Denver Report: Officials Ramp Up Security For Convention, Ban Buckets Of Feces
As someone who enjoys shooting abstract photos which include downtown Denver buildings as subjects, I hesitate to do so these days. I had an experience a few months ago that's made me think twice about continuing the practice. Something that's caused me, since then, to batten down my shutterbug tendencies.
From across the street, I was photographing a structure that I'd previously worked in for five years: one of Denver's World Trade Center buildings. Yeah, perhaps it's not the best idea, in this day and age, to take snapshots of any building with that unfortunate name. But the noonday sun was reflecting artistically off part of its mirrored façade, just so.
A security guard approached from the edifice I was standing nearby and confronted me. "Sir, you can't take a picture of that building!" she said sternly. "We've been told to report anyone who does so to Homeland Security." She mentioned the upcoming Democratic National Convention (DNC) during her lecture.
The guard didn't demand my ID. But I can't know for sure that I wasn't, in fact, reported, as a result -- my image from a surveillance camera run and rerun in some bureaucratic office with a government seal on the door.
I've since learned that the DNC has the federal designation of being a National Special Security Event (NSSE): it's called that, according to Wikipedia, because it's "an attractive target for terrorists or assassins due to the event's visibility or political connection." That makes the DNC on par with the Super Bowl, another NSSE. It's not an out of bounds comparison, either, since Barack Obama has switched the upcoming site for his acceptance speech from Denver's Pepsi Center to the much-larger Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Denver Broncos crack skulls on the gridiron. Go team, indeed.
I've read that $50 million will be spent on security. The Secret Service is running the show. And I wouldn't exactly relish being in their shoes, either, given the racist bent of some of my countrymen and the fact that the first African American has been nominated as the Democratic contender for president. Nobody wants the worst to go down on their watch.
To complicate matters locally, the major protest organizers in town chose a fairly provocative handle: Re-Create 68. The group's named after the ill-fated '68 Democratic National Convention in Chicago at which Mayor Daley's cops staged a "police riot." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to imagine the sometimes volatile Denver Police busting heads if anyone steps out of line -- or even on a crack -- during the DNC. Already, a city-owned warehouse is being readied as a makeshift jail, in the event of mass arrests.
Recently, the Denver City Council felt compelled to pass an ordinance outlawing carrying buckets of feces, which conceivably could be tossed on delegates or police during the DNC. Somebody's expecting a crappy time.
As I sat eating a slice of pizza the other day, I looked through the shop's pane of glass and meditated on the poster pasted on a utility box: an advertisement for an "anti-capitalista" rally this coming Monday, depicting a black-hooded character. Huh, could that be the black bloc? Aren't they those anarchists who, during the WTO protests, made Seattle unsafe for store windows like the Gap's? That's practically all Denver's downtown 16th Street Mall is, to boot: a 16-block long row of store windows. How convenient.
For civic boosters, the DNC in Denver is a dream-come-true. The Mayor was on a television show recently comparing the potential impact for Colorado to how Utah benefited after staging the Winter Olympics. Even the United States Postal Service has declared the event "a tremendous economic and marketing opportunity for Metro Denver and Colorado" in its notice explaining why my downtown post office, a major station, will only be open from 7-11 a.m. while the circus is in town.
It's said that parts of Denver will be off-limits to anyone who isn't a resident of that area. Rather than take the bus to her downtown job during the DNC, my partner has decided to beat the hassles and vacation out-of-state.
Me? As a writer and photojournalist, I'm sorely tempted to cover some of the protests as an observer. (I'm also tempted to just sit at home during the entire DNC, after reactivating my membership to Netflix.) But if I do attend, I'll certainly feel paranoid anytime I point my camera. And even when I don't.
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Gregory Daurer joined OffTheBus's convention coverage team. Sign up here.
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Gregory, You've got me worried. I see from your posting that carrying feces in a bucket is suddenly illegal in the city of Denver. You see I have a garden and I live in Denver. I fertilize my garden with compost. The compost contains a high percentage of manure, bovine feces. My garden is too small to use a wheelbarrow so I generally carry the compost in a bucket to the garden. Am I at risk of arrest and warehouse detention here? Shouldn't we warn Denver gardeners to drop their buckets? What about conscientious dog owners? Where will it end?
Good reply.
Of course, at the end of the day, it'll all end up magically in Washington D.C. ....In the mouths of our elected politicians.
I recall hearing an ernest young SDS guy on campus in '65 saying, "Yeah man, what we need is a good cause to rally the students." Personally, I had enough to do then without looking for trouble. Now that I am retired, I am more inclined to stir the pot. It is true that moles thrive at altitude, even a mile high.
The only thing young people care about is how much internet speed they get over their 2nd cell phone, Grey.
The saying used to be "don't trust anybody over 30".
I think it should now be "don't trust anybody under 30", myself.
Greg Daurer,
A couple of comments about the picture in your story.
"Anti, Anti-capitialista". Don't two negatives make a positive? I think I learned that in English and math class. So these black clad fashionistas are really covert capitalists? You know, moles.
And the hooded character looks to be holding a Starbucks cup. A signal perhaps?
Dude, just stay off the streets. Don't get caught up in all that madness.
They're probably bored suburban kids without a life plan.
Beware of Agents Provocateurs!
The cops started the riots in Seattle.
The cops were caught trying to do the same thing in Quebec exactly a year ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1-WTc1kow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Police_Force#Montebello_Incident
Protesters- be strong, but stay smart.
It will not just be the police either. Be mindful of any rightwing moles also.
Just like we are working towards for the rest of the world- STAY PEACEFUL. If you see someone trying to incite violence or disrupt- be wary; do what you can to stop them but don't play into their games and escalate the situation.
Could you fit all that on a t-shirt?
You could peddle them on the street in Denver in between the "situations".
This is pure melodrama at this point. Nobody cared 5 yrs. ago with the Iraq invasion, and nobody really cares now. Pulling a couple hundred punk rockers for a throw against the cops is not a protest. It's just another party with an excuse attached.
They have only themselves to blame.
There could have been a PROGRESSIVE answer to all this, but I guess "the times, they are NOT a-changin'....
The trick is to make ALL THE PROTESTORS responsible for ALL THE ACTIONS DONE IN THEIR NAME.
It works.
Look at the huge protests by HUNDREDS of different "paradigms" in New York to end the war.
There were AGREEMENTS between the protesting organizations and the police.
There was ACCOUNTABILITY along the protest route, because members of these organizations took responsibility for policing their own members as "PEACE KEEPERS".
From what I see, this started out in bunker mode from the very beginning....and you want to know the spark to ALL of this?
NANCY PELOSI'S REFUSAL TO FOLLOW THE LAW OF THE LAND AND START IMMEDIATE IMPEACHMENT HEARINGS ON CHENEY AND BUSH.
Yes - from a small acorn of betrayal, a big ol' oak tree of dissent is perpetuated. And RIGHTLY SO.
Citizens have EVERY RIGHT to confront this type of refusal to do the job they were elected to do.
It is THAT simple.
I will be throwing that virtual feces in solidarity.
ONWARD.
Hmmm...
Buckets of feces....Democratic Convention.
Come on, how often do you see a high, hanging fastball like that?
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