Monday, August 25, 2008

The DNC, First Impressions

My old friend Jerry Zremski, Washington reporter for the Buffalo News, is in town for the DNC, so I went to the Rockies game with him yesterday afternoon (he is, first and foremost, a baseball fan!). After the game, we walked around downtown for a bit. Denver is not one of those cities whose downtown is empty at night, but on this Sunday night it was a circus. Mostly just a lot more people than normal, but there were pockets of protesters of all ilk....we saw both anarchists and anti-abortionists.

The most striking thing was the show of force by the authorities. There seemed to be groups of 4 cops in full riot gear on every corner, and at one point an SUV went down the street with about 10 fully outfitted cops clinging to the outside. It looked like something you would see on TV after a coup in Africa. And the police have been brought in from all over the area, so if you are looking to rob a liquor store this week, the Denver burbs would be the place to go.

My friend Fiona was out marching with some people before joining us for the game (I don't know if she knows what she was marching for or against, but she wanted to participate). She said she wanted to march with the anarchists, but they couldn't get organized!

I am planning to go down there Tuesday afternoon and evening to walk around see what is happening outside. Hopefully I won't have to bail Fiona out of jail.

1 comment:

fiona said...

Apparently I missed all the action last night - I was coming home from rehearsal and really tempted to go down to the mall - had I done that I would probably have been right in the middle of the melee and fulfilled my desire to finally be arrested for something - sounds like they had some fun down near the mall last night