Police seized feces, urine during DNC
By Christopher N. Osher
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 09/04/2008 05:48:52 PM MDT
Among the items police seized during the Democratic convention were bags of feces stockpiled in LoDo and an estimated 200 bottles of urine in a vacant house, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's office revealed today.
In a prepared statement, the mayor praised Denver police and public-works officials for their work at the convention.
"Our police and public-works crews engineered an extraordinary behind-the-scenes collaboration preceding and during the Democratic National Convention, which thwarted plans of those intent on disrupting our city," Hickenlooper said.
Training manuals posted online by some protest groups, alerted city officials to the potential that protesters might use human waste and stockpiles of bricks and rocks, as well as other tactics, to disrupt the convention, the mayor said.
Public works responded to 54 specific locations around the city where materials were stored, and some of the items had identifying graffiti.
The mayor said that a stockpile of pipe was found close to police headquarters and that a bag of quick-connect brass fittings for propane bottles and 6- to 8-foot heavy-duty chain also was seized. PVC pipe was found in an alley in LoDo. Nails and screws were found scattered in LoDo streets. In another incident, two propane tanks were found chained to a fence in a LoDo parking lot.