SAN JOSE, Calif. - In the largest show of antiwar civil disobedience since the Vietnam War, thousands of activists swarmed downtown San Francisco Thursday, paralyzing traffic in dozens of intersections and wreaking havoc on businesses in the financial district.
San Francisco was home to the country's most raucous unrest with more than 1,025 demonstrators arrested - a single-day record. Widespread disruptions left many infuriated - even in America's most progressive big city, which cherishes its reputation as a hospitable place for dissent.
Assistant Police Chief Alex Fagan called it the largest, most chaotic protest in 30 years. "Absolute anarchy," he said.
Protesters vowed no end to the chaos, even as city leaders lamented the $500,000 a day cost in police overtime and the distraction from protecting the city against terror attacks.
"One of the painful ironies of this war is that one of the most antiwar cities in the nation, San Francisco, is being disproportionately harmed by the tactics of antiwar protesters," Mayor Willie Brown said.
Demonstrators wrenched open fire hydrants on Market Street and knocked over garbage cans and newspaper stands along the Embarcadero. Sparks flew as firefighters used chainsaws to separate protesters locked together with steel pipes.
Massive crowds tried to choke off access to the Bay Bridge during the evening commute, but CHP officers blocked on-ramps with tear gas at the ready, snarling the bridge before protesters could.
Police used MUNI buses as holding pens, and weary cops chased protesters all over the financial district in a game of cat-and-mouse that was still going on late Thursday.
Smaller demonstrations took place on college campuses and in city centers from Santa Cruz to Berkeley, but most were peaceful. Protesters took to the streets in cities across the country, but those demonstrations did not compare to San Francisco's unrest.
Throughout the day, police cited busloads at Pier 27, which became a makeshift jail. Once released, many waited on the Embarcadero sidewalk, cheering friends as they emerged from the cavernous pier warehouse.
As of Thursday evening, two police officers had been injured; one sprained an ankle and the other was cut in the face after he was hit with a bottle at 7th and Mission streets, where police were pelted with stones, bottles and metal bolts before making about 200 arrests.
"We believe this should not be a day of business as usual," Sister Bernie Galvin, a 70-year-old Catholic nun, said after arriving at the Bechtel Corp. on Beale Street at 6:30 a.m. Protesters blocked entrances to the construction firm's building in part because the company is likely to bid for U.S. government contracts to rebuild Iraq after the war.
"Civil disobedience is the most effective form of bringing about social change," Galvin said.
But the tension with everyday commuters and business owners left many wondering whether continuing to lay down in front of traffic could backfire on the antiwar movement.
"It's disruptive and unproductive at the same time," said Randy Sumabat, a Blue Shield employee who could not get into work because his office is in the Bechtel building. "I work for Blue Shield. I try to protect people's health insurance. You may need health insurance later on."
Bechtel spokesman Jonathan Marshall said the company supported people's right to speak out, but said "I think among other things that the protesters have a misguided target."
Some smaller companies intentionally shut their doors so employees could join the protests. Rainbow Grocery, Lost Weekend Video, and City Lights Bookstore decided that shutting down was a minor financial sacrifice.
Some said they could accept being late to work or losing revenue as U.S. troops rumbled across the Iraqi border, but their complacence would end if their lives continue to be disrupted.
"If it's stopping mail and FedEx, I am not going to support it for much longer," said Cheryl Jenkins, a social service worker in the Tenderloin district. "The economy is bad enough, we need to keep the economy moving. People are frustrated."
For months, the antiwar movement has debated whether civil disobedience - a time-honored tactic used during Gandhi's campaign for India's independence and the civil rights movement - would be effective or possibly backfire.
"Protests which are more informative and don't interfere with people's lives, those could play a real positive role in developing opposition to the war," said Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. "The question is, which part prevails? The anarchist, angry, violent side? Or the more educative and thoughtful side?"
Hundreds of protesters blocked entrances to the Philip Burton Federal Building, bringing federal court proceedings to a crawl.
One of the more unusual protests came in the early morning, when about a dozen people quickly gulped a concoction made of sour milk and Ipecac syrup and vomited near the federal building.
Debates and arguments sprang up throughout the city.
"Sixty percent of America thinks you are wrong!" shouted Charlie Parker, on a break from the California Culinary Academy in his chef's whites. "Bush is right. Do you want another 9/11? Aren't you Americans?"
"We are Americans," shot back Landra Tankha of San Francisco. "It is absolutely American to speak your mind and disagree and not suck up to the government."
Peace rallies remained relatively peaceful in the rest of the Bay Area on Thursday. On the Berkeley campus, more than 100 students were arrested after they refused to leave the administration building. Union janitors joined more than 100 demonstrators outside San Jose's federal building, chanting "Health Care, not Warfare!" Students rallied peacefully at San Jose State. And about 200 demonstrators marched from a gathering at Stanford University to Palo Alto City Hall to join hundreds more. "Stop Bush before he kills again" read one sign. "Stop mad cowboy disease," read another.
One Stanford student, who received a citation for her part in the San Francisco protest, was exuberant after rushing back to campus for the afternoon rally.
"You guys are part of a big, big movement right now," said student Anna Mumford, who had joined the Palo Alto crowd after being arrested in San Francisco.
In Oakland, at least 1,000 high school students walked out of class for a rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. In Santa Cruz County, protesters geared up to shut down military recruiting offices this morning in Capitola.
Gov. Gray Davis dispatched 65 extra California Highway Patrol officers to the city and urged activists to contain their outrage to legal dissent.
"No one has the right to commit violence," Davis said after a security briefing in Los Angeles. "No one has the right to take away another human being's First amendment right to get on with their business, get on with their day."
Fagan, the San Francisco assistant police chief, would not say how many officers were dealing with the chaos. But he said that even though the department was spread "thin" the city was being protected from terrorism with help from other law enforcement agents, such as the California Highway Patrol and the FBI.
He did not anticipate calling in the National Guard.
"We can do it as long as we have to," Fagan said. "These people are bent on shutting the city down, and we are not going to allow that."
(Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Kellie Schmitt, Jessica Portner, Sean Webby, Shawn Neidorf, Jessie Seyfer, Marilee Enge, Ken McLaughlin, Sandra Gonzales, Kim Vo, Howard Mintz and Yomi S. Wronge contributed to this report.)
