Scattered Protests Greet Gop Activists Plan Mass Rally To Kick Off Civil Disobedience Aimed At Convention

About 1,500 activists welcomed Republican conventioneers Saturday with isolated protests and colorful civil disobedience in the Center City area.

Thousands of police officers responded quickly and calmly in the first test of the city’s readiness for the thousands of protesters expected this week.

Most of Center City went about its business as usual, even though there was an officer on almost every corner and many officers patrolling the streets. No serious incidents had been reported by nightfall, although police stopped an attempt by an animal-rights group to dump manure near the convention site.

The scattered, diverse actions by protesters amounted to curtain-raisers for today’s mass rally of an expected tens of thousands on the Ben Franklin Parkway. The Unity 2000 march will kick off three days of illegal and possibly aggressive protests starting Monday.

Emotional but orderly, Saturday’s protesters came face-to-face with stern but restrained police after months of planning and rising tensions on both sides.

Love Park and the area around the Municipal Services Building were a melange of causes and police. Placards for the Labor Party stood next to displays by animal-rights advocates and abortion-rights groups and Free Mumia platforms.

Police Commissioner John Timoney, wearing rose-colored sunglasses, black shorts, and a white polo shirt bearing the words “police commissioner,” rode a bicycle casually from protest to protest to personally supervise officers and talk with protesters.

“We’re not looking for confrontation,” Timoney said at one stop.

In Saturday’s biggest protest, about 1,000 people demanding universal health care marched from Franklin Square to Love Park, where they heard speeches by several activists, including Ralph Nader, the Green Party’s presidential candidate.

At one point, Timoney came upon a group of supporters of death-row inmate Mumia AbuJamal who blasted him as a “fascist” and a “corporate Nazi.”

At another spot, in what looked to be a surprise to police, about two dozen protesters appeared inside the Lord & Taylor department store and began chanting, “No more sweatshops,” as activists unfurled two large banners in the cavernous atrium, including one that read: “Just say no to Nike!”

The department store’s organ player turned up the volume to try to drown out the protesters.

Hundreds gathered at the Liberty Bell’s west terrace to lay out almost 18,000 pairs of shoes representing the number of people they say have been killed by guns since the last Republican convention.

On the east terrace, a group called the Second Amendment Sisters, opponents of gun control, set up 1,000 flags along the terrace walls, each representing 400 lives that they said had been saved by guns.