Seems protesters got a little help from the GOP to get into the convention. Guess not everyone wants to put on the happy face! Protesters in Garden got credentials from delegates Thursday September 02, 2004 NEW YORK (AP) Protesters have gotten into Madison Square Garden each day of the Republican National Convention because they have the proper credentials, many obtained from delegates. A law enforcement official said today that a lot of delegates are just handing them out, and the event people are giving a bunch to different groups. Credentials given to delegates were handled by the Republican National Committee. The delegations are also given guest passes. RNC officials did not immediately return telephone calls for comment. Protesters will not say how they got the credentials, but are clearly pleased with their success in disrupting the convention. http://cbsnewyork.com/local/NYC--InfiltratingtheG-nyn/resources_news_html
Here ya go, homeys... http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2776066 Thousands protest on final night As convention concludes, 28 more are arrested By PATTY REINERT Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle NEW YORK - Lighting candles, praying, singing and shouting, thousands of people demonstrated outside Madison Square Garden on Thursday night as President Bush addressed his party at the Republican National Convention. On the final night of the convention, police reported 28 arrests, including two women who slipped inside the hall and the created minor disturbances during Bush's speech. Total arrests for the week approached 1,800. Nearly 500 protesters who had been arrested earlier in the week were freed Thursday afternoon by a judge who chastised the city for holding them without arraignment, some for almost three days. Fifty of the detainees had begun a hunger strike. At the arena where the president accepted his party's nomination for a second term, security had been stepped up amid concerns about 1,000 convention access badges Republicans said had been stolen. Still, two unidentified women managed to slip in. One was escorted from an upper-level seating area after she appeared in a pink slip covered with anti-war slogans. Another woman was arrested on the convention floor when she disrupted Bush's speech. The president paused briefly when delegates began booing the woman. As she was carried out, the woman kicked a security officer, cutting his leg. Wednesday, protesters twice made it inside the hall and caused disruptions, once during Vice President Cheney's speech. Earlier the same day, a dozen AIDS activists were arrested after they disrupted a Young Republicans conference at Madison Square Garden. The several thousand protesters were a mix of scruffily dressed young people sunburned from several days on the streets, hundreds of local residents, office workers in slacks and blouses, and a few young men in dress shirts and ties. Dozens of parents protested with their children in tow. Several protesters waved signs suggesting that Bush send his daughters to fight in Iraq. Many wore headbands or armbands saying "stop Bush." The final day of protests began early with more than 100 AIDS activists storming Grand Central Station during rush hour. They sat on the floor around the station's information booth, unfurled banners, released balloons and chanted "Fight AIDS, not war!" Twenty-six people were arrested. A daylong anti-war demonstration in Union Square Park featured music and speeches by members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out. The protesters filled the park with the combat boots of dead soldiers, fake coffins and white crosses with the names of civilians killed in America, Iraq and Afghanistan. Gilda Carbonaro, whose Marine son reports to Iraq next week, said convention-goers are "living on another planet." "Their silence angers me," she said. "Don't they have children? Why aren't they saying anything?" At Manhattan's central police booking station, several members of the Tejas Bloc, a group of Houstonians and other Texans in town to protest Bush, waited late Thursday for the last of eight of their friends to be released from custody. The protesters were arrested Tuesday in a massive roundup at various demonstration sites around the city. Almost 1,200 were taken into custody, including tourists, journalists and one restaurant worker.
