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The force riot police used last fall against a crowd of peaceful demonstrators protesting a presidential visit was one of the worst examples nationwide of the growing police militarization since Sept. 11, 2001, civil liberties advocates said Thursday. When police wearing face shields and body armor moved without warning against a crowd of 200, they struck six people with batons and five others with plastic balls fired from rifles, said three lawyers who investigated the Oct. 14 incident in Jacksonville for the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dozens more became ill when the plastic balls released pepper spray, the investigators said. The crowd was made up of mostly middle-age people, but also included at least 20 children, elderly people and local residents who were passing by, protest organizers said. Police were clearing demonstrators from the sidewalks outside the Jacksonville Inn, where President Bush decided to dine instead of eating at his private cottage after a political rally. Police didn't ask organizers to move the demonstrators and didn't give people time to get out of the way after issuing a bullhorn order to disperse that most in the crowd couldn't hear because of the roar of a helicopter overhead, the investigators said. "This was an exceptionally small demonstration for a problem like this to arise," said Ralph Temple, one of the investigators and a retired staff attorney in the ACLU's Washington, D.C., office. "I don't think most police departments in the country would bring out riot police with this kind of a crowd. "You're supposed to use these weapons as a substitute for lethal weapons," he said at a news conference. "You don't use them just to make people move." [more]

ACLU to sue over Bush fracas in Jacksonville [more]