Police Raid NY Anarchist Film-Fest Collective

On April 13th, police raided 13 Thames Art Space, a Bushwick art and performance space where members of the Independent Anarchist Media (I AM) Collective had been organizing the Fourth Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival. Two collective members that were arrested were questioned about the festival.

Two female undercover officers entered the space through an open front door at around 2pm, accusing the approximately 7-8 people there of “illegally squatting” and demanding to see IDs. The officers left after being shown rent receipts but returned within minutes with uniformed officers, after checking the names on police databases.

Two of those present were arrested on previous unpaid misdemeanor tickets—one a several-month-old charge for violating New York City’s open container law, by drinking a beer on a sidewalk.

In an interview with the Committee to Protect Bloggers, a member of the I AM Collective reported that senior police officers and two vans of uniformed police were present at the raid. The spokesperson reported that after the two were arrested and taken to the 90th Precinct in Brooklyn, police showed them two flyers—for the April 16th Fourth Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival and a for a pre-festival party the night before—and asked them if they knew who was organizing the events.

The leaflet for the film festival itself, whose main image is a fiery heart, promises “the most volatile and insurrectionary film festival of the year!” The flyer for the “Fuck your idols” pre-festival party depicts the pope wearing bondage gear and a police officer with a riot shield on fire. The film festival is scheduled to include films shot by independent journalists and citizen media groups from Greece, the COP-15 climate summit in Denmark, and the Pittsburgh G-20.

The two arrested were released 24 hours later after being sentenced by a judge to “time served” for the night spent in jail.

The I AM spokesperson added that collective members have seen evidence of surveillance in the last few days, with unknown persons spotted appearing to take an interest in the warehouse space and noted that, an hour before the April 13th raid, both the electricity and internet connection to the warehouse were cut. Both utilities were restored a couple of hours after the raid was concluded.

I AM’s spokesperson expressed concern that tonight’s party would be “attacked by police” and that collective members “fully expected” to see further harassment of the film festival itself.

The New York Times’ Colin Moynihan reported that Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the NYPD’s main spokesman “did not directly respond to the question of whether the police had a warrant to enter the building in the first place.”