Torch leaves San Francisco after surprise route designed to thwart
protesters
Rachel Gordon, Cecilia M. Vega, Wyatt Buchanan, Tanya Schevitz,Marisa
Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/09/MNDS102IIM.DTL&tsp=1
(04-09) 17:18 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco leaders surprised
thousands of sup****ters and protesters today by rerouting the Beijing
Olympic torch run from its advertised route to a picturesque course
that avoided the throngs of demonstrators along the Embarcadero.
The result was a much more low-key event than anticipated.
Some protesters caught up to the run along its surprise route, but
most stayed at Justin Herman Plaza, where a closing ceremony was
planned. That ceremony was canceled in lieu of a quieter affair at San
Francisco International Air****t. The torch is expected to leave for
Buenos Aires on a China Airways flight.
The torch was originally scheduled to head from McCovey Cove along the
waterfront to Fisherman's Wharf and back to Justin Herman Plaza. But
after an opening ceremony, the torch was instead driven from McCovey
Cove to Van Ness Avenue, where pairs of runners - buffered by dozens
of police officers - carried it north to Bay Street and Marina
Boulevard and onto Doyle Drive near the Golden Gate Bridge. That route
was originally discounted by city officials as being too high profile.
The torch finally headed out of the city around 3:30 p.m. and arrived
at the air****t at 4:15 p.m. The motorcade bearing the torch was
immediately whisked to a parking area near the international terminal
and quickly placed off limits to the half dozen protesters and a
clutch of news crews. Air****t officials said a chartered Air China
plane was due to pull up to the terminal at 6 p.m.
The route changes allowed city officials to avoid the majority of
protesters who interrupted recent runs in Paris and London, though
some people sprinted to catch up with the convoy as it reached the
Marina district today.
But as word filtered through the crowds at Justin Herman Plaza that
there would be no ending ceremony after all, many reactions ranged
from deflated to flat-out angry.
"I am very upset," said Rosie Salis, 51, who came in from Foster City
to see the relay. "There were lots of people here with their kids.
They had to wait for four or five hours, and it's very disappointing."
Demonstrators, including Harper Honan who brought a Tibetan flag to
the Embarcadero, were also upset. Honan rode her bicycle to Van Ness
Avenue to catch some of the run, but said the city should not have
changed the route.
"They want to purposely thwart any organized protest that had been
planned," she said.
City officials said this morning that they planned to cut the relay
route short because of the large number of demonstrators, but never
indicated that they would completely change the course. City Hall
sources familiar with the police response said the current route had
been the plan since at least this morning, something the mayor denied.
The bait-and-switch was immediately blasted by Board of Supervisors
President Aaron Peskin, a vocal critic of Mayor Gavin Newsom's
administration.
"Gavin Newsom runs San Francisco the way the premier of China runs his
country - secrecy, lies, misinformation, lack of transparency and
manipulating the populace," Peskin said. "He misled sup****ters and
opponents of the run. People brought their families and their
children, and (mayoral officials) hatched a cynical plan to please the
Bush State Department and the Chinese government because of the
incredible influence of money.
"He did it so China can re****t they had a great torch run," Peskin
said. "It's the worst kind of government - government by deceit and
misinformation."
The mayor, reached by phone near the end of the torch run, denied that
city officials knew early this morning that the torch route would
change.
Newsom said he met with torch runners shortly before the opening
ceremony and asked them whether the route should be changed or the run
canceled.
Newsom said he and Police Chief Heather Fong had decided to alter the
route at 11 a.m., and changed it yet again when they realized throngs
of people were massing in huge numbers - particularly around the
ballpark, where the most intense clashes occurred.
"We felt it was in everyone's best interest that we augment the
route," Newsom said. "I believe people were afforded the right to
protest and sup****t the torch. You saw that in the streets. They were
not denied the ability to protest."
Peter Ueberroth, head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, was with the
mayor during at least part of the torch run and praised the way the
city handled event.
"The city of San Francisco, from a global perspective, will be
applauded," he said.
The torch was lit at McCovey Cove around 1:20 p.m. and the first
runner, surrounded by Chinese and American police, headed away from
the crowd and into the Pier 48 building on the waterfront. About 20
minutes later, a convoy of vehicles, including vans and police on
motorcycles, pulled out of the building and headed through downtown
and the Tenderloin to Van Ness Avenue.
The convoy stopped at Van Ness Avenue and Pine Street and the torch -
along with several runners - was unloaded from one of the cars. The
runners, carrying the flame in pairs, then began to make their way
north on Van Ness Avenue.
The torch was handed off every half-block or so to a new pair of
runners.
As the route progressed, the crowds slowly grew. At one point, a knot
of pro-Tibet demonstrators yelled, "Shame on China! How dare you
represent China!" In return, a group of torch sup****ters yelled back:
"They represent the U.S.!"
By the time the runners got to Broadway, the crowds were five people
deep on the sidewalk, mostly screaming sup****t and craning for good
views beyond the police lines.
Nancy Chan of San Francisco, with her son Christian, 4, ran over to
the route from her house two blocks away when she heard that the route
was along Van Ness instead of the waterfront.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing for us to see the torch," she
said. "There is a lot of politics around it, but that is the great
thing about America - the free speech."
Joan Woodaver, who works near Van Ness, saw on television that the
route had altered, so she ran over with a sign reading "Free Tibet and
Free Burma."
"I really admire the Dalai Lama, and I feel disturbed that the
government of China treats people so poorly," said Woodaver, watching
with her 12-year-old sons Jason and Jarron as the torch was trotted
past her.
Thirty pro-Tibetan demonstrators caught up to the torch near Francisco
Street, where several got in the way of one of the motorcycle police
officers and were knocked over.
One woman in particular went down hard after a police officer was
unable to steer away quickly enough and hit her with his front tire.
Early this morning, thousands of people gathered along the planned
route on the Embarcadero, with pro-torch demonstrators facing off
against protesters hoping to draw attention to the nation's human
rights record. Many of the pro-torch demonstrators carried red Chinese
flags and said they were bused in by the Chinese consulate and other
pro-China groups, though others said they had come of their own
accord.
Meanwhile, many of the protesters carried Tibetan flags and preached
independence for the country. Others were on hand to sup****t Burma or
rail against China's backing of the Sudanese government in its war in
Darfur.
Some of the most heated exchanges occurred in Willie Mays Plaza near
the ballpark. But as it became clear that the torch would not be
headed down the Embarcadero, tension also began to rise in the big
crowd assembled in front of the Ferry Building.
Around 2:15 p.m., flag-waving pro-China demonstrators attacked a 7-
foot-wide pro-Tibet sign hanging on the Ferry Building. A man tried to
restore the sign, but a swarm of opponents surrounded him. Another man
rushed from the crowd and grabbed one of the China flags from a
protester, triggering a pu****ng match between the two sides.
Eventually, the squabble dissipated and a pro-China man grabbed the
Tibet sign and tore it clean off the wall.
Police said clashes related to the protests had been minor. But the
situation was tense for hours before the run, and at least one person
was detained in front of the ballpark this morning. A few hours later,
a confrontation between the two sides escalated to a physical
violence, when a San Francisco man named Kevin Johnson, 48, walked
into a crowd of torch sup****ters and began yelling, "Communists!"
The crowd encircled Johnson and the confrontation escalated when
Johnson pulled a Chinese flag off a man's backpack. Then, someone
grabbed Johnson's throat and another person punched him in the face
before police intervened and walked him to safety.
Earlier, pro-Tibetan protesters in the area complained that they had
been pepper sprayed, although they didn't know who did it. San
Francisco resident Matt Winger, 22, flushed his red eyes with water
and said, "It stings like hell."
There were some questions this morning about whether police were
allowing protesters to access Justin Herman Plaza, but officials said
they were simply warning people that they could not guarantee their
safety because of the large number of pro-torch demonstrators gathered
there.
Chronicle staff writers Jaxon VanDerbeken, Wyatt Buchanan, John
Koopman, Michael Cabanatuan, Robert Selna, Kevin Fagan, Michael
Taylor, Reyhan Harmanci and Meredith May contributed to this re****t. E-
mail the writers at wbuchanan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
cvega@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
and mlagos@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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