On Tuesday February 22, The Northern Colorado Tea Party staged a Tea Party counter-rally in opposition to an SEIU organized rally in Denver.
Many Americans have already seen images and video that came out of the confrontations between the SEIU protesters and tea partiers, most notably the viral video of the black tea partier who was asked by an SEIU member if he had any children, “that he claimed”.
El Marco covered the rallies for Looking at the left. His photo essay can be found, here.
Sad Hill was also at the tea party counter rally on the 22nd. His report:
By 12:10pm, there was an SEIU crowd on the west steps of approximately 500-600 people – many wearing their “purple shirts”. Attendees were listening to speakers and cheering. Tensions were in the air, but low. Large men in black suits were blocking the steps from Tea Party activists. Police presence was nearly invisible. [...] Just a few yards down from the SEIU rally, our very energetic Tea Party crowd had grown to around 250 or 300 people, many just coming to show their presence on their lunch breaks.
Then about 12:30pm the energy began to shift. The SEIU rally was coming to an end – but instead of going home (or back to work), the entire rally turned around in mass and confronted the Tea Party. Angry union supporters were half screamig, half chanting defamatory phrases at us, such as: “Tea Party Fascists”, “Wall Street Tools”, “Don’t Drink the Tea”, “You Are The Robots” – well, you get the picture. Many were simply shouting unfounded and foul epithets at the folks within our ranks
Video of this scenario courtesy of Colorado Peak Politics:
Watch closely. One of the stars of this video made the Left-Wing Institute For Civil Discourse header, (above):
Suddenly there was a police presence everywhere. State Troopers called for back-up. The Denver Police arrived. More than two dozen police officers formed a human barrier between our peaceful protest and the SEIU’s confrontation. I was later informed they even had their riot gear ready.
We sang the National Anthem. We cheered. Cars driving by honked in our support. And flags continued to fly. We refused to be intimated back to silent majority status. By about 1:15pm we ended our formal rally (as most of us needed to get back to work). I kindly thanked the police officers for their service. They informed me they were well aware it was the Public Employee Union supporters who initiated the confrontation and were glad they could be there to fend off any further trouble.
Hat tip: iOWNTHEWORLD
