Jimmie Breslin is right. Maybe it is time for some NYPD layoffs.
...A young woman began banging her paint bucket drum so hard we couldn't hear anymore. I don't know how many were in the march, which was kept on the sidewalk by too many police. As usual, far too many.
The police at marches suggest the need for layoffs.
The faces on the police were evidence of a deep belief that the First Amendment can have nothing to do with these scruffy kids and a jobless squatter. If they try to pick it up and use it, then swing a big black billy club to squash it. Who are they to stomp along the street and call George Bush names? They ought to watch their betters on television and acquire class.
The following is from an immensely interesting transcript of Barbara Bush on an ABC-TV morning show. She was asked if she and her husband, the former president, watch television.
"He sits and listens and I read books because I know perfectly well that - don't take offense - that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about the news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many, what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Oh, I mean, it's, not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."
This is NY1's latest story on the anti-war march:
Several Arrested, Officers Injured In Largest Anti-War Rally Yet
More than 20 people were reportedly arrested and at least 10 police officers were sprayed with Mace during an anti-war demonstration that drew an estimated 200,000 people to Manhattan Saturday afternoon.While the rally began as a peaceful one, violence broke out near Washington Square Park as police attempted to disperse the crowd at the scheduled 4 p.m. end of the rally. Several protesters were arrested and a number of police officers were sprayed with Mace as they tried to move crowds out of the area.
“I was trying to disperse, you couldn’t get through because of a line of helmeted riot police,” said a woman who participated in the protest. “They started making a line and pushing the crowd back so you could not exit. They’re squeezing in people like rats because there’s no place to go and the police are provoking what’s going to be violent.”
Riot officers and mounted police tried to get control of the crowd, announcing via loudspeaker about 5:30 p.m. that those who remained in the area could face arrest. Many protesters appeared defiant of the announcement, continuing to linger in the area and shouting “Our street” as officers tried to disperse crowds.
The protest, which began at West 35th Street and finished in Washington Square Park, was estimated to be the largest anti-war rally the city has seen since the situation with Iraq first escalated.
While tens of thousands were still marching, the NYPD decided that the city had had enough free speech for one day. I'm glad I finished earlier. I can hear all of the sirens going by my apartment on West 23rd Street.
