I'm an idiot, part deux

Read my previous post first. This post will make more sense.

Continuing ...

Later, I was over near the Sorbonne, which students had occupied the weekend before but which now was heavily barricaded. Skating along I all of a sudden saw this black kid start running from the police. Unfortunately there were tons of police, so they got him. No idea what he'd done, but they didn't look happy about it. Then again, they didn't look happy about much, and I'm guessing they were seriously overreacting. Anyway, they grabbed another black kid just a few feet away. When I looked over at him he was just standing there, maybe insulting the three riot policemen in front of him, but not fighting or anything.

All of a sudden, one of the fuckers punched him in the face. He obviously couldn't do anything, but I was shocked. As I skated past I called out 'fascist!', which, I found out a moment later, had apparently sounded like 'sale raciste!' (dirty racist). I was going pretty fast, but there were riot police in front of me and as I flipped off the guy behind me he yelled to the guys in front of me to stop me. Yes, supremely stupid, but I was caught up in the moment.

They caught me, made me take off my skates, checked my bag for throwable items like molotov cocktails, and walked me over to where they were arresting people. I explained that I'd seen the cop hit the guy, and he only said that I didn't know what had happened before, that I was passing judgement. I wasn't going to argue with the fucker because I'd realized by then that if I got arrested I could possibly get kicked out of the country.

I didn't have any ID, which was bad since everyone is supposed to have ID on them at all times, but I had my student card. They called some office somewhere, checked me out (or pretended to), then said, 'you have two choices. You can come to the commisariat for the night while we verify your identity, or you can get the hell out of here.' I left.

I'm guessing that between calling him a fascist and him punching a guy in the face, he'd have probably gotten in more trouble, or at least into more administrative bullshit, than some nice white boy from the US who was just being a pain in the ass and would have stuck to his (as yet undenied) story. I don't care, I was just glad to be out of there.

Of course, I hadn't really learned my lesson, cause I then went up to the Sorbonne where about 500 people were milling about, occaissionally kicking the 8' barricades in front of the university. Water cannons and tear gas were at the ready, but it was pretty chill most of the time, though there was one molotov cocktail quickly extinguished with the water cannon. But the CRS (riot police) started to close ranks, and there was no way out if they didn't let you. Then someone brought out a huge rope and attached it to the barricade, and about 50 people (including yours truly -- I know, I'm a dumbass, but I got caught up in the moment) grabbed on to try to pull it down. It actually worked, but then they let loose with the water and the tear gas, and people tried to get out of there. They wouldn't let us by, and again facing the prospect of arrest, I was slightly worried.

I found out later that some people got into buildings on the street through doors opened by very nice people, but I came across a stairway into an underground parking garage. Someone had busted open the door so I just kept walking down, past the cars, and out via another set of stairs about 100 yards away. Most importantly, this was behind the police lines, so I was all set to get home.

So I left.