What organizers don't understand, is that for the previous two Sundays, November 29th and December 6th, the St. Louis Police Department has done an excellent job in protecting the protestors' Constitutional Rights to Assemble.
Watch the unedited videos of what happened on Sunday December 13th around 12:30pm.
After the police officer left, he returned with the following response. Apparently the 911 calls were not the real reason why protestors were to be arrested.
It is clear from this video that when you look down the line of parked cars - there was only 3 other folks near parked cars with signs - that's all. They were NOT in the street, they were in the permitted area where pedestrians can walk in and out of their cars and even stand without causing any traffic problems. The protestors were allowed to be out in the street the past two weeks with the same signs with no issue from the police.
Sunday November 29th Rally, notice where protestors are located without any issue from the police.
Sunday November 29th Rally, notice protestors are again located without any citation from the police.
On Sunday December 6th and December 13th we did exactly the same thing. We peacefully picketed the Cathedral. We moved in a circle to keep warm and to bring more attention to our message. (Notice that in the background there was a protestor near a parked car. Police passed us from 11:45am to 12:30pm and never asked this protestor to move back.)
Now watch this amateur video from the Sunday November 29th Rally. Notice how the protestors respect the steps of the church and also bleed over into the permitted area where cars can park on a 45 degree angle. Notice several protestors are behind the crowd with signs that say, "honk for equality" toward traffic.
We are not sure why the St. Louis Police decided to enforce rules that they didn't enforce the past two Sunday's outside the Cathedral. Did the Archbishop call the Police Chief and ask him to put the pressure on the demonstrators? We have good reason to believe he could have. On December Sunday December 13th, at least two Archbishop staff members were seen talking with police officers.
