While the demonstration at Independence Mall was underway, a phalanx of Philadelphia Police, mounted on bikes and wearing jackets that said "Police Strike Force," waited in a line along the 6th Street Boundary, looking ready to roll out and bang heads. It was a strikingly aggressive image juxtaposed to the completely peaceful crowd assembled across the street from them, and seemed wholly inappropriate. The crowd ignored the biker cops.
Once at City Hall, it became immediately apparent why the city was complaining about having to spend an alleged $400,000 to "accommodate" the protesters encamped outside the ornate building. At every entrance to the block-sized edifice, there were 6-10 cops lounging around earning overtime and looking totally bored. City Hall, a towering stone structure that rises castle-like around a huge open square, was completely fenced off around its circumference by bicycle-stand-like metal barricades, behind which numerous armed cops stood...
For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the new award-winning independent alternative online newspaper, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/842
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