Went to Crawford Thursday and Saw Cindy Sheehan and 4 others arrested-link to pics

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Since POTUS is at his ranch and he is having the National Security Advisors come down for a big meeting there is going to be a Protest/Press Conference at the SS stop 1 on the road to the Ranch at 8:30 so I plan to be there. (They will be taking people on Busses to the location which is about 6 miles out of town).

If Cindy comes down this will be one of the few times that POTUS will be in Crawford while she is there, he was not there at Easter and also not during the summer when she was at Camp Casey.

On the way I hope to get some good shots of the Waco-Brazos River Suspension Bridge at Sunrise-turns out some of the cables were supplied by the same company that built the Brooklyn Bridge and when it was built it was the longest suspension bridge west of the Mississippi. There are also a number of historic homes on the downtown side of the river right in that neighborhood so I may cruise by them and catch some early morning pics depending on the time.

So any Waco Members that are free and about this morning who are interested in PJ style shooting head on over to Crawford this morning early.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

http://www.kwtx.com/breakingnews/5028446.html
I will post the link to my pics in a bit and what happened.

[AndrewCCM]

Looking forward to it.. Thanks Paul.

[Huck]

Its like the old saying,

News and film after the game HAHA. Waiting for the "news" to start on TPF.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Ok here is the news:
I arrived at about 8:45 in Crawford (spent more time at the Waco Suspension Bridge at sunrise than I expected) and so I went directly to the 2 SS ID Checkpoints and no one there except DPS and One Marshall. Go back into town and search for Camp Casey and in the drive go by the School where all the big press were camped out with their satelite trucks-talked to a cop at the door of the school and asked him if a press conference was scheduled later today and he said no and that unless I was already on the list I couldn't get in anyway. So went to the towns little park and shot a few pics and then finally found Camp Casey about 1/2 mile North of Town.

There was a girl there who said that the protestors had just left for the check point in some vans and that the shuttle will be back to take up soon, at 8:30 they were actually at Camp Casey still talking about the days plans.

So later the shuttle arrives and the two of us get on (she was with the Iconoclast). So about 10:15 I arrive at the ID Check point and start to shoot away.

There were around 2 dozen protestors with signs, flags and banners including Cindy's Son and Cindy-the van already at this time took some people back to Camp Casey (mostly women looking for bathrooms-portalet at Camp Casey). So it goes pretty quite with groups of cars arriving at times many with SS escorts in Black GMC Yukons-one actually was 2 H3's! There were also 3 white vans that sped through the check point with some sort of sign in their windows. Heck even a pickup from Ft Hood Fire Dept came through at one point. So over the next 2 hours there were maybe 30-40 cars escorted through the check point, another 2 dozen or so lookie lews that passed through and another dozen "locals" who must live by the ranch.

So after about 2 hours of the protestors using bullhorns and waving peace signs at the people and the DPS officers and the SS agents at the checkpoint one of the men decides to go and set in the road at the check point. WEll within about 30 seconds there were 5 people (3 women and 2 men including Cindy) laying down across the roadway entrance to the ID CHeck point.

Well One DPS officer in his Texas Finest is on a cell calling someone and he is freaking out a bit, he doesn't know if there are going to be 5 people or 15 laying on the road. So about 1 minute later several SS agents come in from the direction of their Building by the Ranch and a couple minutes later severl DPS cars come flying up under full code lights-no sirens.

So the officers at the location once the additional SS Guys show up start to zip tie the 5 and moving them back behind the barracade to a safe area. One of the men did the go limp thing and the 2 officers who were trying to move him kind of dropped him to the ground but within seconds either 2 or 3 more officers jump in and grab him up and move him the 10 or so feet (I'm snapping away). So they get all 5 moved and they start checking their pockets. Well Cindy's Son walks over-about 3 feet away and the DPS officers give him his moms cell phone and one of the other ladies cell phone and some other items other than ID's. *He mentions later in the van one of the items was her Credit Card.

So they had the 5 setting along the road just behind the checkpoint barrier and all of a sudden about half the protestors (most with cameras) go right up to the detainees and start taking snaps of them and talking to them. *They were in the ditch PAST THE CHECK POINT LINE (I never crossed that invisible line-called common sense). Well one of the top SS agents tells them that they better move back up the road. These people didn't comprehend. HE then Said YOU HAVE TO MOVE BACK ACROSS THE CHECKPOINT LINE! They then get a clue and move back. So after that they decide that while they wait for more DPS cars they better move the 5 farther back up the road to keep the others from doing this again. So they moved them about 15 feet or so down the road-this time all 5 walked with their escorts with no resistance-they were zip tied.

So then after a few minutes more DPS cars show up and they then put 3 of the people each in a car with them setting in the front seat and then one car had Cindy and her friend who I think is a Gold Star Mother (from Easter) in one car with Cindy in the Front seat and took all 5 towards town. (then you see what the link said).

http://www.pbase.com/demdeepellummus...ouncil_protest
I'll be loading pics up for the next hour or so.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

OK lay down started a few seconds after 11:00 am-cops pull the first guy off the road at about 11:05:40. (not 20 minutes like the news story says!). The DPS Troopers did tell them to move several times over that 5 minute time period and they did not even when his supervisor-grey haired Trooper (later he looked to be in good chear that the situation didn't get out of hand) arrived he even asked them to clear the road and they didn't.
(those pics are being loaded right now).

[Huck]

I like to see the pics of the DPS cars as they came over the hill.

Sounds like you had a busy day Paul.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/...e_us/peace_mom

Well it isn't really a hill and I didn't shoot the cars to speak of I was concentrating on the protestors and the cars were just in the corner of my eye.

Yeah got up at 4am to drive to Waco-left dallas at about 4:45 hit Waco in time to shoot the suspension bridge before sunrise-caught the sunrise- went to Crawford- left Crawford and went back to Waco and shot some historic buildings and the DP Museum. Went to Mt Carmel-nobody there and that was an earie fealing (didn't realize he had so much underground structure built into the compound with various entrances to the underground area. Kind of climed around part of the area and shot a lot of the structures that are still there along with lots of twisted yellow metal (burried school busses that he had in the compound structure) then back to Big D and then took a couple hour nap and now!

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I had several SS agents staring me down-really notice it in my pics as I am reviewing them.

I was wearing a black fadora, I wonder what would have happened if I had on my baseball cap with my web addy on it? DEMDeepEllumMusic.com?

Guess I'm in the SS data base now?

[Hanky]

Pretty cool you took a chance to go down there on hopes she would show and scored.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I was pretty sure she would be there but wasn't sure what would happen.
Now if the blasted news services would have seen this last night they could have grabbed it for their stories.

[Wes]

Some very cool pics, Paul. Looks like you had a busy day.

Also looks like you got some dust bunnies on your sensor. It really shows in the clouds.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Yeah I need to clean the blasted thing-maybe today? Need it nice and clean for that Cotton Bowl Parade Sunday or the Canton Shoot Tommorrow or the Wrestlers Sunday!
So I guess I need to get off my keister and do it-huh?

Also stopped at a ticket service a couple days ago and the Cotton Bowl tickets are selling at less than face value! So if you ever wanted to go to a big bowl game!

[MikeyG1965]

I heard they are almost close to giving away tickets to the Cotton Bowl. That is sad.

[bburton]

Paul, you did a fine job of capturing the story.

Now, if you had gone to "Sheehan," Texas to photograph Cindy "Crawford," you'd really have something.