My battery went flat just as things were going from festive to exciting. The assembly before the march was fun and entertaining. The exciting part is when the march started and the police decided they were going to choose the direction of the crowd.
I will add more to this after I take a moment to get settled in.
I can hear the helicopter hovering outside as the marchers are near Pioneer Square at the moment and are making their voices heard outside the Verizon store. There were some scuffles as police resisted ceding space to the crowd.
The one that occurred closest to me was by happenstance my battery had gone flat, as I said above, and I decided to head home. Well, the marchers were going in the same general direction as I was at that point and they soon over took me. I attempted to follow the direction of the march since the police had inconveniently blocked my my way in their attempt to control the marchers. As I reached the next block and the place I intended to reroute to the police had again blocked the route with bicycles. I felt trapped as I had no intention of staying with the crowd and in a physical sense I was trapped and was unable to get home. Suddenly the line of bicycles yielded under the weight of the crowd. One officer was not happy about not receiving absolute obedience and lashed out into the crowd using his bicycle as a weapon. This was on the north west corner of Third and Pine.
2:00 PM PT: Live streaming by Ustream
9:15 PM PT: Anyone see me on the livestream?