Topic: 1st Amendment
Paranoid police picked the wrong convention to model riot gear You know what the irony of all this caution at the DNC really is? They got the wrong convention! That's right. Think about it. Who got us into these unpopular wars? What party thinks that Might is Right? The Republican's of course.by Dave Stancliff
(libertarian)
Friday, August 29, 2008
By Dave Stancliff The warehouse-turned-temporary jail northeast of Denver never got used, as the Democratic National Convention (DNC) went it's course without the expected mass riots.Where were the hundreds-of- thousands of rabid protestors that the local police, FBI and Secret Service geared up for?
The police were dressed-up for the occasion in their best riot gear (looking a lot like soldiers from Star War's Evil Empire), but had to stand down and watch some college kids from Colorado State University lead a crowd of about 1000 (some reports had it at 500) along the heavily guarded streets the day before the convention started.
Reports on numbers of protestor's arrested throughout the convention vary, but none exceed 134 total. Thirty of those were released and not even charged. The protestors say they were attacked by an angry battalion of police officers as they assembled at a park near the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Denver.
The police say it wasn't like that. They had a "tip" that the protestors were going to disrupt some fund raising dinners at some local hotels just to ruin the big party that was going on at the DNC.
For the record, the protestors were booked at a county jail, not in the temporary jail built for processing hundreds-of-thousands of people as the authorities suspected.
So why, a reasonable person may ask, were the police so worried about violent mass protests? Were there verifiable reasons to build a chain link jail that could hold up to 600 prisoners at a time? Or, to be cruising around in armored personnel carriers? No.
I did hear, and read in the mainstream media, about some concern that there might be another Democratic Convention like the one in 1968. A group called "Recreate 68" was one of the reasons given for all the precautions. If memory serves, that's where the cops beat the daylights out of the demonstrators. "Recreate 68," did show up, but their members certainly didn't start a riot or attack the police. If anything, they were brave to walk past those riot-clan police with helmets who stood shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides of the street clutching weapons.
The police looked pretty silly when, CBS 4News reporter Rick Sallinger, found out about that warehouse-turned-temporary jail sporting razor wire along the top of the chain link cells inside. They did get rid of the razor wire afterwards. I'm not sure how desperate they thought their prisoners were going to be?
You know what the real irony of all this caution at the DNC really is? They got the wrong convention! That's right. Think about it. Who got us in these unpopular wars? What party thinks that Might is Right? The Republican's of course.
If the authorities want to be prepared for trouble then those in St. Paul and Minneapolis better have their temporary jails ready to go - with razor wire. Because if I was going to protest this war, it would be at the Republican National Convention (RNC), and not at the Democrat's shindig.
Think about it. If President Bush shows up they may need to have Delta Force to stop the enraged protestors! The real troubling thing is the assumption that there was going to be trouble on such a huge scale at the DNC in the first place. Based on what history? Something that happened forty years ago?
Now the Republicans on the other hand have a history. Just turn the clock back to the 2004 when the RNC was held in New York City. Over 1000 people were arrested there (a reported record at the time), and detained at Pier 57, a long concrete pier off the Hudson River.
For some perspective, the DNC in Boston of 2004, had only six arrests outside the convention center, according to The Washington Post. We're supposed to be talking about a free American exercise in politic discourse, not wondering why there was such massive security based upon rumors in Denver?
I know one thing, the police presence certainly intimidated a lot of people who might have planned on peaceful protests, but changed their minds because of the fear of ending up in that warehouse-turned-jail.
The only thing I can think of is that rumors carry a lot of weight with some people. If every time someone talks about protesting a political event the police's response is a show of overwhelming power then we might as well admit that we live in a police state.
As It Stands, authorities might want to consider (in their caution) the National Guard as part of their security team at the RNC, based upon it's history (not rumors), and the present discontent in this country.
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