From the Cool Blue Blog:
The Washington Post covered the protest march that took place in New York City on Sunday.
more than 200,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan’s streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that President Bush be turned out of office.
Strange, but my experience of the protestors was that they were anything but peaceful.
[…]
Prior to starting our march, we had assigned each Warrior to a tactical group and over time, each group split off to infiltrate the march. The rules were that upon infiltration. we would do nothing more provacative but carry our signs. My group was Group Six lead by Tom Paladino. At first we were accepted as one of their own (but with much better signs).
Then they noticed us.
The massive crowd started chanting “Fascists, leave our march!”. Then our way was blocked by a number of individuals who linked arms and stood in our way. We were then physically assaulted. Two of our group of 15 were punched, their signs were taken from them and destroyed. Tom’s megaphone (which he only use after we were attacked to try to calm people) was taken from him and destroyed.
I truly thought I was going to die. The NYPD ran in to protect us. We identified the individuals who assaulted us who ran like cowards. I’m not sure if the police got them or not. The crowd was now chanting “Fascist Police”.
Things were getting very dangerous. The NYPD asked us to leave the march and we complied not only for our safety but for theirs. Had we stayed, these guys would have tried to protect us and likely would have otten hurt as well. Not to mention the whole out-of-control riot thing.
We left and regrouped in Herald Square with the other tactical teams who had met with pretty much the same response; in some cases without such a quick police response as we got.
… Once this was cleared up, we lined up our signs along the barracades and did our own chanting. One of our members was physically attacked with a broom stick by a man who managed to get it into the march. He was quickly arrested by the NYPD. So while the march may been “peaceful” this was only because of the terriffic efforts by the NYPD. Had they not have been as prepared and well trained as they were, it would have been a disaster.
But don’t let anyone tell you these people are for peace or Free Speech. It’s just not true.