i used to be in that crowd until we spent 4 days in the city. had a great time, no problems. lots of law enforcement, but made me feel safe.

can't wait to go back.

amazing how close we live to a major tear in the fabric of our society.

good luck to new york.

I live in NYC - Out in Queens, the county where the shooting took place. (but well north of where it happened)

MY biggest worry? Getting a headache from having to listen to Al Sharpton on the radio/TV for hours on end - heck, that's already started, so I'm well on my way to the headache

I'm afraid that no amount of preparation can protect you from political grand-standing. May I suggest a stiff drink, or five?

I live in Long Island and work all over NYC. I am not getting a bad feeling from the Bell situation. While some aspects of his case are questionable, he was far from a saint and assaulted a detective with an SUV. Judging from what I have gathered, force was justified, it is just a question of how much and whether the involved officers properly ID'd themselves. My sympathy meter for Mr. Bell is not registering strongly. I don't anticipate trouble, but hey, you never know.

Little late but that's because I was busy (sort of related to that)... We got issued no "prewarning" but the minute that verdict went down we were told to keep the armor handy. Nothing happened yet and weekend was uneverntful besides a lot of "sick" personel who didnt come to work so I was stuck covering shifts.

I found that 1010 wins has always the best coverage of NYC related problems (radio is fast, web site updates are slow, text alerts are fast as well)... If you dont have a minature radio get the text alerts from them (sign up on their website)... As far as for the future reference: not much you can do to prepare for such a thing except to have plan for alternate routes home, staying informed maybe extra bottle of water, some extra snacks, comfortable shoes and less flashy clothes/jewerly. I don't belive city wide rioting would take place so isolated incidents confided to certain neighborhoods is what we would get. Random acts of violence and spontanious protests can't be predicted so short of staying at home there is not much you can do to avoid that. If you are asking how to defend yourself? That's hard since defense against mob is a strength in numbers and organization. Crowd offers feeling of anonimity/security and crimes commited in crowd usually go unpunished. Got few close calls during Caribbean/Indian day parade (day with the highest number of stabbings and shots) with mob trying to storm ambulances and pd cars when you working people.