News > September 3, 2004 > Web Only

On the Streets of New York: Security

By Terry J. Allen

Some NYPD officers were equipped with futuristic P-90 submachine guns.

At times, New York looked like a totalitarian dystopia as heavily armed soldiers and cops blocked streets, declared frozen zones, and corralled demonstrators, legal observers, journalists, and bystanders alike with metal barricades and orange netting. Holding a P-90 submachine gun, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer noted proudly that it was the same weapon used in the film Stargate.

Federal state, and city authorities using undercover operatives, cell phones for instant relay and ID, video equipment, hidden cameras—and overhead, a rented blimp–kept the city under constant surveillance. One police officer told NYCLU Executive Director Donna Leiberman, “We’re covering everything.” Leiberman charged that police were violating the rights of peaceful law abiding demonstrators by “maintaining dossiers for future reference.”

Among the new police tactics was the scooter squad. These roving bands of plain-clothes cops on motor scooters zoomed into demonstrations, including one against Starbucks’ labor conditions. Asked why the two union organizers on the march were picked out for arrest, one undercover cop said, “I think they might have kicked a window or something.”

The use of undercover police for such actions may have backfired at the incident on Monday night when a demonstrator apparently beat a cop.

Daily News photographer Todd Maisel witnessed the scene at the end of the unpermitted “Still We Rise” demonstration. After police suddenly divided a cohesive group of marchers with metal barricades, Maisel said, police called for backup and the scooter squad suddenly appeared and drove into the crowd. “The guy who got beaten up was plain clothes and didn’t look like a cop,” said Maisel. When uniformed police reinforcements arrived, they seemed confused, the photographer said, and “took a woman scooter cop down. …They grabbed her, brought her to the ground and had her in handcuffs. She was screaming ‘What the fuck, I am a cop.’ The uniformed officers responded `How the hell are we supposed to know?’” Maisel concluded that the police botched the operation. The violence “didn’t have to happen. There are going to be lessons learned,” he said.

On the Streets of New York: patriotism | compassion | courage | security | opportunity

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• Reader Comments

  Hi, I am very into Stargate and i am posting to point out a mistake in the article. The P-90 was not used in the film Stargate, but it was used in later seasons of the show STARGATE SG-1.
  Please check your facts whoever wrote this article.

  Thank You

  Posted by Chris Parent on Sep 5, 2004 at 6:57 AM

  The ICE officers also carried pepperball type guns and tear gas launchers, You can see the pepperball ammo in a picture on ICE homepage. They are the white tubes strapped next to the agents camel pack.

  http://www.ice.gov/graphics/fps/multimedia/images/cadre_lg.jpg

  Posted by Michael on Sep 6, 2004 at 5:13 PM

  What the hell do they think they need submachine guns for at a political protest march? Is there an official explanation for this kind of overkill, other than ‘We have to be ready for anything’?

  Posted by Carl Wernerhoff on Sep 7, 2004 at 6:00 PM

  “What the hell do they think they need submachine guns for at a political protest march?”

  Possibly for self-defense or to defend others including the protesters?  Is it impossible that armed terrorists or revolutionaries could have shown up?

  “We have to be ready for anything”

  Why is this a bad explanation?  Don’t you think the police in a highly volatile situation should be ready for anything?

  Would it have been likely that an armed attacker would wait for the police to return to the station to pick up weaponry?

  Posted by Frank on Sep 10, 2004 at 12:42 PM

  If you actually go along with having these weapons, Frank, then you’re obviously not for a constitutional democracy, what this country is based on.

  “We have to be ready” is a horrible explanation. How do you explain how police in England can keep rioters (and there’s the difference: RIOTERS, not protestors) under control without weapons? You can’t? Hmmmm.

  Frank, I believe it’s people like you who are helping Bush to destroy democracy, replacing it with fear of the minority and fascist control of everything.

  Posted by Frank on Sep 14, 2004 at 8:32 AM

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