City treads lightly on protests

Denver balances access and order

DENVER -- Filmmaker Michael Schiller was taping protesters marching down a sidewalk near New York's ground zero site during the 2004 Republican National Convention when police used orange netting to form a cordon and told everyone inside they were under arrest.

"We figured we'd be fine. If they said disperse, we'd disperse. But we never got the chance," recalled Schiller. He and nearly 1,200 people across the city were arrested that day.

The incident underscored what critics say is an alarming erosion of citizens' free speech rights during political conventions.

Civil rights activists and attorneys braced for the possibility of more of the same this year. But Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's office says he has pushed to make Denver as accessible as possible to protest and interest groups.

Denver officials say they hope to avoid extended detentions as thousands of protesters, including anti-war, immigration and anti-abortion activists, come to town for the Democratic National Convention. On Sunday, about 1,000 anti-war activists marched peacefully through downtown Denver, waving signs and chanting: "Stop the torture, stop the war. That's what we're fighting for."

A federal judge, in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, approved a city security plan that allows demonstrators to march within 400 feet of the Pepsi Center, home to the convention.

"You can't compare New York, which has buildings all around, to Denver, that has open areas," said Katherine Archuleta, senior policy adviser to Hickenlooper.

Denver police will ask protesters to leave an area if they're breaking the law, but say there is no mandatory arrest policy. Officials have created a temporary arrestee processing center in a city warehouse that critics have dubbed "Gitmo by the Platte," after the South Platte River.

"We would be remiss if we didn't prepare for mass arrests," said Denver Undersheriff Bill Lovingier, director of corrections. "People would sit in buses waiting hours, days to be processed if we didn't have this set up."

A local network of attorneys plans to monitor demonstrations in downtown Denver to document any abuses, but they worry about access to arrestees inside the processing center.

Hundreds of lawsuits are still pending on behalf of people arrested during the 2004 GOP convention. In 2000, more than 600 people were arrested at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, and 200 were arrested in Los Angeles at the Democratic convention.

Police distributed a pamphlet reminding protesters of where they have a right to demonstrate but also warning them that they can be arrested if they refuse a lawful order to disperse, even if they aren't breaking any laws.

Glenn Spagnuolo, co-founder of Recreate 68, responded: "We have a pamphlet called the Constitution. A lot of us have read it already."