Chuck writes:
"I'm buying the oifficial line on why the riot happened? The official line is 'we didn't have enough officers because we didn't respect the protesters?'"
Yes, Chuck, that is EXACTLY the official line. The blame went to the Chief of Police who delegated planning for the event to his Assistant Chief. In fact, all the line officers were in a state of near-panic before and during the event and their radio communications throughout the day show a consistent pattern of false, fearful rumors, over-estimation of crowd numbers and panicky behavior.
Chuck writes:
"Look, dude, perhaps you should spend some time protesting in a large city. Seattle didn't have many cops on the streets, not to the point that the big cities like NYC and DC do it. If the police want to control the streets during a riot situation, they put more people on the streets. The Seattle police clearly didn't take the situation seriously enough to call in police reinforcements from the West Coast, until after day 1."
Look, Chuck, maybe you better get your head out of your anarchist fantasy and do a little actual research on what kind of numbers police with crowd-control training and expertise use to control really difficult events like British soccer matches, Mardi Gras, and biker rallies.
Chuck writes:
"No, I wasn't there, but I followed the situation closely and did interviews afterwards with anarchists had been on the streets. Obviously, if you were there on the streets, it didn't help you understand the situation. It looks like I have a more accurate take on what happened and I was clear across the continent."
No kidding you weren't there. As it happens I spent the day either watching the events with strong binoculars from a perfect vantage point (the Space Needle - I had grandparents in town) or watching three local channels at once, following their remote camera work by talking to people at the protest on cell phones.
I then interviewed members of police departments who deal with large, potentially dangerous crowds, including Sturgis, South Dakota's police chief Jim Bush. Possibly you are not familiar with Sturgis. It hosts a biker rally of some half million including rival outlaw biker clubs whose members frequently engage in incidents of murderous conflict. While everyone in the media was rushing to the conclusion that there were not enough cops, I was finding out that there were plenty of cops, they just violated approximately every rule of effective crowd control strategy.
Chuck writes:
"Again, the cops went nuts before the anarchists went on their march. I'd point out that this was just a small contingent of anarchists who were in the streets that day. Other anarchists were blocking the streets and got pepper-sprayed and other diverted part of the union march into the riot zone.
Seattle turned into a general riot later on N30, when the police marched around Seattle firing gas on people with folks fighting back."
You are just completely wrong on the facts, but that seems not to bother you. There was no general riot. Even the cops didn't claim that fights were the problem. Projectiles were the thing that made cops over-react. Naturally you focus on the actions of the anarchists. That's your fantasy. The thing that caused the cops to panic (other than their lack of reasonable preparation, training and common sense) was a combination of being unable to make mass arrests at the protest sites (due to their own idiotic tactics) combined with young people throwing things and a few anarchists shooting slingshots and doing vandalism.
ChuckO writes:
"I'm sorry, but you are just wrong on this. The Seattle police department did NOT have enough officers for N30. You can engage in this fantasy about a few officers being superhuman policers of activists, but in reality it takes many more officers to do crowd control."
Show me your facts. Show me your numbers. You don't know what the hell you are talking about.
Chuck writes:
"Just look at the numbers of New York City cops that they use to corral protesters. New York city cops, for the most part, are an example of a police department that is well-prepared for crowd control. There simply weren't plenty of cops in Seattle."
Cops will certainly over-deploy if they have the resources, but New York City is a perfect example of a department that knows how to make a force APPEAR larger than it is. The most important tactic they use is mounted officers who will enter crowds and officers already in the crowd. Note what happened a couple years ago after the Puerto Rican Day parade when the cops withdrew to their lines too quickly and a bunch of women were assaulted.
Chuck writes:
"I've studied this quite closely in order to plan protests here in Washington."
The D.C. protests would have looked insignificant without the cops. The cops practically outnumbered protesters and went totally hog wild and just had a blast teeing off on them. What you actually saw in D.C. is a perfect example of why riot line policing is ineffective: you need a huge number of police for the number of protesters and the deployments encourage conflict.
Chuck writes:
"I've talked to member of the Seattle black bloc and they were older than people think. Perhaps the contingent camped near your girlfriend were young, but this wasn't the only contingent of anarchists who participated in the black bloc."
So what? They were mostly young. The point stands.
Chuck writes:
"The plots and plans of the union march and the civil disobedience wereknown in advance. The black bloc plans were not."
Again, you're completely wrong. The things that were panicking police were disclosures about the plans the little group of anarchists had. The cops certainly *claimed* that Seattle's ordinance against collecting intelligence on citizens was to blame for their poor planning, but that was completely debunked. They had all the information they needed, they just had no plan. Sound familiar? Iraq?
Chuck writes:
"Oh, so NOW you explain which rock throwers you are talking about."
Read next time.
"This incident may have happened, but I doubt if it was enough to get the police started on pepper-spraying people."
Again, you are completely wrong. The police were on camera when they were firing their pepper-spray pellet guns into the crowd. Obviously the rock-throwing shouldn't have provoked this reaction. THAT IS MY WHOLE POINT.
Chuck writes:
"The police were able to move around quite easily, but there was so many people that some of their standard operations were bogged down."
And yet he does not see the obvious self-contradiction in that statement.
Yes, the cops were able to move around. That's because the crowd thinned out once the violence started and it was nowhere near the total number of marchers they had to deal with. There were plenty of cops.
Chuck writes:
"The protesters had wanted to be mass arrested and thrown in jail. The police tried to do that--one of my friends was handcuffed four times--but couldn't move anybody out of the zone. I would argue that the polcie frustration with the situation was the motivation for them going out of control."
Well, since that is almost exactly what I said, I guess you're getting the picture. The cops were not confounded by the crowd, or the protesters' tactics, but by their own incompetence.
Chuck writes:
"This stuff about being caught in the corssfire sounds like peace nazi stuff. Were you one of the assholes who tried to turn people into the police for property destruction?"
And shows his obvious prejudice about the events. No, Chuck, I was one of the people trying to DEBUNK the claims of massive property damage. With all the problems, property damage was minimal. The hysterical claims of property damage were all nonsense.
When I explain:
> the same thing happened at the Mardi Gras riots months
> later. The Seattle cops stupidly used the same military-style riot lines
> rather than well-established methods of crowd control. It ended up costing
a
> kid his life as he was murdered while the cops stood by in their
ridiculous
> formations.
Chuck responds:
"This only shows that the police were poorly trained and understaffed."
No, Chuck. Since the cop/crowd ratio was MUCH, MUCH HIGHER during Mardi Gras, what it proves is that tactics and not manpower are the answer to crowd control. That should be obvious.
peace,
boddi