>http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/21/1531230
>
>
>The security apparatus for the inauguration was unprecedented. More
>than 7,000 law enforcement officers from over 100 different agencies
>were deployed on the streets and throughout the DC area. There were
>also National Guard and Army officers at various checkpoints
>throughout the parade grounds. There were also undercover police,
>some of whom were dressed like protesters. Democracy Now!
>correspondent Jeremy Scahill reported on two undercover officers
>dressed like activists, wearing Arab neck scarves, who arrested a
>demonstrator.
>
>
>JEREMY SCAHILL: We were in the streets quite a bit yesterday, you
>and I and the crew from Democracy Now!, and we got caught in some of
>the most violent exchanges that occurred yesterday at the heart of a
>scene early on in the day when about 1,500 or so Black Bloc
>protesters broke off from the main dawn march and held a spontaneous
>march through the city and attempted to gain access to the parade
>ground. Then the police responded with quite a significant amount of
>brutality, hitting people, using some form of chemical agent,
>spraying people with high velocity, sort of mini cannons. And so we
>were kind of moving with that crew throughout the day.
>
>AMY GOODMAN: I have to say, in that situation, what we found, one of
>the things as we were pushed up against the stores, people we
>thought were just passers-by, who were also there, suddenly at the
>moment where the police moved in were pushing us into the crowd, and
>it turned out, they were undercover police officers. They were
>dressed in suits.
>
>JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. And they also as well were people in military
>uniform. I remember one naval officer guy who was about in his 40s
>shoving people, methodically shoving them back into the direction of
>what was being sprayed at the crowd. The police were also using
>these metal whips that almost look like a larger version of an
>antenna on a car.
>
>
>They would whip them out and they were hitting people with them. So
>there were a number of these exchanges that happened in this area
>around 13th and Pennsylvania, ultimately is where it ended up, at
>one of the main access routes to the parade grounds where people
>were lining up. There were a number of confrontations throughout the
>day between Black Bloc protesters and then women in mink fur coats,
>men in cowboy hats, and some of the most creative demonstrations
>took place there where people were charging toward the lines where
>the supporters of Bush were lining up to get in, and some of the
>protesters would charge toward them.
>
>
>Then they would flee and they actually forced the police to shut
>down two of the access points for people going on to the parade
>ground. We were sort of monitoring the situation in that area, and
>as the day moved on and the parade ended, people started filing out
>of the parade grounds, and there was some people burning an American
>flag, and there was some arguments going on between Bush supporters
>and protesters.
>
>
>And we were interviewing people, and I noticed that a large column
>of riot police were sort of in a methodical way exiting the parade
>ground through a security tent. It appeared as though they were
>marching in formation, not simply leaving. And so I thought, I'm
>going to go check this out. This may be another attempt to confront
>demonstrators. Perhaps spray them again.
>
>
>So I started to walk over there. As I walked toward this column of
>the riot police that were coming out, I noticed two, what I thought
>were, activists who seemed to be kind of swaying into the line of
>riot police. So I paid attention to them, because I thought this was
>extraordinary. They looked like they were about to fall into them,
>and I thought they were going to get their heads cracked.
>
>
>One of them was a young woman, who had a very colorful mohawk, and
>the other was white male, about 6'2", who was wearing a kafia, an
>Arab scarf, and a ski jacket. Both of them looked like any number of
>people we had seen in the streets. And so I thought they were
>falling into this column of riot police and that the riot police
>were trying to arrest the woman and that the man in the kafia was
>pulling her away, but as I watched it more closely, I realized that
>the man in the kafia, the Arab scarf, was actually trying to get
>this woman with the mohawk to the ground.
>
>
>And ultimately he put his knee in her back, he pulled out metal pair
>of handcuffs, not the plastic cuffs, from behind himself and he
>cuffed her. And the riot police seemed like they had no idea what
>was going on. Another man comes over also dressed like a protester,
>wearing a black leather jacket, also with a kafia, an Arab scarf,
>around him, and he sort of intervened and essentially got the riot
>police to understand that these two were officers who were arresting
>this young woman, with the mohawk. Once the demonstrators, other
>demonstrators, realized what was going on, they began to chant, let
>her go, let her go.
>
>
>And so surrounded by this massive riot cops, these two undercover
>police officers dressed not just like protesters, but like
>protesters wearing Arab scarves around their necks, which is very
>common now among Palestinian solidarity activists who are opposed to
>the war in Iraq. It has sort of become a symbol of the resistance in
>this country and around the world. And so they marched this young
>woman all the way up the street and put her into a police wagon, and
>the police beating people along the way. So this is very similar to
>what we also witnessed in Miami when we saw at the F.T.A.A.
>meetings, a plain clothes officer arrest an activist, actually taser
>another activist.
>
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