This coming Thursday and Friday should be interesting around here, the G8 Summit will be hosted at Camp David and Frederick through Thurmont and Emmittsburg will see a significant increase in traffic, media and people.

They have closed the schools on Friday, but many area activities are still being held which in of themselves will bring many to the area.

The local Occupy Movement have several non-confrontational activities planned, including talks at the Frederick City Library and a ‘Block Party” planned at a large city park.

Some of the agencies at Ft. Detrick have decided to have their employees telecommute on Friday, so far for the NCI staff it is business as usual. Our program has employees who must work on Saturday; they changed some of the staffing so only people from the southern part of the county are scheduled to work that day in hopes of missing traffic issues between Frederick and Thurmont.

While the various LE agencies are fully staffed for the event, no real information on possible disruptions have been confirmed. Merchants have been advised not to have anything on the sidewalks that could be used as projectiles and to exercise caution, but other than that, it appears to be business as usual.

Our team will be on standby. Fire/Rescue stations, which in our county are all volunteer (some have career support), are being staffed, but no extraordinary plans have been made.

Most likely this will turn out to anything more than a media event, but if not I am sure things will be handled with minimal disruptions.

Time will tell-
Pete

Just occurs to me, Pete, how odd it is to be in DC and for once the commotion and gridlock will be elsewhere in the region.

I rarely go further up 270 than Germantown so this is one event that may not affect me.

Good luck to you and yours!

Thanks.

We are still trying to figure out from where significant numbers of protestors might be coming and staying, it is not like we are a big city where they could blending in with residents. Perhaps they will be gathering in Baltimore or DC and come up Thursday evening? Right now, Frederick and the surrounding areas are business as usual.

Pete

They are already in Chicago. So far they have not been much more than a very minor nuisance when they protested of at all places, the PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. campaign HQ.

I guess I used a dirty word.

I don't get it. Why would they protest at the [Censored] campaign HQ?

Jeanette Isabelle

Beats me. Its sort of like the Weathermen protesting the SDS.

Just goes to show there is no real way to tell where this kind of thing will lead. Best to just stay away IMO.

A lot of businesses in the area have taken that to heart and will be shut down for the worst of it. The city is still claiming that the city remains "open to business". Maybe the city is open for business but my guess is most of the businesses in the affected areas won't be.

Thank you everyone for avoiding going off on political rants with this thread. Preparing for the possibility of a riot is something worth discussing on this forum, so feel free to keep doing that.

The automatic censors are nailing a few words such as names of political parties even when the context would be allowable. Sorry about that, but it's the best we can do with free software and free labor.

Carry on.
-Blast

I know some people who are going to the protest, and I'd imagine that some people on this forum are going as well. We should keep this in mind in the interest of inclusion. I doubt they'd appreciate some of the things said in this thread. In the interest of productivity, here's a question: those people obviously can't prepare for a riot by avoidance. How should they prepare?

One could generalize this question to participating in a protest/parade of any sort that suddenly turns violent.

If just one or two people start throwing stuff, you could try to dissuade them from continuing and escalating, maybe.
If it's a large group that's having a confrontation with the police or things are just plain getting out of hand, I would try to leave the area. Get out of the main body of the group and certainly away from where the fight is going on.

I'm going with the theory that by being near the fight, you swell the perception of numbers of the group, causing the troublemakers to get bolder, the responders to think they have to respond harder (possibly catching you in the net as well) and greatly increase your odds of getting caught up in the fight. By clearing away from the fight, the troublemakers are more easily isolated and dealt with.

(Correct me where I'm wrong, I'm just trying to make my best guesses here.)

That seems very sensible to me.