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By noon, 20th and Pennsylvania had become Ground Zero for what was left of the rallies. Hundreds of protesters stood facing the armada of cops, almost all of whom were wearing body armor, helmets and gas masks. Tension hung in the air like a noose. That is, except for this one time when a protester shouted, "We're tired! We're cranky! Shut the World Banky!"

Ramsey was out in full force, of course, for his men and women in blue. Ramsey has always been brilliant at public relations and his performance this weekend was no exception. The Washington media has generally made not a peep about some of his force's more egregious displays of bullying and brutality. No doubt much of this is due to the common man's historical and fundamental distrust of rabble-rousers. Still more indifference can be chalked up to the cluelessness and odd appearances of many of the visiting anarchists, as well as the inconvenience their visit displayed. On the area's leading "alternative" radio station, WHFS-FM, Monday morning, the DJs were mocking the protesters' hippie ways.

As always, at 20th and Pennsylvania, much of the dirty work fell into the lap of executive assistant chief of police Terrance Gainer, Ramsey's right-hand man. Gainer plowed his way through his army -- one of the protesters had the foresight to blare a tape of the Darth Vader theme from "Star Wars" -- and ambled up to the barricade where he was instructed to find out how to bring the conflict to a peaceful resolution. At this point there were far too many television cameras there for Gainer to give the cops the go-ahead to start busting.

Out in the crowd, three or four large, muscled men, quickly pegged as undercover cops, stood on a corner and tried to make themselves look inconspicuous. It didn't work -- Serpico these guys were not. Protesters started chanting "Cops! Cops!" and pointing them out to others.

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