Sunday, September 05, 2004
Lockdown Manhattan
Lockdown Manhattan is a good first person story about the protests and police response in New York City during the Rep. Nat. Convention. I've heard similar stories to the ones below. There was a police/general expectation that 1,000 people a day would be arrested at the RNC but, in the end, about 1,725 people were arrested over the course of the week. At some point, I think the authorities attempted to reach some kind of quota or something.
The police told us to get in a single line and we’d be fine. We got in a line, and then they arrested every one of us.
We were told as long as we stayed on the sidewalk and kept a pedestrian lane we could march. We stuck to the sidewalk and kept a lane open, but we were arrested anyway.
The police said Go this way and you’ll be fine. When we did, there was another line of cops: it was a trap.
They said you can’t put the banner there but you can hold it here; when the guys held it where they were told they were arrested. Then half of us who were there were arrested, and half were not.
The CR FAQ - An Introduction to Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism
