November 3, 2001 - Kim Palmer

Picketers: Keith Henson, Gregg Hagglund, Kaeli, Zeratul, Tasha,myself and the Unknown Picketer

Picket was short in duration - 2 hours. There were 325 fliers handed out (very upstat don't ya think??).

The weather was not too bad -not cold but not that warm. Armed with signs and fliers we headed to the Org from our usual meeting place meeting with the unknown picketer.

Gregg,Kaeli, and Zeratul went to the Org while Keith, Tasha and I went to Keith's position 110 feet away. This was Tash'a first picket so she stayed with Keith for most of it. She did come to the Org with me for a couple of passes and then rejoined Keith when Al Buttnow came out with a camera in hand.

Suddenly - not one but two cop cars came out and then four more cops came up on bicycles. It seems that someone in the Org complained about our peaceful picket. The cops were worried that we were blocking the sidewalk (we were not) and that we could not be noisy (we weren't) although they were especially concerned about Gregg's volume but could not give us an exact definition of how loud was too loud. Anyway, the bike cops hung out for a while and we stayed too. It is surprising that 6 cops were needed to address three picketers. One of the cops complained that they were pulled from another demonstration at Queen's Park (capital of Ontario is Toronto). Somehow we were supposed to feel bad about that. The other thing to note is that 4 bike cops are the total number of bike cops out on Sat afternoon. Do we really rate that much attenion? I am touched. :-)

This is true.

Kim P