F15 revisited

I wrote this on Feb 16th/17th, 2002 when I was very, very angry. Please forgive any grammatical errors.

Feb 16th:

Even journalists were arrested and injured during this fiasco.

What did I learn yesterday (Feb 15th)? Don't take small children to a peaceful peace rally in New York. I did not take my big children and I'm glad.

Stay as far away from the horses as you can.

Don't take your elderly parents for god's sakes!

Don't bring your video camera. I've changed my mind about this one. My brother has convinced me that I should - see the comments link at the top of this side of the page. Here are some tips (dead link) on videotaping police brutality at demonstrations. Read this even if you don't have a video camera. It's very enlightening regarding techniques used by Police Officers.

Dress very warmly in case you get arrested and are forced to sit for hours in the cold weather waiting to be processed. You may not want to drink much unless you have a strong bladder.

Remember this if the bombs do begin to drop and you try to make your way to Union Square in New York. Do it anyway, but be aware that you probably will not be able to get there.

I took lots of photo's. Most of them are of the Police. I did not take my video camera. Good thing. Many of those arrested happened to have video cameras. People with video cameras have a tendency to step into the street in order to film something. This was illegal. The only argument that I got into was with a police officer when I stepped into the street to photograph the thugs on horses.

We arrived at 3rd & 42nd shortly after 1:00 and were directed to walk north. Around the area of 51st - 53rd street, large groups of protestors from two directions converged trying to reach the rally. This included people walking from Grand Central Station and people walking from the station on Lexington which was eventually shut down. (Video of the resulting crowd here) A large number of people were corralled at Times Square. A count of 100,000 people? That may be the number that actually made it to 1st Avenue. If you count those on 2nd Avenue, 3rd Avenue and Lexington Avenue, and the large number of protestors attempting to make their way to the East side, a count of 400,000 or twice that many is more likely. It's hard to tell because we were kept apart .

Most of us were walking North, though the Police Department says that we "refused to walk North". Several people tried to go towards second Avenue. There were so many of us that we ended up in the street in spite of the fact that we were not allowed to march. We could barely move forward, but it was a friendly, non-violent and happy crowd shouting "Whose streets? Our Streets".

This didn't last. First, the police cleared the block between 51st and 52nd by creating "blue" barriers at 51st street and 53rd street using officers wearing riot gear. I assume that this is where the mounted police were able to get into the crowd. We were on the South East corner of 53rd St. We had already moved with my friend's two elderly parents to the sidewalk when the mounted police came through the crowd and forced the crowd onto the sidewalk. Naturally, there was not room for all of us on the sidewalk, but they kept pushing us back. The peaceful demonstration turned violent. Some people tried to push through the barriers and were arrested. People were trampled. We were being crushed. There were children there. Litlle stroller sized children. There were elderly people there. I'm not usually a vocal person, but I found myself screaming at them that there were children there (you can hear me in this video). We started to yell "Shame on you" to them (this is the part of the incident that the papers seemed to focus on).

The regular police officers (the ones not wearing riot gear or riding a horse) seemed as confused as we were. We were not allowed to move down the empty side street at first. I assume that they "unpenned" each block of "unruly animals" one by one in order to control the crowd. By the time we got out we were told to go down to 2nd Avenue, the avenue had already been cleared. My Mother, who had been on 56th Street was already on the Staten Island ferry going home.

Many protesters stayed behind, only to be attacked by thugs on horses again. I think the police moved to Lexington Avenue next and I believe that this is where many of the 300+ arrests occurred but there have been NO NEWS REPORTS of the non-violent sit-down demonstration that took place there. I thought that I heard frantic reports on WBAI from people on Lexington Avenue who were having the exact same experience that we had just emerged from (and boy were we all angry).

I also heard that they had to block off Times Square and corral people who were attempting to gather there. The subways had been shut down and anyone listening to WBAI knew that they were not going to make it to the rally.

When I walked up 42nd street, I found that they had blocked off 5th Avenue at the public library to keep people from going downtown, I presumed that this was to keep people from going towards Union Square where people traditionally gather. Reading further accounts, I have learned that not only were several arrests made at the library as people tried to get downtown, but the famous Bush head was crushed and destroyed by the police.

When I reached Times Square, it was indeed still completely shut down to people, again I presume to keep people from gathering together after the rally. There, once again, were our heroes - the mounted police, ready to protect us from ourselves.

As I entered the Port Authority I passed a snake march. The police were ignoring them at the time. I wonder how far they got?

Welcome to New York, all of you bus-loads and train-loads of people who have come to demonstrate. We hope that you did not bring your children or your elderly parents. We will do everything within our power to keep you from being able to gather together and express your solidarity.

Feb 17, 2003

Why use mounted police?

This incident was discussed on the Brian Lehrer on WNYC this morning at 10:00. I slept through it

It's been an interesting day. After laboring for the past 24 hours to get these links together (there are lots more, but I don't have any more energy today), it was actually suggested to me on a message board that all of this fuss was about demonstrators being angry about not being able to march (see the comments link at the very top of this side of the page to read some of this "discussion").

After pondering on that possibility, I started thinking about the MANY demonstrations (marches and rallys) that I have attended in Washington D.C. and in New York City over the years that I have been living on the East Coast (since 1969). Not once have I walked away enraged until this past Saturday. Not once have I seen an event even slightly bungled or mismanaged as this one was. Not once before have I seen police attack a CHILD or trample elderly people (or any people) with horses.

During my years in New York I witnessed many acts of brutality by police. When you are not there, it is easy to say "Oh, he must have done something to deserve it". I saw people attacked on Saturday for no reason at all except that they could not get onto the sidewalk due to the size of the crowd when the police told them to.

Yes, there were some anarchists there but they did not make up the majority of the terror struck crowd at 53rd and 3rd. There were people with babies and small children. There were elderly people. There were people in wheel chairs. There were innocent people walking home from Grand Central with their suitcases who got caught up in the melee. Most of these people came to the East Side of New York for the sole purpose of ATTENDING A RALLY, not to disrupt traffic or to disturb the neighborhood or to have an illegal march. I'm totally familiar with having my neighborhood disrupted by large crowds of people thanks to the Halloween parade held yearly in Greenwich Village where I spent most of my youth.

I also saw complaints about the cost to the city of the police action. There were suggestions that the organizers of the event be charged for this. The city decided how many police officers would be deployed, not the organizers.

In the meantime, I'v e been studying up on crowd control methods by reading some of the classroom manuals used to train police officers. As far as I can tell, there are at least two things that this group did wrong. First, they failed to inform us of what was expected of us and instead attacked us without warning. Secondly, they failed to provide a way for the crowd to walk away for around half an hour, which was something that many people attempted to do.

I frankly don't have any more time to argue with idiots because they will be determined to believe what they want to believe, regardless of how much videotape I am prepared to show them of actual incidents of police brutality and no matter how hard I try to convince them that most of us went there with the sole purpose of attending a rally. I am a patriotic, law abiding citizen of the United States. What happened in New York on Feb 15th is a disgrace. We can not allow this to continue.