Posted on 09/01/2004 1:34:13 AM PDT by conservative in nyc
THE POLICE
he Police Department faced its biggest test of the Republican National Convention yesterday, confronting a series of large, unannounced and sometimes unruly demonstrations with a massive show of force. The police arrested more than 900 people and mobilized to block roving groups from massing and moving toward Madison Square Garden.
As of late last night, the department's strategy seemed largely successful. The police appeared to focus mostly on protesters blocking traffic or otherwise breaking the law, letting alone those who chanted and jeered, including hundreds who formed a raucous and profane gantlet on West 33rd Street where Broadway and Avenue of the Americas intersect, heckling delegates as they were escorted to Madison Square Garden.
But about 200 members of one group, which sought to march without a permit from ground zero to Union Square and then to Madison Square Garden, were arrested despite abiding by a last-minute agreement they had worked out with the police to remain on the sidewalk.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, speaking at a news conference at Shea Stadium, said that the city welcomed those who wanted to express themselves but that no one would be permitted to do so at the cost of other people's liberties. "And anybody else that thinks that they're going to get a free ride here in New York City in breaking the law, they are sadly mistaken. We are going to enforce the law," he said. "And I would just advise anybody that thinks they're going to use any part of today to cause disruption, and to cause chaos, they should think again. They're going to be arrested instantly."
The department's most effective tool, aside from deploying massive numbers of officers, seemed to be the reactive use of barricades, both the linked metal barriers used to form stationary pens and the orange webbing stretched around people who were to be arrested.
Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said yesterday at a news conference that the department's ability to arrest the most unruly demonstrators also had an impact.
"I also want to note that many of those arrested are from out of town and are veterans of other demonstrations in cities with much smaller police departments," Mr. Kelly said. "In the past, a few got arrested and most got away after breaking laws. Here, they are being surprised by the fact that the opposite holds true."
The police also responded quickly to prevent small disruptions from growing. "I think the idea is to try to keep illegal marchers of the street and keep them contained, and if they want to chant that's fine, but if they take the street they'll arrested," said Paul J. Browne, the department's deputy commissioner for public information.
A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, whose office is prosecuting those arrested during convention-related protests, said that of the more than 500 arrests it had evaluated as of yesterday morning, the office had declined to prosecute in only one case. Those figures, however, did not include the arrests made at ground zero and elsewhere last night.
The NYPD has done a good job so far. The real test will likely come on Thursday.
Nail them good.
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