The Democratic Convention Protest and Police Overreaction: An Eyewitness Account

Yesterday night at approximately 7 PM, while walking my broken bike home from downtown, I found myself joined by a group of about twelve police officers dressed in full-on riot gear; with their heavily padded body armor, helmets, gas masks and rifles, they looked like the stuff of nightmare dystopian futures. This being the first night of the Democratic Convention here in Denver, I knew there was trouble ahead. Undoubtedly they were off to encounter some protesters. What I didn't realize was that I was about to witness the suppression of free speech and the deliberate creation of chaos by the police.

One of the officers turned to me. "You probably want to go the other way," he said. "I've got to go home, and home is that way," I replied, trying to ignore the obvious tone of excitement in his voice. It was party time for the Denver police. They were about to earn their paychecks.

When we got to the spot where 15^th Street comes to an end, across from Civic Center Park, the cops knelt down and put on their helmets. They were preparing for war. The only thing was, this was a war in which their side had all of the manpower, weapons, armor and brunt force of the law. The 12 cops I'd walked beside were joining a battalion of officers surrounding a small group of protestors.

Running into some family friends I asked them, "What's going on here?" They replied, "Protesters went outside of their permit zone. Now the city is going to spend millions of dollars to punish them." Indeed, surveying the scene, it was hard to find a way in which this police reaction would not be considered extreme. "Get home safe," my friends told me, and departed. I stayed, along with a group of observers, simply trying to figure out what was going on.

As someone who spends most of my free time working for the Obama campaign, I am deeply invested in preventing the Democratic Convention from turning into a recreation of 1968. I understand why the city would set up special protest zones and forbid the protesters to leave them. At the same time, what I was about to see has firmly convinced me that if we allow this to continue to happen we risk forsaking the very tenet of free speech that our democracy is founded on.

The cops dragged a protestor from the circle, putting him in a riot van. His eyes were puffy; clearly he'd been pepper-sprayed. Observers shouted at him, "Say nothing! Remember your rights." And then things got out of hand.

Without warning, the police started charging us, the bystanders. It is hard to convey just how terrifying a line of police officers dressed for war and carrying billy clubs charging at you is. But it wasn't just me they were charging at. They were charging at a crowd of people just like me: citizens who happened upon a protest and had stopped to see what the commotion was about.

One would think that controlling "the crowd" would be the stuff of police textbooks, but here these officers were, doing just the opposite. They sent the crowd into hysterics. People ran, some with bikes, some shoving. The police had started a stampede.

Thankfully, another citizen shouted, "Walk, don't run," and people slowed down. When I got my breath again, I realized that the police had just put my life, and the lives of those around me, in danger. Then I realized what was happening.

They were pushing us back from the surrounded protesters, so that we couldn't see into the circle. In addition to bystanders like myself, journalists were being pushed back. Cameras were pushed out of the way. I saw journalists come out of the crowd with puffy eyes, clearly having been gassed.

The police used gas like they were throwing candy to kids. Clouds of it were billowing out of the circle, making myself and other bystanders choke. And yet I still couldn't walk away. The police, I realized, wanted us to walk away. They wanted us to forget about the protesters and go home.

They wanted us not to notice the fact that they had brought in an armored van, on top of which was perched a riot cop with a rifle pointed not only at the protesters, but at the bystanders. I'm sure the rifle was filled with paintballs, but when a gun is pointed at you, your first thought is not necessarily that of ammunition.

When I think of how proud I am to have the Democratic Convention here in my city, how excited I am to witness Obama's speech on Thursday, how ready I am to have a responsible government, I now must also think of how disgusted I am at the Denver police response to what was a peaceful protest. It is an ugly footnote to a great event. The police response can only be described as extreme and unnecessary. When the police repeatedly charged us bystanders, they threatened our safety needlessly.

Worse, they tried to make us fear for our safety. They tried to make us run home, to forget this ever happened. They tried to keep out the media and block from view what they were doing to the protesters. It is that use of fear as a silencing tool, the attempt to suppress coverage that worries me most.

After all, the very reason the protesters went outside of the permit zone in the first place was to get coverage. Free speech means nothing if no one can hear it.

If the Denver police continue to use fear and violence to curb peaceful protest, they will be more than visions of dystopian nightmares. They will be the nightmare itself.

When I woke up this morning with a throat sore from pepper spray, I wondered if it had all really happened. Well, miraculously, someone managed to videotape what went on inside the circle: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/26/denver-police-have-alread_n_121469.html