With a virtual rout of a ‘progressive’ agenda at the Democratic National Convention, contrarians were left to attend a 3-day Boston Social Forum and Progressive Convention, to rally at Boston Common and/or take to the streets.
On July 12, 2004, Brian C. Mooney with the Boston Globe reported:
“After two days of negotiations, the Kerry camp persuaded Kucinich supporters to withdraw amendments seeking to label the Iraq invasion ‘a mistake’ and to establish ‘a publicly announced timeline for the withdrawal of our troops.’ Instead, language was inserted stating that the number of U.S. forces would be reduced if additional nations contributed troops to a peacekeeping effort, so that it would ‘no longer be seen as the direct continuation of an American military presence’ in Iraq. Left intact was language stating: ‘People of good will disagree about whether America should have gone to war in Iraq’…”
And Michael Blanding of the Nation (July 12, 2004) writes:
“This year, however, giving Dubya the boot has become the overriding concern and the slogan ‘The Evil of Two Lessers’ has been replaced by ‘Anybody But Bush.’ That leaves progressives with a question: whether to demonstrate at the Democratic National Convention in Boston July 26-29 or to give the Dems a pass and concentrate on the Republican National Convention in New York August 30-September 1” adding “The emphasis on decentralized protest has spread organically through Boston protest circles. Even the ‘anti-authoritarian’ Bl(A)ck Tea Society (a revolutionary riff on the Boston Tea Party) has decided against converging at the convention’s FleetCenter location in favor of a street fair on Boston Common, the ‘Really, REALLY Democratic Bazaar’ on July 27. ‘We think the `Anybody But Bush’ movement is laughable,’ says BTS member Frank Lamont. ‘That’s what got us Clinton and more inequality and corporate rule.’”
Despite mildly incendiary rhetoric, protests on Sunday, July 25th, Monday, July 26th, and Tuesday, July 27th appeared to be calm and placid. And as of Wednesday, July 28th, only two arrests had been made (Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, July 30, 2004).
Seth Stern with CQ Today at the Convention (July 29, 2004) said:
“The tone for this week’s protests was set early, when a speaker at July 25 rally implored participants not to fall asleep before they marched to the FleetCenter. Rallies for left-leaning causes often drew as many police and photographers as protesters. …At the July 25 kickoff event, protest leaders begged the smallish crowd to stay awake after several somnolent hours of speeches on topics ranging from economic justice to stopping the war in Iraq. …Will Taggart, an organizer for The Bl(A)ck Tea Society, said the meager turnout at the organization’s July 27 anarchists’ gathering on Boston Common was the result of liberal Democrats deciding anybody is better than President Bush. He predicted a much bigger presence in New York.”
Heightened Security
It is also possible, of course, that the heightened level of convention security played a part in dampening protest activity.
According to the Boston Sunday Globe (page B5, July 11, 2004), security included: a 57-foot harbor patrol boat, hazard suits, cameras that can read license plates of moving cars, 2,032 officers of the Boston Police Department working 12-hour shifts [with overtime checks expected to total $32 million], bomb-sniffing dogs, and 1,300 troopers and officers from the State Police. With an expectation of making an average of 200 to 300 arrests daily, about 140 prisoners will be moved to holding cells outside the city, the article said.
To deter and report abuses of authority, the Globe reports that, according to Director of the National Lawyers Guild in Boston Urszula Masny-Latos, her chapter would “have more than 100 ‘legal’ observers … to scrutinize the way police interact with demonstrators.”
Commenting on the designated 29,000-square-foot ‘free-speech zone’, Randall Terry of Operation Rescue said (New York Times, July 27th as reported in the July 31st edition of The Economist):
“‘Welcome to the freedom cage. Freedom never looked so good. And should you be able to climb out of the chicken wire, there’s some fine men in uniform with guns.’”
And Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour noted in The Hill’s ‘Under The Dome’ (July 28, 2004):
“Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown says there is more than meets the eye to the defensive fortress that security officials have created around the FleetCenter. ‘Fear makes it easier to control,’ said the former California governor who ran unsuccessfully for his party’s presidential nomination in 1992. ‘It’s a fear-based politics.’ Brown also attended the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, when he said there also was fear in the air. ‘Then it was protests — now it’s terrorism,’ he said.”
Clash between Demonstrators and Police
David Wedge with the Boston Herald (July 30, 2004) reports, in an otherwise peaceful week of protests:
“…violence broke out [on the last day of the convention], when a rally of about 500 people wound through downtown and stopped at the iron gates guarding the DNC. Police allowed the group to gather in the street, rather than forcing them into the protest pen. Members of the Save Our Civil Liberties Campaign tied themselves to a bike rack as another group set a small fire. One man burned an American flag while masked teens taunted and made obscene gestures at soldiers perched atop an MBTA bridge.
Pushing, shoving and panic ensued as sporadic scuffles broke out, including one that started when a demonstrator took a police officer’s hat. In the fenced-in ‘free speech zone,’ police took bolt cutters from some protesters who had cut through the chain link fence, but they were not arrested.”
Wedge reports that there were four arrests on the last day: “three men were arrested – one for assault, one for disorderly conduct and another for carrying a hoax device” — and a “fourth was arrested earlier in the day for trying to steal DNC credentials.”
Complaints about Police Tactics
According to attorney Howard Friedman, several people expressed complaints about police brutality at the demonstrations, but only one complaint has been filed so far. Svea Eppler of Boston Indymedia and a leader of the Indymedia Video effort during the DNC, filed an internal complaint on August 12, 2004 with the Boston police, against a specific officer. She claims that she was standing on a concrete barrier videotaping a demonstration and was struck forcefully on the legs by the officer, who then told her to ‘get down from there.’ She would have fallen but grasped a tree branch. She has provided a copy of the video with her complaint to prove she was struck before being told to get down (Phone conversation between Howard Friedman and Dave Sagarin, August 13, 2004).
Here is how Dave Wedge reports the incident in the Boston Herald (August 11, 2004):
“A New York journalist claims one of the Hub’s top cops manhandled her and her camerawoman during a Democratic National convention melee and a protester is also filing complaints police smacked him with batons, the herald has learned.
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, a TV/radio broadcast to 250 affiliates nationwide, says Boston police Superintendent Robert Dunford ‘shoved’ her following a clash on Canal Street the final night of last month’s DNC. Goodman claims the scuffle ensued as she tried to question Dunford, who was in charge of DNC security, about an arrest. Police spokeswoman Bev Ford said Dunford admits pushing the microphone away, but denies touching the camerawoman.
‘He asked her two or three times nicely to remove it. When she failed to remove it, he pushed it away,’ she said.
While Goodman is unsure if she’ll take action, 25-year-old Svea Eppler, a videographer for Boston Indy Media, said she is filing an excessive force complaint alleging that a copy beat her on the legs with a nightstick as she filmed the melee from atop a Jersey barrier. Eppler, who taped herself being struck, said she suffered five bruises and wasn’t told to get down until after she was hit.
Another protester, Tony Naro, 24, said he was struck in the face with a club and ‘slammed’ to the ground and is filing a complaint. Ford said the department has received no DNC-related excessive force complaints.”
Svea Eppler (email, August 14, 2004) tells her story this way:
To quote from my letter to the Internal Affairs Division of the Boston Police Department:
“On Thursday, July 29, 2004, I was assigned to video tape in the area around the Fleet Center. At approximately 3:45, there was an arrest and a rush of people. I was standing to the side near a dumptruck that was parked in the middle of Canal Street. I noticed police officers pushing some of the protesters, sending one person to the ground. As the crowd gathered around, I raised my video camera up over my head to get a better shot. Then I noticed a ‘jersey barrier’ next to a nearby tree. I stepped onto the barrier to get a better camera angle. Suddenly, without warning, a police officer began striking my leg with his hand. He was hitting the backs of my legs with his hand in an attempt, I assume, to get me off the barrier. He was standing behind my line of sight.
Once I understood that he wanted me to step of fthe barrier, I did so. The officer did not speak to me before he bagan to hit my leg. I was able to keep from falling by holding on to the tree. If I had not been able to hold the tree, I could have fallen from the barrier which could have caused an injury. As he was striking me, I was trying to get down, but he continued hitting me. He struck me 5 times before I could get down. A legal observer was standing close by, and took down the officer’s badge number. By the next day, I had bruises on the lower parts of my legs where the officer had struck me.”
This information is clearly demonstrated in my videotape of the incident. I provided the police with a copy of the footage when I submit my letter of complaint. Because I was performing my duties for IndyMedia, documenting street interviews, shots of protesters and their signs, as well as the scuffle that I happened upon before I was struck, my camera was filming the entire time. My hopes in filing an internal complaint is that the officer who struck me will be made aware of the impropriety and effect of his actions. I hope that he will be disciplined for his use of unnecessary force, and I also hope that the local police department will consider this situation as a demonstration of what *not* to do when policing an event.
On another note, I have been documenting political protests for the past 7 years and this particular protest was a small affair compared to others that I have videotaped. The police were present *everywhere* and there were many grumblings and complaints by protesters about the “show of force” being used as an intimidation technique. Be that as it may, in my experience this was a very successful week for both the protesters and the police. The protesters were able to run their events, attend shows and rallies, and gather at the Fleet Center with little to no conflict. And the police were relatively restrained when they were faced with potentially conflictive situations. Let’s hope that the estimated protests in New York City are as successful!!!
For more on protests, see also From the FleetCenter to Seaport World Trade Center, With a Side Trip to the Boston Commons and Cambridge on the Way, Trading Passes and Raising Hell, Code Pink Comes to the Convention Floor and Images of Protest and Security.
For more on the progressive agenda, see Interview with David Goodman, Ralph Nader, Michael Moore and Credentialing, Riding the Donkey, Let’s Not Devalue Ourselves and Strong and Wrong.