Legal observers document strong police presence at DNC anti-war protest

Naomi Zeveloff
The Colorado Independent
August 25, 2008

Anti-war protesters at Monday’s Re-create 68 rally produced a spectacle of orange-and-white peace flags, but dozens of legal observers kept their eyes on the less-colorful police.

Volunteers with the People’s Law Project, a group defending the rights of protesters, accompanied activists as they marched from the Colorado state Capitol to the Pepsi Center. Sporting bright green baseball caps, the legal observers shot photos of police and took notes on their interactions with the protesters; the information may be used in case of a lawsuit.

But while Sunday’s protest was marked by escalating tensions between activists and law enforcement, both sides remained fairly collected. At 11:30 a.m. Larry Hildes, a volunteer attorney and legal observer, stood on the east edge of Civic Center Park and remarked on the protest, which was slowly morphing into a march down Colfax Avenue toward the Pepsi Center. “It’s been really calm,” he said.

A veteran legal observer, Hildes, who is from Bellingham, Wash., attended national conventions in San Diego and New York. Now, as a volunteer with the PLP, an effort organized by the Colorado chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Hildes was stationed at the front end of the march, the spot where police and protesters are most likely to clash.

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This article was posted: Monday, August 25, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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