By Diane Cardwell and Randal C. Archibold, The New York Times
NEW YORK -- A series of demonstrations rippled across Manhattan last night when protesters tried to converge on the Republican National Convention, as a day of planned civil disobedience erupted into clashes with police and led to the arrest of more than 900 people.
The wave of confrontations -- which included a brawl with police at the New York Public Library, marauding crowds cursing at delegates in Midtown and the detention of hundreds of protesters near Ground Zero -- created a day of disorder in a convention week already marked by sustained protests against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
Yesterday’s incidents stood in contrast to the enormous, mostly orderly anti-war march that drew hundreds of thousands of people to Manhattan on Sunday.
Many of those protesting yesterday had purposefully avoided seeking permits for their rallies but had publicized their plans well in advance, leading hordes of police officers in cars, bikes, scooters and vans to flood various parts of the city primed to pre-empt disorder before it could occur.
The day’s arrests bring the convention-related total to more than 1,460.
The protesters gathered at various locations, many with the goal of descending on the convention at Madison Square Garden.
But at the various staging areas, police began making arrests, sending the crowds into a frenzy.
These confrontations followed several other events, some of which went off without incident with the police taking aggressive action to prevent disruptions.
“Today a number of anti-RNC activities failed to materialize, including a takeover of the lobby of the Warwick Hotel, perhaps because of the police presence there,” police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters early yesterday evening.
Protesters and civil liberties lawyers expressed concern over what they said had been unfair and overzealous tactics in dealing with demonstrators who may not have had permits but were not acting violently.
The day, loosely organized by an anarchist collective called the A31 Action Coalition, began slowly, with highly anticipated events proving less than fractious. Indeed, the cat-and-mouse between the protesters and the police started early in the morning. Responding to word that anarchists planned to somehow disrupt the morning’s trading, hundreds of police officers flooded the blocks surrounding the New York Stock Exchange before 8 a.m.
Within minutes, 14 young people sat handcuffed and seated with their backs to a wall near the short pedestrian mall, surrounded by three or four times as many police officers. Later in the afternoon, a clash erupted on the steps of the New York Public Library after two women tried to hang a protest banner over one of the lions atop the library steps. After the police pinned the women to the ground, a crowd of protesters struggled with police, answering requests to move with chants of “Oink, oink, oink.” People were thrown to the ground, and the steps of the library were left littered with chairs and debris.
As protesters converged on Herald Square in the evening, police tried to contain the increasingly raucous crowds. Hundreds of protesters seemed to get too close to the buses of delegates, and the crowd became unruly as the police brought in metal barricades and used scooters to try to push the crowd back.
Those who would not move were arrested. Each time the police moved in to make an arrest, they were swarmed by protesters.
The protesters at Herald Square, frustrated by their lack of ability to move closer to Madison Square Garden, began breaking off in clusters of hundreds or so and storming the streets and avenues in Midtown, throwing cones and other objects at cars and windows as they ran.
As police drew close, they tried to scatter. Police tackled them in streets, corners and in front of stores. Innocent bystanders were also caught up in the maelstrom.