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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (65995)	8/31/2004 10:41:31 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793622

Police Break Up Anti-War March By Michelle Garcia and Mary Fitzgerald Washington Post Staff Writers NEW YORK, Aug. 31 -- Anarchists, gay activists and other protesters staged non-violent actions throughout Manhattan Tuesday against President Bush, military contractors, Republican delegates and Fox News, but a large, planned march on Madison Square Garden in the evening appeared to have fizzled as police dispersed marchers before they got there. Police arrested about 200 marchers from a group called War Resisters League, which was marching about 1,000 strong from the former World Trade Center site toward the Madison Square Garden complex where the Republican convention is taking place. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the group marched illegally in traffic, despite having agreed to stay on sidewalks, but New York Civil Liberties Union associate legal director Chris Dunn contested that account, saying no marchers left the sidewalks. The other 800 protesters dispersed after the arrests. Most of the protests were carried out by a loosely-organized anarchists' collective calling itself A31, for August 31, with a goal of calling attention to what Raquel Lavina, a Bay Area organizer, termed "Bush's foreign terror and war at home." Police reported a total of 270 arrests Tuesday, for an overall figure of more than 800 since convention-related protests began last Thursday. Dunn said at a 6 p.m. news conference that Tuesday' s number may be understated, because police later arrested protesters at the New York Public Library and near Union Square as they prepared to march on the garden. Other than the arrests near the trade center site, Dunn said his observers believed police had handled the day's protests well, including a gathering of 1,000 at Herald Square that officers dispersed corner by corner. Kelly commended officers' restraint in the face of what he called "relentless provocation." On Monday night, however, a protest by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign of Philadelphia turned violent, when police restrained marchers behind barricades and a protester beat one officer, Detective William Sample, unconscious. Police were searching for the man Tuesday, offering a $5,000 award for his capture. They said Sample may have suffered a concussion. Dunn denounced the attack, but said it appeared that the attacker charged Sample after officers rode their scooters into the crowd in an attempt to control it. Throughout the day, small groups of protesters showed up at the offices of military contractors, Fox News, hotels housing Republican delegates and other spots that A31 listed on its website as protest scenes. But at several planned protest sites -- including office buildings housing the Carlyle Group, the Rand Corporation and Lockheed Martin -- there were more police officers and reporters than protesters. Police arrested handfuls of protesters trying to disrupt traffic in the financial district or loitering on subway platforms uptown, Kelly said. Hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside the Fox News studios in Midtown Manhattan, yelling, "Shut the Fox up," their voices echoing off the windowed skyscrapers. Fox employees streamed into the courtyard to watch as protestors hurled their criticism at a television network they see as supporting the Bush Administration. "It's propaganda," said Deborah Ben-Elizer a 34-year-old New Yorker wearing glasses with swirled lenses to represent what she clled a zombie public that has fallen under spell of Fox. "They're in bed with them [the Bush administration]. They're sleeping together," she said. Police built a double barricade four blocks from Madison Square Garden in all directions, and at one point, Fox reporter John Deutzman was interviewing protesters there when several realized he was from Fox and surrounded him yelling, "Liar! Liar!" About 50 protesters joined them until police opened the barricade and gave Deutzman a haven inside. © 2004 The Washington Post Company