In the middle of my daily post-work stroll today, I stumbled into an impromptu kerfuffle in Manhattan’s Union Square that at first resembled a “Do the Right Thing”-like race riot, but later turned out to be merely a dispute between the police and some breakdancers over boombox noise that got way out of hand. But some of the people around, unsurprisingly, tried to turn it into something else entirely.
Near as I can gather from eyewitness accounts- though I was not there for the whole thing- the brouhaha began when a group of the young breakdancers who can be seen entertaining crowds in Union Square Park nearly every afternoon got into a scuffle with the cops, who were trying to get them to turn their music down. One thing led to another, and sooner or later cops were contending with dozens of angry passersby, as since it was a nice afternoon there were hundreds of people in the park.
Anyway, by the time I reached the scene there were five or six police cars and dozens of cops trying to keep the huge crowd at bay, as police literally carried two or three people into waiting police cars. People in the park (some black, some white, and some homeless of various races) were screaming epithets at the cops, and at one point about ten of them blocked one of the cop cars from leaving the park.
Of course, there was another element to the protests, in addition to the racial and economic aspects: a few of the activist types in the park decided to make the whole thing about George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, the “nascent police state,” and other such nonsense, as though the president of the United States had personally ordered the New York City police to go and arrest some breakdancers. One lunatic in particular began yelling about the “Nazi-like tactics,” and also invoked the Taliban, apparently forgetting that the breakdancers who were arrested will probably be breakdancing once again in the same park tomorrow or the day after that, while anyone attempting to breakdance in Nazi Germany or Taliban Afghanistan would likely be jailed and/or beheaded immediately.
Was it wrong for the cops to arrest a couple of breakdancers for blasting their music too loudly? Yes it probably was, and I’d imagine nearly every one of the people in the park had a good reason for doubting the good intentions of the NYPD. I’m not a big fan of Bloomberg-style “quality-of-life” policing myself, and I do find it a bit questionable that five or six cop cars were needed in order to arrest two or three people.
But come on: what happened had nothing to do with Bush whatsoever. The same thing could have happened just as easily in the Clinton/Giuliani period as during Bush/Bloomberg. I wrote last summer about stumbling into a “Stop the Police State” rally at that very same park, at which not a single person was arrested and, indeed, no police even showed up. So it should go without saying that when the anti-cop anger nearly instantly morphed into an anti-Bush/anti-“police state” protest*, the cops pretty much all just got up and left.
Tonight was a pretty ugly incident, but thankfully no one was injured or God-forbid killed. However, I’ve got a feeling that this summer’s Republican convention will be more of the same, except five days long and about a hundred times worse.
*The leader of this mini-rally immediately pulled out a megaphone and began chanting slogans; apparently the guy travels with one at all times, should the opportunity present itself for an instant protest.
Posted by Stephen Silver at June 3, 2004 11:22 PM