Comments on: Peace not allowed in St. Patrick Day parade

By: Use of Tasers by University Security Guards » Young Anabaptist Radicals

Use of Tasers by University Security Guards » Young Anabaptist Radicals — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:43:37 +0000

[…] The last sentence is a key one for those who commit acts of passive resistance to police officers. What pain compliance techniques are likely to be used in these situations? In the St. Patrick’s day incident I wrote about last spring police officers threatened people with a taser but ended up using physical grappling instead to “subdue” members of the parade. […]

By: Mark Lewis

Mark Lewis — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 17:13:03 +0000

To fill in a couple of questions: we had a permit just like the year before. Same message of peace, different banners. The banners we used the year before, “Peace on Earth” and “Goodwill Toward all Mankind” were destroyed by vandals. We assembled for over an hour with all banners displayed, but took several and stored them in back of the van, as we thought they were inapproporiate.

We had no plan to protest, disrupt, or in any way cause any problem. A couple parade marshalls and a couple cops caused all the problems.

The 1st amendment is not suspended arbitrarily because the parade calls itself a “private’ parade. Private is a term abused as much as the “no social comments” rule, when there are social and political comments all over, and the city subsidizes the parade with free police services.

By: TimN

TimN — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 15:41:15 +0000

Here’s a follow up story by the The Colorado Springs Independent Newsweekly:

Reign on our parade: Nursing fresh wounds, the city wonders what’s next

By: Skylark

Skylark — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 17:37:57 +0000

If they’ve been in the parade before under the same name and carrying the same message, it baffles me the parade organizers would not already know this and have discussed this with them prior to the event. I read no mention of this in the links provided, though my browser kept quitting when I tried to open the Colorado Springs Gazette link, so I couldn’t read much of that story. Perhaps they were asked not to come. If they came anyway, I could understand why an organizer would be upset. I do concur with Dan’s statement about the “completely arbirtary” line, though.

If, as the “Hippies ruin everything” commenters attest, the peace activists wanted to make a scene and get arrested, or the older woman behaved herself disrespectfully, I would have a problem with that. It’s very different to go into a situation having already talked with the police and saying “This is my nonviolent statement. If it gets me arrested, then that’s OK with me,” which as far as I can tell is what the CPW resistors did. In the Colorado incident, if they were trying to create a fiasco to make them look good and the police look bad, then the negative reactions are appropriate. I’m not sure we can ever know each person’s true motivation. A videotape of the events would sure help.

As usual, I have more questions than anything else.

By: Dan S

Dan S — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 01:31:59 +0000

I’m having a hard time figuring out the logic that political candidates and parties are allowed to march, but social advocates are not. I’m also guessing that they would allow veterens groups to march. So, the line is completely arbitrary, and comes down to “we don’t want unpopular sentiment to be expressed.” Among other things, this is completely against the founding principles of this country.

I’m proud of the marchers for being willing to be arrested, and think it was entirely appropriate to march in the parade.