Member statement accompanying this video.
My daughter and I left our unit during the noon hour, escaping while the picketers were away. We ran errands, and then picked up both my older daughter and my husband from work before coming home at about 2:30pm. As we drove from 95th St., the guy with the megaphone earlier was crossing the street to their rental van with a folding lawn chair when he saw me coming. He immediately changed directions to stand in the driveway of the parking lot to block me, as more picketers began making their way over.
I pulled over in front of the townhouse parking spaces to allow my family to get out and unload the van. Seeing that I would be a while, the guy with the lawn chair went to the van to put it away, and then returned to the driveway with an umbrella.
After the van was unloaded, I continued on to the outdoor parking lot driveway. By this time, there were at least 6 picketers blocking the driveway, with more on the way. (There were a total of 9 picketers blocking me by the time I was allowed through.)
Again, I was stopped at the sidewalk, which meant I was blocking the road. I simply waited and tried to ignore them as much as possible. They were calling things out, but I could only hear bits and pieces of what they were saying, though I could tell they were once again mocking me. Someone has apparently tried to tell them my name; I say “apparently” because they got it wrong. I could hear them making comments about how I have nicknames for all of them (we do have nicknames for 2 of them; my daughter came up with Captain McCreepypants for the guy that has been peeping into the front lobby and stalking people, and I refer to a woman as the Turn off the Camera lady, as she is the one who kept telling me to turn off my camera, and that they “might” let me through if I did). I could hear bits and pieces of them trying to blame SAIL for their behaviour, including the peeper guy saying that this was “SAIL keeping you hostage.” They made other derogatory comments about SAIL throughout, though I could not hear much of it. My older daughter came over and waited for me.
As I was waiting, a vehicle came out of the underground parking, wanting to turn right (towards me). They began to laugh and jeer again. When I did not move forward because they were still in front of me (some of them backing up beyond the 4 ft easement again), I could tell they were mocking me about not moving forward, with some sort of reference to this morning. The vehicle in the underground parking driveway adjusted angles, and it appeared to me that he wanted to get in front of me. At the same time, the security staff moved the red SUV for me, as they know how difficult it is for me to get into my parking spot. I then backed up to allow the vehicle by, and to readjust my own angle so I could better enter my parking spot. As soon as I started backing up, the picketers increased their volume in jeering me. As I and the other vehicle adjusted ourselves, it became clear that the other drive wanted to get into the above ground parking.
They let him through. Once he was clear, I again turned my vehicle towards the driveway, as they moved back to block me. It was about this time that we could see W____’s car coming from the back lane and the picketers starting calling out to each other about him, saying not to let him in. I was still blocking the road, so W____ could not get past me. He ended up having to turn around in the underground parking driveways. As this was happening, I could hear a picketer say that they should re-start the count because I had backed out.
Just behind W___, an ETS vehicle came to the front of the high rise. In the parking lot, the vehicle that they allowed through found a parking spot, and another vehicle came around, trying to leave. The picketers continued to laugh and jeer about the forming traffic jam before Turn Off the Camera lady, who seems to be keeping track on her phone, called time and they finally moved. I was blocked for about 6 minutes in total.
On the plus side, because I was able to re-adjust to a better angle, I was able to enter properly into the driveway and park without difficulty.
As I left the van, my daughter commented that the picketers seem to think that I can hear everything they are saying, then added that it was probably a good thing I couldn’t. Apparently, they were saying quite a few unpleasant things about me.
As we walked to our unit, several shouted after us, particularly peeper guy. We tried to ignore them, but could still tell that he was trying to make us think their behaviour was the fault of SAIL.
What struck me about today were their overall attitudes. This morning, when they blocked me; the group was extremely dour and angry looking, though quiet (at least until their actions resulted in my blocking ETS, at which point they angrily tried to place blame on me). This afternoon, it was more of a party atmosphere, and they were clearly having a lot of fun insulting me and SAIL, and took great pleasure in how many people they were inconveniencing. I am also struck by how easily they lie about SAIL and their own actions, clearly expecting me to not be informed enough to know they are not telling the truth.
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