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Part 2 - Showdown and Arrest
(Part 1 - The Protest)
Welcome back gardeners and all those who have followed Cowtippa's
riveting story…
We last left off with Cowtippa entering Broadway for a peace
march…Here is the rest of the story…You'll find
it as fascinating, riveting and shocking as I have, I'm sure…
Cow entered the Times Square area along with several dozen
protesters…By this time the NYP apparently had had enough
and started to beat up people and started arresting people…Someone
yelled to link arms together (an old Vietnam War protest ploy
that many of us used back in the day)…Cow linked his
arms with a man on one side…Within moments, the police
pulled this man out and arrested him…Cow was pretty upset
by this, feeling he should have held on tighter, but as I
explained to Cow the police would have clubbed him and arrested
him also…
The march continued down Times Square and around 39th St
things started to take a drastic turn for the worse…Thirty
ninth St is where this march was going to end…One way
or another…There was construction scaffolding half way
down the block on one side and police blocking them in on
39th on both sides…This was it, the showdown….It
was going to end right here…One way or another…
NYP surrounded the protesters inside the scaffolding and
there was a stand off between the protesters and the police…They
had no where to go…Cow told me that at that point more
and more police showed up…Riot police, ready for, you
decided…The police were ready for arrests…They had
plastic handcuff bands looped through their belts…They
were fully prepared and ready to "rock and roll"…The
police told the protesters at this point, "you either
go east and leave….OR you got west and get arrested"…Well
folks, NO surprises here…They were obviously trapped…And
no matter which direction they were going to go, they were
going to be arrested…
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Star at approximate location of arrest
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At this point, NYP said nothing to the protesters and just
started cuffing them with the plastic bands…Note: Nothing
was said…No "you're under arrest"…And
no reading them their Miranda rights…(author's note,
I'd like to hear anyone else's experiences if you've also
had the same thing happen at a protest)…They were simply
"taken"…
Two NYP grabbed Cow, cuffed him really tight and with no
search of his person…He could have anything under his
big, puffy coat but they still did not search him…He
was taken to a waiting NYPD "paddy wagon" which
is essentially a truck that looks like a big, bread delivery
truck…Its unheated inside, with only room to seat 12
people…There is a metal divider to segregate those arrested
by their gender…Cow was the first one placed inside…More
and more were loaded inside and eventually a total of 20 were
inside on the "male" side…Some sat, others
stood and some sat on other peoples' laps…Eventually
they did move the women to one side and the men to the other
compartment up front…This is an unheated, metal box…The
cuffs on the women were much more loose then those on the
men…Eventually some of the women were able to get one
side off…One of the women had a cell phone and they were
passing it around to make calls…
One of the women had to use the bathroom, but there aren't
any on board a paddy wagon…The police were not allowing
anyone off the paddy wagon so she had to squat down and use
the floor…
Cow got a "business card" from one of the protesters
arrested with him…The man was an architect from Connecticut…He
over heard others giving their occupations…The group
included students, teachers, artists…Most were in their
30's and a few were older, in their 40's…Eventually another
paddy wagon was filled up and two city buses brought in to
hold more arrestees…All of this on 39th St…
They were held a total of 5 hours in the paddy wagons and
on the buses…The women in the back of the paddy wagon
were in near darkness and the men's side had a small window
to look out of…
After holding the two paddy wagons and the two city buses,
the police decided to move them to the Javitz Center…Again,
this is 5 hrs later…No bathroom breaks, just the inside
of the paddy wagon…A COLD paddy wagon, remember I said
in part one that the temps were below 20 degrees and it was
windy that day…Then there was a change of plans, no Javitz
Center afterall…The plan changed and they were then taken
to One Police Plaza which are right behind all the courts
in Chinatown…Again there was another delay, this time
because of the amount of other buses and paddy wagons bringing
in more protestors…This was another 2 hour wait, again
in the freezing cold and now darkness…
Then there is another change of plans…They are now moved
again…To the 7th Precinct which is under the Williamsburgh
Bridge, near Delancy St downtown…This was a deserted
jail…Had been so for quite awhile…Since Cow had
been arrested first, they called him in first…Much to
his great relief he would finally be able to relieve himself…
They eventually ended up 3 people to a 6X9 cell…Old
remnants of other arrests and detentions lingered, such as
old bloodstains on the wall…Again more hours pass…It
was then decided that they needed to be fingerprinted…This
was one thing Cow did not want to happen…An invasion
of his privacy, his fingerprints being taken…Remember,
no one said he was under arrest and no one Mirandized him…To
me personally that would have been a clear violation of my
civil rights and Cow indicated that to me also…But I'll
let you the reader decided…
Since this abandoned precinct did not have fingerprinting
equipment at this location, again they were being moved…Except
this time they were shackled together chain gang style and
once again let out to the paddy wagon…They ended up no
more then 250 feet from Cow's place in Tribeca in a detention
center in the subway area…Once fingerprinted electronically
they were once again brought back to the 7th Precinct…His
ordeal started at around 6 pm Saturday night and ended approximately
10 am the next morning…
Any outstanding warrants were being checked for from 4 am
to 10 am…After none apparently appeared for any of the
protesters in his group, they were finally brought out of
the cells…At this point, they were told to sign a piece
of paper saying they were to come back and appear before the
judge…It is essentially a "traffic" ticket
appearance…All these arrests, all this "muscle",
all of this moving around, time, expense for what?…A
violation of every Americans civil rights and 1st amendments
rights to free assembly and protest?…Is anyone watching
this?…Or is this just more intimidation…
Cow reported something that I found of particular note…Every
protester was privately "questioned" about future
planned protests in NYC…An interesting side note…But
as Cow told me, they could do the same thing he did and that
was to do a "Goggle" search on a computer and find
it for themselves…Good for you Cow!
Now every American reading this should be asking themselves,
is the America we want?...Is this what our fore fathers had
in mind?…Our ability to protest against our own government,
speak our minds?…This is something out of a Police State
and NOT the America many of our ancestors made there way here
to the Promised Land of America…Did we not have the Boston
Tea Party?…Is anyone listening to history?…Where
are the voices we've come to trust and listen to speaking
out about an outrage such as this?…Where are you people?…Where
are our voices?…You decide…
Cowtippa's
snapshots of the day
Videos
of the police action
Organizers
accuse NYPD of misconduct at peace rally
Account
of Rally from BethanyYarrow.com
Walking
from 3rd to 1st Avenue: A True New York Horror Story
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