Peaceful protests erupt into violence near Republican National Convention

Barricades, “ramming” scooters suddenly bring Poor People’s March to a halt

Utne.com

NEW YORK (Monday, August 30) — Between 5,000 and 10,000 activists who gathered at the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign rally at the United Nations yesterday were allowed to march through mid-Manhattan despite the lack of a permit, thanks to last minute deals brokered between the campaign’s organizers and the New York Police Department. But most had no idea what awaited them at the corner of 8th Avenue and 29th Street shortly before 8 p.m.

Just two blocks away from Madison Square Garden where the 2004 Republican National Convention was entering its first evening, the police suddenly split the parade in two with barricades and batons. Eyewitness reports confirmed that an undercover police officer in a scooter rammed his way into the throngs of protestors, driving as fast as 20 miles an hour, as the police were splitting the crowd, before being knocked off and beaten by an angry demonstrator. The Associated Press identified the instigator as detective William Sample. The detective was later hospitalized with head injuries that were not life threatening.


“What kind of person would ram into dozens of people in a scooter with a line of police behind him?” asked protestor Gonzalo Hereda afterwards in disbelief.

Police reacted to the melee by angrily shoving their barricade gates into the crowds to push them down 29th Street and up 8th Avenue, away from the skirmish. Despite holding media credentials in full view, this journalist and others packed into the crowd like sardines were bludgeoned by the barricades and forced to retreat an entire city block by police who were engaged in a profanity-laced tirade.

“They kept coming at us with barricades, knocking people down, and hitting them. They never told us what they were doing,” said Michael Duke, a local writer. “A lot of people found themselves jammed up against the barricades.”

A protestor named Keeley reported seeing a policeman with a moustache tackle a young woman who weighed no more than 100 pounds and pull her down by her backpack. Keeley said his wrist was hit repeatedly with a police baton.

“I’ve never seen such a large group of police in my life descend on one man,” said Claire McDonnell, referring to a man who tried escape from the barricades, just as she had done moments before.

“They were pushing us with Billy clubs into barricades and knocking us over, yelling ‘Get Out, Get Out!’” said Mariah Holding, who marched with a sign yesterday proclaiming, My Mom earns $5.15 an hour. My dad’s job was outsourced. We have no health care. “It was very scary, and I am so disappointed with my police department after things went so well on Sunday.”

Meanwhile, amidst the confusion, Mark, an organizer with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign yelled into his microphone asking people to disperse. He viewed the march as a success because “we were able to march without a permit from U.N. to 29th street.” Yet many, it seemed, had no idea that the march wouldn’t be allowed to continue by Madison Square Garden.

“I asked a policeman why this was happening after two days of peaceful protests, and even though he agreed with me he told me that our march was illegal,” said Megan Petersen.

Above all, confusion reigned. Stephen Foreback, a secret service agent, claimed witness reports that the fight had started between an activist on the left and an activist on the right, and that the police simply came in to stop the confrontation. “You couldn’t find a more professional force than NYPD,” he said afterwards. “They acted with restraint throughout these protests.”

Last night’s events all but shattered a tense, but peaceful coexistence between protestors and the NYPD, built on the strength of a successful and civil march by Madison Square Garden on Sunday which was attended by half a million activists.

Once the police locked their barricades in place and a shaky calm was restored, a young woman named Leah Alonzo was arrested for chalking the words “FREEDOM OF SPEECH” on the corner where the fight unfolded. Further up 8th Street a group of demonstrators lay down on the pavement to spell out “PEACE” for the view of the helicopters hovering overhead.

Though Sunday’s march was peaceful, the violence at the PPEHRC march was not unprecedented during the anti-RNC protests. Sunday evening a group of around 20 activists were walking around Times Square singing “ain’t no power like the power of the people” and other cheers. They were cornered while singing and three people, Greg Mac, Sarah Mosberg and an unidentified person were tackled and arrested. They were accused of blocking traffic in a pedestrian walkway, though people regularly crowd these walkways as they ready to go to the theater. Police arrested dozens after protestors confronted Republican delegates outside Broadway theatres.

“Sunday was basically just peaceful and joyous and beautiful and I was so happy,” Claire McDonnell summed up the different mood on the street after yesterday’s debacle. “I just came back from Argentina where there are protests all the time. I was scared of the political spirit in America (before Sunday’s peaceful demonstration). I saw all these people doing their own thing but marching together.”
Fast forward to yesterday evening.

“All of a sudden barricades came down in front us. People were separated from their friends, people were trapped, and I had no idea what to do. In 15 seconds everything went from being peaceful and joyous to terrifying.

“It was totally senseless how they barricaded off the last 200-500 people. If they’d waited literally three minutes, they could have put the whole barricade behind us.”

United for Peace and Justice

Today’s protestors are mature, artful and productive

Utne.com

NEW YORK — Crazed hooligans breaking windows, overturning cars and uprooting fire hydrants … Anarchists from the heartland bombing media vans … Street protestors harboring terrorists in their midst, threatening to unravel civil society!

These are scenes the Republican Party would love you to see on Fox News, heightening your state of panic and making you fear the throngs of youth who have taken to the streets like wild dogs this convention season.

But the United for Peace & Justice Coalition’s enormous march in Manhattan yesterday that kicked off the icy reception the Republican Party will receive at its convention in New York this week did little to feed the conservatives’ fire. Instead, hundreds of thousands of well-organized and peaceful activists stuck largely to their game plan as they left Union Square at noon, filed down 7th Avenue, and bypassed Madison Square Garden where the incumbents will re-nominate George W. Bush as the leader of the free world on Thursday, before returning to Union Square.


An organized, and potentially volatile sequel to the demonstrations never materialized in Central Park after the city denied protestors’ the use of the Great Lawn. By 6 p.m. New York’s famed urban park enjoyed the tranquility of a typical Sunday afternoon in the Big Apple. However, police did make dozens of arrests in a sudden and controversial sting operation in Times Square in the hours following the United for Peace & Justice march through lower Manhattan.

The march, itself, featured witty placards, emotional voices and sheer strength in numbers. Poignant and humorous signs included, “Bush did what Osama could not. He united the world against us” … “Dick Cheney before Cheney dicks you.” … “Draft the Bush twins” … “Would Jesus strike ‘preemptively?’ NO!” … “Republicans cause cancer” … “Halliburton Über Alles” … “Stop Mad Cowboy Disease” … “My Bush smells like shit,” hung above a Whole Foods Market … “Emissions Accomplished” with smokestack spewing out toxins … “We will NOT be silenced!” with a picture of the Statue of Liberty with a bag over her head and her arms tied, reminiscent of Abu Ghraib … a picture of Bush, saying, “I resign, or is it resume?” … even a sign proclaiming, “Partying on a Graveyard” with a martini drinking, top hat-wearing Republican elephant dancing on Ground Zero wreckage.

But acts of creative street theater stole the show, with creative expressions suggesting that America’s activist movement may have come of age.

Running helter-skelter down side streets perpendicular to the protest thoroughfare, the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army played a virtual game of freeze tag with journalists and photographers before suddenly retreating in chaotic fashion. They wore dirty green army fatigues, fake passes identifying them as Republican delegates to the convention and ridiculous clown paint on their faces.

“Our hero, Dubya, is in town for the Republican National Clown Convention, so we’ve got our credentials,” said Larry, a leader of the Clown Army. “We’re the Big Top delegation, from right between Kansas and Missouri. We’re ready. We’re just as big clowns as they are.”

Suddenly Larry moved out of character. “We’re trying to find different ways to express dissent in the public space, with satire and with irony. We’re trying to move in ways that are different and create a subculture, because I think it’s important to create a culture instead of just consuming it.”

On 34th Street after the march had passed Madison Square Garden, members of the Bond Street Theatre troupe appeared walking high on stilts, adorned in classy business suits and smoking huge cigars. Only the plastic snouts on their faces gave away their identities as greedy politicians.

Anti-Bush protestors and religious-right counter activists, alike, couldn’t help but laugh at their hilarious antics as Michael McGuigan revealed his cigar to be plastic and made in China. “What we’re aiming for is a strong visual impact, which is something that everyone can relate to right away,” said Joanna Sherman, artistic director of Bond Street Theatre. “If people are given a visual spectacle, they will latch onto it, unlike just words on paper,” echoed Megan Grey.

“The element of humor is a distinctly human thing and it helps you see things from another angle,” McGuigan summed it all up. “That sense of humor and ability to be creative is a way to solve the biggest problems in the world. We got a lot of problems, and no one is solving them very creatively.”

The activist parade route also featured its share of challenges for the protesters. But holding it all together was the cool and collected presence of Robert Baum. The United for Peace & Justice volunteer steered activists through the gauntlet, trying to keep them focused as they passed an epic string of hurdles when forced to turn onto 34th Street and head back to Union Square. Confronting an enormous police presence at Madison Square Garden, walking under a nerve-racking billboard of the hated, right-wing Fox News cable station and an intimidating “In God and Pres. Bush We Can Trust” placard held by several loud and boisterous “bible-thumping” activists threatened to derail what organizers had worked so hard for. But Baum encouraged nearly every one of the hundreds of thousands of protestors to ignore the right-wingers on 34th Street.

“It’s important that everybody understands that activists also do crowd control,” he said while coaxing several demonstrators yelling “Shame, shame!” at the top of their lungs to move on. “We’re concerned about safety and about getting our message out but also staying focused because what the person behind me is uttering is complete nonsense. If people were to bum rush this guy, that creates a situation, and it doesn’t accomplish anything.”