Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/133047
Connor_JulAug 2/9/12 5:07 PM Page 11 the day of a big, citywide general strike and shutdown of the Port of Oakland, Connor was acting as a medic and sported big red crosses on his clothes and backpack of medical supplies, ready to treat anyone with an injury. That night, as Connor was observing the protest with a journalist and lawyer serving as a legal aid observer, the police ordered the group to return to a central plaza. They did as they were told, but moments later, police approached Connor and told him to get face down on the ground and put his hands behind his back to be arrested. The lawyer tried to intervene, but to no avail. Police were determined to round up everyone. Getting arrested was a new and traumatic experience for Connor. With his hands cuffed behind him, he felt vulnerable. "I mentally told myself, 'I am not a criminal,' and I kept repeating to myself, 'I am here, and I'm helping the community that I live in,'" he remembered. But things quickly got worse once Connor was taken to the local jail. Even after waiting in a cell several hours, police did not release Connor or others from their handcuffs though they were in pain. Connor, ever the nurse, was also desperate to help another protester who had been beaten with a Billy club and was having trouble breathing. When Connor called to the guards for help, they pulled him out of the cell. "I've got a special pair of cuffs for you," he remembered the sheriff 's deputy saying to him. The officer then cinched some new cuffs on him as tight as they would go. Back inside the cell, protesters confirmed to Connor that his hands were turning blue. "That's when I realized that the best thing I could do [for the injured man] was to keep my mouth shut and get us out of there as soon as possible," he said. Thirteen hours later, Connor and the other protesters were finally released. It took a few days for his hands, the same hands that saved CCUPIED DECEMBER 2011 W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11