Riot

They said I could watch out the windows. From there I had a view of Page Street looking west and Clayton which was inclined up hill south to Haight Street. At some point the cop who had left his motorcycle in the intersection mounted it and began to drive down the side-walk on the north side of Page Street, heading west swinging his club at everyone who might still be on he walk. An old woman maybe close to seventy had come out on her steps to see what was going on. She was close to the side-walk. The cop riding on his motorcycle hit her on the leg with his baton as he drove by. She went down.

My feminine hostess had been talking on the phone and was getting the scoop. Apparently it all started at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic. In the early afternoon about dozen people were waiting on the steps for the clinic to open when suddenly cops showed up and charged the group and started beating people. What I further witnessed in that apartment was the cops would pull up in a squad car on Clayton close to Haight on the west side of the street. They would sit there until somebody would throw something at them. Then they would jump out of the car with their clubs and run up to Haight Street and be swinging at anyone they could get close to. Of course most people hadn't a clue what was going on and why cops were suddenly trying to club them. Or when someone would throw something at them, and they were too lazy to run up the hill, they would drive away across Haight Street and another cop car would take its place, to either chase or again drive away after some enraged citizen threw something at them.

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