There is little doubt that Saturday's anti-war protest was a largely powerful and peaceful experience for hundreds of thousands of people. But, as F15 demonstrators recover from the day's events, NYC Indymedia continues to learn how harsh it was for many other attendees— especially those who found themselves penned in by police in the 50s and 60s between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. The NYPD’s strategy seems to have been to divide and corral protesters west of 1st Avenue, maintaining a buffer zone between a large portion of the crowd and the UN-rally point area, which was not corralled, nor as densely-packed.
Participant Deanna Zandt notes: “Had the city granted the march permit, none of what happened would have happened. There would have been one march that fed into the rally that the police could have easily managed and controlled the flow of. Instead, they dealt with hundreds of points of flare-ups and confrontations, and took away our right to protest peacefully.”
Many mainstream media sources have reported minor injuries to eight policemen and two horses. Rally participants, however, have documented getting pepper-sprayed, use of excessive force and NYPD horse units charging and trampling the crowds None of these events have been noted by the corporate press.
The NYPD Mounted Unit can be contacted at (212) 239-9352 The Civilian Complaint Review Board can be reached at 1-800-341-CCRB
Additional reports of the NYPD’s behind-the-scenes attempts to disrupt and even thwart the coordination of the demonstration have also come in as of late. Main organizers United for Peace and Justice (UPFJ) note that their phone lines went down Saturday morning, just as the 67 feeder marches were getting underway. Each feeder march had a liaison but UPFJ couldn't communicate with them as they were being cut off, corralled and in some cases arrested.
And Democracy Now reports that two NYPD officers were caught yanking out the phone lines of host network, Pacifica Radio, just after it began its nationwide coverage of the day of protest at 11 a.m. Resourceful technicians were, however, able to get them back by noon. Look for more coverage of this story in coming days.
Similar incidents of police abuse of protesters have been reported at the Colorado Springs protest yesterday, where police fired tear gas into peaceful crowd; two were hospitalized including one who police shot at with a stun gun. And police reportedly shot another protester with a rubber bullet.
Internationally, the U.K. Guardian reports: “But in Greece protests turned violent when police fired tear gas and clashed with anarchist protesters who smashed windows and threw a petrol bomb at the offices of an Athens newspaper.”
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Some notes from today's United for Peace & Justice press conference concerning police misconduct at the peace march/rally on Feb. 15th.
The press conference featured seven of footage collected and edited by the NYC-IMC Video Team showing instances of police brutality from Saturday. The video was hard to watch but is a valuable document of the conduct of the police. There were scenes of police beating activists with batons, pepper-spraying marchers unprovoked and the worst scenes – of police forcing their horses into, through and over crowds of protesters. These parts were the most disturbing for me personally. I have spent time working wth horses and know from the body language of these police mounts what kind of forcing it took for them to charge the demonstrators. Of three police horses in one scene, two went completely stiff and would have thrown their riders rather than trample the people around them. The third horse was kicked and screamed at by its rider until the terrified animal finally rode over the marchers seated on the ground at its feet. The animals looked frightened, miserable and utterly confused at what they were being asked to do. It is against the nature of the horses – even police horses – to step on people and I imagine the trauma they experience from this will be awful.
At the press conference were:
Leslie Cagan of United for Peace & Justice - Coordinator of Feb. 15th NYC Peace Rally
Rebekah Wolf of the People's Law collective - legal observer for Feb. 15th
Debbie Hrbek of the National Lawyers Guild - mass defense committee
Simone Levine of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys - legal observers unit
Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union
Press conference ran about an hour and was attended by alternative media and also mainstream media, including Fox, WOR9, CBS2, NY1, WB11 & ABC7.
Leslie Cagan spoke first and discussed the numbers for the march and rally - estimates of at least 1/2 million peace demonstrators. She also touched on the issues of police misconduct at Saturday’s rally.
Rebekah Wolf of the People’s Law collective spoke next. She relayed more specific documented accounts of the use of horses against marchers. She described accounts of horses being backed into tight crowds of people, horses begin ridden up on the sidewalks crushing the crowds against the walls of buildings, begin ridden over protesters sitting in on the street & reports of people begin jostled & knocked down by the horses and getting trampled under foot. She listed further reports of police beatings, pepper sprayings and arrests of single protestors by as many as five police at a time.
Debbie Hrbek of the National Lawyers Guild described legal observers reports of civil rights violations – protestors begin held out on the street handcuffed, chain gang-style, out in the cold, arrestees begin held in buses and vans for as long as eight hours without food, bathroom facilities, access to prescription medicines or medical attention to the injured. Protestors were denied access to their legal representation and there are widespread reports of protestors being interrogated without their attorneys being present. At Central Booking, legal aid workers were made to wait outside in pens for hours while trying to gain access to their clients. They were told that the delay in accessing their clients was due to the police being short staffed and “overwhelmed” by the numbers of arrests that needed processing. Marchers reported that, while they were being kept away from the legal aids they were being interrogated by police and asked questions about their political affiliations. They were asked such questions as “What group are you with?” “What is your group’s connection to other groups?” “What is your purpose for being in New York City this weekend?”
It is also reported that, in processing the paperwork of the arrests, it was common for the arresting officer and location to be recorded “randomly,” meaning that the actual arresting officer and location did not, as rule, match what was entered in the paperwork.
Injured and hospitalized marchers were denied their legal representation and police refused to give legal workers any information as to the condition or whereabouts of their clients for up to eight hours after arrest. In one of the most severe injury cases, a demonstrator facing possible spinal injury from a police horse falling and rolling onto them, legal observers were denied access to and information about the location and condition of this individual.
There are reports of 311 arrests. Most of the individuals received desk appearance tickets and the earliest releases occurred from 2 & 6 AM on Sunday morning – this includes individuals who were detained and not charged with anything. Some of the latest releases occurred at 3 PM on Sunday.
As to arrests, protesters reported getting contradictory instructions from police during the march that led to confusion and arrests. Cops also seemed to be hand picking some marchers based solely on ethnicity and arresting them.
Simone Levine of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys reported that the time from arrest to arraignment for most cases on Saturday was stretched into as much as 48 hours, vs. the legal standard of 24 hours. Most protesters who needed to be hospitalized were charged with felony assault of officers.
Donna Lieberman of the NYACLU put out a call for witnesses and victims of police misconduct on Saturday to send reports to this email: nyclu215@aol.com
Bill Perkins, New York City Council member, talked about looking into the new security measures the police were employing against demonstrators on Saturday. He had questions about the range and scope of these new security measures, when they had first been implements and under what types of march/protest situations they will be deployed.
The panel at the conference commented further on the differences between the terms negotiated with the police and what actually took place on Saturday. There was a call for NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to step down. Police kept telling legal observers at the 10, 14 & 17 precincts and at 1 Police Plaza that they were short staffed and overwhelmed by the numbers. But it was evident from the streets that they were well prepared to impede the marchers and keep them from exercising their right to make a statement against the war.
