Month: October 2002

From the Washington Post

Shouts of ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’

For a few tense moments at Vermont Avenue and K Street NW this morning, police surrounded a group of about 100 protesters, boxing them in in front of the plate glass windows of Citibank. There was a shattering sound as protesters broke a window at the bank. Some of the protesters tossed smoke bombs on the sidewalk, yelling, “Our streets! Our streets!”

Police supervisors shouted instructions to the baton-wielding officers, “Start the arrest process. Cuff ’em.” The officers began to lead protesters one by one into waiting Metrobuses. For the most part, they went quietly, the crowd behind yelling, “Shame, shame, shame.”

Alexander Berkman, 26, of Richmond, Va., watched from outside the protest group, wondering why the police were also shoving spectators and members of the media.

“The police are pushing reporters out of the way,” said Berkman, an organizer with the Richmond Coalition for a Living Wage. “One hit a person in the throat with his baton. These are people simply observing; they’re not here in any protest capacity.”

Just as quickly, it seemed, things calmed down as the arrests continued and the crowd of spectators grew. One protester and spectator on K Street got into a rather heated exchange.

“You think you’re the only person who works!” said the young male protester, wearing a knit cap and a bandana tied around his mouth.

“Peaceful demonstration is fine, but if people can’t get to their jobs, it’s disruptive,” said Shane Deithorn, 38, a construction superintendent from Mt. Airy, Md., who works across the street. “They should lock them all up.”

–Sue Anne Pressley, 8:42 a.m.

For starters, I didn’t hear any shouts of “Shame, Shame, Shame.” Must have been on the other side of the crowd. And, yes, the police were pushing reporters away, but that didn’t start until the smoke bombs started, which I give the police props for pushing us away on. Who the hell knew what that was. There were people choking and running, many thought it was tear gas, the police pushed everyone away to clear the area as well as give them room to maneuver so no one got hurt. Yea, police, boo, protesters.

55 arrested at Citibank site

Police have arrested 55 protesters and charged them with rioting after demonstrators smashed several windows at the Citibank offices at Vermont and K streets NW, D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey said this morning.

–David Fahrenthold, 8:04 a.m.

Damn right, arrest them. CitiBank borded up all of their windows AFTER this happened. Better late than never, I guess.

Windows smashed at Citibank

Several hundred protesters have moved to the intersection of Vermont and K streets NW where they smashed several windows at the Citibank offices at the intersection. Traffic is snarled in that part of the city. There are also reports of a smoke-bomb type device being tossed at police, who have made some arrests at the scene.

–Manny Fernandez, 7:57 a.m.

Snarled traffic? Well, I wasn’t there until 8:10 and there was NO traffic. Police did a great job redirecting folks. Smoke bombs were there, they sucked, but were pretty damn stupid on the protesters’ part. I mean, Christ, people, what the hell are you doing throwing things that smoke at police? Might as well star shooting cap guns at them. Sigh.

While I will not rule it out, I can’t not bring myself to believe that these sniper attacks are a terrorist plot. I’m sorry. It’s too slow, it’s too low key. We’d have seen attacks like the one in Bali if the terrorists wanted to get at us here. No, this is a domestic nutcase.

The Village Idiot inspired this brief rant.

Then again, something like this isn’t very reassuring: U.S. senators warned of al Qaeda snipers on golf courses. So, wait, snipers are after our Senators? And there wasn’t a general warning to the public? Shouldn’t everyone be on the look out?

Terrorist One: “Hey, does that guy look like a senator to you?”

Terrorist Two: “Um…. Yes?”

Terrorist One: “Good enough for me!”

Random Person: “Oh my God, someone shot Tiger Woods!”

Sorry, probably not worth joking over, but I felt the need.

You know, I’m really digging Jerry Brito’s blog.

I think Milli Vanilli said it best when they said, “Baby, don’t you lose my number”… Sniper hooks police up with some digits, Cheif Moose eagerly waiting by phone. Or something like that. It seems the sniper may have left another message. I certainly don’t hope this isn’t just a case of someone losing a number and the police finding it and thinking it’s something it isn’t. I mean, some guy’s probably tearing through his house for some hot chick’s number while the police are waiting by the pay phone the number is too, hoping that it’s a clue. God, I hope they catch this son of a bitch soon.

BeltwaySniperForum.com I’ve realized the problem I’m having with these kind of sites. It’s their forums. Now, the person making these sites might be making them for good intentions, you know, to keep the public informed, as a tribute to the victims, as a support list for those who are stressed out by these events. But sooner or later these sites are over run by people who are just their for a soap box for their theories about who’s responsible and why. Terrorism, government plot, one person, eight people, aliens, these sites will attract these crack pots if they haven’t already so it’s either that these theories are there or they’re coming and I’m very leary of those kinds of things. And I’m sure it’s very frustrating for the webmaster of these sites as well as most of them do not feel the same way as those that will take over their boards. But that is the nature of the beast we all call the Web.

Meryl Yourish on the recent sniper related shooting. This is interesting to me because she’s currently in Richmond and now she feels at risk. I mean, I’m sure she did before, but this is closer to home for her and probably all of Richmond.

But what I’m really finding interesting is Fredericksburg’s place in Virginia in all of this. I mean, I’ve lived here pretty much all my life and Fredericksburg has always been in some sort of limbo as to where it is. It’s smack dab between Washington DC and Richmond, Virginia. Not quite northern Virginia, not quite central. Not quite a suburb of DC and certainly not a suburb of Richmond.

But Fredericksburg is the line, more or less. Go ten minutes north, you’re in northern Virginia and anything happening there is reflected in DC in some manner. Go ten minutes south, you’re in central Virginia and Richmond is your metro area. Just weird how it reflects in the media and people’s reactions to these events.

I have no idea what I’m trying to say.

Ashland is damn close, though. Not as close as the Exxon around the corner or the Michaels on the other side of town, but still.

Sniper shooting in Ashland, VA? All signs point to yes, but they can’t be sure until they get ballistics testing, if they can even get the bullet out of the guy. And I know this area, I go by it a few times a year for various reasons.

Why would the sniper shoot in Ashland?

No one’s looking for him down there.

This would also explain the five day lull, he was casing a new location to do a shooting. He’s unfamiliar with Ashland, or, was and it took time for him to get used to it. Now he’ll move somewhere else or he’ll get gutsy and head back towards the beltway. Sigh.

Also, if you look in TIME magazine this week with their article about the sniper killer they have a map of the area and his shootings. They mixed up the two in the Fredericksburg area, the ones labled 8 and 11. The earlier shooting was further north, the later one was south. Minor thing that should have been caught in editing, but oh well.