There were over 100,000 people who legitimately protested and did not get arrested - (I think I read on CNN there were around 500,000 protesters but I can't remember if that is accurate or not). What's the story with these 1200 protesters? Why were they arrested?



[edit on 22-9-2004 by zerotime]

Im sure the charges vary. And remember, this is just the 1200 that were there while they were. Im not sure exactly how many there were total though.

It angers me to see my fellow citizens in cuffs for speaking against the government. It angers me more so see how indifferent everyone has become. A part of me wants to see a nuke go off so we can take our country back and get rid of the current way of things, but I'll keep those views to myself..ahem..

commie inside!

This REALLY angers me. They are not really taking our freedom of speach away, they are just making folks afraid to speak out. Sadly, Bush will probably get re-elected. Goes to show how blind our country has become.

Can you believe this? In America, mind you. This is what you can expect in the next four years people! More "freedom" for all our citizens!

Theres a possibility that they were snatched up at random. Im sure the real trouble makers went to the downtown jail for immediate processing and prosecution. I could be wrong but I have a feeling this was a test run to see the reaction of Civil Liberties, Judges and citizen reaction to this dragnet sweep. Perhaps a plan for a larger scale incarceration down the road. Just 2 cents worth of thought.

Originally posted by sublime4372
Can you believe this? In America, mind you.

People have allways been able to be arrested for illegally protesting and or violently protesting. There were huge numbers of people invovled here, and weren't these people almost exclusively arrested for unlawfull assembly in central park? A protest permit was specifically denied for that venue and they went there anyway. If people are going to react to this as a 'police state' then they'd probably be shocked into non-action if there actually was a police state.

Electric squid carpet, sure, it looks wrong, but beyond appearances, these were people lawfully arrested. The authorities made a mistake possibly in choosing that site as a holding center, what with the asbestos. However, I do have to wonder if it was still in use. Interesting to note that these protestors are riled up at being exposed for a day or two to a building with asbestos, but don't seem to concerned with teh people who possibly work there everyday. I especially like the girl covering her face in the foreground. Aww, she's crying. Big tough protestor, 'defending democracy against mean old shrub', but she gets put into a room with other protestors and starts crying. Guess those zip-cuffs don't work too well. Hope she liked having to poop on the floor.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Originally posted by sublime4372
Can you believe this? In America, mind you.

People have allways been able to be arrested for illegally protesting and or violently protesting. There were huge numbers of people invovled here, and weren't these people almost exclusively arrested for unlawfull assembly in central park? A protest permit was specifically denied for that venue and they went there anyway. If people are going to react to this as a 'police state' then they'd probably be shocked into non-action if there actually was a police state.

Electric squid carpet, sure, it looks wrong, but beyond appearances, these were people lawfully arrested. The authorities made a mistake possibly in choosing that site as a holding center, what with the asbestos. However, I do have to wonder if it was still in use. Interesting to note that these protestors are riled up at being exposed for a day or two to a building with asbestos, but don't seem to concerned with teh people who possibly work there everyday. I especially like the girl covering her face in the foreground. Aww, she's crying. Big tough protestor, 'defending democracy against mean old shrub', but she gets put into a room with other protestors and starts crying. Guess those zip-cuffs don't work too well. Hope she liked having to poop on the floor.

And why woudl you say something like that? These are AMERICANS. Are we to be told that we cant gather in Central Park? WE?????? THE AMERICANS??? Your willing to put up with this? This is the first step my friend. More to follow.

Regime Change Begins At Home......6 more weeks!!!!!!

Let me put this this way..

With 100,000 protestors, you will DEFINTELY get about 1% of those who are bad guys and radicals willing to cause havoc and property destruction. That's where the 1200 came from, and who they were. I'm suprised there were that few...

Sure you can gather in central park and protest, but you CANNOT be violent or destructive. It's a free country, but it's a free country WITH LAWS!

Someone finds someone who was at that facility....I bet they are out of there and in class, or at work, or in jail for legitimate crimes. In the lawyer happy country we live in , if there was anything fishy going on, the City, County and state of New York would be innundated by lawyers by now...

You guys sound a lot like Peter....but I can't hear the Wolf baying....





[edit on 9/22/2004 by soulforge]

Originally posted by sublime4372
It angers me to see my fellow citizens in cuffs for speaking against the government.

they are prolly in cuffs because they weren't just "speaking."

yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn

they broke a law. if that law was being on a closed street, so be it. security was tight as hell around the city and the area around the garden was even tighter. whatever the case, the detention center they were in looks like a party compared to other famous detention centers.

go get yourself arrested the Thursday night before Mardi Gras in N.O. You spend a weekend in a fenced in field. Unless you have major connections, you are there until after the festivities are over (the following Wed.) There are tents to sleep in. No assigned tentmates that I'm aware of. Pray it doesn't rain. The field becomes a sloppy mess. I was told by one vietnam vet that the detention center was the closest he came to "re-experiencing" the hell of vietnam in the rain since he spent his time there in the late 60's.



I know this firsthand. I was told by one of my tentmates

There's no doubt in my mind that many of those people who were detained were arrested simply b/c they looked at a cop the wrong way...however...it's important to understand that without having any restrictions on forms of protest would simply result in pure anarchy and a more disolved gov't than we already have today...

Of course, this is coming from my me, a guy that would probablly be prone to do more rash and stupid things to demonstrate my political opinion in front of fellow supporters and the meaningless authority...Why should I care about what five or six cops potentially could do to me for truthfully expressing my opinion so long as I make my point in public...what can I say...I hang around reckless people...they made me do it

But still...I would expect some form of punishment for my actions, and obviously these people are shown here in these pictures coming to grips with that - it's the difference b/w attempting to run (and I do mean "attempting") a democracy veruses an anarachy...the majority of them know why they're there, and they will either learn from it or use that as fuel for their next protest - it's all the same though...they can temporarly take away our freedom but not our minds...

What happened to sublime's comments? I see he's been banned for some reason in between when I last read this post and when I replied, but I thought you could still see a banned members comments?

They didn't do anything wrong.

Oh, and after Bush left, they allowed unpermitted marches and sitdowns at MSG. Hows that for dedicated law enforcement.

I'm appalled at the way they were treated, they didn't have access to lawyers and were caged like animals in unsanitary environments lacking proper food, water and bathroom facilities. The actions of detaining these people alone is illegal, it's kidnapping.

Still, Post 9/11 the NYPD has a teflon coating, all this just slid off.

You know what Crakeur, no one cares about your experience at Mardi Gras, you were not exercising your right to protest. If you get arrested at Mardi Gras you obviously must have been doing something wrong. I have heard about three first hand accounts of people comming home from work or taking a walk getting swooped up in the dragnet and put through this ordeal. One person was even a Bush supporter, I will say that they no longer are (I guess some good came out of pier 57). People need to read all the reports and you might just see that the mojority of the people that were detaind were doing nothing wrong.

One last word, if you think that every person that was arrested and detained during the rnc deserved it, then you are a moron and should be deported. This country was not built on that type of belief system.