Here’s an news feature I photographed for the San Francisco Weekly on several rouge police officers shutting down after-hours parties and illegally confiscating equipment.

New Feature Wednesday, Mar 17 2010

Turning the Tables

By Lois Beckett

It was a good party, Arash Ghanadan thought: the right girl-guy ratio, a DJ spinning house music, attractive people. He had arrived alone at the loft space on Folsom at about 2:30 one June morning after finishing up a party he had promoted at a SOMA nightclub. It had been a big night across the city, and his industry friends were upstairs, talking about how their events had gone and who had booked the best DJ. Ghanadan was ready to unwind. He was about to go looking for a vodka and cranberry when the music shut off. Read more.

One reporter jokingly said it felt like it was unpatriotic for a San Franciscan not to protest and that’s exactly what it felt like last night while wandering through the protesting crowd. Just about every point on the political spectrum was covered. If you had a political agenda to push, San Francisco’s Union Square was the place to be. While everyone had something to say there was no overarching message and in my opinion nothing can be accomplished when there is no coordinated effort. Instead people were just wandering around yelling and in the end, because of a lack of a audience with the president, began squabbling and bickering with each other.

Obama who was in town for the Democratic National Committee And Organizing For America fund-raiser held at The Westin St. Francis Hotel was walled off with police officers, barricades and media of all sorts.

I think everyone who was there was expecting to see him jump out of a car, wave and say a couple words, but that wasn’t the case. Night fell and the crowd stayed chanting and carrying on. At one point i asked a police officer what time he was expected and he replied the president had been there for several hours.

Here’s the rest @ SF Weekly.