Posted on Tue, Aug. 31, 2004
Some protesters get ugly with GOP delegates
Angry demonstrators and planned campaigns of harassment greet some Republicans out on the town in New York.
BY RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
New York Times
NEW YORK - Outside a hotel in Times Square, delegates to the Republican National Convention were swarmed by protesters dressed in black and swearing at them. Blocks away, delegates engaged in shoving matches with protesters seeking to spoil their night at the theater. And outside "The Lion King" on 42nd Street, a delegate was punched by a protester who ran by.
Although the organized protests Sunday and Monday have been largely peaceful, there has been a starkly different tone to smaller incidents in Midtown and elsewhere: angry encounters and planned harassment of convention delegates as they go out on the town.
Sometimes the delegates answer back in toe-to-toe, finger-pointing shouting matches. Other times the police, who are guarding delegate gatherings, have dispersed protesters, who move on to other locations to taunt other delegates.
Because platoons of heavily armed police are guarding the convention site at Madison Square Garden, anarchists and other radicals are carrying out a coordinated plan to strike out at delegates at their hotels, breakfasts, parties, and on the streets.
The incidents are the result of months of planning by opposition groups, who report that they have obtained copies of plans and addresses for delegates' parties, caucuses and other functions outside the convention site.
The harassment of delegates has been occurring as organized protests continue to draw thousands of people daily. The Still We Rise march by advocates for social issues was peaceful, and a Poor People's March, a column several blocks long, proceeded from the United Nations to Madison Square Garden on Monday after the police decided to let it proceed even though organizers had not obtained a permit.
The police are bracing for another round of unsanctioned demonstrations today, which protesters have designated a day of "nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action."
Monday, Jamie Moran, who lives in Brooklyn, describes himself as an anarchist and helps direct the RNCnotwelcome.org Web site, was roaming Times Square with a band of protesters shouting at delegates. "These people are in a bubble," he said. "This is absolutely better than standing outside the Garden and shouting to let them know they are not welcome here."
The Rev. Lou Sheldon, a delegate from Anaheim, Calif., said he was greeted by protesters outside the Marriott Marquis Hotel when he arrived Sunday night.
"They started screaming and yelling, 'Shame, shame, shame,' " he said.
"It's disgusting. You spend X number of hundreds of dollars to come here, and you have to put up with this."
Why won't the GOP reward a "red" City with the convention? Aside from San Diego in 1996, they always hold them in enemy territory.