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| *Chicago Police Perpetrate Fraud Against
Anti-war Movement Statement from the October 28 Coalition to Stop the War *** Please Circulate Widely*** * On Saturday, October 28 the City of Chicago and Chicago Police Department perpetrated a fraud against the anti-war movement and the people of Chicago . The Chicago Police showed up in full “riot” mobilization at Washington Square, claiming wrongly that an anti-war demonstration was going to take place. The police are playing games with the facts and with their permitting system and they know it. What is their intention, to cover up their gross incompetence or to target the anti-war movement again? The last communication from the police with protest organizers was on June 27, four months before October 28, when the police denied organizers’ request for a permit to march on Michigan Avenue . The police offered an alternate route and told organizers they had five days to accept or that offer would be rescinded. The protest organizers, however, did not respond until July 11 (15 days later). Thereafter, the police refused to confirm or advise whether any permit to march was being issued and would not respond to requests that were made by phone and fax. The October 28 organizers never issued any communications announcing a march at this location, and in September began publicly and repeatedly announcing they would be doing street team outreach and leafleting in other locations on October 28 which does not require a permit. Either the Chicago police are so remarkably incompetent that they would coordinate, mobilize and deploy hundreds of police in riot gear, possibly on overtime, without ever once picking up the phone over months to confirm an activity existed or even what size it was, or they have undertaken an ugly effort to malign and set-up the anti-war movement in Chicago . Or perhaps both. In both the Chicago Tribune and on ABC TV city officials are quoted as saying that the police mobilization was a “waste” of city resources and that they would seek to recoup their costs. In other words, the City of Chicago wants to demand money from the anti-war movement to fund the police department. This is just a thinly veiled attempt to shut down the anti-war movement with false accusations and threats of penalty and punishment. The city’s farcical mobilization on October 28 was nothing other than one in a long string of attacks against the rights of free speech and assembly here in Chicago. And it is part of a general attempt to silence the anti-war majority. The city’s real but unstated aims in this case are to continue to defend its reprehensible repression of and repeated attacks on anti-war protesters and organizers which is also the focus of ongoing litigation. In response to the city’s attacks, the real facts of the city and CPDs charade on October 28 need to be exposed and circulated to everybody in the anti-war movement and beyond. The facts are … * Organizers asked the city for confirmation of a permit to march on October 28 in July by phone and fax. The city never responded to these requests. * The city had absolutely zero communication with organizers about their originally desired October 28 permit. There were no logistical meetings or any other meeting between organizers and police at any time. * Beginning in mid-September protest organizers planned, announced and widely distributed information for a day of anti-war outreach in various Chicago neighborhoods on October 28 (not a march and rally). These October 28 plans were made publicly, repeatedly, in leaflets, in widely circulated announcement emails and were prominently displayed on the internet. * Organizers never planned for, announced or distributed information for an October 28 protest march in Chicago at the location where the CPD perpetrated the sham “mobilization” of riot police. * And in no case, did anti-war protesters ever request a deployment of police. It is the city that insists on criminalizing free speech by sending out platoons of riot police to First Amendment protected activities. --------------------------------------------------- ANSWER Coalition Chicago (Act Now to Stop War and Racism) |
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C Drew * E-mail cdrew@c-drew.com * Ph.773/456-3564
* P.O. Box 608081, Chicago, IL 60626 
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