Chaos! - Democrats in Denver cont.

Throughout the day I heard sporadic reports from co-workers of protesters outside our building attempting to rouse-rabble, but other than some anarchists getting hauled away from the 16th Street Mall by police, the protests seemed scattered and less massive than most of us anticipated. It did seem that every colorful cause you can imagine had representation out on the streets, from anti-war and anti-China demonstrators, to population reduction pundits, to advocates of free flu vaccinations. One highlight (or lowlight, come to think of it) was the van that drove around downtown, displaying giant pictures of dead fetuses and the slogan, "Abortion is an Obama Nation". Kind of clever in a sick, sick way.

The relative mildness of the day was soon to be shattered however. As the buses seemed behind schedule that evening, we decided to take a cab from work (sharing it with a cool alternative energy stocks blogger who waited with us at the bus stop). On our way home we saw a huge procession of cops in riot gear hanging off of SUVs with their sirens on, flying West past City Park. When we arrived home, we found out there was a sizeable riot downtown, minutes after we left the city. Pepper spray and hoses were used; people were hospitalized; 100 people were arrested. This is definitely not a boring time to be a Denverite!

calm before the storm

Most of Monday was pretty calm downtown. As I looked down 27 floors from my office onto the main pedestrian mall the foot traffic looked pretty normal with a few people holding signs and handing stuff out. Seems most regular downtown workers decided not to commute in and were replaced with activists and media leaving the streets relatively bearable to navigate.

The big excitement yesterday was an un-permitted protest march around 7pm. Not five minutes after Drake and I caught a cab home (after 30 min. wait for bus) a huge protester-police uproar broke out just two blocks from where we were standing! I can't believe we missed it! Our cab patiently waited as a fleet of cops, armored cars, and riot gear-wearing police holding themselves on the outside of an SUV, roared passed us to the scene. Police used pepper spray and force to contain the rock-holding mob and about a third of the 300 protesters were arrested. Activist groups are screaming mistreatment and brutality of course. I'm all for the freedom of speech, but these are groups that have preemptively said they plan to get arrested and use violence. Some of their signs even say "Riot 4 Peace". So, I'm tending to lean to the side of the police. Without knowing the whole story, I think these groups are looking for a fight and are purposely causing chaos to gain media attention.

We should really focus on the real momentous events occurring.