After action report for Denver Freep

Nine News Denver ^ | March 20, 2005 | Jenny Hatch

[Jenny Hatch]

The Denver Freep yesterdat was one of the most interesting experiences of my life.

I organized it just a few days before, and with the Fort Collins Freep so well planned, not too many Freepers came. I was alone for most of the hour I demonstrated.

I had brought two UN Flags. One I had cut up and made UN toilet Paper rolls and handkerchiefs, and the other I desecrated with my boots before the rally with dirt from my raspberry patch.

When I showed up, I set up right at the foot of the Capitol steps in Denver. I pulled out my dirty UN flag, stood on it and just held my American Flag and the poster I had put together with various and sundry signs and protest warrior slogans.

Immediately this man came up to me and started to try to engage me in a conversation. I said about twenty times, "I did not come here to talk to you". He kept persisting, and finally threw up his hands and walked over to a group of people to ask them to come "talk" to me.

They told him to leave me alone. Then he came back and again got right in my face, asking me questions, pointing to things on my poster and commenting, and I mostly just ignored him.

One of the guys he had asked to harrass me came over and again told him to leave me alone. He ignored him, but this guy stayed next to me. In a protective stance.

Then additional people came over to "talk" to me, and I was feeling increasingly unsafe. I just about decided it was time to leave, being the only Freeper in sight, and the tone and rhetoric of the protest increasing markedly.

Then a remarkable thing happened. All four of the other people with this man came over to stand in a circle around me so that I could continue my counter demonstration.

Two women and three men. They just stood, and with their bodies and sometimes with words, they fended off the verbal assaults. I think they could feel that the chance of me getting hit had just skyrocketed and although they had come to support the goals of the rally, they felt it was more important to defend me.

Because they did this, I was able to do some street theatre of my own. The man who initially got in my face asked me a question about the United Nations, then he told me he was offended that I was standing on the UN flag.

I told him that I liked using it as a doormat and that I had a few other uses for it. I pulled out the two toilet paper rolls which I had made up with strips of the UN flag, and asked him if he was in need of some toilet paper. Then I pulled out a square section of the flag, and loudly blew my nose into it.

I wish I had been able to take a picture of his face at that moment.

I never would have had the courage to do it without those five people protecting my back.

I stayed for a little while longer, and then asked these five people to accompany me back to my car, which was all the way on the other side of the park.

They agreed to do so, and when we got to my car, a nine news reporter was standing right next to it talking to another Freeper and his mother (who until that moment, I did not know was demonstrating) and ironically, the guy who had been so vocal to me.

I asked the reporter if he wanted to do a story on what had happened, and he said yes. So he interviewed all of us, and it showed up on the afternoon report yesterday. I didn't watch it live, but found it on the internet.

If you want to read his report go here...

http://9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=bd34545e-0abe-421a-01be-891791f54ed7&TEMPLATEID=5991da4c-ac1f-02d8-0055-99a54930515e

And if you want to watch the video he put together of what happened, just click on the video link.

I was pleased with how he reported it, and am grateful to have made it home all in one piece.

Jenny Hatch

[Enterprise]

Big grin here. Good job!

[mdittmar]

Thank you.

[maestro]

.....thanks for 'being there'.

...Immediately this man came up to me and started to try to engage me in a conversation. I said about twenty times, "I did not come here to talk to you"....

:-)

.....your 'presence' said a lot!!!

'Standing for 'Freedom' counts too'!!!

:-)

Thanks again!