TAKING TO THE STREETS
July 27, 2000

Betty Ann Bowser looks ahead to the protests to take place during the Republican Convention in Philadelphia.

Online NewsHour coverage of Election 2000 April 14, 2000: Two World Bank protesters discuss their opposition of globalism April 11, 2000: Should developed countries erase the debts of poor ones? Jan. 20, 2000: WTO Director Mike Moore on the failed Seattle summit. Dec. 3, 1999: Shields and Gigot discuss the WTO trade talk breakdown. Dec. 1, 1999: Seattle's mayor discusses the anti-WTO uprisings. Nov. 30, 1999: A look at the anti-WTO protests in Seattle and what's in store for the WTO summit. Nov. 29, 1999: Protests cause a delay in pre-conference activities in Seattle. Nov. 24, 1999: A look at preparations for and protests against the WTO conference in Seattle.     Students: Protesters take to the streets. Submit a question for the 2000 presidential candidates.   GOP Convention Web site Unity 2000 Web site	GEORGE LAKEY, Protest Organizer: The people on this side are going to be irate motorists who have gotten caught in the traffic because there is so much going on in the streets and stuff like that, and the people on this side, you folks are the activists. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Just a few miles from the site of next week's Republican political theater, protagonists in another drama are busy practicing their parts. It's theater that will likely be played out on the streets. GEORGE LAKEY: Everywhere I look there's protesters, protesters, protesters. What's wrong with this city?
	The protesters' causes and agendas
	BETTY ANN BOWSER: Thousands of demonstrators are coming to Philadelphia from all over the country representing hundreds of different causes and agendas. George Lakey has been training demonstrators since the 1960s. GEORGE LAKEY: It's a chance at a time when the Republicans are a pre-planned, pre-packaged deal is probably designed to show there is no dissent about how things are going on in our country. The reality is there are a lot of us who see problems in our society and that we're taking some responsibility to address those. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Although they have many different and sometimes competing messages, most of the protesters say the one thing they share in common is a desire not to incite violence. But because some of them have openly said they plan to disrupt convention activities, they know they need to be prepared for anything. So this week many of the demonstrators are taking a crash course in how to handle themselves on the street in a protest situation with police. WOMAN: Even if you're planning on wearing eye protection, a gas mask, goggles, something like that, if something happens with that, in Seattle the police would pull gas masks up and spray underneath the gas masks. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The training sessions come only a few weeks after this incident was broadcast all over the country. The video shows Philadelphia police subduing an alleged car thief. Lakey is concerned the same thing could happen to his demonstrators during the Republican national convention next week. GEORGE LAKEY: The wild card here is the behavior of the police, because if police jump on you over, and over, and over, there's a point where anybody can crack, and we can't be sure the police will really behave in a way that supports dissent and nonviolent protest.
	Preventing the "cat and mouse" games
	BETTY ANN BOWSER: That kind of rhetoric infuriates Police Commissioner John Timoney. He insists there will be no more incidents of excessive force and he says he wants to ensure riots won't break out the way they did last November in Seattle when thousands of demonstrators descended on the city to protest the meeting of the World Trade Organization. Timoney says there were some law enforcement lessons learned in Seattle. JOHN TIMONEY, Police Commissioner, Philadelphia: The protests seemed much more organized. They all had cell phones and portable radios -- much better communication than the crowds you would have dealt with in the late 60s, 70s and early 80s. And as a result they had greater mobility. It was a bit of a cat and mouse game with the authorities in Seattle. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Timoney wants no cat and mouse games next week in Philadelphia. That's why for months the commissioner has pulled his cops off the streets, away from desk jobs, and sent them back to the police academy to hear from the likes of 23-year veteran Lieutenant Stephen Smyth. LIEUTENANT STEPHEN SMYTH, Philadelphia Police Department: They have a guaranteed First Amendment right to protest. Our job is to let them protest, but also let the convention go on as planned. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech. Part of that freedom of speech is the ability to verbally harass police officers. You have to take verbal harassment. We are paid to take verbal abuse. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Smyth went undercover as a protester during the demonstrations in Washington, DC last April, during the meetings of the International Monetary Fund. He wanted to learn the tactics of the demonstrators. LIEUTENANT STEPHEN SMYTH: This is not what we're looking for. We don't want this for any reason. Some of the protesters have already been trained as soon as they see that, they fall down and start screaming and yelling whether you hit them or not. There's no reason to ever put this above your head. Everybody got that? BETTY ANN BOWSER: But even with massive training on how to handle a street demonstration and how to behave in one, much tension and distrust has developed between demonstrators and the city of Philadelphia. Last week, officials temporarily shut down a studio where people were making puppets and banners for the protests. The city cited building code violations. Activists said it was part of a campaign of intimidation.
	Civil disobedience vs. civic order
	CHERI HONKALA: And you're available when? BETTY ANN BOWSER: For months Philadelphia activist Cheri Honkala tried to get a permit for her Kensington Welfare Rights Organization to hold a march through downtown to the GOP convention hall. CHERI HONKALA, Welfare Advocate: As a formerly homeless mother and the director of a poor people's organization, we feel a moral responsibility with 15,000 reporters in town that we need to ensure that the issue of homelessness in America is talked about. GALEN TYLER, Welfare Activist: This is where the homeless people, they come and they congregate at night. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Over the next week Honkala's forces will be taking reporters on so-called "reality tours" of bad neighborhoods in Philadelphia, to show them what the Republican delegates will not see. Galen Tyler is an organizer in Honkala's welfare activist group. GALEN TYLER: We want to give them the reality of how people are actually living here in Philadelphia. It's not the Liberty Bell. It's people collecting scrap metal just to supplement their daily income. BETTY ANN BOWSER: After weeks of talks with city officials, Honkala's request for a permit to march was denied, largely on the recommendation of Commissioner Timoney. JOHN TIMONEY: The whole idea that they were going to march down Broad Street, try to disrupt the convention, I don't think so - because we're trying to run a city. There's a convention going on. There are public safety issues. Emergency vehicles have to cut through Center City. There are all sorts of other issues involved. And I think reasonable people know that. Those who are hell bent on disrupting the convention could care less. CHERI HONKALA: We have a much higher goals than disrupting anything. We want people to begin to discuss this issue, to admit the fact that there's no need for homelessness in America. BETTY ANN BOWSER: So Honkala and her followers say they will march through downtown to the convention hall next Monday without a permit. CHERI HONKALA: Most likely there will be arrests. But we think arrest and standing up for one's rights are as American as you can possibly get; that whether it was back in the days of the civil rights movement, the nonviolent civil disobedience that Gandhi was involved. Believe me, things are very desperate in this country for poor people, and this march is very important. We have to march. ACTIVIST: Unity 2000. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Only two organizations have been granted permits to march, and both groups had to take the city to court to get permission to hold the scheduled gatherings. MICHAEL MORRELL: Do you want to look at this? BETTY ANN BOWSER: Michael Morrell heads the largest group, called "Unity 2000." It represents a broad array of interests from gay and lesbian rights to labor issues.
	Ensuring rights and public safety
	MICHAEL MORRELL, Protest Organizer: It required a federal court order to abide by the Constitution and the First Amendment to allow us our First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. We've also met with resistance by having the police surveilling our meetings, infiltrating our meetings. In many, many ways the city has found ways to intimidate us and try to keep our attendance down. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Commissioner Timoney says, yes, his police have conducted surveillance of demonstrators, but he denies his officers have infiltrated the groups. He says intelligence gathering is essential to determine how large various protests will be, and how to best respond. JOHN TIMONEY: For example, if you went on the Internet, and there's this group, "John Timoney and the Irish Brigade will be there to demonstrate." And I ask around, what's the story with Timoney? And they say he's a one-man army with five people. Now Timoney may say he's going to be there with 10,000 Irishmen to protest the Brits. If you were to take that at face value, you'd be deploying 500 cops to handle Timoney and his 10,000 Irishmen, when, in fact, Timoney would show up with five Irishmen. BETTY ANN BOWSER: Morrell is also sharply critical of the penned-in areas that the city has designated as approved protest areas - across the street, but out of site of the convention center. MICHAEL MORRELL: They're calling it "the First Amendment zone," or the "free speech zone," which says everything. If that's the zone where the First Amendment applies in Philadelphia, that means de facto that in the rest of the city, the First Amendment doesn't apply, and we think that's outrageous, so we've encouraged groups not to participate in that. BETTY ANN BOWSER: But Timoney says all of the measures that have been taken are to ensure one thing: public safety. JOHN TIMONEY: We've gone out of our way with the training, extra training, to make sure that in no way could we ever be viewed as provocateurs, that we started it. So God forbid something goes wrong, I can guarantee it won't be as a result of the Philadelphia police department having run amok. BETTY ANN BOWSER: The first test of that could come on Saturday when a healthcare rally is scheduled. TRAINER: One more platoon will last now.

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