Saturday, March 19, 2005

Another police over-reaction to a lefty protest

Why do the Chicago Police always freak out and send five times more riot geared up officers than is necessary for every lefty protest against U.S. foreign policy? I just passed by the Federal Plaza and there must have been 400 officers - most of them with riot gear - standing around far fewer protesters. The civic message is clear: the authorities are here to intimidate any citizens whio speak out publicly in a group. What a waste of money. The police should stop treating protesters like an enemy army.

2 comments:

Bill Baar said...

They want the overtime?

Seriously,, I participated in many demos in the 60s and 70s anc Chicago Police deserve a lot of credit for handling demos far more professionally then ever before...

Dan Johnson said...

Bill, I agree that they are acting professionally (and I did notice that most officers had a name tag on -- which I appreciate), but I think you'd agree that the number of officers deployed far exceeds any reasonable need. What are we scared of? A dozen teenagers who want to hide in a crowd of lefties and use the protest as an excuse to break windows? We can't handle a few punk teenagers with far fewer officers?