November 2024 – Page 3

First, and only time during the whole convention, the cops were clearly off balance. The Vets could have closed all six lanes of Collins Avenue if they wanted to and nobody would have argued. I’ve been covering antsy War demonstrations with depressing regularity since the winner of 1964 in cities all over the country.

And I’ve never seen cops so intimidated. If I demonstrators as they were in front of the pots and Blue Hotel on that hot Tuesday afternoon in Miami Beach. It was an awful tension in that sound. Have you done that pack of Rich civil rights out there on the four deck of the Wild Rose could stay in their seats for this show?

It was standing up the rail, looking worried getting very bad vibrations from whatever was happening over there in the street. Was something wrong with everybody eaters, were they scoops? Why was there no noise? After five more minutes of harsh, silence, one of the bpaw gym leader suddenly picked up a Baltimore and said, We want to come inside.

Nobody answered. For an almost visible shutter, man to the crowd. Oh my God. A man saying he makes me mutter. I felt a strange tightness coming over me and I reacted instinctively For the first time in a long long while by slipping my notebook into my belt and reaching down to take off my watch.

The first thing to go on a street fight, is always your watch. And once you’ve lost a few, you develop a certain Instinct, and let you know when it’s time to get the thing, off your wrist. And then to say, fine, I can’t see for sure what I would have done at the last Patrol had tried to crack the police line and seize control of the fuck’s blue, but I have a fair idea based on Instinct and rude experience.

So the unexpected appearance of Congressman Pete McClosky on that scene called my nurse considerably. He shoved his way through the police line and talked with a handful of the bpaw. Spokesmen long enough to convince him apparently that a frontal assault on the hotel would be suicidal. One of the platoon leaders smiled lately and is Sean McCloskey, but they’ve never had any intention of attacking the hospital.

They didn’t even watch story. The only reason is was to see if the Republicans would turn them away in front of network TV cameras, which they did, the very few cameras were on him that afternoon to record it. All the network floor Crews were down at the convention hall and the ones who would normally have been on standby alert in the font of blue were out at the airport.

Filming missions. Arrival. No doubt they were backup cruise around somewhere. Well, I suspect they were up on the roof using very long lenses. Because in those first few moments, when the vets began massing in front of the police line, there was no mistaking and potential for real violence. It was easy at the Sea by scanning the faces behind those.

Clear plastic Riot masks at the cream of the Florida State Highway Patrol, had no appetite at all for a public crunch with 1200, angry Vietnam, veterans. Whatever the outcome. It was a guaranteed nightmare situation for the police. The beat would be bad enough. The victory would be intolerable.