Jeff Bezos's Giant Head and the Whole Foods Lockdown and Arrest

I finally have a little bit of time to post about my weekend. Since there is quite a bit to go over, I decided I will be working my way backwards as I post about the ALCC, meaning I will be starting with Day 3 and my arrest!

I will give some background first. The Animal Liberation California Convergence (ALCC), is organized by the San Francisco chapter of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), an international network of animal rights activists. We are an above-ground, non-violent organization and use civil disobedience, non-violent disruption, and open rescue in the fight for freedom for all and justice for animals. The ALCC is an opportunity for DxE chapters from all over the country to come together for a weekend of lectures, trainings, and mass actions. This year, the focus was advocating for Rose's Law, which is an animal bill of rights.

After two days of panels, trainings, marches, and really awesome catered lunches, we were ready for our riskiest action of the ALCC. I was part of a smaller group of attendees that volunteered to participate in bold action for animals. The action itself was kept secret from everyone other than the few people organizing the action, meaning even participants were not told specifics (like location) until the morning of the action. Secrecy is a necessary strategy during actions like this, because a tip-off would completely undermine the entire action. Even the FBI has been involved in monitoring Facebook messages of organizing members in the past.

All we really knew before the action was that we were locking down, as that much was made public on Facebook.

Depending on where we (participants) were traveling from, we were all told a specific location to meet at. I was coming from the South Bay, so my location was SF. I had to wake up at 0330 to arrive at 0530 at the meeting point! After we met up with the other teams, we traveled closer to the location. We still were not told where we were going.

We stopped halfway to diaper up. Yes, you read that correctly. I mean, we were preparing to be locked-down and chained-up for up to 14 hours and bathroom breaks would not be an option.

It may sound funny (and I admit it does feel funny to wear two diapers under your jeans), but the grim reality is that this is a daily practice for many workers in slaughterhouses across the country due to the staggering numbers of animals they have to "process" each day without breaks. At a poultry processing plant in Minnesota, a survey by the Greater Minnesota Worker Center found that 86% of line workers interviewed were allowed less than two bathroom breaks a week. In an Alabama poultry processing plant, a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Alabama Appleseed found that of 266 workers interviewed, 79% reported being denied bathroom breaks. Many of these workers are undocumented and/or low-income, fearing job loss or even deportation as retaliation for speaking up and slowing down the line. The truth is, humans are abused in the animal agriculture system too.

After we all were adequately prepared, we did a final briefing before heading over to the location. I think by this point we it was revealed that we would be going to a Whole Foods.

a final briefing

We quietly walked over to a corner where we waited for the cue from the team that would be doing a disruption inside the store while we chained ourselves outside. Once they walked by, we quickly fell in line behind them. As soon as the store came into view, the U-Haul with our gear was ready and the back door was thrown open so we could all grab our chains and locks and book it to the entrance.

locking-in

The day before this action, we had timed how long it took us to lock-in and our best time was 38 seconds. It took a little longer at the actual action, but that is because we ran into the unexpected issue of a huge pallet of apples being placed on one side of the door, so we had to augment our formation into a U shape instead of a straight line. We also did not practice the super-glue for obvious reasons (did I forget to mention that two team members were super-gluing their hands to the ground and using their bodies as anchors for our chains?) so that added a little more time and pressure.

We locked ourselves in before security came up to us. I believe my two teammates were in the process of gluing-down when security angrily came over and began aggressively swearing at us to get through. I found out later he was pretty upset because he had just tried and failed to stop the roof team from erecting a ladder.

I felt pretty calm and not nervous throughout the whole action. The only time I felt a little anxious was after a worker from inside the store violently began pushing and shoving the middle members who had the chains on their necks while grabbing the door. Completely unnecessary, as the door was not blocked on his side at all. It was scary during because he was so angry and aggressive. I was worried about the team member next to me because she was getting the brunt of it and she was so much smaller than everyone else. The next few times I saw him, I remember feeling my pulse quicken. Other than that, I felt pretty at ease throughout.

pretty much ready to hunker down!

The police showed up, but only a few officers and I only saw two vehicles. They did not ask us to leave and were extremely polite when they had to walk under our chains. They had to go back and forth for the next few hours and would make jokes like, "We're really getting to know each other!" and "It feels like I am doing the limbo!" They were very respectful and were attentive to our safety. We did not anticipate much of an issue with the police because of how progressive San Francisco is. The officers seemed to be content just hanging on the sidelines and watching, often smiling and joking. Completely different than the officers at our last two actions in Sonoma County, where literally three dozen vehicles showed up including a helicopter, and an entire blockage of officers in riot gear.

Also, we couldn't see from our position, but a giant Jeff Bezos head was erected on top of the store with a speech bubble that read "I profit from criminal animal abuse." Luckily we were able to see the unfurling of the Animal Bill of Rights, which felt so good to witness!

Rose's Law: An Animal Bill of Rights

Right to rescue from distress and exploitation
Right to a protected home, habitat or ecosystem
Right to have interests represented in court and protected by law
Right to not be exploited, abused or killed by humans
Right to be free or to have a guardian, not owned

As we alternated sitting and standing over the next couple of hours, we heard speak-outs from DxE members and pleas to Jeff Bezos to acknowledge the cruelty that goes on at the farms that supply Whole Foods, which was acquired by Amazon the year before last. Whole Foods closed after a short while when it was clear customers were not going to easily get inside.

Eventually, Whole Foods directed officers to make a citizens arrest. It was obvious the officers did not want to, as their captain came over to each team and made it clear that it was a motion by Whole Foods. He politely gave us the option to leave twice ("You guys can just go right now if you want to, but if you stay you're going to be arrested. I'm going to go over and talk to these guys while you decide" and then a few minutes later: "so anyone wanna leave? No? You sure? *sigh* OK."

Some people left that had come to sit in solidarity with us, and when it was just those willing to get arrested left, the vans started to arrive. More officers showed up and backed-up two vans near us to transport us to the jail. The captain let us know that they wanted to do everything as smoothly as possible and asked us if we had the keys. We did not have the keys on us by that point (our team lead had discretely collected them from us and passed them off), so they had to bring out the bolt cutters. Before cutting us out, they asked us for our IDs so they could create property bags for us on site. That was when they realized that two of our teammates were super-glued to the concrete. The look on their faces was kinda funny. Only one officer showed his annoyance and said some things like "you're going to have to move your hand somehow, and we don't want to hurt you but it is going to hurt a lot if you don't lift it up yourself." I don't think he truly believed they were glued. He went and told the captain who came over and gave another humorous sigh. They decided to deal with the super-glue last.

I wish there were pictures of them cutting us out. They cut the chain in the middle so we could part on either side of the super-glued members. I was the first one cut out of my individual chains. They had a tough time because our chains were very thick and heavy. When they began to cuff me after successfully cutting me out, I couldn't help but smile when I heard cheering and "WE LOVE YOU ALLISON!" being yelled from the crowd.

Me cracking a smile as I am cuffed

They took Instax photos of us before we lined up to be searched and loaded onto the vans. My officer saw me peeking at my photo from the corner of my eye. He smiled and held it up so I could see it. I laughed. When it was my turn, I was asked how I identify (female) and a cheerful female officer was assigned to search me and collect my belongings: a fake rose, my Clipper card, and a clump of tape from when I asked our teammates to take off the numbers that were written on masking tape on each lock that matched the corresponding keys in case the keys were found.

I was then loaded onto the van with four other girls. The van had a divider down the center so females were on one side and males on the other. We couldn't see the guys, but we could talk to them. We mostly chatted with each other and got to know each other a little more, since we were from different teams. I found out a few other people have bunnies like me! And rats and guinea pigs, which I used to have for a long time <3

It was a short drive to the jail. When we pulled in, we could see that they had some tables set-up outside, which we thought was a good sign that we weren't going to be booked after all. We had to wait in the vans for a bit before they got us going. And we were right, they weren't formally booking us! They cited us on misdemeanor tresspassing and then released us. I have a feeling that they told us they were arresting us to try to deter as many people from staying as possible, as well as to appease Whole Foods. We were all prepared to spend up to two nights in jail, but it was nice to walk out the same day! We were directly across the street from Curry Up Now too, so when we were released we had someone there already ordering food for us (I got two huge samosas!). The first thing I did was go into the jail lobby to use the bathroom and remove my (unused) diapers. I actually felt a little guilty for wasting the plastic.

While standing outside the jail waiting for the others to be released, some officers began putting up barriers along the side of the building. I thought that was odd until I found out that everyone who did not get arrested were coming to meet us at the jail. Apparently our police liaison went on the loudspeaker and announced the plan to meet at the Mission jail right after we were driven away, and the police said "No we're taking them to county!" but they didn't know that another organizer followed the vans and reported back our location haha! They had to walk (march) together from Whole Foods so half of us were already out by the time they all arrived en masse, chanting the whole way. When the officers saw that we were all just meeting to peacefully celebrate, they took the barricades back inside.

After hanging around for a bit, everyone began to go their separate ways. We weren't far from my friend's tattoo shop, so I texted him to see if he wanted to hang out. I browsed the thrift store and vibrator boutique until he showed up. He bought me a melon drink and we hung out at the thrift store before heading to his shop, where we also made an appointment to get me a new tattoo later this month since it has been a few years, as well as plans to see the encore of Three From Hell in a couple weeks. Around 1900 I headed home on BART and my boyfriend picked me up in Fremont, the closest station.

I had a pretty great day, over all! Thanks for reading this huge post! Now I have to rush off to class because this took me, like, 2.5 hours to write!

Photos by Carson O.