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Byko: My daughter got 'arrested' at the DNC

Not really a first for my family.

At the age of 51, my daughter lost her virginity in Philadelphia.

That requires explanation. 

I'm talking arrest, her first, which the cops aren't calling "arrest," but she was in plastic handcuffs and put into a police van, so you can make up your own mind. 

She's a "Bernie or Bust" person, protesting how the insurgent candidate was treated by the political power structure during the campaign and by the elite at the Democratic National Convention here.

She was a volunteer and organizer for Bernie in Massachusetts, where she lives, and was a True Believer. Maybe still is, but Bernie's capitulation has made things less clear. "Bernie Sanders volunteers," she said, "will follow him anywhere -- except to support Hillary Clinton."

She was open to the appeal of a democratic socialist because that's what her grandfather, my father, was until his last day, which sadly came about a year before the Sanders rocket lifted off.

Syd had many arrests, collected during a lifetime of social activism and as a labor organizer. (Best arrest: Charged with criminal anarchy in the Bronx for "anti-government" speech. A good lawyer got him off -- Arthur Goldberg, who would later join the Supremes.)

My record? One night in the clink for underage drinking, and I declined arrest on a Freedom Ride in Cambridge, Md., because I had a job I had to return to.
Standing up for what you believe in is a family trait. We agree on that principle, if not on every cause.

The Daughter attended a Freedom School at Arch Street United Methodist Church with me and her friend and travel companion, Vicky Smith, 64, which included advice on what to do if arrested. Heh, heh.

Starting Sunday, the Daughter and Vicky were zooming around town to listen to speakers, adding their bodies to protests and marches down Broad Street.
Monday afternoon, with word of how the DNC had stabbed Bernie in the back fresh in her mind, the Daughter joined Stand Up for Democracy outside the Wells Fargo Center.

"The idea was to disrupt," said the Daughter, who chanted with several score people behind the barricades that circled the arena. 

"Then someone said we need to peaceably go over the barricade," said the Daughter. "I've come this far, I felt if it is going to bring attention I would go in solidarity" with the others, she said.

The Daughter is about as nimble as her Dad and three cops helped her over the barricades so she wouldn't fall and hurt herself.

"The cops were wonderful," said the Daugher, who had earlier praised them for being there, because she knows they are working stiffs. (Her grandfather was less warm to the cops, as his head had been cracked a couple of times on union picket lines.)

The protesters sat and began singing "The Star Spangled Banner."

"You're supposed to stand for the National Anthem," I reminded her, because that's what Dads do. She gave me the Look. That's what daughters do.

Although she had heard no order to disperse, she admits it might have been drowned out by the chanting and singing.

Lawyers were observing as cops cuffed and removed 32 men and 22 women, the only arrests of the day. If lawyers were present for every arrest, I am thinking, there's a lot less trouble for everyone.

The cops are not calling it an "arrest." The plastic handcuffs were put on so loosely the Daughter could have slipped out of them, as she was drenched in sweat.

The Daughter and six other woman shared a police van -- they didn't get a "nickel ride," for fans of police misbehavior -- and were processed at a local school, not police district.

The Daughter was photographed -- Polaroid, not mug, probably for identification purposes. Her fingerprints were not taken, neither was her phone or anything else.
She got a $50 ticket for disorderly conduct and she was on her way.

Catch and release.

She hasn't decided whether to pay the $50 or fight the ticket. Knowing her, probably the latter.

She'll have free legal representation here if she wants it.

City of Brotherly Love, baby.