Banner Drop Activists Face 25 Years in Prison

Gotham Gazette reports: "Police officers arrested 21 people at protest related to the Republican National Convention yesterday, over three times the total number of people arrested during the Democratic convention last month. Arrests took place on Eighth Avenue near Madison Square Garden, where naked AIDS activists blocked traffic; in Union Square, where demonstrators didn't heed calls to stop using a bullhorn; and at the Plaza hotel, where four people rappelled from the roof to hang an enormous anti-George W. Bush banner. The four were charged with assault and face twenty-five years in prison after a police officer on the scene fell through a skylight, cutting himself badly enough to require 38 stitches."