Thursday, October 28, 2004

The woman on the ground appeared to be very frightened. It appeared that she just wanted to leave, and was arrested for trying to. (The cops threatened us with arrest if we tried to leave.) The woman on the left is trying to tell the cops that the woman on the ground has a bad back.

Here, the cops deal with the woman who was trying to help the first one on the ground. Another person is observing what the cops are doing. In the background, on the right, you can see the Marine and the soldier in fatigues. The one in fatigues had been doing a dance & making faces at us, trying to provoke us, apparently, into doing something. You can see that the Bush supporters are allowed to walk across the street, to the island dividing the lanes, and eventually right up to us, with no repercussions from the police. (The woman on the ground was arrested for stepping off of the sidewalk.)

Here, you can see the Bush supporters in the street. We were forced to stand on the sidewalk and not allowed to leave, under threat of arrest, while the mob came at us. You can also see that the Marine has switched from possible action against us, to crowd control (or he was leaving, I'm not sure.)

One View:
"We had, once again, a protest at the Bush visit. 1) The first time, we were allowed to protest along the motorcade route, visible to him, and our protest covered a full block. . This time, police herded us a block away, and confined us to a half-block area, threatening to arrest anyone who stepped over the line (unless they were Bush supporters). One woman who tried to remain on the route was arrested, as was one woman who stepped over the line,. This was the focus of the first complaint we made later to the Asst. Chief of Police. 2) The first time, police had a line of police cars and officers keeping protestors on one side of the street and Bush supporters on the other side. This time, police withdrew to both ends of the block, withdrawing all security from the area where they had confined the protest--no officers, no police cars (the second complaint made to the Asst. Chief of Police). When the Bush supporters, fired up by Republican organizers, came out, they were angry that we were protesting 'their' President, and a large crowd of them advanced across the street, unimpeded by police, and surrounded us--about a 10 to 1 ratio in size. Leaving wasn't an option--that meant wading through a crowd of angry Republicans. A soldier and a marine sort of acted as cheerleaders along with the Republican organizers, until it became obvious the Bushies were close to getting out of control--then, suddenly, the two turned around and began engaging in crowd control, which may have prevented things from getting much worse. TV footage shows protestors with very worried looks, and it was a very scary situation. The police seemed to wait until it was clear the crowd wasn't going to attack us after all, and then a single officer came in between the two groups, assisting the soldier and Marine. Slowly, he was joined by other officers, they moved the Bushies back, and police cars were brought in to be lined up between the two groups--as should have been done initially, and had been done last time. At this, the Bush mob finally began to disperse, departing with further yelling. Three of us then proceeded to the police department to lodge a formal complaint regarding police conduct at the event. We were told that protestors has been herded and confined at the order of 'FBI and Secret Service.' No explanation for the security stripping."
 

Another View:
"We were on Washington Ave, not interfering with anything or anyone, and the cops ordered us to walk across the street. When we got there, they ordered us to walk back to the first corner. Then they ordered us to walk toward the event center. Some of us wanted to leave, to go home. One older lady was getting scared of the cops. They told her that she could not leave, could not go home. The cops told us that anyone who tried to leave would be arrested. We were all herded onto the sidewalk on Johnson St., across from the event center. Some people were getting freaked, because the cops wouldn't let us leave. The lady who got arrested, I think, wanted to leave. The cops kept telling her to stay on the sidewalk, but she didn't want to be there. She's been charged with 'inciting to riot', a federal offence, but all she wanted to do was to leave. There were, maybe, a couple of dozen of us protesting by that time. We were kept there, against our will, by many cops. When the republicans started leaving the building, they were allowed to walk into the street (which is what the lady got arrested for), to surround us (there were many, many more of them), and to taunt us (including the marines who were there. They were taunting us, like they were trying to provoke a fight). While the bush supporters were surrounding us, the cops were leaving. They were NOT protecting us. The cops only came back much later, when it was clear that there would be no riot/ street fighting. We were then allowed to leave.

This is the kind of stuff that's been going on all over the country - bush is not allowed to see protestors of any kind, people are arrested/ tear gassed/ shot/ beat up by the cops on trumped up charges. People are held against their will. If you saw the video of the woman in the flag getting arrested on TV, you saw her just standing there... what you don't hear is the cops ordering her to move closer to the event center, and the woman asking the cops which law it is that says she can't stay where she is... THAT is when, on the videotape, 3 cops rush to surround her, and she is handcuffed. The cops were not 'protecting us'. They were under orders to make sure that bush would not see any protestors."