Protesters: Is city admitting it lacks the cops to handle NATO summit? [View all]

[former9thward]

Source: Chicago Sun-Times

If Chicago lacks the police manpower to secure the NATO summit and a protest march to McCormick Place on the same day, City Hall has no business hosting world leaders, protesters argued Thursday. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama shifted the G-8 summit from Chicago to Camp David. That prompted the protesters to file a new application for permission to shift their march from May 19 to May 20, same time, same route.

City Hall rejected the permit on grounds it does not have a “sufficient number of on-duty police officers” or traffic control aides to “police and protect” parade participants and spectators.

“If that was true, why did they sign up for this in the first place?” said Joe Iosbaker, a spokesman for the Coalition Against the NATO/G-8 War & Poverty Agenda.

Iosbaker claims the alleged shortage of police officers is an “excuse”— that City Hall is simply using boilerplate language in Emanuel’s watered-down “sit-down-and-shut-up” ordinances regulating protesters to deny the permit and stifle public dissent.

Read more: http://www.suntimes.com/11471774-417/protesters-is-city-admitting-it-lacks-the-cops-to-handle-nato-summit.html

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Emanuel wants to make sure no media covering the NATO summit sees any protest.