According to Friday’s episode of Democracy Now!:

In New York, the police response to the Republican National Convention (RNC) protests is continuing to come under criticism. For the first time a high-ranking police supervisor has admitted that police arrested about 400 people around Union Square even though the police never gave an order to disperse. The disclosure was made in a deposition made by Deputy Inspector James Essig. On Wednesday the New York Civil Liberties Union accused the police of lying about the circumstances surrounding the arrests of hundreds of protesters during the Republican National Convention.

Media Mouse witnessed the arrests in question as part of our coverage of the 2004 RNC protests and indeed barely escaped arrest ourselves. The arrests occurred when an unpermitted street party took to the streets to the east of Union Square and was surrounded by the New York Police Department (NYPD) as part of a strategy that consisted of large-scale preemptive arrests during the “A31” day of direct action against the RNC. During the day, numerous people and entire marches were arrested in order to prevent protestors from expressing their opposition to the RNC.