Despite controversy in the days leading up to the event, it was smiles all around Saturday after a peaceful Columbus Day parade – the first time in years that not a single person was arrested.
There were no confrontations, either. And there wasn’t even any litter in the street at the downtown Denver intersection where the two opposing groups – the Italian-Americans celebrating Christopher Columbus and the American Indians who accuse him of genocide – might have crossed paths.
The protesters were kept behind heavy metal fences and could only yell and wave signs at the marchers.
“I’m very satisfied with the outcome,” Police Chief Gerry Whitman said. “Our months of preparation allowed citizens on both sides of the issue to exercise their constitutional rights in a safe environment.”
Glenn Morris, a leader of the American Indian Movement of Colorado, noted that last year, 250 protesters wound up in jail.
“Let us say a prayer of thanks that we came back safe,” Morris said to supporters at the state Capitol after the parade. “No one in jail this year. No one in the hospital this year.”
Italian-Americans who had expressed hope for a peaceful parade were pleased with the outcome.
“It’s a national holiday and as an American I think I should march for one of the guys that discovered it,” said George Vendegnia, founder of the Sons of Italy-New Generation and a parade organizer.
The parade, which began at 28th and Blake streets, was stopped for about 15 minutes while protesters staged street theater across from Coors Field. About 20 of them lay quietly on the street, as if dead, to symbolize American Indians killed by Columbus. A red liquid was poured on the street.
After a few minutes, other protesters hurried to the street with stretchers, loaded the “dead” and took them back into the protest area. A firetruck hosed down the street, and the parade resumed.
Police estimated that about 200 to 300 protesters showed up for the parade.
Morris said two new city ordinances designed to keep the protesters from blocking a street or a parade were worthless and had nothing to do with the parade being peaceful.
“We made a decision not to get arrested this year,” said Glenn Spagnuolo of Longmont, an AIM supporter.
“We expended a lot of legal time last year with the arrests,” Spagnuolo said. “And we’ve gotten a lot of bad press with people thinking we’re bullies and thugs.”
In the days leading up to the parade, both sides took shots at one another. And Mayor John Hickenlooper enraged both sides with a letter in which he said he was “sick and tired of this entire costly, frustrating and potentially dangerous situation.”
Last year, protesters blocked the route for about an hour, and more than 200 people were arrested. Their cases eventually were thrown out of court.
On this day, a few hundred police and firefighters were out in force, almost outnumbering viewers of the parade, which lasted a little more than an hour.
One paradegoer, John Birndorf of Denver, said he was “sick and tired of the protesters.”
“They already helped change the name of Columbus Park in Denver. What’s next? The District of Columbia too?”
The parade included Aztec dancers, trucks, motorcycles, convertibles, some decorated trucks, African-American cowboys, a double-decker bus and dance combos on the backs of trucks.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
