What are sleeping dragons? It is an amazing little story about the progress of protesters and battling protesters that has been going on for some time. The idea developed through non-violence protesters in the past to Ghandi and MLK. Lock arms, lock hands and lay down or block something. The police cannot use any action except trying to arrest, and move them out of the way. Obviously two, 4, 10 people are harder to handle and move then one. Well the locking of arms was OK but not perfect for them, so they would handcuff themselves to each other. Two of the problems with that is handcuffs are not cheap, and police carry keys for handcuffs. So the next progression was handcuffing themselves inside of PVC tubes. Now the police had to remove the tube, to get to the handcuffs, that were still expensive, and then remove them. So the protesters moves to steel pipes. With steel pipes, while working fast the average saw to remove them lasts 2-4 pipes. This meant police needed back up cutters and blades.
See how this works, protestors coming up with cheaper and cheaper methods to stall the police, and cost them more money in equipment. All of this is legal protest, and except for block right of way, all of the police and fire see it as peaceful/nuisance protests. So back to the game.
Various "Sleeping Dragons"
Clockwise from Top left: Steel angled "sleeping dragon" makes it hard to cut with the angles, PVC with silver tape, tape slows down saws, PVC with chicken wire and tar, this is the new second favorite, cheap, and needs about 3 saw blades per removal.
Protesters moved back to PVC with bolts wrapped in silver tape. The silve tape would hang up the blades and slow down the process. This then became PVC, with chicken wire, dipped or coated in tar or a sticky resin. This gums up saw blades and causes havoc trying to get a start to even cut through.
Which brings us the the latest version. A 3-5 gallon plastic bucket with a PVC tube running through it. In the PVC are set bolts for protesters to lock themselves to. So now, you have to cut away the plastic bucket, secure the chunk of concrete with another law enforcement member. Score the concrete, grab a small chisel, chisel the concrete away from the pipe, then cut the pipe open, find the lock and unlock it. Perhaps 10-15 minutes on the low end. With a protester moving, 30 minutes or more. You can start to see the problem. At then end I will point out the scenerio they are most worried about.
Removing the bucket first to get to the concrete.
With both sides remove, start chiseling at the mid-point of the pipe.
Remember, where you see pipe, you have two screaming protesters moving. At least two law enforcement members working on the project and possibly another two trying to keep protestors from moving around.
Four minutes later.
6 minutes later, top of concrete removed, next the PVC tube.
Here is where law enforcement pick up some time. Three cuts take less time than 4, and are easier in PVC because of the angles.
Two cuts, one scored, and a crop bar, the score becomes a hinge and PVC breaks away.
But not near the bolt! Start cutting again.
Finally they expose the bole the protestor would lock themselves to.
Working on an angled steal sleeping dragon. You can see the issue, special bracket, tie straps, and very hard cutting.
The way this is used is ten or more people lock themselves together, and lay down across a street, a doorway, a loading dock, etc., this causes a disruption in scheduling and they would argue raises awareness. This has been used in Cleveland and all over the world.
Here is the nightmare, and how the protests come to Lakewood. 80% of the delegates are staying West of Lakewood. Some as far away as Sandusky. The I-90 Bridge over Rocky River is the narrowest, hence the easiest part of the road to block. With an average time 20 minutes per sleeping dragon, what would three, four or more rows of protestors due? A mes than takes hours to clear, setting votes and actions at the RNC back hours or more. All of it getting media attention, which feeds more protestors, and more sleeping dragons and more delays and more...
Thank you to the Lakewood Fire Department for letting me sit in on the practice.
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