Got out a bit late to lunch, but here’s what I saw …
- Various vendor booths set up in the median of the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall, all selling various swag (mostly Obama, some more generic Democrat). Partisanship aside, let me say that there are a lot of bad t-shirt designers out there.
- As noted earlier, the first real police presence I saw was hanging out at the Federal Reserve Building, both on the street level and a few cops up a floor.
- Interesting to see folks with delegate tags chatting about this and that, convention-wise.
- Wandered over to the Convention Center, which was much more of a zoo. Lots more button and shirt vendors, plus various folks for various causes getting various photos taken of themselves (PETA and Operation: Rescue were both taking turns in the spotlight).
- Saw a spiffy little Denver PD rapid response vehicle — basically a pick-up with running boards for a dozen cops or so to ride on the outside. Let’s them get a squad someplace pretty quickly (as long as they don’t have to travel so far). Also various cops on motorcycles, cops on bicycles, and cops in black tactical gear on foot.
- Lots of people giving away things — I got several candy / power bars.
- During my walk, at 16th and Champa, there was a some group or another protesting “Homo Sex” and offering to tell the crowd how it was that they were all going to Hell, etc. On my way back, a counter-protest had started up (mostly younger kids who were drumming and singing to drown out the original protesters, along with a few cat-calls, raised fingers, etc.). All fine and good, but they were essentially all blocking the mall buses, which were backed up over a block. The cops milled about a bit to make sure that nobody was actually going to scuffle, then cleared a channel for the buses. As I was heading back to my office, I saw the little tactical truck heading down the mall in that direction, so no idea if things heated up after I was gone.
- Cops on street corners. Protest groups walking hither and thither on their way to an appointment with destiny.
- One added rumor to the Bike Racks of Doom thing — evidently the hotel that shares our building is hosting a few of the delegates, which immediately bumps up the security. There was a group of five or six riot-suited cops on the corner behind the building, by the loading dock entrance.
So far, so interesting.
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Yeah, the RMN had many photos of the SUV’s of Doom that the DPD are running around on. One reporter thought there were two cops for every protestor yesterday.
Hard to say — they were fairly ubiquitous, and protesters were thin on the ground. I didn’t feel like they were too obtrusive, though it does give you pause when a file of jump-suited cops are making a bee line somewhere.
I did hear a follow-up on the local NPR news on the way home. Evidently the street preachers vs. mocking youths protest did lead to one arrest — a mocking youth who wouldn’t clear the street to let a bus get by.