that barely got away. Bailing out our comrades would drain our resources severely and we decided we wouldn’t leave until everyone was out. After much debate on whether we should try and leave in our cars to the rally, we waited thirty minutes after the rally started to let the pigs go to it and leave us alone. But they didn’t. The maroon undercover cop followed us all the way there.

--We finally get to the city hall where the klan was having their little speech. The klan was protected by a lot of cops, and two fences in between us and them. There are a lot of people there, but no one is yelling anything or chanting. A couple of anti-racist signs but also about 15 to 25% of the people there were definitely pro-klan, clapping after the speaker would say something. We engaged in chanting, yelling and screaming at the klan. A lot of people who were there told us not to use profanity so we tried not to cuss at these fuckers. A nazi skin starts sieg heiling amongst the crowd and a S.H.A.R.P (Skinheads against racial prejudice) goes up to him and starts talking shit to him. The nazi rips off his shirt revealing a big swastika on his upper stomach and punches the anti-fascist. The brawl includes more people and three of my comrades were arrested; all for defending themselves. As this was happening I notice another of my comrades being grabbed by a guy with a green shirt and shades, I tell the guy to get off my friend and two more start grabbing him pushing him against the wall and telling him to shut up. I start yelling “HEY, everyone! Look! Look at this!” pointing to my friend getting pushed and kneed by these dudes (one of them had a “media” tag around his neck). Then they turn and grab me. They toss me against a brick wall with my comrade and as I attempt to get away they keep on pushing me back. I ask “are you a cop?” with a disgusted look on my face, and he doesn’t answer, he tells me “stop moving, it’s for your own protection”, I saw that there was no way my comrade was going to struggle out of the situation he was in, being restrained against the brick wall by three big dudes, so I yell at him to stop resisting, I believed this to be in his best interest, since these guys were obviously cops. They told my comrade that they were FBI, but refused to show any badge or anything. They tell me “if he stops wrestling this will all go away”. I tell him again to just stop trying to wriggle his way out since if they were cops we were probably already going to jail and this would just make the charges against us worse. Surprisingly, after he stops wriggling, they let me go, and after a little bit they release him too. I tell all of my comrades about the really bizarre encounter, point at the three guys who did it to us and I try to tell media people about it. As I did so and pointed at the “cops”, they grinned at me.

--So at this point we have 6 comrades in jail and one detained, later to be released. We were so pissed at this whole situation. The klan was being a loud to just give their hate speech while waving their fascist flags and sieg heiling, and not a lot of people were chanting or anything, and the cops were determined to put down all resistance to the klan. The police department obviously must have had sympathy for the kkk and since it was in such a small redneck town, it makes sense to believe that these people’s relatives must have had ties to the klan at some point in the past. While the klan gave their speech cops looked at us from the windows of the city hall from above. I guess cops and klan really do go hand in hand.

--After the rally, we went to the jail to see if our friend who was arrested had been released. All of a sudden a car backfires and a bunch of cops come rushing past us running in the general direction of the noise with their guns pulled out. We tell them it was just a car and they keep on running towards the noise. We then move towards the police department looking for our friends who might have been released. Five of us were standing on the corner of the street where the police department is and then spontaneously a bunch of cops with shields start to form a line in front of us. We asked them what they were doing; we told them we were just looking for our friend. What did they expect we were going to do, somehow damage the police department or something? We asked them if they wanted us to do anything because we would comply and they ignored us, they just kept on standing there with their shields and looking at us, some sniggering. We crossed the street and walked away. I thought to myself, “these people are absolutely fucking ridiculous”. Luckily we eventually bailed out our friends (at a high cost).

--The actions of the police department of Stephenville clearly tell me they are fucking racist and I can’t believe to the extent these cops went just to stop us from showing up. This truly was an act of political persecution. I wish more people could have seen it, we were all shocked. When we were trapped in the Cici’s as cop cars circled the building, I thought to myself, “no way… this is actually happening. They are waiting for us to go to our cars so they can plant something there and arrest all of us.” I have never felt so persecuted, revolted by their tactics, and disgusted to think that people think that cops are there to protect us, the people. They exist to maintain law and order, to protect the ruling class, to protect the State from the people’s uprisings, to portray “enemies” of the State as violent terrorists, to imprison as many people they think pose a threat to their authority and to violently repress people who “cause trouble”, such as protesters. They don’t give a flying fuck about you, your rights, or anything the constitution says. This is their job. We live in a Police State. What are you going to do when they start rounding us up and sending us away? I say fight back!