Suit filed over mass arrest during DNC

The Denver Post ^ | 21 Aug 2009 | Felisa Cardona

[BGHater]

Eight people who were arrested on the second day of the Democratic National Convention during a mass protest filed a lawsuit against the City and County of Denver last night alleging wrongful arrest.

The plaintiffs who filed their case in Denver District Court - are represented by lawyers for the ACLU of Colorado and include a legal observer for the People's Law Project, a journalist, students documenting the protest and onlookers along 15th Street and Cleveland Place on Aug. 25.

In addition, the lawsuit is seeking class-action status for nearly 100 people who were held at a special jail, dubbed "Gitmo on the Platte" and claim they were denied access to attorneys who came to provide advice.

Denver police have said they were trying to control the crowd moving from Civic Center. The officers testified in court that they had intelligence that anarchists planned to gather in the park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses. The activists had posted that plan on a publicly available website.

"With regard to policing protest during the DNC, Denver police sometimes got it very right, for which they deserve credit," said Mark Silverstein,ACLU Legal Director. "On this evening, however, Denver police got it wrong, very wrong. Although Denver often allows street marches to proceed without the required permit, the police chose to crack down on this one. But police failed to distinguish between street marchers and others who were participating or merely observing from the sidewalks, where they had a legal right to be. If there is a case where a large and potentially raucous public gathering threatens to get out of hand, police can issue orders to disperse and clear the area, but no such order was issued that night."

Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.

Silverstein said that of the 54 persons who did not accept an immediate plea bargain for their charges, at least 38 were exonerated after jury trials or after prosecutors dismissed charges.

Denver police shoot pepper spray at a group gathered for a DNC protest in downtown Denver on Monday, August 25, 2008. More than a hundred protesters were arrested on this night.

[BGHater]

'Silverstein said that of the 54 persons who did not accept an immediate plea bargain for their charges, at least 38 were exonerated after jury trials or after prosecutors dismissed charges.'

Awesome.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

Arrest count tops 150 for Democratic National Convention
Boulder protesters ‘exhausted,’ satisfied by DNC

By Heath Urie (Contact)
Friday, August 29, 2008

Boulder residents who organized protest groups this week at the Democratic National Convention in Denver said the year-long planning and grueling week on the streets were well worth the effort.

“The response was great,” said Duke Austin, a 33-year-old University of Colorado Ph.D. student who led the group Students for Peace and Justice.

The group began the week with a protest on the 16th Street Mall, called “Funk the War.”

“We filled 16th Street with music and dance,” Austin said. “This is what we want the world to look like.”

Austin, whose group teamed up with alternative band Rage Against the Machine and marched four miles from the Denver Coliseum to the Pepsi Center on Wednesday, said more people joined in the peaceful protest than even he expected. Several thousand people marched.

“About 1,000 people chose to go up to the Pepsi Center, where we did not have permission to be,” he said.

The group was briefly surrounded by police in riot gear, Austin said, until a representative of Barack Obama’s campaign agreed to speak with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War — the group leading the march....snip

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/aug/29/arrest-count-tops-150/

[cardinal4]

Duke Austin, a 33-year-old University of Colorado Ph.D. student ... “We filled 16th Street with music and dance,” Austin said. “This is what we want the world to look like.”

What is a Ph.D worth these days, anyway?

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

An Interview with the Recreate ‘68
http://inthemiddleofthewhirlwind.wordpress.com/an-interview-with-the-recreate-%E2%80%9868/

[oh8eleven]

For this guy - nothing.
Guaranteed no one hires him and he'll end up in some foreign country protesting America.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

““We filled 16th Street with music and dance,” Austin said. “This is what we want the world to look like.””

Two brain cells are endlessly pinballin’ around in his empty skull!

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

I was home only a few weeks before the 68 DNC convention, barely long enough to have finally gotten the red from Quan Loi laterite out of my skin......all of us who went through Camp Alpha to the Bird were issued a copy of “Masters of Deceit”.....Westy had bought all existing copies from the publisher and issued them along with a letter describing what was happening at home (Cronkite, among other things and creatures) since it had become such a different place than a year earlier. The rest is now history.....

excerpt from Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It, by J. Edgar Hoover, 1958
http://www.zpub.com/notes/masters.html

[oh8eleven]

I was home only a few weeks before the 68 DNC convention
Me too - a few months prior MLK and RK were assassinated, cities were still burning, the Dems and hippies destroyed each other in Chi-town,
the Olympics (w/ black gloved hands) were on in Mexico, plus I got married, then reported to LeJeune.
Yes sireeee - August '68, one hell of a month.