PHILADELPHIA _ About nine people with the group Democracy Spring, protesting corruption in politics, climbed over a low metal police barricade and were arrested outside the entrance to the Democratic National Convention Monday afternoon.
They were among throngs of demonstrators for a range of issues who clogged Broad Street in scorching heat near SEPTA'S AT&T station Monday afternoon, some of them sitting on a sidewalk in defiance of a line of officers.
For about an hour Monday afternoon, the heavy crowds also forced SEPTA to suspend the Broad Street Line between Oregon Avenue and AT&T station, where the conference attendees needed to go.
Democracy Spring _ whose platform includes abolishing superdelegates, publicly funding elections, and overturning the Citizens United ruling declaring money to be a form of speech _ organized many of the protesters and told them: "If you want to be arrested, stay on the sidewalk. If you don't want to get arrested move to the street," said Desiree Kane, 34, of Denver, a spokesperson.
"We will nonviolently escalate repeatedly inside and outside the DNC and in social spaces. We have a number of people across the spectrum politically that may be delegates or otherwise. It may or may not be a mass of people, but we will disrupt the DNC," Kane vowed.
The protesters had trained for civil disobedience and said they were prepared to do "what's necessary" to protest a political system that they believe has become an oligarchy, according to protester Josephine Millard, a University of Washington student from New Jersey. They crowded into the metal barricade that police had placed between several hundred protesters and the entrance to the subway station.
Further back, 12-foot-high security fences lined the delegates' route into the convention.
Shortly after Millard spoke, another protester hoisted himself over the fence. Two police officers placed him in zip-tie handcuffs and led him off. The crowd continued to chant.
By mid-afternoon, nine people from convention-related events had been treated for heat illness, of whom three were taken to a hospital, said Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Senski.
Fervent Bernie Sanders loyalists took to the streets in scorching heat for a second day, some crossing into the city over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from New Jersey and others marshalled at City Hall to march down Broad Street toward the Democratic National Convention.
At least three of the bridge protesters collapsed in the intense heat, and one woman who made it across the bridge was taken away on a stretcher for medical treatment.
"All peaceful so far," said Police Commissioner Richard Ross Jr., on Broad Street with the crowd before it reached the Wells Fargo Center. "We're more worried about the heat at this point."
Ross said the protesters seemed to be "happy with the police presence."
As the crowd left City Hall, some chanted "Bernie Sanders not for sale." Many supporters carried signs for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and others anti-Hillary Clinton signs.
"I don't want to settle for somebody," said Roger Tomlinson, 31, of Oklahoma City. He said he was holding out hope that Sanders will still be the party's nominee or would run as a third-party candidate. If not, Tomlinson said he would vote for Stein.
He said he was not worried about a victory for GOP nominee Donald Trump in spite of the Sanders faction's opposition.
"I think if Trump wins, then people will make it not happen," he said, suggesting Trump could be impeached.
But college students Hannah Toledo and Emma Downey said they felt Trump posed a serious threat. Downey, who is from California, said the security of being in a blue state would allow her vote for Stein. But Toledo, an Arizonan, was unsure.
"Depending on the numbers, I'll end up voting for Hillary if it comes down to it," she said.
Big cheers rose up as a sign truck passed bearing the message: "Hillary for prison 2016," sponsored by infowars.com.
At one point, a gigantic cylinder balloon that looked like a huge marijuana joint got stuck in a crosswalk at City Hall. The inflatable was lettered with "legalize" and "Berned by the DNC."
Alan Pieluszynski, 23, and Jessie Rodriguez, 27, traveled from New York City Monday morning to march with Sanders supporters.
"I volunteered for Bernie in Manhattan, I phone banked, I did everything I could, and for me to end it, I had to come here," Pieluszynski said.
Rodriguez became a U.S. citizen last year, she said, and this is the first election she can vote in.
"I'm just seeing how this country is at the edge of going one way or another," she said. Sanders, she added, is the candidate she believed would go the right direction.
At "Bern-stock" in FDR Park, moments of fierce anti-Hillary sentiments came in waves throughout the day. Sometimes the group swayed to Beatles songs, shared tents, and made signs supporting Bernie on scraps of cardboard; in other moments, the scene could rapidly become tense.
By mid-morning, the Sanders crowd was joined by Black Lives Matter supporters, and then, Police Lives Matter advocates. Dozens of officers, standing silently, stretched along the perimeter of the park.
But it didn't take long for the protests and the shouting to quickly change course.
"One minute they hate the police, the next minute they love the police," said 60-year-old Philadelphia resident George Cox of the multiple groups that had descended on the park. Cox watched the protests under the shade of a nearby tree. "Then they love Bernie, then they don't. Just pick one thing!"
Earlier Monday on the north side of City Hall, Canadians Kim Crozier and Karen Suykens were getting honks from passing cars for their pro-Bernie signs, one of them a big red maple leaf flanked by red hearts over the word Bernie. They traveled from Canada to spend the entire week in Philadelphia _ Suykens' first vacation in nine years, she said _ and were energetic in the oppressive afternoon heat.
"America's policies affect us," Suykens said. "When America goes to war, Canadians go to war."
As the Sanders group assembled in the Center City neighborhood, a group of faithful gathered at the foot of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge in New Jersey, at first determined to shut down traffic on the busy span. Instead, the group marched across in pedestrian lanes, headed to join other demonstrators downtown, one carrying an American flag, many hoisting "Bernie For President" signs and not getting many honks from bridge motorists.
"Our point was not to get arrested today, but to get our message across," says march organizer Carol Gay, 68, from Brick, N.J.
Mike Michaelson of Erie, one of the Bernie supportes at a campground in Salem County, came prepared for the broiling heat. He had a spray misting wand to cool marchers off as the crossed high above the Delaware River.
Police accompanying the march urged protesters to remain hydrated.
"Hillary Clinton, no fracking way," some chanted after crossing the bridge.
Gary C. Frazier, 40, of Camden, N.J., one of the bridge march organizers, said he was with Black Men for Bernie.
"Bernie is still our man," Frazier said. He later thanked police officers who were shepherding the crowd.
Earlier Monday, the Bernie Delegates Network announced that delegates would challenge vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine and nominate their own candidate. Coordinator Norman Solomon, a California delegate, would not say who the potential vice presidential candidates were but said the group hopes to get the necessary signatures to file the nomination.
"We're working on it," Solomon said.
With a somewhat muddled message, delegates with the network _ which claims to include two-thirds of Sanders delegates _ rejected the idea of party unity. While expressing anger with the Democratic Party, they said Democrats must defeat Trump in November.
Sanders delegates may protest on the floor of the convention during Hillary Clinton's speech Thursday night, as well as against Kaine and ousted DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, according to three delegates from California, which has the largest Sanders delegation of any state.
"We need to be able to show that there is a space for this kind of discontent within the party ... and still move forward," said Karen Bernal, a delegate from California.
Solomon called on Clinton to remove Wasserman Schultz from Clinton's campaign honorary chair position.
Hillary "has the power of unity," he said, but her choice of Kaine and her embrace of Wasserman Schultz have alienated Sanders supporters.
Denise Hartle, who drove from California for the convention activities, said she hasn't given up hope for Sanders.
"There's always a sliver of hope," she said. "It's not over till it's over."
