Chicago protesters break away from nurses’ rally

Pro­test­ers block traf­fic on Michi­gan Avenue in Chicago as they march through the city dur­ing a demon­stra­tion Fri­day, ahead of this week­ends’ NATO sum­mit in Chicago. Thou­sands of nurses and other pro­test­ers gath­ered for the noisy but largely peace­ful demon­stra­tion with a broad spec­trum of causes, from anti-war activists to Occupy pro­test­ers to a Chicago Women’s AIDS project. The demon­stra­tions Fri­day were the largest yet ahead of a two-day NATO sum­mit that is expected to draw even larger protests. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Charles Rex Arbogast)

NOMAAN MERCHANT

RYAN J. FOLEY

Asso­ci­ated Press

CHICAGO — Hun­dreds of pro­test­ers broke away from a large rally and began march­ing through Chicago streets Fri­day, taunt­ing police and shout­ing about every­thing from bank bailouts to nuclear power — a pre­lude to even big­ger demon­stra­tions expected after the start of a NATO summit.

Police said there was one arrest for aggra­vated bat­tery of a police offi­cer. Offi­cers were also seen try­ing to arrest a man who scaled a bridge tower and pulled down part of a NATO ban­ner. Ear­lier, police hand­cuffed a man at the end of a noisy but largely peace­ful rally orga­nized by the nation’s largest nurses union.

Mem­bers of National Nurses United were joined by mem­bers of the Occupy move­ment, unions and vet­er­ans at the rally, where they demanded a “Robin Hood” tax on banks’ finan­cial trans­ac­tions. The event drew sev­eral thou­sand peo­ple and fea­tured a per­for­mance by for­mer Rage Against the Machine gui­tarist Tom Morello, an activist who has played at many Occupy events.

Deb Holmes, a nurse at a hos­pi­tal in Worces­ter, Mass., said she was advo­cat­ing for the tax but also protest­ing pro­pos­als to cut back nurses’ pensions.

“We’ve worked 30 years for them and don’t want to get rid of them,” she said.

The rally —orig­i­nally sched­uled to coin­cide with the start of the G-8 eco­nomic sum­mit before that meet­ing was moved from Chicago to Camp David — drew a broad spec­trum of causes, from anti-war activists to Occupy pro­test­ers and Cathy Christeller’s non­profit Chicago Women’s AIDS project.

Chris­teller, the agency’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, said there is com­mon ground among all pro­test­ers, even against the back­drop of the NATO summit.

“The whole … idea we should slash the (social) safety net insti­tuted here and in Europe — it’s a dis­as­ter,” she said. “It ignores the source of the eco­nomic down­turn, and it’s mak­ing peo­ple suf­fer unnec­es­sar­ily. This brings us together.”

After the rally, a group planned to protest envi­ron­men­tal dam­age by march­ing to BP, Exelon Energy and the Cana­dian con­sulate to deliver a “cease-and-desist” let­ter. But those plans were scrapped when a much larger group of pro­test­ers started march­ing and chant­ing spon­ta­neously, said Craig Rouskey, an activist with Occupy San Fran­cisco and Ris­ing Tide, an envi­ron­men­tal group.

He said he aban­doned the march because it “got hijacked” by pro­test­ers who lacked a clear message

“It became less about envi­ron­men­tal­ism and more about tak­ing the streets,” he said. “That is impor­tant, but I just like a more suc­cinct message.”

Police on foot, bicy­cle and horse­back fol­lowed the marchers, who tried to evade police as they wound through city streets, at one point even weav­ing between stopped cars.

The march began to break up after about 90 minutes.

Jen­nifer Lacy, a free­lance video­g­ra­pher and edi­tor from Chicago who took pic­tures of the spec­ta­cle with her cell phone, gave police high marks for their tolerance.

“I think the police are han­dling them­selves very well,” she said. “It seems like they have it all orga­nized, and it doesn’t seem their tem­pers are going to be eas­ily flared. I think they’re mind­ful we’re going to be on the world stage.”

But Ben Meyer, a Chicago lawyer who was observ­ing the protest for the National Lawyers’ Guild, denounced what he called an exces­sive police pres­ence at the rally, which included dozens of offi­cers milling through the crowd and lin­ing the perime­ter, some of whom were video­tap­ing the rally.

“It’s frus­trat­ing the state needs to come out and show this much force for a nurses’ rally,” he said. “They have every­one from the super­in­ten­dent on down here. It’s just ridiculous.”

Mean­while, lawyers for NATO sum­mit pro­test­ers said police on Fri­day released four of nine activists arrested Wednes­day on accu­sa­tions that they had or planned to make Molo­tov cocktails.

The lawyers said police, with their guns drawn, raided a South Side apart­ment build­ing where activists were stay­ing. The Chicago Police Depart­ment refused to comment.

One of those pro­test­ers, Occupy activist Dar­rin Annussek of Philadel­phia, denied there were Molo­tov cock­tails in the apart­ment or that raw mate­ri­als had been com­piled to make them.

“No way,” said Annussek, who was released with­out being charged. “If I had seen any­thing that even resem­bled (a Molo­tov cock­tail), I would have left.”

He claims that dur­ing 18 hours in cus­tody, police never told him why he was arrested, read him his rights or allowed him to make a phone call. He said he remained hand­cuffed to a bench, even after ask­ing to use a restroom.

“There were guards walk­ing by mak­ing state­ments into the door along the lines of ‘hip­pie,’ ‘com­mu­nist,’ ‘pinko,’” a tired-looking Annussek told reporters just after his release.

“It is all part of a fear and intim­i­da­tion cam­paign … with the intent of keep­ing these peo­ple off the streets,” said Sarah Gel­somino of the Chicago chap­ter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Secu­rity has been high through­out the city in prepa­ra­tion for the sum­mit, where del­e­ga­tions from about 60 coun­tries, includ­ing 50 heads of state, will dis­cuss the war in Afghanistan and Euro­pean mis­sile defense.

Pro­test­ers and police were gear­ing up for Sun­day, when even more demon­stra­tions are expected. Esti­mates of how many might show up have var­ied widely, from a cou­ple thou­sand to more than 10,000.

Posted by AP News on May 18 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.