A Day of Tightly Controlled Chaos
D.C. Police Stick Close to Protesters, Reach for Handcuffs at First Sight of Trouble

By Monte Reel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 28, 2002; Page B01

The 75 activists on a bicycle tour of Washington got a view of the morning rush hour that was dominated by the white-helmeted police officers riding beside them.

And behind them.

And in front of them.

This rolling caravan wasn't the high-minded traffic obstruction that these anti-capitalists had jumped at the chance to join. Over their handlebars, they saw more law officers than activists and watched the oil-powered vehicles they had hoped to inconvenience roll alongside them with little reason for pause.

As they pedaled from Union Station to Logan Circle, from Dupont Circle to Chinatown, the cyclists encountered scattered clusters of fellow demonstrators and waved.

"The People's Strike is happening," said Adam Eidinger, an activist pedaling in the middle of the pack. "You have to look for it. But it's happening."

That was the story of the day: The tiny pockets of chaos that erupted from time to time didn't last long, as police reached for plastic handcuffs whenever they saw trouble.

A few blocks beyond the perimeter of the cyclists' route, at K Street and Vermont Avenue NW, about 40 activists were escorted onto Metro buses after a couple of rocks crashed through the windows of a Citibank branch. At 14th Street and Independence Avenue SW, 21 people were arrested for lying in the street.

The riders would soon witness the largest round of arrests of the day, whether they wanted to or not. After steering from Pennsylvania Avenue onto 15th Street NW about 9:10 a.m., they encountered a wall of police that wasn't going to budge. Quickly, the wall collapsed on the riders and moved them into Pershing Park.

The ring of officers around the park constricted, forcing the bicyclists to commingle with a couple of hundred other demonstrators who had been corralled there.

The activists weren't allowed to leave. By noon, everyone on site had been arrested, and the last of the abandoned bicycles was being loaded onto a police truck.

D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey watched as the protesters were handcuffed and placed on Metro buses to be taken to a cellblock at D.C. Superior Court or the police academy in Southwest Washington.

"The intent of this group is to shut down all D.C.," Ramsey said. If set free, "they leave here and go someplace else and do something else."

Ramsey had been on the streets since 6 a.m., shuttling from one reported outbreak of commotion to another, taking the hard line from the outset.

"We've got two arrested and about six that are fighting," an assistant chief told Ramsey when he got to 14th and K streets NW, near the site of the Citibank scrum.

"That's all right," Ramsey told him. "We've got enough people to fight."

About 1,100 officers were on the streets or ready to get there quickly, and they were easily able to outnumber protesters whenever they felt the need. But other than the rocks thrown at the Citibank and a few reports of heaved street furniture, violence was rare, aggressions controlled. The only logged injury was a 19-year-old with a bloodied nose, who was treated and released at George Washington University Hospital after reportedly being hit by a police baton.

Ramsey's strategy was to arrest anyone he believed was trying to disrupt the city, charging protesters with misdemeanors such as "incommoding."

The approach left little wiggle room for most activists and the many others who ventured too close to them. Bruce Friedman, making his regular bicycle commute from Arlington to downtown, happened to pedal by Pershing Park when police decided to encircle everyone in the area. He and others with no intention of speaking against capitalism -- journalists, joggers, tourists -- pleaded their cases. It took Friedman about 10 minutes to persuade police to let him out. His Justice Department identification card did the trick.

"I just think it's ridiculous to pack the park with unsuspecting people," said Friedman, 42, a lawyer in the department's civil rights division. "They were creating a tense situation when they didn't have to."

But Ramsey -- who had been saying this week that he believed Washington might be especially vulnerable if terrorists took advantage of a chaotic city -- saw the operation in a different light.

"Ain't it a thing of beauty," he said, looking at the line of officers around the park, "to see our folks up there ready to go."

By midafternoon, when police began to lose patience with a group of protesters at the Gap in Georgetown, both sides were ready to negotiate.

The protesters, who say the family that owns the clothing chain has wantonly cut down acres of forest and employs sweatshop labor, wheeled a giant redwood stump in front of the store and began outlining their grievances.

But the grievances couldn't be heard very well over the noise of a police helicopter hovering overhead. The officers on the ground were losing patience with those standing on the stump and told them they would be arrested, like the hundreds before them, if they didn't clear the sidewalk.

So the protesters offered them a deal: If the helicopter cleared out, they'd do the same within 20 minutes.

Police accepted.

The Gap protesters, unlike most of the others who hit the streets yesterday, choreographed their outrage.

They stripped to their underwear in front of the store, just as others had at previous Gap protests across the country. They'd rather wear nothing, the battle cry went, than clothes from the Gap.

Upholding their end of the bargain, the protesters left without incident, and no arrests were made.

The evening rush hour was quiet. Downtown office workers -- those who had decided to go into work, anyway -- were able to travel home with few obstacles. About 5 p.m., Ramsey listened as Mayor Anthony A. Williams praised the police work.

And some of the 650 or so who had been arrested were being released, in time for a weekend of more protests and more police, ready to go.