| Page 2 of 3 < > |
Protesters & Police, Adhering to an Arresting Script
Activist Cindy Sheehan, above, proves to be a magnet for the media during yesterday's civil disobedience in front of the White House. Below, Cheryl Norris peers from the back of a police van, while another protester shows the plastic handcuffs police used in making arrests.
(Photos By Katherine Frey For The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Leslie Cagan : We're not going away and we're going to use every tool available to us.
Clark: If people have to put their bodies on the line to risk their security, their money, their freedom, that's what we're going to do.
D.C. police block traffic for the singing, chanting procession. The organizers have permits to march and gather on the Ellipse and in Lafayette Square. They have sent letters to the White House seeking a meeting with President Bush; if he declines, they will risk arrest by stepping into an unpermitted area.
Clark: We sent the letters by Federal Express because the last time, at the trial, we were asked, 'Well, did you send the letters by Fed-Ex? How do you know the White House got the letters?' . . . We talked with the Park Service, the Park Police, the Metropolitan Police Department. As part of our nonviolent witness, we're not trying to keep this a secret. If they will work with us to help us do what we want to do, we're happy to work with them.
Sgt. S.L. Booker [special events coordinator with the U.S. Park Police]: You don't have a permit to march on Constitution Avenue.
Clark : You mean they gave us permission to march in your jurisdiction and they shouldn't have?
Booker [nodding yes]: I'm here to work with you. [He stops traffic on Constitution so the protesters can march, even without a permit].
At the Ellipse, Cleghorn centers a blue milk crate for a podium in view of the south facade of the White House, for good camera angles. But where are the media?
Sunny Schnitzer [a member of the Bethesda Jewish Congregation]: I'd like to have somebody notice all these people here. . . . The fact that 300 to 400 people get arrested will not be a footnote in history, a spit in the ocean, unless hundreds of thousands of people know it happened.
Clark [With bullhorn]: From the Boston Tea Party to the abolition of slavery to the suffrage and the right of women to vote, to the civil rights movement, to the movement to stop the Vietnam War -- all of those movements had civil and nonviolent resistance at their vanguards to stop and face that injustice. You are part of that history here today, everyone.
With whoops and cheers, the group marches to the climactic Scene 3: The sidewalk of Pennsylvania Avenue close to the White House. Surprise! Cindy Sheehan is here, too. Now the television cameras are out in force. The cameras press the clergy leaders and Sheehan against the White House gate, where they are seeking to meet with Bush.
West : Media, back up. This is crazy!
