by jen lawhorne
An account of Saturday night's protest in Carytown.
Traffic was backed-up all the way to the West End as Carytown was taken Saturday night by a group of 60 pissed-off protesters who filled Cary Street with chants, banners and torches. Seven people were later arrested as torch-bearing responsibilities became too heavy for many.
As many Americans watch the debacle of the war on Iraq unfold on television as a prime-time event and continue to live comfortable lives as the devastation of war falls upon Iraq, protesters thought it essential to disturb the business of holiday shopping to bring attention to Bush administration plans to destroy Iraq.
Starting from Ukrop’s, the protesters took up all of Cary Street and brought traffic to a standstill. People peered out of windows as others came out of shops to see what was going on. Some shoppers shouted and waved in support as the protest passed. The mood from the crowd was defiantly jubilant as they handed out flyers and shouted, “No blood for oil, U.S. off Iraqi soil.”
Officer Kleinholz , a recent graduate of Richmond’s police academy, pulled behind the protest in his cruiser and flashed his lights. Protesters paid little heed to the cop as the march turned north to Colonial Avenue. A man in front of Coppola’s gave a middle-finger salute to the protestors.
A chair was pulled in front of Kleinholz’s cruiser and he paused his car to remove the barrier. A small portion of the sidewalk was aflame as trashcans and pieces of wood were moved into the street. People began to run and Kleinholz chased the crowd as it dispersed onto Ellwood Avenue.
Seven people were arrested as several cop cars arrived on the scene; three people from Charlotte, N.C., one person from Maine, a resident of D.C., a person from Mechanicsville and one Richmonder. The hand-cuffed crew sat on the sidewalk as dropped torches continued to burn on the pavement. The geographic diversity of the group was in part due to the fact that many participants of the march were in town for the Anarchist Encuentro.
They were taken to Richmond police’s downtown precinct, where they were charged with unlawful assembly, booked, arrested and released on $1,000 secured bonds that night. They will be arraigned Monday morning.
Link: http://richmond.indymedia.org