On the Ground at the DNC in Philadelphia

What gets reported by the mainstream media is always so radically different from reality these days.  I’m going to use the recent Democratic National Convention, held in Philadelphia, PA. as my example.  I happened to be invited to work with a security team during the DNC and while I was never inside the Wells Fargo Center (WFC) where the convention itself was held, I was outside of the Philadelphia City Hall (where the ‘protesters’ were every day) and in Franklin D. Roosevelt Park (FDR Park) every day.

One of the first things I’m going to observe is this:  What the mainstream media (MSM) kept referring to as ‘protesters’ weren’t really as far as I could tell.  Sure, there were groups of people there, all trying to get notice or attention for their cause, but they weren’t actually protesting anything.  In fact, the only real protest I saw occurred when Bernie Sanders threw his support to Hillary Clinton and his supporters went nuts.  Outside of City Hall on the sidewalk, the roar of rage was loud enough to echo through the canyons created by high rise office and apartment buildings.  The cries of “Bernie or Bust!” and “Hillary for prison!” grew to a deafening crescendo.

The other groups that I observed both at City Hall and in FDR Park were:

The Green Party – Jill Stein was on scene for at least a couple days and made some speeches at their tent in FDR Park.

The Communist Party – which didn’t seem very organized and had very few people (less than two dozen?) tagging along with them.  It was difficult at best to figure out who was and wasn’t part of their group.

The Pro-Pot Party – which isn’t an actual political party, but was a fairly well organized group of people who seemed to be about everywhere.  In FDR Park they had the ‘Cannabis Wagon’ being pushed/pulled around by members of their group.  I happened to see it immediately after meeting Deputy Chief Patterson and had to laugh in appreciation for his comment.  “They aren’t dangerous to anyone unless you have cookies.”

Whatever the heck Vermin Supreme’s Party is – because this foul smelling individual was walking the area, boot on his head, smelling like a skunk… literally.  We made sure we didn’t get down wind of him if we could avoid it.  He acted like quite the celebrity and was delighted to have his picture taken with people.

Now, this is where my first truly negative observation comes in: One “news” team used a young girl – I’m guessing maybe ten or eleven years old – as their ‘face’ to interview Vermin Supreme.  The producer fed the little girl questions while the cameraman captured the moment.  What kind of reporter, news team, etc. uses a little girl as their front man?  I felt bad for her. She put on a good face and did her best, but she kept wrinkling her nose every time a breeze fed her Supreme’s stench.

Other parents, no doubt thinking that they were creating memories of a lifetime for their children, brought them to FDR Park.  I saw several children sitting near a cooling station, their parents nowhere in sight.  The children looked exceedingly bored and VERY hot.  It was, after all, in the high 90s (Fahrenheit) and the humidity stayed in the 80%+ range.  The ‘feels like’ temperature was reported well over 105F.  But hey… bring your kids to the park and let them have an awesome cultural experience as they get exposed to whatever nonsense people are spouting – while you’re not even around, right?  Perfect.

The last group I’ll mention was the Black Lives Matter (BLM) folks.  I was right in the middle of their gathering on the sidewalk at City Hall and can quite happily say they are nearly oblivious to everything except their ‘cause.’  As near as I could figure out, their cause was disruption of day to day operations of anything.  The seemed to be primarily seeking attention and to attain some measure of shock value.  It was true irony to see them chanting, “F*ck the police!” and “Kill the cracker!” while they were guarded by about a hundred Philly officers of all races.  That said, it was still quite uncomfortable to be in the midst of them – and quite thankfully I was not readily identifiable as a police officer.  Hiding my Caucasian skin was another challenge and I did get plenty of dirty looks for the heinous crime I was committing being white.

Another irony I saw was Bernie supporters selling condoms and t-shirts to support him.  I mean, how funny is it that supporters of a socialist were exercising capitalism? They seemed to do well and, oddly enough, the young ladies selling condoms seemed to be about the most attractive Bernie supporters I saw.

Oh, one last group I have to mention: The “LGBT’s for Free Birth Control,” group.  Color me confused but I really couldn’t figure out what their purpose was.  If it had been mostly men in the group I guess I could understand why they’d want free condoms, but I didn’t see a single man in the group.  It was 100% women and, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why a Lesbian would need birth control.

So, on the ground: the Philadelphia police department did a fantastic job of physical security at City Hall and in FDR Park.  The challenges from traffic control to crowd control were pretty ugly and PPD handled them well.  In the park, the Philadelphia Officer of Emergency Management (OEM) provided thousands of cases of water, had two emergency medical services tents set up and at least one cooling station with misters and fans set up.  I lost count of how many porta-johns there were in the park but I’m guessing roughly one hundred.  About a dozen of them were handicap accessible.

When you consider the zoo that surrounds any political event of this size, the challenges for law enforcement and other branches of public safety are obvious. Philadelphia PD did an excellent job of meeting the challenges, controlling the crowd flow and preventing bigger issues.  I tip my hat to them.