June 15, 2004
My Week at BIO 2004... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes."
The international BIO conference was in San Francisco last week, and my producer and I intended to spend it culling the latest in biotech and filling in the Tech Nation world map of what we've come to call the "Big Bang of Biotech."
Then along came the protestors.
The first clue was at sign-in: The major thoroughfare through the middle of the convention complex was being prepped for shutdown, and that was only the beginning. Driving to the opening reception, we were met by armed police.
Waving our press credentials out the window and talking fast, we were turned back once before finally making it through. We were told to move up 20 feet, into an intersection smeared with the remains of a genetically modified food fight. A line of riot police jogged two-by-two around our car. Chartered buses filled with conference attendees were fast-tracked in front of us. A crowd of protestors shouted half-heartedly from the sidelines. It was a relief to finally park and make our way to the reception hall.
Then we looked up and stopped in our tracks: There were police lookouts positioned above us on the hill.
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Inside, everyone questioned if the threat was real, but as the week progressed, the action escalated. Coming in and out of the conference, we were met with rows of barricades and lines of police. They were standing at attention, helmets strapped to their chins, four-foot billy clubs clamped to their belts. A few had video cameras on long poles, no doubt to record arrests and counter charges of police brutality.
Each time we left, security would ask us to take off our badges to avoid being recognized, but we stuck out like sore thumbs against the ragtag protestors. One science researcher, racing against the clock to stave off his wife's cancer, was shaken by a verbal assault while entering. A woman said she didn't feel safe to walk alone from her hotel. And while the newspaper reported that one CEO had actually engaged in a civil conversation with several protestors, I happened to know that his company's efforts will reduce the need for animal testing - no doubt, that was the message he delivered.
While emails and telephone calls came in from friends all over the country, I could find no one who witnessed anything akin to the television footage playing out on the news.
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Instead, I heard rumors that the protestors were regulars, well-known to the police, always showing up to protest everything. If that's so, as a local, it's news to me, and it doesn't explain the traffic. At times, the entirety of downtown would unexpectedly gridlock, and then, just as suddenly, it would flow.
By the closing reception, all of Market Street had been shut down, something I've never seen in all my years in San Francisco. The trolley cars were lined up and silent. Riot police were clustered in the middle of the street, drawing a motley crowd of protestors. There was sporadic cheering, a weird tension, a seedy street carnival atmosphere. One scruffy fellow had a video camera and a black leather jacket hand-painted with the words: "Legal Observer." And there was a large white bus with locked and grated windows, sporting a sign advertising jobs with the sheriff's department.
I found myself asking one question again and again: How much did these protestors actually know about who and what they were protesting? "Not much" was the sole and unfortunate answer.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
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