NEW YORK – To the protesters, it’s Guantanamo on the Hudson. Police prefer the acronym PASS, though nobody gets one.
Either way, the dilapidated, hulking pier on the Hudson River in Manhattan has become a landmark of sorts in the clash between activists and authorities at the Republican National Convention.
Some protesters have complained bitterly about conditions at the temporary holding area set up at Pier 57 for processing convention-related arrests. One former detainee, Andrew Lynn, claimed he was held there for hours on end in “Guantanamo-style pens” – a reference to the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Police insist their Post Arrest Screening Site allows them to process mass arrests safely and promptly and avoid overwhelming neighborhood stationhouses.
Commissioner Raymond Kelly has dismissed complaints about conditions, including questions about asbestos. Testing Monday night found no problems with air quality, he said.
NYPD officials declined a second request to allow a reporter to tour the site Wednesday, saying officers were too busy processing the nearly 1,000 people arrested the day before.
Among them was an Associated Press photo messenger who was taken in along with a group of protesters when police broke up a demonstration that she and a colleague were covering.
Jeanette Warner was there for several hours. She said conditions were far from inhumane, although the facility was dirty and the experience exhausting.
“It was like a warehouse. It was the best they could do,” Warner said. “You didn’t want to sit on the floor, that’s for sure.”
As they waited Tuesday night, some chanted “This is what a police state looks like,” and one woman was put back in handcuffs after she rattled the chain-link fence and jumped against it. For the most part, however, detainees got along well with the officers posted there, Warner said.
Detainee JoAnn Wypijewski, a 48-year-old freelance magazine writer, said officers manning the makeshift lockup were polite.
“You get the feeling that they’re being held prisoner, too,” Wypijewski said. “It’s not a great working environment in there.”
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