I've been thinking back to an anti Iraq War march I attended in Washington DC

[Wicked Blue]

1. I probably went to the same march

The cops used a technique called kettling. They would force small groups of marchers, say 50 to 100, into culs-de-sac and narrow streets, and block off all escape routes. My husband and I got stuck in one of these for a couple of hours. The whole time we were menaced by lines of cops in riot gear or on motorcycles. The leader looked like a rabid pit bull. The cops refused to answer any questions. It looked like at any moment they were going to break out of line and start beating us.

We were mostly older folks, no physical threat to anyone, and everyone was terrified. There was at least one journalist in the crowd, who got through to then-Police Chief Ramsey, who eventually showed up. He glared at us for about 10 minutes, then finally allowed us to go.