NYPD Red

Cops moving in behind Cindy Sheehan
Originally uploaded by AnomalousNYC.

I've not blogged anyone else's photo from flickr before, but this is something that likely won't be picked up by mainstream media so no apologies.

Monday afternoon in Union Square, Cindy Sheehan and several members of the Gold Star Families For Peace, a group of parents who have lost children to Bush's War against Iraqis. Cindy has become something of a national celebrity over the last year.

Several people came with Cindy to the city to speak out against the war. They spoke at Camp Casey NYC, a 24-hour vigil going on in Union Square for the last 5 weeks.

In the background you can see a group of NYPD Captains rushing into the crowd, grabbing one of the event organizers and pulling him out of the group by the neck - 3 others around him are holding tightly onto him to keep him from being pulled away. You can't see a wall of another two dozen cops standing furher behind. The cops proceded to get very rough, shoving and pushing people, and the scene got a little ugly, with a lot of cursing and screaming at the cops. They quickly unplugged the microphone and hauled away the sound equipment along with the event organizer. This morning at 6:45 a.m. they came back and attacked the group at the site again.

the innocent have nothing to fear...

Home Office junior minister Andrew Burnham MP turned up in Bristol, at the Galleries this morning, as part of the stealth government biometric passport tour. "Stealth" because they don't announce their schedule and, indeed, refuse to release it if anyone has the temerity to enquire. NO2ID found out about it anyhow and let the non-innocent (like me) into the secret.

About a dozen of us turned up to present a viewpoint contrary to the database state, with two large banners that (with any luck) will show up on at least the local TV news tonight. More to the point, we failed to get the minister to answer any difficult questions (there's a surprise) and handed out leaflets to a largely receptive passing public - it was quite gratifying how many peoples' first reaction was to thrust yet-another-leaflet aside but who, on spotting the title, took it with genuine interest.

As to what happened to a selection of Bristol LibDem luminaries who promised to turn up and didn't, I know not. Eaten by proponents of Orange Book, perhaps.