Last night about 20 participants gathered at the Reston, VA Town Center in a candlelight "Vigil to Save Children's Health Care," re: SCHIP, organized by MoveOn.org.
This, however, was a little too much first amendment for security in Reston Town Center....and the police moved in to break us up....more below the fold. UPDATE UPDATE: Scroll to bottom for U-Tube!
We were shortly thereafter confronted by the property security guard....the "property" being the entire Reston Town Center:
Here is the exact quote of this security officer, I know, because I was standing right there: "Are you talking about the war? Because the store owners don't like people talking about the war outside their stores!" To which I responded: "Actually, we're talking about children's health, would that be ok with them you think?" "Perhaps you could provide us with a list of acceptable topics?"
We then advised him we would be walking around the block, where, in fact, most of the vigil participants lived.
We distributed about 100 flyers to passersby, including this Dad and child who expressed support, saying he would join our group later:
Notice the fierce and threatening attitude of the marchers:
Well, clearly, things were getting "out of control," and the security guard called in the Fairfax County police:
It seems that Reston Town Center may, in fact, privately owned, but it's not clear to me. It's story is kind of interesting, claiming to be "the first suburban downtown in America." The area on which we were "intruding" was originally owned by Mobil. As per Wikipedia:
Reston is an internationally known planned community whose goal was to revolutionize post-World War II concepts of land use and residential/corporate development in American suburbia.[1] Reston is an unincorporated census-designated place located in western Fairfax County, Virginia in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. As of the latest unofficial estimates, Reston has a population of 60,353.[2] This would make it the most populous place in Fairfax County. Although it is not a city and does not have a traditional central business district, the Reston Town Center is becoming a focal point or "downtown" for business and transportation connections within the community, with several high-rise office buildings and condos and apartments, restaurants, a cinema, a hotel, and shops. Some municipal, government-like services are provided by a nonprofit corporation, Reston Association.
Further:
Construction of the town center began in 1990. This first wave of construction was Phase 1, and started the center off with 2 11-story office buildings, One Fountain Square and Two Fountain Square, along with multiple smaller office buildings and a Hyatt Regency hotel. In Phase 2, the 18-story One Freedom Center (Accenture office) and 16-story Two Freedom Center were added. In Phase 3, three residential highrises were finished in mid-2006.
Reston is unincorporated; it receives "municipal" services either from the county or from the Reston Association, which operates recreational facilities across the town and maintains pathways and other common grounds
I don't know if Town Center is actually still "private" or is under the control of the Reston Association - others can clarify. Therefore, I didn't know at the time if they really had any cause to disperse us. We felt at this time that we had basically accomplished our goals, the police were actually quite polite (but were they correct?), and so, shortly thereafter, we dispersed. I will show a few more pics, including this one of three generations of one family who joined us, and our fearless videographer who hopefully will be making his videos available soon:
and the rest of our "vigilantes" including Sally who some of you met in Chicago at YKOS:
"All together now" with hcc in va having just broken his candle (but hiding that fact)in the heat of the moment:
Two more fearsome friends of children:
Assisting a candle ligher:
And mom expresses our sentiments so well, while an up and coming activist takes it all in:
Conclusion: I would say That despite everything, the vigil was successful - and would have been more successful had we not been forced to disburse prematurely. The flyers we gave out were well received and included a phone number to call one's congressperson, having only to enter a zip code to get to the right one. All who took the flyers agreed to do so, and this included visitors from as far away as Florida. Dare we hope that hundreds of similar actions, and pressure from other groups as described in other diaries, might actually persuade our Congress, finally, to do the right thing for the children of this nation?
PS: Shall I submit this to the ACLU for their recommendation re: possible legal action?
UPDATE: Thanks to Joe, here is a video of the event, a little chaotic and dark, but you can get the sense of the rally and confrontation:
In case you didn't get enough pictures, here is Joe's blog on the march.