One Man Army

One Man Army, originally uploaded by wgoodwin.

Finally, one of the first shots I took, before the police officer turned and ushered me back to the sidewalk. It was images like this that made me think how quickly things could get out of control. As one radio pundit said, all it would take is one radical burning a Mexian flag to protest "job-stealin' illegals" and disaster could have erupted. There were ample numbers of young males in the crowd who, while not threatening personally, I could easily see reacting with outrage if the police had needed to take any kind of action.

In that context, it's a credit to the demonstrators and the police that there was little, if any, violence.