If I were you I wouldn’t walk around anyplace near where the Democratic convention is being held this month or you might get swept up in a mass police arrest and held at a detention facility for no reason other than you were in the wrong place at the wrong time:
In Denver, police are preparing what a local political organizer calls a ‘concentration camp,’ laying in wait for mass arrests anticipated during the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
On Wednesday, a Denver CBS affiliate sent a news crew to crash the police department’s improvised detention facility, found in a warehouse owned by the city on the north-east side of town.
“This is a building filled with metal holding cells,” described reporter Rick Sallinger, introducing the segment. “We showed up at the facility unannounced today, the doors were wide open, and we managed to shoot for several minutes until a Denver sheriff’s captain asked us to leave.”
Footage of the warehouse revels tall, chain-link fence capped by barbed wire, and segmented pens each bearing an identifying letter at about shoulder height.
“Each of these fenced in areas is about five yards by five yards,” said Sallinger. “There’s a lock on the door. How long those arrested will be kept here is not known. A sign on the wall reads, ‘Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.’“
So, if you get arrested for walking the lovely streets of Denver during the Democratic convention you risk detention like a caged animal, and possible tasering by the Denver police (after which you will no doubt be charged for resisting arrest and/or assaulting a law enforcement official). Does anyone see anything wrong with this picture? What massive protests are the Denver police expecting? Is there a large group of people who intend to protest Obama in the same peaceable fashion hundreds of thousands protested Bush’s nomination in New York in 2004? I highly doubt it. So why all the extreme measures and preparations for Armageddon in the streets of The Mile High City? This strikes me as ridiculous in the extreme.
Here’s the video from Channel 4 in Denver:
It strikes me as a test. If liberal let this go, conservatives will also support it, and soon we’ll be that much closer to a dictatorship.
There is no way there will be enough protesters in Denver to justify the massive scale of such a facility. I can only assume that they plan to sweep up anyone on the street who is in the vicinity of any group of demonstrators, or maybe even people who are simply within a certain distance of the convention site, etc.
Or maybe somebody’s expecting an event to happen that would make people in Denver in 3 weeks or so go “Wow, I’m sure glad the Democrats had that detention facility around.”
To split up and assign that juicy, juicy security budget. AKA the Dems legitimizing a payoff to the local gov’t. If someone bothered to track how money is being spent there, and at any political convention, there would be some interesting surprises, I am sure. “You think we should skimp on SECURITY? What are you a terrorist?”
My feeling is that if they built this they will find a way to fill it if only to justify the expense of creating the damn thing.
Or the Dems are expecting to piss everyone off by capitulating to some new horror.
The City of San Diego went into debt to finance the 1996 Republican Convention held there. The intent was to give the Mayor, Susan Golding, at shot at a Senate seat. Too bad her husband was caught in a drug money laundering sting.
But San Diego is still in the red over a decade later.
No kidding. I live just over half an hour away and am planning to stay far far away. If the school district didn’t have school in session (starting this Monday!) we’d be gone.
As it is, I’ve laid in some steak and wine for the show.
Actually, large demonstrations are expected, with the largest scheduled for Sunday and others continuing though the week. But nothing excuses this.
However, this is the pattern we’ve seen at every political convention and summit on U.S. soil since WTO in Seattle in 1999. Every time, it gets a little worse and more oppressive. (Which is why the Chinese adopted the US strategy of “Free Speech Zones,” also being set up in Denver but originated I believe at either the 2004 conventions or a 2003 big NYC demo, for the Beijing Olympics. When one of the world’s most repressive governments thinks we have a really whiz-bang idea for how to treat protesters, you know we have problems.) Every demo since WTO, local media has done its part to terrify the populace with The-Rioters-are-Coming! scare stories to justify big budgets for new crowd control toys and horrifyingly unconstitutional abridgements of civil liberties. Especially post-9/11, there’s been barely a peep from the general public. And when the courts toss the whole thing out, it’s years too late. (E.g., 1999 WTO protesters won a multi-million dollar settlement against the City of Seattle for false arrest and civil rights violations — earlier this year.)
Incidentally, I’m leaving for Denver in a few days and will be reporting for BT, from both inside the convention but also at the protests, starting in about a week.
We’re looking forward to that!!
Will you reporting here on BT? The link in your “info” page goes to a smiling stock photo-adorned placeholder site, sadly.
“…this is the pattern we’ve seen at every political convention and summit on U.S. soil since WTO in Seattle in 1999. …”
Anyone feel like a boiling frog?
I know I do – but then gross, outright, in-your-face rebellion would be “crazy”.
You know, one cannot miss the breathless reports of the Chinese government cracking down on “Free Tibet” protests and imploring the government to let journalists have free and unfettered access while covering the Olympics.
But that kind of talk at one of our political conventions will get you in a heap of trouble.
And talking about smog and pollution here gets you branded as tree-hugging eco-terrorist.
Just sayin’…
thanks for this article steven.. I blogged it as well (gave you credit) and made a point of calling the DNC.
they pled ignorance and had me call the Convention Committee at 720-362-2008. I left a message.
It would be good to get their phone number out there and call attention to this.
You’ll notice at their website they highlight that Obama’s acceptance speech will coincide with the 45th anniversary of “I have a dream”. Perhaps the cages and stun devices are meant for a modernized re-enactment of Bull Connor’s firehoses and dogs. After all, Connor was a Democrat too, so maybe they’re just carrying on the tradition.
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Aurora ICE Processing Center I guess this would be too luxurious for protesters at the DNC.
Has Denver police earlier investment already paid off, or is the experiment coming in a fortnight.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I tend to think that this facility is paid for by Homeland Security and is a federal facility. Would the Democratic Party shell out millions for what seems a permanent detention facility? Not on your life they wouldn’t when they can get the federal government to pay for it. See, I bet there are facilities like this one in Denver built/being build in all the major cities of the US, excepting maybe Indianapolis and Boise (snark). Cheney Paranoia required, from the beginning of the first 4 years of his reign of terror, to give out detention facility contracts to cronies. Of course, this is a meme that’s been in progressive circles for years now, with no proof evident. Well, here we are. A detention facility in Denver . . . And where else?
America. Love it or leave it!
for as good a running saga on the security issues being identified regarding the dnc convention and site in denver, l recommend this series from the colorado independent DNC Convention page:
Protest planned against DNC lockup
DNC demonstration zone draws protest:
Barbed wire, stun-gun use mark DNC warehouse
Colorado National Guard seeks central Denver base for DNC:
Overview of DNC security and who is paying the tab:
it’s beginning to resemble a city under siege near the pepsi center, and many here are very concerned that the authorities have, and continue to, overstep their bounds and may, in fact, be provoking a more confrontational situation than is necessary.
like tehanu, l live 30 mile away and l’m staying here. l want no part of what’s likely to go down.
Creepy!