This is my take on the violent attack by the police on 2nd and 3rd Aves, with a schematic of the events from my perspective. Originally I posted this as an addenda to another story but was asked to put it up independently. Thanks for reading. Peace.

This is my take on the violent attack by the police on 2nd and 3rd Aves, with a schematic of the events from my perspective. Originally I posted this as an addenda to another story but was asked to put it up independently. Thanks for reading. Peace.

From Joe Buck, peaceful demonstrator for peace on Feb 15th 2003 The demonstration today here in NYC (Feb 15th, 2003) was both inspirational and a source of deep frustration. As I hear the sirens blaring outside my apartment building I am hoping that no one has been seriously hurt as a result of police brutality and the heavy handed attempt by the police and the mayor to prevent our citizens from telling the truth about how they really feel. What happened today on their end was nothing short of an attempted hijacking of democracy and free speech. Shame on Bloomberg, Shame on the NYPD's top brass. On the inspirational side ... the demonstration was amazing. Hundreds of thousands converged and took the streets. We could not be contained and dismissed. We won the day. The message of peace was heard, though the corporate news sources - now apparently nothing but mouthpieces for George Bush and Karl Rove - will likely ignore what happened in the streets of our city today. They rode horses over unarmed, peaceful protestors. We raised our voices. They raised weapons. This is the only analysis that matters when judging who is guilty of violence. The media repeatedly state that "some officers may have been harmed" by a "few unruly protestors." This is sheer nonsense. We were attacked. We were not attacking. From my view this is what happened. As every one knows, despite an intense lobbying and legal effort, we were denied a permit to march. The demonstrators were given only a permit to gather on 1st Ave, north of 49th Street (see attached graphic file). As the thousands upon thousands filtered into the neighborhood, the police enforced barricades between the neighboring Avenues and First Avenue. Marchers were directed to enter First Avenue from points further and further to the North, as the police allowed limited numbers into "pens" in the blocks North of 49th Street. As each "pen" reached the limit designated by the police, it was closed and people directed to "pens" successively further and further to the North. As the thousands of people on Second and Third Avenues were being told to go further and further North before they would be allowed to cross over to First Avenue, they grew increasingly frustrated. Finally as they reached the mid 60s (recall that the official site was at 49th Street), and were still being denied access to First Avenue (or the crosstown blocks adjacent to First Avenue) the people reached the limit of their patience and began to say to each other that they were being marched in circles and intentionally denied their right to free speech. At this point, en masse people left the sidewalks, occupied the main part of the avenues, shut off the traffic and slowly began marching South towards the demonstration site. The people raised their voices, walked in the street, but remained nonviolent. I can say this without qualification: we were nonviolent. Enthusiastic chanting is not violence. It is free speech. It was then the police's turn to become frustrated and impatient. We were no longer following their orders. Then again, we were not aware that martial law had been declared. We marched joyously and triumphantly down the avenues chanting for peace and claiming victory. After perhaps 45 minutes, police appeared on horseback. They threw people to the ground and violently arrested those who tried to cross over to First Avenue. They rode their horses directly at unarmed, nonviolent men, women, and children of all ages. They backed their horses up directly into crowds of people without regard for the consequence. The horses were frightened at being treated in such a mindless and aggressive manner. Police in riot gear began running into the crowd and hitting (as in a football "hit" or a "check" in hockey) whoever was in of them. I watched a 250+ lb officer in riot gear ramming with all of his strength into a 110 lb woman in front of me. His name tag read "Meyers." He seemed to enjoy what he was doing, but the woman was shrieking in terror as she realized that their would be no one to save or protect her. At this point we were in such large numbers that we could not back up without trampling and perhaps killing the people behind us. This was an apparently irrelevant fact to the police officers who were behaving like nothing short of goons and thugs at this point. I said directly into the ear of a calmer, older police officer, "look, you guys have to lighten up! we have no room to back up! you guys are going to kill somebody!" He then informed me that the barricade behind us (at this point we were back down in the md-50s) had been moved and we could cross over to First Avenue. This is what we had been wanting to do for the past 90 minutes. Why they couldn't have done this sooner is beyond me. I then calmly and easily walked through the wide open cross-town block between Second and First Avenues. There was of course PLENTY of room in the "pens" close to the stage. In fact I strolled leisurely in large circles with many square yards of empty space in every direction. I looked North up First Avenue to see the crowds penned up in the blocks to the North of us. They were not allowed any closer, though there was plenty of room. So you tell me ... what was their agenda? Whose agenda was it? Who do they really work for? They did not silence us and they never will. Our voices will grow louder. The voices for peace will be heard. -Joe Buck (I ain't a for-real cowboy ...)