Reply #5: More:

[beltanefauve]

URL: <http://www.nysun.com/article/47754>

(snip)
The police department had a codename for its plan to cope with the invasion of tens of thousands of protesters who were expected to take to the streets during the 2004 Republican National Convention: Operation Overlord II. The name is an apparent reference to the secret plan for the Allied invasion of Normandy, which was codenamed Overlord.

Reports of the planning and intelligence gathering leading up to D-Day are a part of military lore. But the preparations for Overlord II, which resulted in the contentious detention of protesters during the convention, are still unclear.

Over the city's objections, a fraction of the police documents from the months before the August convention are expected to be made public in the coming days, following a recent ruling that lifted a protective order over them. The New York Sun has obtained several of those documents.

One document suggests that the decision to arrest - instead of ticket - all persons whose protests were deemed illegal was made months prior to the convention itself.

The city currently faces lawsuits from hundreds of the 1,800 protesters who were picked up in mass arrests and detained for as long as three days at a West Side pier. The police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, has praised his officers for their handling of protesters at the convention.

The document, dated May 2004, is a report detailing the items discussed at an April 27, 2004, meeting of the NYPD Mass Arrest/Prisoner Processing Subcommittee.

"No summonses will be issued," one of the bullet points on the memo reads.
The no summons policy, which the police department acted on during the convention, has been criticized by civil rights attorneys.

"There is no question that the no summons policy was central in creating huge delays in the release of demonstrators," an attorney who is representing some of the arrested protesters, Christopher Dunn, said in a telephone interview.