Attorneys Hold 'Know Your Rights' Training for Democratic Convention

By: Erin Rosa

DENVER-- All this week attorneys here will be conducting trainings to teach prospective demonstrators protesting at the Democratic National Convention how to react to common scenarios involving police.

The effort is being spearheaded by the DNC-People's Law Project and the Oakland-based Midnight Special Law Collective, two groups of citizens and attorneys who specialize in First Amendment rights.

Training is meant to teach individuals to serve as legal observers during police encounters at the convention, along with educating protesters about their constitutional rights. They are being conducted at University of Denver's Sturm College of Law and are open to the public.

The training sessions come after Colorado Confidential reported that Denver police are stocking up on material for convention security but have refused todetail the nature of the equipment.

The DNC-People's Law Project is being headed by Brian Vicente, an attorney who is also executive director of Sensible Colorado, a nonprofit that advocates for a decriminalized drug policy in the state. The project was formed by the National Lawyers Guild in 2007 over civil rights concerns for the convention, to be held Aug. 25-28.

The Midnight Special Law Collective has provided similar training to various groups across the nation.

Read more on the convention at Colorado Confidential's DNC in the Mile High City section.

Comments

[BBackSoon]

May I ask just how close the "Official Protest Site" is from the Convention Center? Is it one a regular route to the CC? Are they giving each Group a timeslot in which to protest? Seems that as long as the Security Detail says something about Homeland Security they can do whatever they want.

The only right we have left is that we don"t have to allow British soldiers to stay in our homes.

[kellygrrrrl]

Seminars aren't needed, armed bodyguards are. The neocons have been sending their military Billy Bob rubes to snatch Progressive protesters who are then intimidated through rapes and beatings.
Nice work there, support your troops in brutalization.

[Warmglobe]

What a world...not only do we have protests of everything but the sun rising....we have trainers for them too! Maybe they should be trained on how to live a more fruitful life with gainful employment, bathing, and growing up!

[krol]

Yeah man! If you protest for one day, there's no way you have a job, take baths, or have any level of emotional and/or intellectual maturity!

Teaching people their rights, i.e. the law, is something that I could never have imagined someone deriding. Thanks for expanding even my wildest imagination, Warmglobe.

[Warmglobe]

And maybe you would support government funding for them as well?..but you did describe the typical protester well....you must know them or be one of them...:)

[GoodbyeKitty]

Good puppy!! Nnow here's a tax-refund for ya, can you sit up and beg?

[Shantee]

You sound like an elitist warmglobe. Protests and demonstations are a healthy part of a democracy....something many ill informed Americans don't realize. Or do you think it's more productive to sit in front of TV dazed and glazed and do nothing. Sounds like you know nothing about history either. I have more respect for people who get off their asses and take to the streets when necessary....sometimes it's the only viable course. You're the one that needs to grow up and learn something about history.

[DannyEastVillage]

and maybe YOU should have training in Constitutional Law. How can you make such an idiotic, broad-brushed statement about dissenters? Do you have any idea how much "protest" is thematically central to our history? beginning in 1776?

Why don't you try opening a book instead of jerking your knee?

[michael098762001]

Course it would help if the crazy anarchists at Recreate '68 didn't publish documents like this Weather Underground'esque Days of Rage tactical manual, http://www.recreate68.org/shieldbook.pdf

[Arsenic]

Thanks for the link! I'll try to see that this gets broader distribution!

[JumpinJ]

Let's hope it goes better than it did here in NY in 2006 and that cops remember we do have the First Amendment, at least for now. As a member of Billionaires For Bush, tax payer dollars were sent to have undercover cops infiltrate us. Because we all know that people wearing tuxes and gowns (though rarely at the same time), the first thing we think about doing is turning over a car. It took a Freedom of Information Act to find this out. The thing to remember that where our civil rights are concerned, use 'em or lose 'em.

[ERose]

Yes, that is the scary part.....police weapons Chicago in '68 was horrifying, and brutal. But imagine the "tools" now available to law enforcement that they will use to ensure our Constitutional right to free speech is taken from us....along with our right to assemble. Which is a joke anyway in most cases....gotta have a permit, and when Bush has come to Portland in the past, protesters are relagated to a location behind chain link fencing, blocks away from any place Bush could even SEE them. And of course now protesters are up against the fine print in the Patriot Act. Which needs to be abolished.

Sidebar: I don't know how it is in other cities, but here in Portland, which the rest of the country thinks is so progressive (well, we ARE in many ways)....but the police here would just as soon shoot you as write you a speeding ticket. It's fairly common for a citizen to be gunned down, and the police are always exonerated. Look it up. Police shootings in Portland, OR.