City Will Hold GOP Protesters To Single-File Route (RNC/St. Paul)

[babylonsister]

City Will Hold GOP Protesters To Single-File Route
by Jason Hoppin


Demonstrators who want to march on this year’s Republican National Convention in St. Paul will have to get in line - literally.


The city police department offered a sketch Wednesday of how it anticipates handling the tens of thousands of people expected to protest the event, which will be Sept. 1-4 at the Xcel Energy Center. Marchers will be restricted to one route, with masses of protesters generally confined to a set area.

“There will be a distance,” Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom said. “You won’t be able to be right up on (the Xcel Center), standing there, interacting with people as they go in the front doors. But you will be close enough that people, if they were at those doors, can hear you.”

Neither the route nor the location of the stationary area has been set, Bostrom said. The city is studying four possible march routes for the convention’s first day and expects to choose one by May 31.

While demonstrations throughout the city would be subject to normal permit requirements, those in immediate proximity to the Xcel Center would be confined to the protest area.

Known as “free speech zones,” those areas have become the norm at national nominating conventions. But they remain controversial. During the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, protesters were kept behind high fences, prompting comparisons to Guantanamo Bay.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/28/7354/

[drdtroit]

1. Why do they hate our freedoms? n/t

[villager]

2. and the "protestors," as ever, will agree?

After all, don't want a "protest" to appear... uncooperative!

[Vincardog]

5. THe choice is cooperate or jail. Who is up for some civil DISobedience?

[tridim]

3. Good luck with that fascists.

Are they going to have single file lines for the Larry Craig memorial restroom stall too?

[blondeatlast]

4. The St. Paul police department must have thousands of officers handy for crowd control,

lucky bastids, since they apparently have no violent crime nor vehicular traffic problems.

St. Paul Police--good luck with that... :rofl:

[RedStateShame]

6. It makes sense, really...

...as much as governor Tim Pawlenty has scrimped and saved by letting the state's infrastructure go to hell, the roads probably can't stand any wider a swathe of people.

[blondeatlast]

7. Pitty the poor St. Paul pre-schoolers and kindergarteners

being used to practice this--but can someone get it on YouTube anyway?

:rofl:

[sarcasmo]

8. This is no longer America, free speech zones. The Dictatorship has arrived.

[blondeatlast]

9. Kick for a Thursday afternoon laugh... nt