Two weeks into Occupy Wall Street protests, movement is at a crossroads

Did Obama provide free contraception to all of the Occutards?

Secret Service, Chicago cops answer G-8 security questions at business forum
(By Kathy Bergen and Jeff Coen, The Chicago Tribune, February 16, 2012)

Chicago police and federal officials have provided some of their most candid comments to date on how they expect to handle potentially violent protests surrounding the upcoming G-8 and NATO summits here in the spring, urging the local business community to remain calm as the events approach.

A law enforcement panel addressed downtown property managers and other professionals Wednesday night at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, touching on topics from moving boats from Burnham Harbor near McCormick Place to whether tear gas will be used on demonstrators.

More than likely, it’s a ‘no’ on the tear gas, said Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, despite the likelihood of some protesters coming to town to cause trouble.

“I’m trying to figure out how tear gas helps you control a crowd,” McCarthy said with a hint of incredulity. “It’s never really become clear to me.”

If demonstrators who are breaking the law appear in a large throng of people, “my expectation is we’ll have an extraction team” that would go in and arrest them, McCarthy said.

“I don’t think that something like tear gas is a good idea, because now you have a whole bunch of little crowds running around,” McCarthy continued. “Just as a concept, tactically, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me.”

Businesses in Chicago are making their own contingency plans in the event that protests or other disruptions affect their operations the weekend of the May 19-21 overlapping summits or in the days leading up to them. And it has become a top priority of authorities to calm any concerns.

McCarthy said it’s too early to know just how many protesters will show up in Chicago, but said that recent similar gatherings in other cities have tended to attract about 10,000. There were just 137 arrests when Pittsburgh hosted the G-20 in 2009, he said.

A representative of the New York Stock Exchange pointed out that the organization’s backup data center happens to be in close proximity to McCormick Place. He wanted to know how his workers could get credentialed to be able to get at the facility in an emergency, since it could be inside a security perimeter.

Frank Benedetto, special agent-in-charge of the U.S. Secret Service in Chicago, said his organization won’t stop anyone from doing business. The federal government has designated the summits a National Security Special Event, which puts the secret service in charge.

“The appropriate arrangements will be made for employees to have access,” Benedetto said. “Our security plan will not stop employees from getting where they need to to get to work anywhere in the city.”

Other questions included whether wireless communications could be cut, which officials said they do not expect.

But Benedetto did say that boats will be moved from moorings near McCormick Place before the summits at no cost to their owners. The nearby Burnham Harbor is normally about half full at that time of year, he said.

FBI Chicago head Rob Grant said summits should go smoothly because the city has handled plenty of big events.

“If we were in Peoria I would be worried about it, but not Chicago” Grant said.

Grant told meeting attendees the FBI role in such events includes everything from coordinating intelligence among law enforcement partners to considering “weapons of mass destruction and all those things that scare people at night – that’s my world, that’s not your world generally, unless I call you.”

Officials said they do not expect Chicago’s terror alert status to increase during the summits, in part because the alert level here is always elevated.

“I don’t want to classify this as a greater terrorist threat because it’s all based on intelligence and the fact that we have foreign dignitaries here doesn’t make it a greater terrorist threat, Grant said. “Chicago is on the top tier of cities that are targeted by foreign-based, known . . . terrorist organizations. So, we’ve been in the spotlight for quite a while. We have networks in place to spot and assess those.”

But there were lighter moments, too, such as when a representative of a large Chicago law firm asked whether air travel could be affected. She said she has a lot of attorneys coming and going all of the time.

Gary Schenkel, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, said the airports should function normally, but also joked about how much he loves lawyers.

"We can facilitate the outgoing flights,” Schenkel said.

What a pussy this Jason guy is!

I doubt the guy understands much of anything except how to hide behind others.