The
Republican National Convention came to New York City in 2004. The event
was mostly unmarred by chaos or violence, unless you count the damage
inflicted by the New York Police Department to the constitutional rights
of innocent people swept up in mass arrests.
Videos
from a protest on Fulton Street show marchers being peaceable and
orderly. Some hold signs as they shuffle along a Lower Manhattan
sidewalk while officers scream and scold and threaten arrest. The main
reaction from the crowd is bafflement, then dismay. The police cast a
wide net — literally in some cases, with orange netting — and
indiscriminately swept up demonstrators, bystanders, reporters and
photographers. Many were held for hours at a makeshift prison on Pier
57, which was given the nickname “Guantánamo on the Hudson.”
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