When people ask, "Where are they going to put all those arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge today?" I shudder to think of the possibilities. The imagination of evil knows no bounds.
It's now become common knowledge that Joseph Bologna a/k/a "Sergeant Pepper" was busily making "arrests" at the Republican National Convention in 2004 in NYC. That's what got me started on the quest for more information about "Pier 57/"Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson".
Below is an accounting from Charles Shaw who was arrested at the RNC and housed there.
Kettling: Another "Special Relationship" Between the US and UK
by Charles Shaw
Since London and New York share so much affinity, it will probably come as no surprise to Britons that "kettling"- the practice by police of cordoning off city blocks at both ends and containing protesters for hours before arresting them for all intents and purposes, had its US debut five years ago during the 2004 Republican National Convention. It was there that I and over 1000 other people were mass-arrested and interned in a makeshift prison camp set up on Pier 57, a filthy and hazardous decommissioned bus depot on the West Side Highway that came to be known as"Guantanamo on the Hudson."
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Even before the onset of the convention, the police presence was overwhelming. New York City boasts a Police Department of 40,000 active officers, and as far as anyone could tell, they were all deployed in the streets that week.
It was a literal police state.
Everywhere we went we were photographed and videotaped. Squads of police tooled around on scooters, bicycles, horses, and in cars, vans, paddy wagons, and a few APC-type vehicles. Blimps and helicopters with high zoom cameras hovered above us. Midtown was closed down in a five-block radius around Madison Square Garden, inaccessible to traffic, guarded by automatic weapons and makeshift checkpoints.
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The policy of mass arresting and detaining protestors was deliberate and premeditated, as revealed in NYPD documents released in 2007 under court order. The intention was to disrupt, discourage, and ultimately, disperse the protest presence from the streets by creating a climate of fear.
Under the broadly defined rubric of ‘domestic terrorism', using the Patriot Act, an elevated terror alert, and a ‘temporary state of emergency' as legal justification, virtually anyone could be construed as a lawbreaker. As a result of this zealotry, the arrests did not discriminate: media, legal observers, and innocent bystanders alike were all caught up in the sweeps.
If you ever doubted we are now living in a Police State you need look no further than the following documents:
The New York Civil Liberties Union: Policing Protest: The NYPD's Republican National Convention Documents
This page archives New York Police Department intelligence documents that pertain to the policing of protest activity before and during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City.
Documents Released May 16, 2007
Please do see the Amy Goodman/Democracy Now! broadcast from September 2, 2004, now held at Internet Movie Archives. I was unable to embed it.
Here's a link to the transcript: September 02, 2004
Democracy Now!: Making Protest Painful: Detained RNC Protesters Held in Crowded, Oil-Contaminated Conditions
Hundreds of detained protesters remain in a holding facility in New York despite a judge’s order to release them. We speak with one of those freed: Matt Daloisio, a member of the New York Catholic Worker who was arrested at a protest at Ground Zero. [includes rush transcript]
Protests against the Republican convention continued yesterday throughout New York City. The police arrested 19 people in separate incidents, bringing the total of those detained so far during seven days of relentless convention-related protests to more than 1,760–a record for a political convention.
Hundreds of people protested the conditions under which those arrested are being held before going to court saying the site was contaminated with oil and asbestos. Pier 57 is a three-story, block-long pier that has been converted to a holding pen.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has denied the city was operating what some called "Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson." And defended the use of the of the pier garage saying "It’s not supposed to be Club Med."