Apparently just hitting the 1920s in Colorado, the police were busy last weekend running the Irish out of town. An old mentor of mine, Fr. Frank Cordaro (retired) went out to Colorado Springs on a speaking tour and while he was there, decided to march in the St. Paddy’s day parade with some other peace and justice folks as part of the Bookman parade entry, a local book store that paid its entry fee and was an accepted parade participant. The Bookman people are peace folks and they have been part of the parade the last couple of years. This year, as they did last year, folks marching with the Bookman mobile wore green T-shirts with the peace sign on the back and front.
Apparently, all was well until they fell in line with the other parade entries, one block into the parade. They were then greeted by a man who identified himself as a parade organizer who told them we were not a legitimate parade entry (despite their having documentation proving they were). The police were immediately called into the fray. And before any clarity or and due process was afforded them, they were thrown off the parade route - some quite literally. Seven of us were arrested and beaten.
Of course, no police were arrested for their illegal and brutal actions.
Check out the nice li’l photo journal of the events here, and sigh in realization that the pigs are the same the world over. Oh, and the fella near the bottom in the choke-hold is the 60+ year old retired priest only two years off of a quadruple bypass surgery that was quite the influential guy in my upbringing. Of course, being a somewhat frail old man with a long history of pacifism, you can understand why he had to be slammed to the ground for the protection of the armed officers.
1 comment:
OMG. That was really depressing. Did you see how all the little kids looked like they were about to cry? Let's go on a pig-punching rampage.
~Laura Madsen
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