Begin forwarded message:
From: digger vermont <dig...@verizon.net>
Date: February 13, 2011 12:07:27 PM EST
Subject: Report of Windermere Protest
Reply-To: diggerverm...@gmail.com
Yesterday afternoon I joined 100-150 other people (if someone else has
a better count please speak up) in a protest to support the Windermere
residents who have not been allowed to retrieve their belongings as
well as well as the denied entry to the building to rescue cats who
were also victims of the fire. Initially it was unclear what
direction the action would take, but fairly quickly, it evolved from a
march (to where I'm not sure) to blocking traffic from going West on
Walnut Street. Almost immediately a police patrol car happened to
drive by and called for backup. To their credit they didn't attempt
to prevent us from blocking the street, instead they did their best to
direct the backed up traffic onto 49th Street.
After awhile a lawyer (whose name I didn't get) was addressing the
crowd about his involvement in helping residents to stall the
demolition scheduled for Monday morning. While doing so he started to
drift out into the 49th Street traffic. which prompted one of the
police officers to tell us that we needed to moved onto to the
pavement. Rather than moving to sidewalk the protest was ramped up to
the next level by the lawyer saying, "If we what to make an impact and
get noticed we need to create a disruption. We need to block this
entire intersection." and we proceeded to take over the intersection.
The police where left with two choices, try to remove us or stop
traffic. They opted to stop traffic and did so by placing patrol cars
at 47th and Walnut, 49th and Samson, and 49th and Locust. Eventually
with a lot of maneuvering, u-turns, and backing all the cars were gone
and the streets we emptied in the entire area. I'm happy to say that
though there was a range of emotion, the drivers for the most part
with us in spirit.
Eventually, we were gathered together and made plans for the next
steps, one being a rally tomorrow morning, Feb 14 at 8:45AM. I'm not
sure when she arrived, but, Jannie Blackwell stepped up to tell what
she knew about the demolition and the process of its happening. Other
efforts are also being made to bring injunction(s) to stop the
demolition. Since then City Kitties has reported that the PSPCA were
able to enter the building, see Eli Green's post to this list or
http://citykitties.org/2011/02/still-hope-sadie-survives/ for details.
I also received a group email from one of the protest organizers with
some details. If people would like me to I can forward that to the
list.
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