New York Tourists, old ladies and gentlemen, a building superintendent who was taking out the garbage, teenagers going to a play on their first date, ministers, students, bicycle messengers and a good number of bruised and dirty yet singing and chanting protestors.
It's the kind of diversity that New York City is famous for, and during this past week, the best place to find it was in the makeshift jail at Pier 57. The biggest under-reported story of the Republican National Convention was not conservative women making fools of themselves for California's manly governor. It was this: why were 1,800 people arrested when they had done nothing wrong except crowd the sidewalks or block traffic?
The term "pre-emptive arrest" is misleading because it implies that a crime is about to be committed. It implies that Barbara Gates, 78, who planned to walk at a slow pace to somewhere near the Convention and lie down, is a threat to society. It implies that Julia Gross, arrested while walking away from a "kiss-in," is a potential terrorist.
Some are calling the pier where the arrestees were held "Guantánamo on the Hudson" obviously a gross and privileged exaggeration. (Arrestees were held for days, not years, and none were interrogated or tortured.) Still, police officers and the major newspapers were generally full of praise for the unconstitutional tactic. "It's been a good day," said Police Detective Kevin Czartoryski on Tuesday, a day when over 800 people were arrested. "Things have pretty much happened as planned."
