Anti-war protesters march peacefully to Pepsi Center

By Steve Myers, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 24, 2008 at 3:41 p.m.
Updated August 24, 2008 at 3:41 p.m.

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Preston Gannaway © The Rocky

Protesters march to the Pepsi Centerl on Sunday, August 24, 2008 in Denver.

PEPSI CENTER -- Hundreds of chanting, picket waving anti-war protesters, flanked by scores of bicycle-riding police, marched peacefully from the state Capitol to the site of the Democratic National Convention.

Several demonstrators with bandannas covering their faces taunted dozens of officers clad in riot gear at entrance to the Pepsi Center grounds at the end of the mile-long parade but the minor confrontation fizzled when police ignored the slurs. Parade participants dispersed gradually at the parade's end. The designated protest area near the Pepsi Center remained vacant has it had all day.

Protesters gathered in the morning for an anti-war rally on the Capitol steps before marching to the Pepsi Center. Megaphones enhanced some chants along the way: "Revolution is what we need to liberate humanity."

Protest veteran Bob Van Wyk, 58, came from St. Petersburg, Fla., to join the march. He and buddy, Sergei Kostin, 46, carried a florescent yellow banner they had carried at an anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C., following the last congressional elections in 2006.

"It didn't do us a lot of good then," said Van Wyk, "but we thought we'd pull it out and try it again."

Kostin said he was surprised the parade participation was limited.

"I would have hoped for more people, but it's only one of many events this week'" he said.

Nearly 90 police officers on bikes accompanied the march on the flanks throughout the route.

That show of force gave Delaine Kulachkosky, 45, or Arvada, a sense of security. It was the first protest for her and her two teenage boys.

"It was a lot safer than I expected," she said, noting that some of her coworkers were scared off from attending by the rhetoric of confrontation from some march organizers.

"It was great," said Austin Kulachkoky, 18. "We're going to do it again."

• August 24, 2008

  4:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  drkenne writes:

  It was a peaceful march, I only wish there were many more of us, so our collective voices, while loud, would have resonated even louder.

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