'We Are America' Migrant March Denver

By Brenda Norrell

DENVER -- The march for migrants in Denver, "We Are America," sent a message Thursday morning to both presidential candidates to pass immigration reform laws and halt the ICE raids that are violating human rights and dividing families. The most recent ICE raids have been in Mississippi.
Jose Matus (second photo) is founder and director of the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders. Matus is also a Yaqui ceremonial leader who brings Yaqui ceremonial leaders across the US/Mexico border for temporary visits to carry out ceremonies. Indigenous living along the border, from the Kumeyaay in California to the Tigua and Lipan Apache in Texas have battled the oppression, seizures of land and violations of sacred areas due to Homeland Security waving all federal laws to build the border wall. In addition, Tohono O'odham ancestors have been dug up for border wall construction and an ancient ceremonial route dissected. Tohono O'odham Chairman Ned Norris said in a congressional hearing that human bone fragments have been found in border wall machinery tracks.

During today's march near the Democratic National Convention, marchers demanded a halt to the "Gestapo-style ICE raids" that are "promoting bigotry at the highest levels of government," according to World Can't Wait (www.worldcantwait.org)

ICE swept through Laurel, Mississippi and seized 595 workers. Four hundred and seventy-five workers are being held in Jena, Louisiana, a town notorious for racism and attacks on people of color. (Photos Brenda Norrell)

Listen to Earthcycles Producer Govinda Dalton, with Brenda Norrell in Denver:

www.earthcycles.net

Denver police pepper spray and beat people

Action Alert: Protest Police Treatment of DNC Activists

From Colorado Legal Eagles
info@coloradolegaleagles.org

For photos and more informaton, see:
http://www.coloradolegaleagles.org/
[Denver, CO] - Glenn Spagnuolo, one of the main organizers of Recreate 68, was interviewed on Peter Boyles on KHOW radio Tuesday morning about the pepper bullet incident on Monday. You can listen to the full interviews here:
http://www.khow.com/pages/boyles.html
Glenn said that the incident last night started around 5:30pm, when heavily-armed police in SWAT gear began making random sweeps through Civic Center Park, harassing people sitting in the grass by poking them with nightsticks and telling them to get up and leave. Glenn complained several times to the protester's police liaison, and the police would stop the harassment, just to start it again a few minutes later. He said that happened about 4 or 5 times. Glenn said some of the kids in the park became annoyed and formed a circle and started chanting "No Justice, No Peace" and put bandanas on their faces. He said that the police got worked up and came in pretty heavy and opened up with pepper spray and pepper bullets into the crowd without warning. The police chased the crowd through the park towards 15th and Cleveland, where there was another line of police waiting to surround the people running from the police and prevent them from leaving. Glenn says the police surrounded the crowd, which included frightened and crying children, and began pushing them back and crushing the crowd together. He said they were detained for well over an hour.
With their heavy-handed tactics and lack of warning to the crowds, the police clearly were trying to provoke violence from the crowd. There had been over 2 days of peaceful protests up until this incident. Instead of trying to arrest the trouble-makers without endangering others, the police chose to react by firing pepper bullet guns, pepper spray and tear gas into groups of innocent bystanders without warning and rounding up crowds of innocent people and detaining them for over an hour.
In other incidents of police harassment, Cindy Sheehan, an antiwar activist running for office against Nancy Pelosi, returned to her hotel room in Denver yesterday to find a man trying to plant a bug in her telephone.
http://obambi.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/cindy-sheehan-catches-a-man-trying-to-wiretap-her-hotel-room-telephone/
According to Glenn Spagnuolo, the police had been stopping and searching the cars of Recreate68 and Unconventional Action activists near their convergence center north of downtown.
Another report on colorado.indymedia.org states that 5 members of the Solidarity Radical Library and Revolutionary Center from Lawrence, Kansas were arrested Monday in Denver without any reason.
Other activists reported heavy intimidation and harassment by roving gangs of heavily-armed law enforcement officers in the Civic Center Park Festival of Democracy and elsewhere in Denver.
Please call the officials below and tell them to stop the harassment of antiwar activists by police. Forward this announcement to your friends. We need to let the city of Denver know that the "The Whole World is Watching!"
Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper Phone: 720-865-9000 (Denver 311) Ask for the Mayor's Office
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter Phone: (303) 866-2471 They say it's the Mayor's responsibility, not theirs, but they still need to feel the heat.
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---Provided as a public service by the:
Come Up to Denver Coalition"No one else can take your place!"Check out our video of Crosby, Stills and Nash playing "Denver"
http://www.comeuptodenver.org/
Email: info@comeuptodenver.org

Guantanamo on the Platte

By Brenda Norrell

DENVER -- If you like chaos, you should be in the streets of Denver. If you like being surrounded by squads of riot police with nothing to do but irritate people, you should definitely be in Denver. If you like downtown shop owners saying, "Our restrooms are out of order," and "We turned the Wi-Fi off for the week," you should really be in Denver.

I don't know how anyone else's day went, but for me, I spent eight hours accomplishing nothing. First, there's the downtown Kinkos, the worst in the nation. You can pay $30 for what should cost $5 to accomplish because the computers are pitiful. It has been that way for years.

While many shop owners just handled the chaos  this way: "Our restrooms are broken," (Kinkos) or "We turned off the Wi-Fi for the week," (Paradise Bakery)" on down the street, Barnes and Nobles tried another approach. It was so hot in there that babies were sweating.

Finally I gave up and sat in a coffee shop. Across the street, the anti-abortion crowd had huge posters of fetuses. The restaurant owners were very upset because people really couldn't eat looking at these. There seemed to be lots of drama, as police and news reporters kept rushing back and forth as confrontations came and went. But one thing was clear, these protesters, mostly white Christians from small towns, were treated very different by Denver's riot police, than the peaceful marchers for political prisoners on Monday. 

For people of color, the police drew their weapons. The alternative crowd wasn't treated well either. For the peaceful Food Not Bombs group, there was a huge buildup of police delivering intimidation and repression. Finally, for all the alternative protesters near the Civic Center there was a huge arrest sweep on Monday night. Medics, documentary filmmakers, and reporters said they were detained for one and one half-hours during the roundup.

Apparently Denver police felt Monday's crowd was entirely too peaceful and arrests were in order. There was no other way to explain the big roundup and arrests Monday night. Police sprayed people with pepper spray and shot pepper bullets at them. As for the bizarre single file procession of dozens of police through the Food Not Bombs dinner of rice and lentils, there's no way to explain that.

Still, there are great handmade signs all over Denver. However, there's little indication that the "haves" at the Democratic National Convention are paying any attention to the people in the streets. The people taking to the streets of Denver have come from all over America. Anyone who has a cause is here. Two signs today read, "911 was an inside job," and "Clean coal spending $2 million on convention." On the lighter side, here's a few great signs from the streets: "Give everyone everything," "Get rid of government everything," and "Free hugs."

Anyway, back to today. As I was leaving the Civic Center area, I heard from a young woman photographer who had witnessed one of the police attacks. She said one person was simply photographing his friend being arrested. The police told him to halt, so he dropped the camera and put his hands in the air. The young man taking photos was then tackled by three riot police and arrested. His crime was taking a photo. She also filled me in on the fenced dog cages being used as jails during the convention.

The locals call it after their river, "Guantanamo on the Platte."

(PHOTO: Denver riot police ready for the big sweep on Monday. Apparently the people were too peaceful, as the guy sleeping on the grass demonstrates. The photo was taken shortly before the sweep and arrests in the Civic Center area on Monday evening. Photo Brenda Norrell)

Denver police: Intimidation and provocation

Denver police stage bizarre behavior

By Brenda Norrell

DENVER -- On Monday, Denver police spent the day intimidating and provoking peaceful protesters. By day's end there were entirely too many police with too much time on their hands. They were eager to arrest people in Denver. It didn't matter if the people were simply walking down the street. Medics were even detained.

Flashing a wide variety of weapons, Denver police positioned police gangs around the peaceful Food Not Bombs. Police even made a single file procession through the heart of Food Not Bombs' peaceful dinner. As people were eating, Denver police made one of the silliest processions ever through a dinner of rice and lentils.

After spending the late afternoon in bizarre staging and intimidation tactics in the Civic Center area, Denver police began spraying people with pepper spray and shoving people randomly by day's end. Finally, apparently bored and itchy to arrest, they arrested people for their Democratic National Convention dog cages. It was a sad and embarrassing day for Denver police, proving that lawlessness reigns for US police.