Police Tactics Mute Protesters and Message

[Snellius]

As the Republican National Convention approached its final evening tonight, there had been nearly 1,800 arrests of protesters on the streets, two-thirds of them on Tuesday night alone. But for all the anger of the demonstrations, they have barely interrupted the convention narrative, and have drawn relatively little national news coverage.

Using large orange nets to divide and conquer, and a near-zero tolerance policy for activities that even suggest the prospect of disorder, the New York Police Department has developed what amounts to a pre-emptive strike policy, cutting off demonstrations before they grow large enough, loud enough, or unruly enough to affect the convention.
...
Lawyers who appeared in the city's arraignment court said, for example, that on Saturday a building superintendent named Andre Lebbt, 49, was arrested while he was taking out the garbage. They also described arrests of a man walking home from a sushi restaurant, and another man dressed in a business suit going home from work.

In one incident Tuesday, on the steps of the New York Public Library, protesters who were not trying to cause any disturbance - though they did not have a permit - ended up in a 15-minute melee with police, prompting rows of officers in helmets, clubs in hand, to form a phalanx on the steps. The officers moved in unison, chanting "Move, move, move." One uniformed officer swung his club wildly at protesters, and at members of the news media, trying to force them back.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/02/politics/campaign/02protest.html?hp

[G_j]

1. unwarranted, preemptive arrests

have become a tactic of choice in recent years. An ACLU lawyer told me that they budget money up front for lawsuits since they already plan on violating people's constitutional rights.
If they lose some lawsuits a year down the road, so be it.
Ironically, I read where one person was reading the Bill Of Rights and was told to stop. When they didn't, they were arrested.

[Snellius]

2. What's going on here will not be quickly forgotten

As much as they love the chaos of the city, New Yorkers feel just as strongly when things get too out of hand, but after the dust of this convention settles, the videotapes are edited, the interviews are collected, the lawsuits are argued, there will be hell to pay for this mess, especially for our shop-til-you-drop mayor and somnabulistic governor, whose only reason for bringing this debacle on the city was their own faltering political careers.