Author
Aries de la Cruz/NYC IMC
This is a draft, it is FAR from completed. Publish this and I'll kill you. (uh-oh...FBI knocking at my door...)
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POLICE BLAMED FOR INCITING MAYDAY RIOT IN NYC.
POLICE BLAMED
FOR INCITING MAYDAY RIOT IN NYC.
AGAIN.
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POLICE TRY TO BLOCK MEDIA
AS THEY SURROUND PROTESTORS OUTSIDE EAST NATURAL
(IMC PHOTO: WORKHORSE)
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In a repeat of last year's
Mayday incident in New York City, witnesses are once again
blaming NYPD officers for outside 5th avenue and 13th street
immediately after a street theater skit by Super Barrio Man and
others in the middle of a Mayday march which resulted in 5 people
being placed under arrest with charges which include trespassing,
loitering, assault, obstruction of justice and disorderly
conduct.
The festivities began at noon in an
area oft-used by workers and political activists as a gathering
place and where the first Labor Parade took place in 1882. Union
Square. They listened to musicians like Fred Ho and local band
Black 47. The crowd that gathered represented a kaleidoscope of
the left; Present were anarchists, communists, greens,
socialists and working-class immigrants.
Mayday began as a pagan holiday in
early Europe to celebrate the first spring planting. It was
outlawed by the Catholic Church by the 1700s, yet it remained
incredibly popular withartisans and villagers. Mischief and
satire would rule on Mayday, with jesters and fools making fun of
local authorities.
It became a working class holiday on
Mayday 1886 when the Knights of Labor called for a general strike
across the US and Canada to demand an eight-hour workday. Police
attacked strikers in Chicago, killing six. The next day, a
demonstration was held at Haymarket Square to protest the police
brutality. A bomb exploded around a crowd of police, killing
eight. Police then arrested eight anarchist trade unionists,
accusing them of throwing the bombs.
Much controversy surrounded the
Haymarket Massacre; Some said that it was the workers who threw
the bombs at the police, others say a government provocateur
dropped the bomb while trying to retreat from charging workers.
Albert Parsons, August Spies, George
Engle and Adolph Fischer were found guilty and executed by the
State of Illinois.
Two more incidents at the IMFs New York offices, including
a young man who was
arrested for possessing a digerry-doo.
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