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Tactics by Police Mute the Protesters, and Their Messages
By Michael Slackman and Diane Cardwell
The New York Times
Thursday 02 September 2004
As the Republican National Convention approached its final evening tonight, nearly 1,800 protesters had been arrested 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.
The demonstrations, too, have thus far been more restrained than many recent protests elsewhere; five years ago in Seattle, for example, there was widespread arson and window-smashing, none of which has occurred here. Lacking bloody scenes of billy-club-wielding police or billowing clouds of tear gas, the cameras - and the public's attention - have focused elsewhere.
"It is almost easier to explain what you are not getting here," said Ted Koppel, anchor and managing editor of ABC's "Nightline," when he was asked why news organizations have given little time to the protests. "What you are not getting here is a replay of 1968 in Chicago."
Twice yesterday, protesters did manage to breach the security cordon at Madison Square Garden. During Vice President Dick Cheney's speech last night, a woman wearing a pink slip rushed the convention floor. She was quickly tackled and dragged out, while nearby conventiongoers covered the disturbance by raising their signs and chanting.
Earlier, at noon, 12 demonstrators from Act Up, the protest group concerned with AIDS issues, entered the convention site. They interrupted a speech that Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, was giving to a group of Young Republicans. The protesters, who were shouting for more money to prevent the spread of AIDS, were arrested, and one was charged with assault after a scuffle.
Ann Roman, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, said the Act Up protesters apparently had legitimate Young Republican floor passes, although she would not say how they acquired them.
In general, though, if the week's protesters wound up shouting mostly to themselves, the Bush-Cheney campaign did not get the wild-eyed foil it had counted on, either. While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the Police Department had promised an orderly city all along, several Republicans had indicated that they hoped to blame the campaign of the Democratic nominee, John Kerry, for any destruction.
So far, there has been little to pin on the Democrats.
"If the protesters do something outrageous, they benefit Bush; if they don't do something outrageous they don't get covered," said Kieran Mahoney, a Republican political consultant from New York. "They are the answer to the question, 'If a tree falls in the forest, does it make any noise?' "
In fact, the image that went nationwide, on television and in newspapers, was from Sunday, when United for Peace and Justice, a protest coalition, held a huge but orderly march that managed to cast a shadow over the opening day of the convention.
Now, with the highest-profile day to go, the day President Bush accepts his nomination, it appears that the New York Police Department may have successfully redefined the post-Seattle era, by showing that protest tactics designed to create chaos and to attract the world's attention can be effectively countered with intense planning and a well-disciplined use of force.
"So far, operationally, this has been a success for the department; things have gone well," said Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. "We started 18 months ago. A lot of hard work by a lot of people, and so far it's paid off."
For New York City, and in particular for Mayor Bloomberg, the events of the last few days are a major victory, especially as he tries to persuade the International Olympic Committee to bring the 2012 Games to the city.
"When the mayor bid for this convention, part of his argument, to bring either convention here, was that New York City had the only police force to deal with a modern anarchist threat," said Kevin Sheekey, a close adviser to the mayor who served as president of the convention host committee. "And obviously the Police Department has done that astoundingly well."
The department's efficiency has not come without some cost, including the arrest of several innocent bystanders and nonviolent protesters. On occasion, police actions have also caused confrontations with protesters.
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 journalists, trying to force them back.
"In their quest to maintain tight control over protesters, the police too often have lost sight of the difference between lawful and unlawful activity," said Christopher Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The protests have not been ignored. National Public Radio, for example, stepped up its coverage with two teams working day and night. But the lack of a unified message among a series of large and small groups with varying tactics has complicated their efforts to gain coverage.
"There are so many different messages and so many different ways they are portraying themselves," said Ellen Weiss, senior editor of NPR's national desk. In addition, she said, "the police have been very effective at keeping them away from the Garden," where most of the national news organizations are based.
Still, protesters have declared some victories. Anarchist organizers of Tuesday's wave of protests sent out a release yesterday proclaiming that "the R.N.C. protests in New York truly are a shout heard around the world," with more than 1,000 arrests so far. They said that the number of people on the street demonstrated a commitment to speaking out, and that the numbers of arrests have energized their followers for future activities.
The police have had widespread praise from demonstrators and their legal advocates for showing restraint and flexibility in dealing with many protests, both those with and without permits.
On Sunday, before the gigantic march past the Garden, a police captain sent a group of officers to clear a traffic lane and escort a large group marching without a permit from Central Park to Union Square, where the day's main protest was to begin.
In another unscheduled march on Tuesday, the police allowed 10 protesters in a larger group to wear masks - technically a violation of the law - as part of a symbolic statement against the abuse of United States military prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
"The overarching issue with no permits is if you try to take a street or sidewalk, if you are marching and forcing pedestrians in the street, you are going to be arrested," said a senior police official, asking not to be identified. "When each of these things forms up, the commander can make a judgment - does it make sense for public safety to allow it to go forward rather than do battle?"
Those judgments appear to vary depending on which police official is in charge on the scene, giving protesters the sense that the rules are always shifting. In many cases, said Mr. Dunn, of the civil liberties union, "the protesters are trying to play by the rules and the police are not honoring their own agreements or are moving to arrest people who are engaging in seemingly lawful activity without any notice."
Last Friday, for example, after tension over police warnings to obey traffic laws, about 5,000 cyclists were allowed to block traffic and run red lights for more than an hour until the patience of police officers suddenly appeared to grow thin. Officers dragged netting across a West Village street to block the ride, arresting dozens there and then many more at its end in the East Village.
Not all the protests were against the war. To express their disagreement with President Bush's policies toward workers, New York City's labor unions rescheduled their annual Labor Day rally to hold a demonstration yesterday near the Garden.
Two prominent actors, James Gandolfini and Danny Glover, joined labor leaders at the rally, which stretched along Eighth Avenue from 30th Street to 23rd Street, with a few thousand protesters on each block.
The speakers repeatedly lambasted Mr. Bush, saying he has weakened overtime protections, been hostile toward unions and presided over the loss of more than a million jobs.
John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, said: "President Bush promised to create five million new jobs, and so far he's six million short."
Thousands of protesters chanted "No More Bush," and many held up signs saying, "Mr. President, Where Are the Jobs?" and "More Layoffs on November 2." Union leaders vowed to do their utmost to defeat Mr. Bush.
"If George Bush can cut our time and a half, then we should cut his time in the White House in half," said Brian McLaughlin, president of the city's Central Labor Council.
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Steven Greenhouse, Marc Santora and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting for this article.
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