Posted on 08/31/2004 11:24:00 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
series of demonstrations rippled across Manhattan last night when protesters tried to converge on the Republican National Convention, as a day of planned civil disobedience erupted into clashes with police officers and led to the arrest of more than 900 people.
The wave of confrontations - which included a brawl with the police at the New York Public Library, marauding crowds cursing at delegates in Midtown and the detention of hundreds of protesters near ground zero - created a day of disorder in a convention week already marked by sustained protests against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
Yesterday's incidents stood in contrast to the enormous, mostly orderly antiwar march that drew hundreds of thousands of people to Manhattan on Sunday. Many of those protesting yesterday had purposefully avoided seeking permits for their rallies but had publicized their plans well in advance, leading hordes of police officers in cars, bikes, scooters and vans to flood various parts of the city primed to pre-empt disorder before it could occur. The day's arrests brought the convention-related total to more than 1,460.
The protesters gathered at various locations, many with the goal of descending on the convention site at Madison Square Garden. But at the various staging areas - near ground zero, in Union Square, in Herald Square near Macy's, and outside the New York Public Library - the police began making arrests, sending the crowds into a frenzy. These confrontations followed several other events, some of which went off without incident, and the police said their aggressive actions prevented even more widespread disruptions.
"Today a number of anti-R.N.C. activities failed to materialize, including a takeover of the lobby of the Warwick Hotel, perhaps because of the police presence there," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told reporters at an early evening news conference.
Protesters and civil liberties lawyers expressed concerns over what they said had been unfair and overzealous tactics in dealing with demonstrators who may not have had permits but were not violent.
"It's an example of the police suckering the protesters," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to the arrest of some 200 protesters who said they thought they were abiding by an agreement they had negotiated with the police as they marched from ground zero on Fulton Street.
"It was a bait-and-switch tactic," she added, "where they approved a demonstration and the protesters kept up their end of the bargain. They undermined people's confidence in the police, and that's a serious problem as we go forward."
The day, loosely organized by an anarchist collective called the A31 Action Coalition, began slowly, with highly anticipated events proving less than fractious. Indeed, the cat-and-mouse between the protesters and the police started early.
Responding to word that anarchists planned to somehow disrupt the morning's trading, hundreds of police officers flooded the blocks surrounding the New York Stock Exchange before 8 a.m.
Roughly an hour later, dozens of officers responded to an obscure corner near the exchange at South William Street and Mill Lane, where protesters had stretched a ball of yarn across the street.
Within minutes, 14 young people sat handcuffed and seated with their backs to a wall near the short pedestrian mall, surrounded by three or four times as many police officers. Several balls of red and yellow yarn were strewn about the street, and a boom box sat nearby with a sign on a bedsheet reading "Celebrate the Power of Money." One of the protesters wore a pinstriped suit and a beret.
Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said of the protesters, "A lot of them are from out of town, and I think it was reflected in the choice of intersections."
But the protests gained intensity throughout the day, and by late afternoon, the tenor had clearly changed as the police appeared to adjust their tactics to deal with the spontaneous eruptions throughout the city and the crowds of demonstrators grew increasingly volatile as the arrests mounted.
Indeed, the turning point appeared to come as several hundred protesters with the War Resisters League tried to begin a march up Fulton Street that organizers had negotiated with police, although they did not have a permit.
Ed Hedemann, one of the organizers, said their understanding was that if they stayed on the sidewalk and did not block foot traffic or vehicles, they could proceed toward Madison Square Garden.
But within minutes, the protesters were confronted by a line of police officers who told demonstrators they were blocking the sidewalk and would be arrested, although they did not appear to be blocking pedestrian traffic at that point.
A commanding officer, telling the crowd of about 200 "you're all under arrest," ordered other officers to bring the "prison van" and the "orange netting" with which to enmesh the protesters.
"We don't know why we are being arrested, we were just crossing the street," said Lambert Rochfort, who was among the protesters. "We were told if we don't do anything illegal we would be allowed to march on the sidewalk and we did just that. Then they arrested us for no apparent reason."
Later in the afternoon, a clash erupted on the steps of the New York Public Library after two women tried to hang a protest banner over one of the lions atop the library steps. After the police pinned the women to the ground, a crowd of protesters struggled with police, answering requests to move with chants of "Oink, oink, oink."
People coming off the subways were thrown to the ground and the steps of the library were left littered with chairs and debris.
As protesters converged on Herald Square in the evening, the police tried to contain the increasingly raucous crowds. Hundreds of protesters seemed to get too close to the buses of delegates and the crowd became unruly as the police moved in metal barricades and used scooters to try to push the crowd back.
Those who would not move were arrested, and each time the police moved in to make an arrest, they were swarmed by protesters.
The demonstrators at Herald Square, frustrated by their lack of ability to move closer to Madison Square Garden, began breaking off in clusters of hundreds or so and storming the streets and avenues in Midtown, throwing cones and other objects at cars and windows as they ran.
As police drew close, they tried to scatter. Police tackled them in streets, corners and in front of stores. Innocent bystanders were also caught up in the maelstrom.
In one instance, about 200 people broke away from the larger group in a chase that went all the way from 33rd Street and Broadway to 27th Street and Park Avenue, before being tackled by police. At 27th Street and Madison Avenue, protesters set fire to a large pile of trash near the Carlton Hotel as delegates and other guests made their way to the convention.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Randal C. Archibold , Michael Wilson, Mary Spicuzza, William K. Rashbaum and Colin Moynihan.
In town, out of town, uptown, downtown, no matter: maggots all.
The smell of patchouli and sweat must be nearly overpowering.
Stay Strong,
Fuzzy122
Well isn't that special? These dirty hippies are setting fires, disobeying direct orders from the police, marching without a permit, and otherwise being lawless.
900 arrests is a good start, but not good enough.
I just hope they don't let these lawless DNC schrills out of jail so quickly so that they can go and disrupt again.
Just paste the following into your post, replacing parenthesis with "less than" or "greater than" (shift+"," or shift+"." Had to do that to get it to display):
(a href="http://www.wccta.net/gallery/fwr/hipcrap.mp3")(img border=0 src="http://img38.exs.cx/img38/9528/cartman3.jpg")(/a)
Damn! I liked the other idiotic writer for the Slimes much better than this guy...least the other guy made the protesters look bad!
Poor innocent peaceful protestors being oppressed by capitalist pigs.
The bias of this left-wing tabloid is simply amazing.
Yeah, I guess the cops took offense to these nutcases going "oink, oink, oink" when the police asked protestors to move. Never mind the NYCLU lawyer who saw who the protestor was who attacked the cop, but refused to tell police who it was.
I'm not quite to precise. I keep thinking, "FN MAG 58 with 1000 round link belt"...
'Oink, oink, oink'? OINK, OINK, OINK?! Yeah, that worked for them soooo well in the '60s I guess they wanted to reprise the epithet. I see it worked just as well today. Right. Losers then, losers now.
When will Kerry bring his soldiers home?
I need to find a home for the headstamp logo as I'm not sure weatherby will let me keep "borrowing" their jpeg.......:o)
Use this link from henceforth, and you'll never have to worry:
http://www.joebrower.com/PHILE_PILE/PIX/RKBA_TOOLS/460WbtMag_headstamp.gif
A Ruger No. 1, eh? I have a buddy with one of the stainless models with the silverwood laminated stock. A work of art. Kicks like a mule, though! The .460 must really fatten the ol' lip once in a while!
My little Brother a PJ stationed down in Florida shot it when he visited last. He's had rotator cuff and back problesm since .....:o) In all honesty I don't think my little pea shooter ruined him I think it is hard living and a lot of sudden stops that pararescue imposed on him but no doubt the Ruger Number 1 did smack him a bit. I also have a stainless # 1 in 45-70. Very pretty rig . I added a NECG # 100 Peep sight after I replaced my grip cap with one from brownells. The peep rides in the grip cap as a spare sight as the Warne QD lever bases on a 1-5X Leaupold makes it a fine hunting rifle. Experiments with garretts 45-70 hammerheads on going.........without little brother.
Stay safe ! and again.......thanks very much !
All of this silliness would stop if unruly demonstrators were given jail time. But in most places it's an unspoken rule to simply arrest them and then let them go once they are away from the scene. Most police and prosecutors don't want to spend the time and resources dealing with it.
I've got no problem with demonstrators, even very vocal demonstrators, so long as they behave. But when they start threatening or assaulting people and damaging property that's over the line. If they got 60 days in jail (six months for those who were threatening to other people), this would all stop rather quickly.
At heart, the bad apples are all selfish cowards who don't want to risk any real "hard time."
I know quite a few cops in NYC. None of them are too pleased about having to deal with these yahoo. I, for one, really would not like to get them PO's at me. Yesm the NYPD has its Democrat civil servant union baggage, but they are in some respects still "Reagan Democrats." They certainly have nothing in common with that bunch.
Code Pink wacko Medea Benjamin has been caught and released at least twice. As a repeat offender, you'd think they'd hold off on having an arraignment as long as possible the SECOND time she was arrested (keeping her detained). I just don't get it sometimes.
Just as predicted, they let the protesters right back out of jail, and on top of that fine the city for holding them!
Judge orders 470 GOP protesters released
AP ^ | 9/2/2004, 6:47 p.m. ET | SARA KUGLER
Posted on 09/02/2004 2:18:39 PM PDT by max_rpf
NEW YORK (AP) — A judge ordered the immediate release of nearly 500 protesters just hours before President Bush was to speak Thursday night at the Republican National Convention, then fined the city for refusing to comply with his order.
State Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo fined the city $1,000 for every protester held past a 5 p.m. deadline that he had set for their release. It was unclear how many detainees were still in custody, but Cataldo had ordered the release of 470 people.
"These people have already been the victims of a process," state Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo told the city's top lawyer. "I can no longer accept your statement that you are trying to comply."
The detainees had been in custody for anywhere from 36 to 66 hours. The decision was immediately hailed by attorneys for the demonstrators.
"They have to release them right now," said veteran civil rights attorney Norman Siegel. "The judge, to his credit, said, `Enough.'"
At a later hearing, Cataldo determined the city failed to comply with his release order and imposed his sanctions. City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo tried in vain to convince the judge that the city was trying desperately to comply with his wishes.
"We can't just open the jails of the city of New York and let everybody out," Cardozo said. "We're not trying to flout your honor's order. ... We're doing everything humanly possible."
The city had blamed the sheer volume of detainees for the backlog in getting them released. More than 1,700 protesters have been arrested during the convention and the preceding few days — nearly 1,200 of them on Tuesday during a long-planned day of mass civil disobedience.
The judge's order came less than six hours before Bush was to accept his party's nomination for a second term in a speech at Madison Square Garden. Police were expecting protests coinciding with the speech.
About 50 of the detainees had launched a hunger strike Thursday to protest their extended time behind bars while awaiting arraignment. They were turning down the sandwiches and milk served three times a day in central booking until everyone was freed.
On Thursday, New York commuters were greeted at Grand Central Station by about 100 demonstrators unfurling banners and releasing colorful balloons urging President Bush to do more in the fight against AIDS. There were 26 arrests.
United for Peace and Justice, the group that sponsored the huge pre-convention rally Sunday that drew more than 120,000 people and possibly many thousands more to Manhattan, planned an evening rally at Union Square. Sunday's protest was the largest ever at a U.S. political convention.
•__
Associated Press writer Samuel Maull contributed to this report
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