Special Report: Good News
It's not often you read something going
right when it's about Republicans, the NYPD, etc., so I'm posting this report from the convention, about protestors and their lack of permits:
Warblogging.com: Free SpeechIt did not matter. The protesters marched. They marched from the United Nations and other locations throughout Manhattan to Madison Square Garden. The police, rather than stop them, encouraged them. Slate reports that one NYPD officer, John Codiglia, took out his bullhorn and shouted 'Here we are at Eighth Avenue! We got eight blocks to go. Good job, guys!'
The protest was perfectly peaceful. It was perfectly civil. Protesters chanted about war, about peace and about civil liberties. Cops nodded along. Cops, despite the lack of a permit, said that 'This is what it's all about. Democracy at work, whether we agree with it or not.'
When Officer Codiglia shouted his encouragement to the protesters they did not know where they were going. The march was largely improptu. Surely many wanted to go to MSG, but they didn't have a route in mind - as one protester put it, 'How can you plan a march when you were told you couldn't have a march?'
But then Officer Codiglia shouted his encouragement. 'Eight blocks to go!' The Slate reoprter asked him what was eight blocks away. The cop looked at him as if he were crazy and replied 'Madison Square Garden'.
When the march got to 30th Street, right by MSG, the cops negotiated. Twenty minutes in a 'Free Speech Zone'. Better than nothing.
* Ray, 8/31/2004 01:21:31 PM
