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To: fivetoes
I called the office of the Ft. Collins Chief of Police to tell them I was really PO-ed about the fact they let these people block this major street for 2 hours and get away scot free. (I know people who were driving by around 8:05AM who got stuck for a long time, so it didn't just start at 8:30 like the paper said) The Chief himself called me back a few minutes later to give me his side of the story. They had a group of police up at the CSU Oval - 3/4 mi. north of there - monitoring a larger gathering. This was the only gathering the police had been told about. They were expecting that group to head north towards Old Town and perhaps even for some rumored civil disobedience.

Meanwhile the protestors had secretly planned all along to send a smaller group of 30 to 50 down to Prospect. After the police found out about the second group blocking the street, it took a long time to get their men redeployed. And because of the proximity of a number of small businesses - including especially restaurants - next to the protestors, they decided to not use tear gas because of the disruption to the businesses, food contamination, etc. The ruling out of teargas meant they had to have more officers in order to do a large number of "one on one" arrests. By the time they got all these in place and were ready to give the ultimatum (don't know what time this was), the protestors negotiated a ceasefire and agreed to leave by 10AM.

He said there will be followup action. They videotaped all of the actual "C.D." people and will be taking the tapes to the DA to see if they can ID people and issue them tickets for blocking the street. And they'll share them with the CSU Police Dept and urge them to take some kind of disciplinary action with those students who can be positively ID-ed. Also, there has been a meeting set up between the police chief and the more radical leaders of the protestors, and he will make it clear to them that they can't get away with this and that there definitely will be arrests if they keep pulling this. (He also mentioned that some of the disruptors said they WANTED to be arrested, and he said he'll be happy to accomodate them next time).

18 posted on 03/26/2003 8:36:28 AM PST by CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC
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To: CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC
He also mentioned that some of the disruptors said they WANTED to be arrested

They need to have fines to pay before being released. Let them have to stay locked up until their moms and dads have to come down and pay to get them out. Their parents should be made to pay for all damages they've done, all the police time they used up. If any are on welfare then that should be cut off.

23 posted on 03/26/2003 11:26:05 AM PST by FITZ
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