JIM SQUATTER IS an anarchist. He's not a typical anarchist, but then, which of us is? When I absolutely have to categorize anarchists, I prefer Heinlein's system: as it is among bass, there are big-mouth anarchists and small-mouth anarchists. Jim is a big-mouth anarchist. So am I; maybe you could tell. Though not a pacifist, Jim is an avid, ardent peacemonger. So am I.
Mongering peace takes up much of Jim's life as, he would say, it should yours. I agree.I met Jim about ten years ago. He occupied abandoned buildings for a living then, which is how he copped the moniker. He wasn't alone in there. He spent most of his time organizing the rest of them. He had remarkable success, for a while, for an American. Alas, this ain't Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Lima or Berlin. Squatting at all in San Francisco is no piece of cake.
Out, organized, open squatting – loud, and in the cop's face, is a feat. It earned him his reputation, some jail time, and not a few bruises.Jim is a pretty good organizer. I'm not sure where he learned how to do it, It probably wasn't in what he calls the "Air Farce" and for sure it was not in the nut house. Maybe he figured it out on his own. Maybe he watched me. Maybe he's just a natural. He reads a lot of books; that must be some help. Mostly, he just listens when other people talk. He cares what you have to say. That's a whole lot of the organizing process, right there. In a meeting, he can be fairly charismatic. Out of a meeting, he's mostly just a guy from the block. That is, unless he's just thought of something you could be doing right now for The Cause. Then he turns on the charm. Jim can be quite charming, when he wants to be. It's very persuasive.
Jim's also totally fearless. I lost track of how many times he's been arrested. Twice the SFPD took him out to Golden Gate Park, beat the living bejeezus outa him and left him there bleeding. The Santa Cruz cops left him in a paddy wagon out in the sun for a couple of hours once with no water and a face full of mace (on the six o'clock news, no less).
Jim don't quit. He once went after five skinheads, alone, up on Haight St.Lucky for them, they had a head start. He can cover my back any day of the week, a task I don't trust most folks to be able to handle. Money and secrets are safe in his hands. He's on a very short list, indeed.
Indeed, I wish it was longer.Judi Bari was on her way to Jim's house when the bomb went off.She had just left David Kimnitzer's house, where she had spent the night.After eighteen years with David, Stephanie Massey left him; then moved in with Jim. She's ten years Jim's senior, has been around more, and is much better educated. As near as I can tell, she's the best thing that ever happened to him. Aside from the education, which never hurts anyone, Stephanie is also just naturally smarter than hell. She knows what she's doing, or else she don't do it. She, too, is totally fearless, a feat in itself for someone that short.
She too, has a pretty big mouth. Stephanie bought a house near downtown Oakland in a thoroughly mixed area. The previous owners had been driven out by the crackheads next door. Jim and Steph still hadn't unpacked all their stuff when I came by and taped this. The crackheads were already making plans to move out. This was not of Jim and Steph's doing. The crackheads had cooked in their own soup.The whole fed-up neighborhood had organized against them before Jim and Steph ever showed up. It can be done. You don't need the help of experienced organizers to organize. You can do it yourself. Do it today. That's what Jim would say. I agree. It is the truth.
I copped a blunt on the corner. Jim and I blew about half. It tasted to me like Humboldt's finest. Jim thought it was from Mendocino. Half was clearly enough.We closed the front window, so as to be not overheard from the street.It's an old local custom.I flipped on the tape.
nessie: OK, so lets brainstorm this thing a while. Why was Judi at Seeds of Peace house the night before the bomb went off?
squatter: We had a meeting that, uh, we decided there was this series of meetings about one a month I think, maybe even one every two weeks, where we were going up the coast (I think the first one was in Arcata) then we went to ... the next one was down in Laytonville. At one of these meetings we decided the next meeting was gonna be down in the Bay Area at Seeds' house and it'll be pretty much the final, major meeting before the beginning of the whole shebang.
nessie: Redwood Summer?
squatter: Right. We had lots of business, and we y'know ... this meeting ... It was publicly known. It wasn't advertised, but anybody that wanted to know could know, pretty much. You come to a meeting and they were open, y'know meeting as usual, anybody that shows up. This one down at Seeds' house. had been set up at the previous meeting so there was two weeks to get the word around, and it was word of mouth. I don't think there was ever a leaflet, or anything like that. Kinda we wanted core people there for the final planning of the event.
nessie: It was discussed on the telephone?
squatter: Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. Uh, people began to arrive in the late afternoon. I remember George Shook and Darryl showed up and they needed something ... guitar strings, maybe ... something musical. They went off to a music store. Then other people start showing up, Mike Roselle, and at some point Darryl, no not Darryl, uh, Judi showed up, and the gang was all there. As I recall we may even have had dinner during the meeting.It was a pretty long meeting. It must have gone on four or five hours.Meanwhile all the vehicles are parked out in front of our house. In our neighborhood. Our neighborhood at the time (long pause) is kinda low-income/high-crack. That's how I'd describe it. Lots of stuff on the street. It would be easy to be not noticed in some ways in our neighborhood. And nobody's gonna confront you, probably. Except to ask you if you wanna buy crack. That's the only confrontation you might get into.After the meeting there's a smoking session, and then, uh, I guess some time during that, David and Judi ... Judi needed a place to stay, and she went over to David's house.
nessie: David Kimnitzer's house?
squatter: Yeah. David Kimnitzer's house; and he lived there with Stephanie at the time, and probably Cristopher. Yeah, Cristopher was there.(Christopher was, at the time, a foster kid. David and Stephanie habitually took in strays, bunches of 'em. Theirs was a warm and lively house.)
nessie: Was this the house on 59th?
squatter: No, this the house that I just left, on 23rd. Seeds' house at the time was on California, near Alcatraz. From what I gather, they stayed up fairly late talking, probably 2:00 or 3:00. Then they crashed. She crashed in the back bedroom where Steph and I slept. He slept in the master bedroom. I think Cristopher slept down on the couch.
nessie: "He slept in the master bedroom." That was David?
squatter: Yeah, David Kimnitzer.
nessie: I'm gonna talk to him about this next.
squatter: So the potential for the bomb to be placed would have been in front of our house during the meeting ... Now I would imagine somebody would have been answering the phone. The phone was ringing non-stop. We're getting close to an action; the phone is ringing a lot. Somebody's going up front to at least answer the phone occasionally, during the meeting. I don't think we disconnected it, though we may have, and put that machine on. But that was pretty rare. Of course that was the kind of meeting where we might have done it.
nessie: During the meeting, anyway?
squatter: Yeah. It's possible. So it'd be in front of our house or while they slept that night. It could have been any time after they got there, but I don't think that they arrived, probably, at David's house until eleven or midnight. In that range. So it'd been pretty late by the time they even got there. The next morning ... I slept over our house in that front room there. I don't think Stephanie even slept over that night.She'd just moved into her own place on 45th. I think she slept there. The next morning, people were up.
nessie: You were already sleeping with Stephanie by then, right?
squatter: Yeah. Yep. And that was starting to cause problems. It was beginning to cause problems, frictions. That's about when the friction started. So, um, that morning Shannon had to take some camera-ready or close to camera-ready copy, something like that, over to David. They did something on the computer. Judi was there, Shannon was there, and David.Chris would have probably have gone to school. Though school might have been out. It was like the twenty-fifth of May. So it's towards the end of school. He may have gone. He did. They had to do some, something ... like he needed money for something. David had to go to the bank or some shit like that.
nessie: There was something that made David tail behind her.
squatter: About five minutes. Yeah, about five or ten minutes. I think it was ...
nessie: He had to stop somewhere?
squatter: Yeah, something. David had a couple transactions, like he went to get donuts that morning and then he had to go to the bank to get the kid money for school or some shit like that. No. Then he went back to the house and they did something on the computer or something ... yeah, that's it ... the computer ...So they finished tap tapping on the computer. Shannon and ... Where were her kids? Up north.
nessie: Judi's kids?
squatter: Yeah.
nessie: They didn't come down on the trip?
squatter: Right. Up north because she ended up doing a gig in Santa Cruz. Yeah, that was the big deal: that evening they had a show in Santa Cruz. They might have been getting a leaflet together for the show put together or something. I can't remember what it was exactly. Anywise, Shannon and Judi split from David's house and I assume they drove the route we always do: down the hill and, uh, and on up to Park Blvd.
nessie: Shannon's a Seeds person, right? Not Shannon the stripper?
squatter: Yeah. She's with Seeds. Not the stripper. The other one. And I believe Shannon is following Judi, which is kinda odd again. You'd think that Shannon would be leading. She may have been. She may have looked back. Anyway, they get down by the light by the high school; the bomb goes off, and y'know, the car comes to rest against that kinda walking guardrail thing; Shannon pulls over; shortly thereafter the police show up; then David ...
nessie: Where were you at that moment?
squatter: At the house. I was at the house.
nessie: 23rd Street?
squatter: No.
nessie: At Seeds' house?
squatter: At Seeds' house. At Seeds' house on California. We don't know anything. We were at the house; we don't know zip. We're far away, can't hear the bomb or nothing. So at the time of the bombing, I know exactly what's happening. Now it slows down to slow motion for me. I am supposed to be taking a check over to an insurance agent in San Francisco to buy liability insurance for Redwood Summer, for the whole summer. It's gonna cost twelve-hundred bucks for the entire summer. I'm supposed to be there at two. I got some time. I'm not gonna be late. Alex, and E. J., and Sarah are the only people in the house. I ask Alex and E. J., "Hey, let's smoke a joint." Together, we somehow scrape up the last joint in Seeds' land, roll that sucker up, and we're going out the back door, down the back steps to the yard to smoke it. The thing about smokin' in the house, we said, nah, somebody might walk in.
nessie: (Laughs)
squatter: (Laughs)Both: (Laugh some more)
squatter: Somebody might walk in ... it might be somebody straight. So we go out the back door ... we're going down the steps. Alex is in front of me, E.J. is behind me. I get to the second to last step of the steps, and there's a little hesitation, the slightest of hesitation. At which point I think, for a split moment, y'know, I think there's somebody there; I should jump over this back wall. I decide, no, y'know, I'm going to go forward and confront this, what ever it is. This is all ... all these thoughts are taking the amount of time it takes to move one foot off the step and be reaching for the next one.
nessie: Well, did you think it was the cops or did you think it was the robbers?
squatter: I thought it was the robbers. I did not think, you know, there was that flash, but I didn't think it was that heavy. You know the neighborhood. You know, it was a drunk in our yard or some bullshit. By the time my foot reaches down to the next step, we're both flying through air. We've been grabbed by the chest and yanked off the stairs, one to one side and one to the other, and E.J. was being dragged down behind us. This guy rushes up, sort of, as we're being jerked down, he's being jerked down as well.
nessie: They didn't tell you you were under arrest or anything?
squatter: No.
nessie: Did they identify themselves or anything?
squatter: No, there's no sound, there's no ...
nessie: What'd they look like? Were they in suits?
squatter: No, wait, hold on. I'm still moving at that ... (snaps fingers twice)
nessie: (laughs)
squatter: At this point the brain is firing about 40,000 synapses a second.
nessie: Right.
squatter: And as I'm being jerked to the side, I look, not at the person jerking me, but at a person that's gonna rush by me and grab E.J. And he's ... they're not in uniform. They're wearing jackets, and what I realize is, is they have flak jackets with blue windbreakers on. I turn and look at this guy that's kinda now standing back; he's immediately pulling down kinda past me to the side and there's all these guys with guns around saying, "Freeze," and "Put your hands up," You know, those kind of declarations, commands ...
nessie: That's when you realized they weren't robbers?
squatter: Yeah, and at the same time as we're putting our hands up, Alex has a lighter and a joint in his hand and he's throwing them under the bus as his hands are going up. And I see them skitter over, and I go, cool, they didn't see it. That's the first thought I had. Y'know? Cool! We're not gonna get busted for pot. I look over and realize that this guy is wearing a Treasury Department tag, dog tag, with a big shield on it, type thing. And this is no petty pot bust. At this point, I'm now spinning around. Since that hesitation, now has elapsed one and a half seconds, maybe. I'm being whirled around and put hands up, y'know, against the wall, patted down. And I'm to not to look around. I turn around, see "ATF", in letters on the back of this guys jacket, "Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms."
nessie: Treasury Department?
squatter: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms" !?! This is big, heavy ... big time heavy. This is ... I was beginning ... And more cops are sliding down the wall of our house because there's busses parked in the driveway and there's just this narrow way. More cops are continuingly coming into the back yard. They're running up the stairs, y'know, lookin' in the back door, and stuff. I turn and they say, "Don't say anything! Remain silent." Y'know, and I'm kinda (unintelligible) and it's forced, and I say, "Don't say anything. Don't tell 'em anything," and, "Demand to see an attorney." And at that point I turned my head, and he kinda bangs my head against the wall and says, "Don't turn around!" I said, "What am I being charged with? What's the crime? I want an attorney. We're not gonna say anything." "Fuck you," basically. And this ... at that point I had seven guns, I counted, I think, pointed at our heads, at the back of our heads. Maybe our chests, the back of our chests.
nessie: It was probably the chest.
squatter: Yeah. But there's seven of 'em so they're not gonna miss. There was only three of us, that's two per, plus an extra. So we're not going anywhere. And they start ... they pass down ... put us in the cuffs. And then we get taken out in the front yard, ultimately, after they try to ask just one question and we don't say anything. So I'm continually asking, "What am I being charged with? Where is your warrant?" and, "I want an attorney." Y'know, the basic litany. They're telling me to shut up. They're putting us against the neighbor's garage, basically, up in the front of it. Just this minute, I saw Wit, walking down the street, towards us from across Alcatraz. And I turned around and kinda show him my handcuffs.
nessie: (laughs)
squatter: I see Wit turn the corner and start walking away and ... Ah! Somebody in the world knows where we are and what's happening. Y'know? Good. We're one step better than we were thirty seconds ago. At this point ...
nessie: Was he alone?
squatter: He was alone walking down the street, towards us. He never crossed Alcatraz; he turned right on Alcatraz and walked away, it turns out, to his girlfriend's house, where he didn't do anything for the entire time. But, oh well.
nessie: You were expecting him to get a lawyer, maybe?
squatter: Or something.
nessie: (laughing) Not a commando raid?
squatter: (laughs) Well, I'd have settled for some phone calls, but ... oh well ... And so the next thing that happens is that back from the corner ... oh no ... All these people kept coming to our house. Like us. But we kept coming home and getting ... first they have us and then they say, "Is there anybody ..." First they said, "Is the door into the house booby-trapped?' And we started laughing. But they didn't know what laughing meant. And they got really uptight. So we're like, "No, no, no, man, y'know you kinda caught us off guard there." We were laughing, y'know, like me and the Mansons, y'know. So they go ...
nessie: Hey, they don't know! The guy called 'em up and like, "What are you doing today? OK. You'll be raiding a hippie house" "OK, where is it?" "We don't know."
squatter: On 10 minutes' notice.
nessie: Ten minutes' notice. Well, we don't know, see.
squatter: We don't know.
nessie: This is very important. How long from when the bomb went off until they came in your door?
squatter: I don't know. To be quite honest, I don't know. I could sit down with some other people and get it down to the exact, y'know, within a couple minutes.
nessie: This is a crucial piece of the case, here.
squatter: I know it. It's a crucial piece of the case, but it's been more'n three years now (laughing). There's been a lot of other cases in the last three years.
nessie: This is true.
squatter: And then we got cases going back as far as '84.
nessie: Yeah, right.
squatter: And I've had ... they've involved so many ... I mean, shit ... the flag burning case ... I mean, case after case after case, y'know. But my guesstimate is when it all went down ... my appointment was two o'clock, it was 40 minutes, really 40 minutes by BART. So it was not after fifteen after one. Which would mean that's an hour later. It might have been as much as 12:15 – 12:30. Which is real right after. Now they assembled a team that included federales, OPD, and Berkeley. Several different versions of federales, ATF, Treasury Department which I think ATF is under, and the FBI. So that must take at a half-hour coordination, in my ...
nessie: Were there self-identified FBI men in the raid on your house?
squatter: Self-identified?
nessie: Did anybody have an FBI badge, jacket, or anything?
squatter: Jacket, yeah. Blue jackets with FBI on the back just like the ATF.
nessie: The ATF, the FBI, and who else?
squatter: The guy with the Treasury Department tags, but ATF is under the Treasury Department. It could be the same, I don't know. He seemed to be kinda in charge. OPD, both street guys and detectives. And we had Berkeley, who was out in left-field. Berkeley did not have a clue. They didn't know why they were there, They didn't know what was going on. And that's for sure.
nessie: How many uniformed Berkeley cops were there?
squatter: Different times, different numbers. In the beginning, just two, I think.
nessie: And they were clueless? They were acting clueless?
squatter: They were clueless. They didn't have to act.
nessie: I don't supposed you remember their names.
squatter: Nah. It's all written down though. Sarah probably has notes on 'em. If she don't, Seeds probably has notes on 'em. Bill Simpich probably does. We've given him information out of our files. We've made copies'n stuff. All that. But, so they ask us if anybody's inside, and we're like, "Is anybody inside?" "I think Sarah is, yeah, right. We think one person is. We think Sarah is." So they get the three cops, one on each side of the door and one in the middle, y'know, the whole ... fucking "One Adam-12" number, y'know? And, uh, they knock on the door. "Open up in the name of the police! In the name of the Law!" Whatever.
nessie: Sarah is a doctrinaire, religious pacifist.
squatter: Not only that, she thinks it's somebody fucking around.
nessie: (laughs for a long time)
squatter: (laughing) So ...
nessie: She thought it was you playing a joke! (falls off couch, rolls on floor laughing)
squatter: Right! And it's like, "Blam, blam, blam!!!" They're knocking really hard on the door and "Open up in the name of the Police!" And they're just about to kick down the door, when I'm like, "Hold it! Hold it! It's not locked! Just like open it. Don't kick it down. Y'know we don't wanna have to pay. And the landlord'll get pissed. All like that, y'know. Just open it." So at that point they decide that opening it, though it's not as dramatic, gives you a certain advantage of speed and, y'know, suddenness that ...
nessie:So they debated this for a little while?
squatter: Well it seem like they kinda got it, and so they decide ...
nessie: Which cops went in the door? You said three cops were at the door. Which departments?
squatter: Wait. We haven't gotten to that part, yet.
nessie: (laughs)
squatter: (getting to the good part, leaps up, begins shouting and gesticulating, miming out his narrative) They got one guy on the door! Two guys with guns! Other guy with gun drawn! They start to open it! Just then Sarah opens it on her side. (laughs) "Cause they pounded so hard the last time, she figures, fuck, these fuckers are gonna break the door.So she comes to like ...they're (yells) "Ya da, da, da, da, da. "So she's in a (yells) "Ya da, da, da, da da" mood, y'know. And they open the door (swings open imaginary door) and they open the door on each other (bulges eyes in mock surprise). She's like, three guns to her head! She's like, "Oh, well, you could have called."
nessie: (Falls off couch again laughing, kicks over ashtray)
squatter: She had a one-liner like that. I can't remember what it was. She had a perfect one-liner. But after that, she was obviously freaked out and she didn't say nothing else.
nessie: Still no warrant?
squatter: Warrant!?! We never ...Warrant!?! Listen to this one. No warrant. They get her. They put her in handcuffs. It this point somebody else in Seeds, Stephanie ... Stephanie works for the Fire Department. She drives an official little Fire Department car, and she looks like her little officious Fire Department Lady self. She drives up. She sees what's going on. Somebody signals with the handcuffs. At this point they think it's me. They grab me and they handcuff me to a post at the back of the garage, kinda to the ground so that I can't signal any more.She asks the cop, "What seem to be the ... What's going on here?" The cop tells her exactly what's going on. She steps into the Yemeni guy's convenience store, "Mind if I use your phone?" They recognize her and sez, "Oh, no. It's about those people? Very nice people. Absolutely. Use our phone free." She calls an attorney, Malcolm. ...
nessie: Was her car parked on the street in front of the house at the same time as Judi's was, when the bomb was planted?
squatter: At night? No it was her house on 45th.
nessie: How about at the meeting earlier?
squatter: Probably at our house.
nessie:So they knew who she was?
squatter: Nah.
nessie: They were surprised?
squatter: Well, here's this official looking car ...
nessie: Oh yeah! Fire Department, right!?!
squatter: Right.
nessie: But if it happened during the meeting who ever planted the bomb, did it near Stephanie's car, which stands out.
squatter: No, because it could have been done in front of David's house and her car wasn't there; it was in front of her house. So it doesn't necessarily ...
nessie: Where were you?
squatter: So at this point they have four of us out front, and here comes the truck! The people on the food and dumpster run! They're gonna be in this show, and ...Some of them are like collecting food. They pull ... Oh, before they pull up, this hippie, this hippie that lives down the block, he comes walking down the street. He gets to our corner, and the cops go, "Get him!" This poor innocent dude, they jump him, and he's like freaked out, so he gets up and he runs away. They drop him on the pavement, open his head up on the pavement.
nessie: Did they identify themselves to him? Or did they just grab him?
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