Public Hearing on G20 Protest Items to be Held

Pittsburgh City Council will take public testimony Wednesday at 1:30 on a set of bills intended to help police control crowds of protester during the G20 Pittsburgh Summit. The bills deal with everything from wearing masks to conceal a person’s identity to defining rights of free speech. The measures also talk about using various items to block streets and sidewalks. One bill lays out a list of items including handcuffs, chains, concrete filled containers and PVC pipes that cannot be used to “inhibit emergency response.” National Tactical Officers Association Executive Director John Gnagey says chains, handcuffs and locks can be used to tie protesters together or to street signs making it very difficult to take them into custody. Gnagey says protesters add handles to the inside of the pipes, place their hands inside and lock themselves in with chains or compounds. He says the pipes can also be coupled with compressed air to make a launching device. Gnagey says the goal of all of the items is to make it take longer to arrest a protester. He says that not only ties up more officers for longer periods of time but it also gives the protesters more time to complain that they are being brutalized by officers, more time for reporters to get video of the arrests and more time for other protesters to video tape the arrests. Those tapes, he says, will then be posted on the Internet or used in lawsuits filed against police. The measure also makes it a crime to carry items such as gasoline, human waste or rotten eggs with the intent of defeating crowd dispersal. Gnagey says all those things have been hurled at riot police in the past. He says Pittsburgh police better start looking now because protesters often hide items in trees, window nooks and sewers days before a protest in an effort to thwart check points.