Protesters Want To Make Sure Their Voices Are Heard

by Dan Friedman

Monday, Aug. 25, 2008


From anarchists to immigrants to Hillary Rodham Clinton backers, tens of thousands of protesters are expected in Denver this week. While pushing varied causes, all hope to sway the Democratic Party's presidential nominee and its delegates -- if they can reach them.

After months of discussion over its name, a group called Recreate 68 wants to capture part of that year's spirit with marches Sunday and Thursday against the war in Iraq. An estimated 1,000 people marched Sunday to the Pepsi Center.

A more moderate organization, the Alliance for Real Democracy, plans an arts festival to oppose war and global warming. From farther on the left, the anarchist group Unconventional Denver is staging events around the city to disrupt the "heavily policed, corporate funded political spectacle" here. On Sunday, protesters affiliated with the group blocked traffic on several downtown streets and briefly took over a parking garage near the Colorado Convention Center. Those efforts drew swift reactions from hundreds of riot police and resulted in at least one arrest.

A Denver Police Department spokesman confirmed today that one of its officers shot a protester with a pepper ball, which is similar to a paint ball, during a failed attempt to arrest him. Witnesses had incorrectly believed the man was hit with rubber bullets.

Members of a student group urging access to education, Tent State University, is camping in a city park by night and staging protests by day.

An immigrants' rights group, We Are America, is busing in supporters for what could be the week's biggest demonstration Thursday. Groups backing Clinton plan to march in support for her nomination.

Diverse in membership and goals, the protesters are unified in strategy. In contrast to activists headed to St. Paul, Minn., next week, many Denver's protesters say they want to influence, not denounce, the policies of the Democratic Party and its presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

"It's a better use of our resources to push the Democrats," said Glenn Spagnuolo, a Recreate 68 spokesman. "They may actually listen."

To sway the candidate and delegates, though, demonstrators must reach them, a task complicated by city and Secret Service security plans.

In an Aug. 6 ruling, a federal judge declined to alter restrictions that the ACLU and a coalition of protester groups said violates the First Amendment by denying their right to demonstrate "within sight and sound" of their target.

The groups said the city is forcing parades to the Pepsi Center and Invesco Field at Mile High, where Obama will accept the nomination Thursday, to end too far away and too early in the day to reach convention attendees.

Protesters call a 47,000-square-foot demonstration zone in a parking lot west of the Pepsi Center a "freedom cage," due to chain-link fences on three sides. And they argue a tent will block the Pepsi Center from appearing as a backdrop in pictures of protests. Though delegates walking into the convention will pass 200 hundred feet from the zone, Mark Silverstein, the ACLU of Colorado's legal director, said most delegates, particularly lawmakers, will arrive elsewhere.

But U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger said protesters' loss of speech rights were not enough to justify rejecting security plans for the convention.

The ruling might fuel battles between protesters and authorities. On Sunday, protesters marched past the designated zone to the Pepsi Center entrance, causing officials to bar exit or entry from the facility for more an hour.

That delay followed a situation Saturday that forced news media and convention staff to endure an hours-long bottleneck at the main security gate at the center's 9th street entrance.

But Malcolm Wiley, Secret Service spokesman, said delegates would not experience problems entering facility this week. Past holdups "are kind of water under the bridge." Wiley said. "There will be no delays."

He noted Saturday's hold-up resulted from security officials channeling news media carrying electronic equipment through the same three metal detectors used for DNC staff. The lines dissipated when the groups were processed separately.

Security officials have now put up roadblocks on Auraria Parkway and on 9th Street that appear likely to stop protesters hundreds of yards form the point where they could obstruct facility's entrance.

"We are going to file our appeal in the street," Spagnuolo said after the ruling. "Do not blame us for the confrontational situation that may come."

Though Recreate 68 and others promise nonviolent tactics, Denver police are preparing for the worst. The city has hired 1,500 officers from nearby locations to nearly double its size this week and reportedly has set aside extra jail cells. The Colorado National Guard has hundreds of troops on call.

"We are promoting the robust exercise of free speech, while simultaneously addressing very real security and logistical issues," said a spokeswoman for Denver's Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper.

But both local authorities and protest groups hope that communication can prevent violence and, perhaps, mass arrests.

With clown shows, dance parties and concerts scheduled around downtown, activists plan street fairs, not riots.

No one is sure how many protesters will show up. Organizers said they hope to draw 30,000 and at least top the estimated 10,000 at the Democrats' Boston convention in 2004. But the number might be lower.

City officials recently estimated 3,000 to 10,000 protesters will attend.

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