By Anonymous
In the late afternoon of May 12th, a small crowd convened along the street at North Wilmot Road in Tucson, Arizona just outside of St. Joseph’s Hospital. The crowd numbered somewhere in the range of 50-100 people: an eclectic mix of local anarchists, subculturally-affiliated 20-or-30-somethings, boomer activists, petition circulators, journalists, at least one priest, and representatives of various activist organizations, including Derechos Humanos and the local Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) chapter—each clad in their usual bright red shirts.
The crowd had gathered in response to ICE activity that had occurred with the hospital’s collaboration in the days prior. In extreme brief, a family member of a patient at St. Joseph's was extensively questioned by hospital staff about their immigration status and was, shortly thereafter, surrounded by ICE in the parking lot outside upon leaving. Allegedly the hospital case worker had called ICE, leading to an arrest and abduction in the parking lot.
The planned event involved standing on a busy street corner on a Monday afternoon—down an access road and around the corner of a parking garage, away from the hospital’s entrance—holding signs, chanting, listening to speeches from PSL and other groups barely audible through the traffic, collecting supportive honks from passing drivers, avoiding the possibility of conflict and confrontation.
A generous reading might suggest that these types of sidewalk sign-holding events play a role in disrupting the assumption that everyone is fine to go along with state terror. Or perhaps that “making your voice heard” in this manner is meaningful in its own right. Very possibly, these gatherings do likely aid in making connections and feeling less isolated. If it had a strategic goal however, it was unclear what it was. It’s likely revealing that, when asked why the crowd wasn’t at the hospital entrance proper, an event organizer responded that the road offered more visibility and that “there’s only employees over there.” Whatever the case, it should come as no surprise that in the face of explicit state terror, in the aftermath of someone’s kidnapping in collaboration with hospital staff, a gathering without even a faint chance of confrontation or targeted visibility would register as ineffectual. So, after about an hour, as the protest organizers announced the end of the event, a chant broke from the crowd: “March to the hospital!” After a few brief moments of hesitation, a majority of the crowd broke for the hospital entrance.
The sudden decision to march caught the half-dozen or so police on scene by surprise. As the crowd turned the corner towards the entrance, the police scrambled to make a line to stop them, but without either crowd control equipment or the initiative, they were pushed backward further and further. Threats of arrest and trespass were ignored and drowned out by a singular, menacing chant: “Who called ICE?” Eventually, the limits of escalation in that moment were met. The police had overcome their initial surprise and panic and formed enough of a line to stop the small crowd around 50 or so feet from the hospital’s entrance. Once there, a stand-off that lasted approximately 10-15 minutes ensued, with the crowd continuing to chant the question on everyone’s mind.
Individuals in the crowd mocked the police as they attempted to instruct the crowd to return to the other side of the property line and continued to threaten arrest. One cop mentioned that if the crowd would only return to the street corner, they could stay there as long as they liked. At one point, an officer on the megaphone kindly informed the crowd that he and the other cops on scene “we’re not ICE,” just in case anyone present in the crowd was unsure. Finally, the stand-off came to an end after an unlawful assembly was declared. Not long after that moment, the crowd collectively decided that the strategic limitations of that moment had been met and as such, it was time to leave. In short order, the crowd marched away together and dispersed without incident or arrest.
Through a simple and improvised escalation, the action was brought successfully into a conflictual terrain that forced the police to respond in a way that they were not expecting to, allowing for the crowd to take advantage of novel spaces of possibility. In doing so, the situation was shifted such that the police and the hospital could not ignore it in the way that they could while it remained on a public sidewalk. It also shifted the focus of the protest from collecting honks from cars on the sidewalk to confrontation with those directly responsible for collaboration with violent forces of the state. The escalation created a response and disruption that threatened the possibility of further escalation and in turn, a set of circumstances that hospital staff, management, and security will likely consider when entertaining the choice of future collaboration with ICE. The group’s strategic shift from the expected to the unexpected, from the seamless flow of the day-to-day to what we might call an event, caused a community member’s state kidnapping to pause time, refusing to go unnoticed.