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Police respond quickly and quietly to protest rumor at Democratic
convention
Statesman .com
By Scott Shepard
Published on Sunday, August 24, 2008
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Unity is one of the major themes of the Democratic National Convention, which opens Monday and ends Thursday with the
nomination of Barack Obama to be president of the United States.
But the watchword Sunday, on the eve of the gathering, was security, especially amid rumors that protesters were preparing to
rush the security check point into the convention complex.
As protesters marched by the check point, one of them beating a steady cadence on a drum, the number of riot-equipped law
enforcement officers at the site increased suddenly and noticeably. But when no confrontation occurred, the extra officers
dispersed almost as quickly as they had arrived.
Denver officials have said they hope to avoid the kind of mass arrests and extended detentions that have occurred recently at
other national conventions.
Even so, police distributed a pamphlet reminding protesters of where they have a right do demonstrate and warning them they
can be arrested if they refuse a lawful order to disperse.
Glenn Spagnuolo, co-founder of Recreate 68, an anti-war group that was expected to lead the first protests Sunday, responded
to the police pamphlet with disdain: “We have a pamphlet called the Constitution,” he said in a statement. “A lot of us have
read it already.”
(source: Statesman .com)
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