Day One of the 2012 RNC: March for Our Lives, 8/27/12: photos

Prior to this year's Republican National Convention in Tampa, the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign managed to establish an encampment inside the security "Event Zone" by leasing the unused land that wraps around an Army-Navy surplus store. On August 27th, the PPEHC called for a March For Our Lives to leave Romneyville and head through downtown Tampa in order to highlight economic injustices in America today. Law enforcement authorities, however, decided not to allow the unpermitted march to proceed, stopping the demonstration with a massive show of force less than a half hour into the march down North Tampa Street. There had been no illegal actions witnessed by this reporter on the part any protesters other than the act of marching without a permit. As the number of marchers slowly dwindled to dozens over the next half hour by moving away through Lykes Gaslight Park, the number of police surrounding the remaining marchers continued to grow into the mid-hundreds until finally a torrential downpour sent most of the soaked police and deputies away to their various staging areas.