I was sitting in a parked car last night, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, in a not so nice neighborhood, watching a meeting of anarchists and other anti-G20 protesters. Well, not so much watching the meeting, that was going on inside of a small office. What I was watching was the people milling about outside and the ACLU reps who were there to make sure that no one harassed the protesters.
We were right across the street in a public parking lot and after watching for about half an hour a police car cruised by, and then a second and within 15 seconds our parking lot was filled with police cars, vans and a haz-mat bus. There must have been 50 police in riot gear waiting in the various vans. The New York Times reporter in our car told us to all just sit quietly and watch. We did. The police stood around, talked to one another and waited. The protesters didn't do much either. After about 15 minutes of this strange little standoff, the police left.
People in the crowd all pulled out video cameras when the police arrived and the pink hatted ACLU team was poised to, well, I am not sure what ACLU people do if police start cracking heads, but since that did not happen, it's really not worth pondering.
The meeting broke up peacefully and no one is quite sure what happened. The police appear to be showing up at any sort of meeting of possible protesters and just hanging out, leaving the distinct message that any sort of outrageous protest will be met with a large police response. In the land of the free this is what passes as public dialog.
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