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Caught in the mesh
In which our correspondent narrowly escapes arrest
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN

MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2004, NEW YORK -- The New York Police Department rolled out a new weapon against unruly protesters yesterday -- literally. It is a plastic orange mesh fence, four feet high, that rolls up like chicken wire into fat tubes. When police want to very quickly move people onto a sidewalk, say, and keep them there, they rapidly unroll the orange mesh wall, with a cop grabbing at every six feet or so, and voila! -- instant mobile barricade.

Following the massive United for Peace and Justice march Sunday afternoon, many protesters made their way to Times Square, where convention delegates were taking advantage of special group deals to Broadway matinees. (The Massachusetts delegation took in Bombay Dreams at 4:30, but arrived late because their chartered bus couldn’t make it through the UFPJ march.) The NYPD knew the protesters were coming, and were out by the hundreds to keep the peace.

As police processed a busload of arrestees -- again, literally -- in front of the Marriott Hotel, I was held back from the scene by a line of police using the orange mesh wall to shut down the intersection. Several people, including National Lawyers Guild legal observer Marc Alain Steier, described how the police were using the orange mesh not just to move crowds, but to ensnare people to arrest.

I would soon learn about it first-hand, a block further down Broadway at 45th Street. For some reason unapparent to me, the police closed down that intersection, using the orange mesh to move people to the sidewalks. I found myself among a small crowd on the southeast corner in front of the Swatch store, taking notes, when someone with the NYPD apparently decided that standing on the corner was also a no-go. In a great rush, people began running from the corner in all directions, and cops with orange mesh appeared before me. A camerawoman from the Los Angeles Times could not flee -- her backpack zipper was caught on a piece of the orange mesh that was quickly surrounding us. I helped free her and we turned to go, but we were encircled, along with a woman with a baby carriage. "Get the baby out of there!" someone behind the cops yelled, and quickly the woman and child were whisked out of the circle, leaving about eight of New York’s finest and their prey, two members of the press.

At just that moment, however, I was saved in a straight-from-the-movies moment. A breakaway scofflaw bolted down 45th, followed in rapid succession by a speeding swarm of police, NLG legal observers, media, onlookers, and other protesters. I could have sworn I heard the theme music from The Benny Hill Show, but I might have imagined that. In any event, two of our captors dropped the orange mesh to join the chase. This, I knew, was where Eddie Murphy and his partner look at each other, give a comic shrug, and run through the opening. The Times woman and I did exactly that.

Steier, it turns out, had witnessed my capture and was surprised to see me walking free. He said this was exactly how the police were arresting people -- 200 at that point in the day, he reported. There would be more. In fact, by the time I wound my way back around to the Swatch building, they were loading about a half-dozen handcuffed people onto a van. I asked around to see if anybody knew why they had moved on that corner earlier, but never did get an answer.


Issue Date: August 30, 2004
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