By David Heinzmann and Bill Ruthhart, Chicago Tribune –
CHICAGO — The first major demonstration of the NATO summit weekend descends on Chicago’s Daley Plaza Friday, promising to gather thousands of people protesting government economic policies they believe benefit wealthy corporate interests at the expense of working people around the planet.
Led by a California-based nurses organization that chartered more than a dozen buses to carry protesters from cities across the country, the event will be the first major crowd-management challenge for Chicago police who have been reacting to smaller demonstrations all week. In addition to members of National Nurses United, the rally at Daley Plaza will draw demonstrators from the Occupy movement and myriad other protest groups who have been focused on this weekend since President Barack Obama announced last year that world leaders would gather here for both the NATO and G-8 meetings.
Although Obama decided in March to move G-8 to the presidential retreat at Camp David, protest groups have merged their criticism of military and economic policies to make Chicago the singular focus of demonstrations.
Over the last week, plans have changed more than once for the nurses demonstration that first received a city permit in January as a march from the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers in Streeterville to Daley Plaza. City officials changed their minds last week and said the growing publicity around the event and the news that political activist and former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello would perform posed too great a challenge for city emergency authorities.
Officials moved the march’s end point to the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park, but after a few days of negotiations with the nurses union worked out a compromise returning the rally to the plaza across the street from City Hall. The nurses, about 1,000 of whom are staying at the Sheraton for a simultaneous convention, said they will walk to the plaza from the hotel using sidewalks rather than on the street, which would require a parade permit.
There have been only a handful of arrests and altercations at the protests leading up to the NATO weekend. But on the eve of the first major demonstration, lawyers for some NATO protesters held a news conference to accuse Chicago police of strong-arm tactics in an alleged overnight raid in Bridgeport.
Witnesses alleged police broke down a door in the apartment building near 32nd and Morgan Streets at 11 p.m. Wednesday and detained at least eight people who remained in custody Thursday, according to the National Lawyers Guild, which is representing some protesters.
“The Chicago Police Department has basically disappeared as many as eight activists,” said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the guild, adding “There’s absolutely no evidence of wrongdoing.”
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was asked about the allegation after announcing at a Thursday news conference that there had been “zero arrests, as far as protest activity today.” Asked about the Bridgeport allegations, McCarthy said only that there was an “inquiry” authorities were looking into and he would have to gather further information before commenting. His spokeswoman declined to answer any questions about the situation.
Earlier in the day, about 75 protesters marched from President Barack Obama’s re-election headquarters to the German, Canadian and British consulates of countries that belong to NATO, protesting the alliance’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and other military action.
One protester held yard sticks connected to a cardboard model of a drone to protest drone strikes by the United States, which he said have killed hundreds of innocent people.
“As Afghans, we are in contact with people in Afghanistan, and they do not want this war. They have had enough,” said another protester, Samira Sayed-Rahman, a member of Afghans for Peace. “Thousands upon thousands of Afghans have been slaughtered in a war that is not benefitting the United States at all.”
Later in the afternoon, about 60 bicyclists met several dozen other activists to again protest outside the Canadian Embassy to decry oil exploration and extraction from the nation’s tar sands.