1968 Chicago Democratic Convention Pics

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steve wrote:
zom-zom wrote:My dad was a plain clothes detective when this happened, I was ten years old. Not all the cops were busting heads, my dad told me it was all he could do to avoid getting beaned by hippie-tossed bricks.


Think about the hippies under the scrutiny of the police. Now imagine them carrying bricks around to throw at cops. Think about how implausible that is.


It's highly plausible when you consider the fact that you don't bring your own bricks to a protest, so there was nothing for the police to monitor. Nothing stupider than carrying around a couple of bricks in a handbag on the off chance that you're going to get angry enough to throw them.

And furthermore who tosses a whole brick anyway? You'll get no distance that way.

Protests are usually planned, brick hurling is not always planned.

You grab debris from the streets, rubble from buildings, broken bricks from construction sites, or whatever is handy to throw. If someone has a small sledgehammer and is able to go to work on the corner of a building or pavement or concrete block to provide ammunition for others, then that happens.

I'm also sure that even though Zom-Zom's father may have used the term "hippie-tossed bricks", he probably meant "protester-tossed rocks/bricks/stuff", and just used hippie as a pejorative and brick as a generic term for hurled object.

Potential song title: I brought my own bricks to the protest.

1968 Chicago Democratic Convention Pics

24
This was forty years ago, so who knows if my dad even said "bricks"? It could have been rocks. I can't recall.

Anyways, I believe that there were projectiles thrown at the cops. I saw it on the TV at the time, I can remember that much. I also believe that my dad, being a tough guy, wouldn't bother clubbing hippies unless they hit him first.

When he came home, there wasn't any blood on his clothes or stuff, anyways.

1968 Chicago Democratic Convention Pics

27
The logo on that guy's sweatshirt isn't an anarchy symbol, it's the logo for Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

More on Antioch here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_College

If anybody's seen the MC5 documentary (A True Testimonial), there is some cool footage of the MC5 peforming outside during the convention. (It is supposedly CIA file footage, is that even possible?) Wayne Kramer (I think) talks about mounted police playing polo with kid's heads. The band got right back in the van and left town immediately after playing, such were the bad vibes, apparently.

1968 Chicago Democratic Convention Pics

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Ah, the wiffle-nail ball.

It wouldn't surprise me if objects of some sort were thrown by protestors. Whether it was in retaliation to abuse by the cops, or whether it was pre-planned by the protestors, it could be a combination of both.

It also wouldn't surprise me if a few cops had been pelted, and then the reports of objects being thrown by protestors became exaggerated and took on a life of their own.

I've had a few people over the years tell me they had been there, on the protestors side.

I also have an ex-girlfriend whose father was there, as a cop, at either the Convention or during the Days Of Rage protests.
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