When the police and protesters clashed in New York during the Republican National Convention last month, law Professor Bill Quigley offered his law expertise to arrestees.

“It was one of those experiences that if I hadn’t seen I wouldn’t have believed,” Quigley said. “They arrested tourists, journalists, people who were just walking on the sidewalk, a lot of people who weren’t planning on getting arrested.”

Quigley, director of the Law Clinic at Loyola University School of Law and an active public interest lawyer for more than 25 years, traveled to New York with a group of lawyers representing the School of Americas Watch.

The group spent Friday, Aug. 27, to Wednesday, Sept. 1, providing groups of protesters with legal counseling.

“On Sunday the atmosphere was tremendous,” Quigley said of the opening day of protests, on which an estimated 500,000 people attended. “It was like Mardi Gras day on Bourbon Street. There were no marshals with loud speakers, and there were lots of police but they were really laid back.”

Quigley also described resident New Yorkers as more supportive of the protests than of the convention.

“People were up in their windows waving peace flags, waving towels and sheets, celebrating and cheering people on and clapping for them,” he said.

That Tuesday was the largest day of un-permitted marches and civil disobedience during the week, in which more than 1,000 protesters were arrested. Quigley worked with a small march near Ground Zero that was cosponsored by both the School of Americas Watch and the War Resister’s League.

“People were marching two abreast on the sidewalk,” Quigley said, “and about 200 of them crossed a street while the remaining 800 or so waited on the other side for the light to change.”

The protest then suddenly drew to a halt, and confusion reigned as protesters who had crossed the street were subject to mass arrests.

“I went to talk to the police on their behalf, and the police didn’t know why these people were being arrested either,” Quigley said. “It was never clear who ordered the folks to be arrested or what the charge was. The charges changed over the course of the day.”

The protesters had planned to end the march by symbolically “dying” in the street to commemorate the war deaths.

“I was there at that point dealing with the police and explaining to the crowd that many people had been arrested, but the 800 or so people on the other side of the street weren’t going to be arrested, so they were going through the process of trying to figure out what they were going to do,” Quigley said.

The remaining protesters altered their original route and ended up staging the “die-in” at the corner of 29th Street and Broadway Avenue, where about 55 more people were arrested for blocking the street.

Protesters who were arrested throughout the week were brought to an uncomfortable makeshift jail that had been converted from a truck barn.

“The City of New York was not organized for this many arrests, and they got way behind on processing people,” Quigley said. “Some people who were arrested on Tuesday weren’t released until Thursday.”

Quigley said that most of the protesters were given the equivalent of a traffic ticket and that many won’t have to return for court as long as they keep a clean record for six months.

“I think, in terms of health and safety, the city did a pretty decent job,” Quigley said. “But there were hundreds of people who were wrongfully arrested and I think that’s the major criticism of the city.”

Quigley said that though he thought the police went too far on Sunday, they were largely respectful of protesters’ rights and concerned about security for the public.

“There were hundreds of clearly arbitrary arrests where journalists, tourists, people who were just on their way to work got caught up into a place that police wanted to clear,” Quigley said. “But there were very few physical injuries.”

Thomas Stevenson can be reached at [email protected].