DENVER—There won’t be any razor wire strung across the tops of the holding cells that will be used during the Democratic National Convention next week. Officials backed off that idea after some groups started the calling the site “Gitmo on the Platte.”
They’ll use chain-link fencing material instead, the same thing the cell walls will be made of.
“We rethought those plans and came up with a way to put a lid on the cells instead of the razor wire,” Denver Undersheriff William Lovingier said Wednesday while leading reporters on a tour of the cells in a cavernous city warehouse that will be the “Temporary Arrestee Processing Site.”
The warehouse is in northeast Denver, about 2 1/2 miles from the convention and about a mile from the South Platte River, source of the protesters’ nickname for the site.
The warehouse, about the size of a football field, was once used to store election equipment. It now has 18 cells, each 20 feet square, and can hold up to 400 people waiting be photographed, fingerprinted and issued a court date.
Anyone sprayed with tear gas, pepper spray or other crowd-control chemical would be decontaminated before being bused to the site.
Depending on the charge, people taken to the center can post bail with cash or credit card after they’re booked. Those unable or unwilling to bond out will be sent to a city jail downtown, where they’ll face judges in courts that will remain open until midnight.
Authorities say they will be able process up to 60 people an hour at the warehouse, meaning it could take up to 6 1/2 to get everyone through if the cells are full.
City officials said they don’t anticipate mass arrests but set up center to allay fears that those arrested could spend long hours or even days waiting.
The American Civil Liberties Union-Colorado and others raised that concern, citing the 2004 Republican convention in New York where some people were held for days at a converted bus depot.
Protesters have likened the Denver facility to a dog pound, but officials said the security measures are necessary.
“The important thing is this has to function as a normal jail,” Lovingier said. “The nature of jail is to create an environment where you can maintain security and order, and one of our primary charges is the care and custody of inmates.”
Dana Fisher, an associate sociology professor at Columbia University, said police tactics for controlling protesters has shifted from herding them into small spaces away from venues to making mass arrests to get them off the streets.
Letting them post bail at the holding cells might defeat that tactic, she said.
“They bond out and what are they going to do? Go home and do homework?” she said. “No, they came to cause trouble and they’re going to cause trouble.”
Brian Vicente, executive director of the People’s Law Project, raised concerns with the city regarding arrestees’ access to attorneys, and said he might even consider legal action if his group’s pro bono attorneys can’t meet with arrestees.
“Ten days before the actual event, they unveil this detention center which is quite a ways from the city,” he said, adding that he toured the site this week and was disappointed there were no private rooms there for attorneys to meet with clients. “We’re going to closely monitor reports from those who are detained there.”
Lovingier and city officials said attorneys will have a chance to meet with clients in court, as is current procedure.
