How NYPD Blocked Anti-Bush Protest at 2004 Convention
| Thu Feb. 8, 2007 9:46 AM PST
The New York Civil Liberties Union has released documents showing the NYPD deliberately set out to quash protests at the 2004 Republican National convention in New York with a plan to arrest and jail protesters. More than 1800 people were arrested during the four-day convention. Since the NYPD was acting in tandem with federal law enforcement officials, such as Secret Service and FBI to name but two, this then raises the question whether the Bush Administration itself actually ordered the smack down,or knew about it in advance.
"The NYPD documents indicate that as early as May 2004, the Department planned to arrest protestors at the August convention as opposed to issuing summonses. The NYCLU says as a result people were jailed for as long as three days," reports WNYC, the New York radio station. You got to a judge in New York faster during the convention than you would have had you robbed a bank.
The documents show the cops themselves agreed with the protestors in that 40 officers filed occupational health forms complaining about environmental conditions at the 57th Street pier, a former MTA bus depot, that served as a holding and processing facility. The officers said they were exposed to asbestos, carbon monoxide, sludge, oil, fumes and toxic materials.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office is investigating the situation as is the Justice Department, but these have the earmarks of superficial pro forma paper shuffling exercises. The city says the makeshift jail was adequate.
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Comments
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Thu Feb. 8, 2007 10:21 AM PST.
This sort of crackdown has been the biggest concern of grassroots Minneapolis Democrats with the next GOP convention coming to the Twin Cities. This has been a far bigger concern than even the traffic jams from the sudden doubling of the GOP population. I assume Democrats in St. Paul have the same concerns, especially since the actual convention site, as opposed to the hotels and party sites, is in St. Paul. Our city governments have tried to address it, but we're nervous about what the feds will do. I suspect when we can find out what really happened in NYC, it will turn out the NYPD was following federal orders.
Very funny cboas, you have grasped the mentality of the "American Fascists' that Chris Hedges was talking about in his book. "If you love freedom then you must hate America" is the right wing Mantra. Guiliani started this crap, now he wants to be president.
Letter from occupied New York a Salon article describes Benito Giuliani's actions. A fascist for once did not make the trains run on time. He stopped subways runs from bringing students from out of town schools to Broadway and Wall street for the protest.
"In March 1995, a wall of cops surrounded City Hall, with horses, scooters, nightsticks, riot gear, barricades and Mace, to keep 20,000 high school and college students from marching on Wall Street." said John Leonard in Salon.
Giuliani is the worst person in the world to be a presidential candidate.
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