Carlyle Group Blockaded at Montgomery & Washington Streets

After a brief gathering at Justin Herman Plaza Monday morning, protesters representing Direct Action to Stop the War, International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and other groups occupied a corner of the Transamerica Pyramid at Montgomery and Washington Streets to draw close attention to war profiteers Carlyle Group and their conflict of economic and political interest in war planning.
By 8:45 a.m., eight non-violent direct action protesters blockaded with lock boxes a service entrance to the building within police presence that had amassed before 7:00 this morning. The eight were joined by 14 or 15 more, some of them locked arms in a circle around demonstrators who practiced yoga poses in a positive energy statement to a world at war.
Across both streets, placcards, hand bills and bull horns detailed the activities of the Carlyle Group in securing contracts guaranteeing handsome profits from the destruction now raging in Iraq. Protestors demonstrated peacefully and complied with police commands to stay on the sidewalk and out of the street, while they cried aloud for the end of the war on Iraq.
Approximately 20 officers in riot gear controlled the site until all participants in the direct action--possibly 24--were cuffed with nylon zip ties and taken to a Sheriff's bus, at which point 20 additional officers arrived. The area was cleared by 9:45 a.m., and many protesters expressed intentions to adjourn to the federal building where a separate action was already under way.
SFPD Special Operations & Security oversight officer Capt. Richard Bruce was present and observed the action among a group of five other officers piloting dual-purpose motorcycles.
That one scalp-bald, really tall cop with the video camera (surely that's what his friends and coworkers call him) was collecting digital footage of the protesters on the sidewalk as well as those on the asphalt in front of the blocked entrance. Police continued to use polaroid images and placards to link arrestees with evidence of any charges against them and as rightful owners of their personal possessions.
Focus of the demonstration was maintained as the economic and political activities of Carlyle Group, directly followed by yoga for peace, in conjunction with a speedy end to the senseless war being waged upon the people of Iraq.
On several occasions, corporate employees passing through the Financial District from North Beach took the opportunity to yell support for war on Iraq at the tops of their lungs (they were apparently in too much of a hurry to ask to borrow the bull horn).
Many a passer by in motor vehicles on Montgomery Street honked profusely in support of U.S. withdraw from Iraq.