The RNC protests moved from St Pete yesterday (where the pre-convention party was) to the Tampa convention site today. It was an entirely different crowd. Still lots of old folks and mainstream political groups, but also a heavy presence of several different Trotskyite groups and a contingent of anarchists. (Not unusual for a DC or NYC or Oakland rally, but something you certainly don't see everyday in Florida . . . ) And a dozen or so fundamentalist Christian kooks even showed up to counter-protest.
I would estimate the crowd at around 1200 or so.
The police presence was overwhelming. I had no trouble finding the marchers--I just followed the helicopters. The cops had the entire march surrounded, with two lines of bicycle cops along each side, and several rows of cops behind and in front. I couldn't have swung a cat by the tail without smacking half a dozen cops.
Only saw one kid get busted, though---the "event rules" say "no masks". During the march, I did see several people with masks, and apparently the cops made the (quite sensible) decision to not attempt to do anything about it. As the march was dissipating and the speechifying was over, though, one of the anarchists who was wearing a mask was approached by a cop. I didn't see that part, and I heard conflicting versions of what happened. One account says the cop approached belligerently, asked him to remove the mask, and then arrested him before he could comply. Another account has a small group of anarchists taunting the cops and flipping them off (as you can see in the photos, they were doing this during the march too), and apparently one of the cops decided to make an example of them. Whatever the cause, the result was that the kid ended up being faceplanted and cuffed. Within seconds dozens of cops, protesters and press people began running in from all directions to surround them. During that, one of the bicycle cops apparently ran over someone's foot, which set off another "discussion". That probably would have ended with a faceplant too, if a couple of Federales from the Justice Department hadn't stepped in, separated everyone, and tried to calm everyone down. Alas, it just so happened that Tampa's chief of police was standing not far away with a group of officers, so the whole party then rushed over to surround her (yes, Tampa has a female police chief--she's the blonde woman with glasses in the photos). She stuttered something about "we'll investigate thoroughly", then ducked out to hide. The whole thing then evaporated as press people pulled aside anyone they could and stuck a microphone in their face.
Two things about the incident struck me: While the coppers have all the grunts on the ground, it's the Feds who are really running the show (probably in very close coordination with the Romney campaign stage-managers). And the Feds are apparently insistent that there be no, uh, "incidents" to detract attention from the convention. They do not want a replay of Chicago 1968, and they don't want the whole world to be watching demonstrators getting clubbed and pepper-sprayed on live TV.
The press was everywhere today (the march was actually led by a slow-moving truck crammed with press photographers). Since there was no actual convention, the protests were the only story the press had to cover, and they covered it thoroughly.
Show us what democracy looks like? THIS is what democracy looks like.
Photos below the fold: