New York City (February 15, 2003)—I was among the 500,000+ anti-war demonstrators who took a bite out of the Big Apple Saturday to protest Bush’s oil war.

Although we were all there for the peace rally held near the United Nations, I was among the thousands who did not even come close to seeing the rally. Many of us were as far as two miles away from the speaker platform, from what I heard. That was as close as we could get due to the number protesters massed in the streets.

The frigid Manhattan city streets were lined with NYPD police cars, vans, and busses with metal grids in the windows (all the better to haul away arrestees in). Officers initially attempted to keep protesters on the sidewalks as we headed toward the UN, but I had the impression that the police were completely unprepared for the enormous throng of people converging for the rally. After all, protesters had been denied a permit to march and the threat of winter storms and terrorist attacks should have kept most of us cowering in our homes watching CNN or FOX, I suppose.

Before long, though, the number of protesters grew so large that we had no choice but to spill into the middle of traffic on 2nd Avenue where I was. As we took control of blocks of Manhattan, protesters chanted, “Who’s streets? OUR streets!”

From what I understand, police in riot gear did try to block the “illegal” march somewhere far ahead of where I was. For a long time protesters stood in the cold street with police helicopters hovering above and people playing local Pacifica station WBAI’s coverage of the protests on handheld radios. As police on horseback waded through the crowd, American flags, earth flags, large doves made out of sheets and balloons fluttered in the icy wind. Placards expressed a wide-range of anti-war/anti-Bush opinion: “Draft the Bush Twins.” “Deport John Ashcroft Before He Deports You.” “The World Says No to War.” And my favorite: Under a photo of Bush a caption read, “Empty War Head Found In White House.”

Eventually, though, the police stepped aside and the march proceeded as the roar of protesters echoed around the towering skyscrapers. One officer who had been assigned to direct the flow of vehicular traffic could only laugh as he walked along with us and say: "Well, you guys got your march and you didn't even have to pay for it either."

Police were also trying to block off side streets along 2nd Avenue and I saw two separate altercations between officers and protesters at two of these points. In the first incident a group of four or five police wrestled a guy to the street and handcuffed him. I did not see what caused the takedown, but a man with a tape recorder was going around asking witnesses to tell what they had seen so he could file charges against police.

In another instance police arrested a woman for breaching their barricade. As protesters heckled police and told them to let her go, other demonstrators continued to cross the barricade much to the officers’ chagrin. Exasperated, the officers there finally abandoned their post with protesters knocking down the wooden planks of the barricade and flowing, some even dancing, down the street.

The police had the last word, though. They eventually had us all cordoned off in pens in the streets before we knew it. Some protesters pushed against the barricades where I was and a few got through. One person in the crowd with a bullhorn was trying to incite the crowd to remove the barricades and reclaim the streets, but the scene remained peaceful while I was there.

There are reports of over 300 arrests and instances of police brutality on nyc.indymedia.org. I can't confirm these reports. Fortunately, like the officer who walked with us for a while, the cops I encountered exemplified the words printed on the side of police vans: courtesy, professionalism and respect.

The same vans that were parked along empty police busses just waiting to be filled with American citizens exercising their freedom to dissent.

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