As the exploding biotech industry gears up for an international conference later this month at the Hynes Convention Center, Boston police yesterday said they are also getting ready.
They're bracing for demonstrations by the same protesters who descended on Seattle for last year's World Trade Organization conference, leaving $30 million of property damage in their wake.
Two Seattle police officers from those protests wrapped up a five-day visit to Boston yesterday, meeting with police here to share cautionary tales from demonstrations of up to 50,000 people each day.
Boston police spokeswomen Margot Hill said the lessons they shared--about the strategies used by police and the agitators themselves--reflected a new era of civil disobedience.
Among the tactics the Seattle officers reported, Hill said, were the use of supersoaker squirting guns to spray bleach and urine on police and using olive oil and ball bearings to prevent police from using horses.
"They were very sophisticated in the tactics of police officers and highly organized in their approach," Hill said.
Boston has not seen large-scale protests since the 1970s with the first days of court-ordered busing. Since then, tactics-savvy protesters have studied police maneuvers and refined their strategies.
Police said the Seattle representatives reviewed maps of the city with police here to target vulnerable areas that could be exploited by protesters.
Police would not elaborate on those potential targets, or what preventive strategies the department was planning.
It was unclear how many protesters would take part in the demonstrations, but Hill said it was unlikely the conference would draw the huge numbers that wreaked havoc in Seattle.
The biotech conference, which convenes from March 26-30, will touch on some of the same controversial issues that triggered the massive protests in Seattle, including the controversial debate over the safety of genetically modified foods.
[Note: "Biodevestation 2000: Resistance and Solutions to the Corporate Monopoly on Power and Life" is a week-long counter-conference to oppose the BIO 2000 conference. The main teach-in / counter-conference will take place on Friday, March 24 and Saturday March 25, and will include speakers such as Vandana Shiva (RFSTE, India), Jose Bove (Confederation Paysanne, France), Brian Tokar (Institute for Social Ecology), Bread and Puppet Theater, and much more. A public rally will be held on Sunday, March 26, at 1pm in Copley Square. The rest of the week will consist of protests and direct action with the intent of disrupting BIO 2000. For more information, contact: Northeastern Resistance Against Genetic Engineering (NERAGE) at nerage@sove.net]