Dozens of protesters on Tuesday shut down an intersection blocks from the Democratic National Convention here, drawing hundreds of police officers and curious onlookers as they chanted against corporate greed, drone missiles and all manner of political woes.
Officers armed with wooden bats, paintball guns and plastic handcuffs lined the perimeter of East Stonewall Street and South Caldwell Street while cheers of “Free Manning, Arrest Barack” and “You are the army of the rich” rose from men and women sitting and standing in the road. Bradley Manning is the Army private accused of leaking vast archives of classified U.S. documents to the Wikileaks whistleblower website in 2010.
Ed Hunt, a 59-year-old veteran from Freedom Plaza in Washington,D.C
OK my mouth is now hanging open.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe said that what the protesters were doing was illegal, but police were “not in any rush to do anything” as the protesters were just peacefully occupying the intersection. Many of the streets around the convention’s main site are already sealed off from most traffic.
