Other protestors were doctrinaires: the death penalty, poverty, political venality. To draw the cameras to their signs and slogans, they would run crepe paper around traffic lights and street signs at an intersection, forming a quick square into which they would jump and begin the chants they would use until their arrest.

"Whose street? Our street!"

There were those, too, who had no affiliation and just showed up wherever trouble was.

Sleeping Dragons Shut Down City

As the evening came and conventioneers across town prepared to hear retired general Norman H. Schwartzkopf's remarks on military readiness, the splintered groups coalesced around a few large demonstrations, mostly at blocked intersections. At Spruce and Broad streets, about 300 protesters had gathered in the center of one of the city's busiest streets and the main route from the hotels to the convention.

Police surrounded the scene. For the first time, they appeared in riot helmets. They stretched Nike golf gloves over their baton hands as they moved out from the yellow school buses toward the intersection. Thirty-five protesters linked arms in the center of the street.

Eight were chained together by devices called "sleeping dragons," two-foot long lengths of PVC pipe covered with a thick layer of duct tape. Inside each tube was a bolt and chain which locked protesters' wrist together inside the pipe.

Police methodically secured protesters arms behind their backs, wrote number for reference on their arms and lined them up to be arrested and dragged to waiting Philadelphia Sheriff's Office buses.