This dude yelled “Free Tibet!” a few times.
This dude got himself arrested, I didn’t see what did (or did not) happen.
These two cops appeared to be in charge of the 100’s (1000’s?) of cops on the ground:
What. A. Day. The only violence I saw was a cop shoving someone out of the street. Definitely less violent than the last time the SFPD had battalions of officers running around in riot gear.
Least we forget:
Mike, did you take these photos yourself? It looks like you were in the middle of the relay! In fact the guy in the bike helmet and shades, just to the left of the torch, in the first photo even looks like you. But if that is you who took the photo? Lots of good action shots here though. Were there a lot of protestors? Seems to be more cops than the crowd in some of the photos.
Yeah, the pictures turned out amazingly good considering they were all taken with an iPhone. I did take them all. That guy that looks like me – that’s a cop on a bike. There were cops on motorcycle, dirt bike, bike, foot, car, van, bus, helicopter, and even boat.
So there were few spectators (and protesters) along the route because they changed it up real-time. Hence the good pictures. Before the run, I rode up and down the embarcadero, and there were maybe 100k people of which 10k were protesting either pro or anti china. Most were just there with cameras. They all missed it. To actually see the torch you had to be on a bike, know your way around the city, and be getting updates fast… which kinda left every family and most everyone from out of town high and dry. Ironically, it’s the protestors that were much more ready to deal with the changing route… so a much higher percentage of people along the actual route were protesting. All were pro-tibet. I didn’t see a single pro-china protester make it to actually see the torch run…. they all got stuck on the embarcadero. Along route, there was about a 1:1 ratio of cops to non-cops.
Everyone that day either had: a) a china flag b) a tibet flag c) a camera or d) a baton, either for the olympic flame or for beating people with.