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Bloomberg Ignores Menino's Warning as Convention Riots Loom
Monday, Aug. 16, 2004 10:11 a.m. EDT
Bloomberg Ignores Menino's Warning as Convention Riots Loom
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg intends to allow anarchists with a track record of violence to gather on streets and sidewalks near the Republican National Convention in two weeks, despite warnings from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino that Bloomberg's plans are "a recipe for disaster."
"Boston put barbed wire around the FleetCenter," the New York mayor complained earlier this month, alluding to security operations that protected the Democratic convention from disrupters.
"[But] we're not doing that," he insisted. "[New York] is a city that values its reputation as a place where people can come, congregate and say what they want."
But Menino spokesman Seth Gitell fired back:
"Once again, Mayor Bloomberg has demonstrated his need for a reality check. It's only now dawning on him the prospect of thousands of protesters swarming through the garment district in Manhattan."
Radicals planning to protest the GOP confab intend to take full advantage of Bloomberg's leniency. And the NYPD is reportedly expecting the worst, including:
An anarchist plot to distract bomb-sniffing dogs by sprinkling gunpowder in and near trains just below the convention center at Madison Square Garden.
Efforts by protesters to stop delegates from getting to the Garden by puncturing the tires of their shuttle buses or lying down in front of them.
Attacks on 40 hotels housing GOP delegates in a bid to create chaos.
Plans to release mice in Broadway theaters during showtimes.
An off-Broadway play, designed to excacerbate tensions, titled "I'm Gonna Kill the President."
Protest organizers include:
Jaggi Singh, who helped organize the 2002 "Take the Capital" G8 protest in Ottawa. He was jailed for weapons possession.
Miriam "Starhawk" Simos, whose widely read essay "How We Shut Down the WTO" is considered a protesters' bible on how to disrupt establishment events.
Ruckus Society director John Sellers, who told reporters after he organized riots that shut down the city of Seattle during a 1999 WTO meeting:
"I make a distinction between violence and destruction of property. Violence to me is against living things. But inanimate objects? It may be violence under the law but I just don't think it's violence."
Bloomberg Ignores Menino's Warning as Convention Riots Loom
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg intends to allow anarchists with a track record of violence to gather on streets and sidewalks near the Republican National Convention in two weeks, despite warnings from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino that Bloomberg's plans are "a recipe for disaster."
"Boston put barbed wire around the FleetCenter," the New York mayor complained earlier this month, alluding to security operations that protected the Democratic convention from disrupters.
"[But] we're not doing that," he insisted. "[New York] is a city that values its reputation as a place where people can come, congregate and say what they want."
But Menino spokesman Seth Gitell fired back:
"Once again, Mayor Bloomberg has demonstrated his need for a reality check. It's only now dawning on him the prospect of thousands of protesters swarming through the garment district in Manhattan."
Radicals planning to protest the GOP confab intend to take full advantage of Bloomberg's leniency. And the NYPD is reportedly expecting the worst, including:
An anarchist plot to distract bomb-sniffing dogs by sprinkling gunpowder in and near trains just below the convention center at Madison Square Garden.
Efforts by protesters to stop delegates from getting to the Garden by puncturing the tires of their shuttle buses or lying down in front of them.
Attacks on 40 hotels housing GOP delegates in a bid to create chaos.
Plans to release mice in Broadway theaters during showtimes.
An off-Broadway play, designed to excacerbate tensions, titled "I'm Gonna Kill the President."
Protest organizers include:
Jaggi Singh, who helped organize the 2002 "Take the Capital" G8 protest in Ottawa. He was jailed for weapons possession.
Miriam "Starhawk" Simos, whose widely read essay "How We Shut Down the WTO" is considered a protesters' bible on how to disrupt establishment events.
Ruckus Society director John Sellers, who told reporters after he organized riots that shut down the city of Seattle during a 1999 WTO meeting:
"I make a distinction between violence and destruction of property. Violence to me is against living things. But inanimate objects? It may be violence under the law but I just don't think it's violence."
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