Occupy Denver's all-day concert closes out a week of peace

By Kelsey Whipple Sat., Oct. 22 2011 at 11:20 PM

Update, 11:20 p.m. October 22: The close of tonight's Occupy Denver concert was a completely different scene from only one week ago. Although it ended with police presence, the number of cops left is the same 10 to 15 who stayed from last night until about 5 a.m. to monitor those who have grown used to falling asleep to the sound of honking. The most important difference, however, is that the night ended without altercation.

The Denver Anarchist Black Cross lists one arrest confirmed on its Twitter page, but relationships with the police stayed peaceful throughout the day. Only one man was asked to vacate physical park property after the 11 p.m. curfew, and the rest needed no reminder. A near-average crowd of about 40 people remained to spend the night, but the rest vacated the amphitheater that had been full only an hour earlier. Many wore orange tape (Occupy Denver's accepted solidarity color) to commemorate the number of people arrested: Those who were arrested usually wear their own number.

"Our goal right now is really just to play it cool," protester Scianda Long says. "We're still not going to leave, and we have no plan to, but we also have no plans to get arrested again. We're keeping things as peaceful as possible."

Kelsey Whipple

The evening's anti-police brutality rally winds down Broadway near the Occupy Denver site.

The night's protest became escalated between 8 and 9:30, when an anti-police brutality rally that began at the zoo at 6 p.m. wove its way through downtown and circled the area twice. By the end of the night, the Occupy Denver crowd included a generous share of zombies and anti-brutaliy protesters who had joined the group's ranks, but the number was not nearly as high as it had been expected to grow.

One of the reasons tonight's turnout might have been lower than expected is the lack of police altercations within the last week, which helped to raise the group's attendance at last weekend's rally. Instead, the day focused firmly on entertainment and community-building. (Aside from dirty pots, zero evidence of any of the Thunderdome's several meals throughout the day remained in the kitchen at its close.)

The night's entertainment included a diverse mix of rock and electronica artists and public speakers, including the American Indian Movement's leader Glenn Morris and local electronica act Whomp Truck, for an evening that eventually ended with blown speakers and a mix of both talented and terrible dancing. The result was a surprisingly subtle progression from a week that ended with 50 arrests.

Tags:

concert, Occupy Denver, protest, rally

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Robert Chase

Good slogan: "Down with Killer Cops! Police Terror/Brutality's [better word, but too many syllables] Got to Stop!"

Bad Slogans: "Oink, Oink, Bang, Bang; Everyday the Same Old Thing!", "From Denver to Greece, Fuck the Police!", "One Cop, One Bullet", etc.

If DABC modified their rhetoric slightly and reached out to e.g. Shorter AME Church, we might have had twice as many marchers (and more people of color), and our prospects for constructively affecting the public discourse about police abuse would be much improved.

DABC: Please come to the next televised forum of the Citizen Oversight Board on 12/15/11 at 7pm (location TBD) and express your dissatisfaction there too. Bear in mind that the forum is carried on Channel 8 (Denver government channel), and reaches many (predominantly moderate or conservative) voters. See: http://podcache-101.granicus.c... for a video of the last forum; I advocate for independent review of citizens' complaints against the police at 22:46.

Robert Chase

It is beyond disappointing that Occupy Denver marched directly past the Denver Post without so much as raising a fist at this propaganda organ of the 1%, the bias, lies, and incompetence of which are a dead weight on Denver and Colorado, the chief impediment to progress in our State!

Jtcolfax

Amazing: The Denver Post must read this spot, for now they have changed and clarified what they posted earlier about speeches and music to this:"Before 8 p.m., while the music continued and many people stayed in the park, a group of several dozen protesters marched out of the park and headed back for the mall, monitored by police SWAT teams." In short, when they said BANDS were playing, and I pointed out they were NOT, they have now corrected it to state "music was playing",..true, but why not say that in the first place.They have omitted the previous statement that Speeches were made. And, by saying "before 8 p.m." they have also changed towards the truth compared to the previous statement which implied that AFTER the MALL WALK the protesters came back to Civic Center Park to hear BANDS and Speeches. I do realize that anyone reading this will get lost in what sounds like nitpicking, but, the POST itself, changed all these details so very specifically after my pointing out these SPECIFIC items in this WESTWORD comment area. The BIGGER point is: what other important details are not being portrayed correctly? I would also point out that the POST still sticks to that figure about it being "dozens" of protesters on the mall, when the crappy, made for fun, video I posted which was not made to prove some sort of body count, should even in it's blurriness support the idea like I said, that it was more like 125 people. I would even think the true amount of people in the march was closer to 200, but little old me is trying to be careful and truthful.There must have been thousands of diners, movie-goers, and Zombies out there who all looked on the protest with bemused eyes, and no matter what their politcal stance, if they were honest, they would have to say that describing the Occupy/anarchist crowd as "dozens" is a big fat lie.

Robert Chase

I called the newsroom -- there has been no correction to the misleading article which fails to mention the protest against DPD's murder of Alonzo Ashley or the three-mile march which shut down York St. and westbound Colfax last night, nor do I expect one.

P.S. The DP just published an article about the March (see: http://www.denverpost.com/brea... -- if no one had been arrested, the Post probably would have just ignored it.

Jtcolfax

PS...don't piss me off: I am J.T. Colfax! I have seen more police abuse than 10 people who have looked in the toilet and seen that they have dropped a shocking green turd.

Jtcolfax

I have been reading all the local media reports about this subject, but I have only been breezing through the actual occupation, until today. I spent about 6 hours there during the period these articles are concerned with, and I am glad to be able to say that Westword is covering things accurately as far I could see.The Denver Post's article published online at about the same time contains many errors including diminishing the crowd that marched on the mall to a few "dozen" people when accuracy and honesty would scream to say it was more like 125 people. They also reported that the mall marchers returned to the park to hear speeches and bands, when the truth is that bands had stopped by about 7:30 pm, and music was then supplied (delightfully) by the Whomp Truck, and there were NO speeches after the return of the marchers. You can't just GUESS there were speeches, and call it journalism, Denver Post. I realize that to the Post's readers, it's not a giant distinction, as speeches would seem LIKELY at such a thing, but a reporter needs to STAY on the scene and SEE a speech to be able to say it happened. Anyway, I have been reading Westword's Kelsey Whipple's reports with great interest, but hadn't been down there enough to make any judgement. And it's time someone said: her reports utterly jibe with what one sees down there.

Robert Chase

The marchers who came through in the evening were part of the Denver Anarchist Black Cross' March Against Police Terror to commemorate Alonzo Ashley and others murdered by the DPD, which began at the Zoo at ~6:45pm.