XPost: alt.government.abuse, alt.law-enforcement, alt.security.terrorism 
 XPost: nyc.politics 
 From: liberty@once.net 
  
 9/11 party gets raided 
 Cops seize coolers seeking alcohol at fund-raiser 
 Originally published on July 8, 2003 
 By MICHELE McPHEE and CELESTE KATZ 
 DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS 
  
 Dozens of cops descended on Rockaway Beach on the Fourth of July and broke 
 up a fund-raiser for memorials to 9/11 victims, angry partygoers charged 
 yesterday. 
  
 "When they came [it was] literally a SWAT team," said high school teacher 
 Marie McGoldrick, 31. "You can't imagine how bizarre this was. We're talking 
 about families of people who lost their loved ones on 9/11." 
  
 Police said yesterday they were simply trying keep alcohol off the beach. 
 But people in the tight-knit Queens community, filled with cops and 
 firefighters, charged they were harassed on a day that should have been 
 dedicated to the memories of fallen family and friends. 
  
 The clash began in the early afternoon when police tried to look in coolers, 
 searching for alcohol. 
  
 When some of the 500 revelers objected, officers began confiscating coolers 
 and writing tickets - in some cases without even looking inside, partygoers 
 charged. 
  
 Things got worse around 8 p.m. when about 50 cops began sweeping people off 
 the beach, as others in dune buggies drove along the shoreline, shining 
 spotlights on beachgoers, witnesses said. 
  
 Families fled, putting an abrupt end to a party that raised $10,000 for a 
 memorial garden at nearby St. Francis de Sales Church and a Beach 116th St. 
 tribute to victims of the terror attack and the Flight 587 crash. 
  
 "It was the most disgusting thing you've ever seen in your life," said 
 Richard Knott, 46, who was slapped with a disorderly conduct summons. "They 
 raided the beach for no reason. 
  
 "I said, 'What is this, Iraq? Is this Tiananmen Square?' One [cop] just 
 pointed at me and said, 'You come over here.' ... They threw the handcuffs 
 on me in front of my wife, my mother and my children," he said. 
  
 Yesterday, police officials defended the cops' actions. 
  
 Uniformed sweep 
  
 "There were summonses written and confiscations made up and down the beach. 
 This event was not singled out," said NYPD Capt. James Klein. "The police 
 were there to enforce the law. They wanted to let people have a good time 
 while obeying the law. There's no alcohol consumption allowed on the beach." 
  
 Ten summonses were issued for violations ranging from alcohol to noise to 
 disorderly conduct, cops said. Klein said 14 coolers with beer were 
 confiscated. 
  
 Klein said representatives of the 100th Precinct met with party organizers 
 before the event and agreed there would be no alcohol or open fires - but 
 both rules were broken. 
  
 Emotions were still running high last night in the neighborhood, which lost 
 up to 90 people in the terror attack and five people on the ground in the 
 Nov. 12, 2001, plane crash that also killed 260 passengers and crew. 
  
 As they raged about the July 4 debacle, angry locals were planning a rally 
 tomorrow night to protest what they call general police harassment of 
 beachgoers. 
  
 Firefighter George Johnson, the man on the left in the famed photo of three 
 firefighters raising the American flag at Ground Zero, said he'll be there. 
  
 He said that during the July 4 raid, a woman showed cops a picture of her 
 son, who died at Ground Zero. "She said, 'This is a party in the name of my 
 son. You should be ashamed of yourselves,' and they went right on doing what 
 they were doing." 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)