HUMPHREY DEFENDS CHICAGO POLICE

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31773, 2 September 1968, Page 13

HUMPHREY DEFENDS CHICAGO POLICE

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MINNEAPOLIS. September 1.

Vice-President Hubert Humphrey alleged yesterday that “hard-core, trained agitators, bent on wrecking the Democratic Party’s national convention,” were responsible for the violence in Chicago this week.

Strongly supporting the security measures of the Mayor of Chicago (Mr Richard Daley), the Democratic Presidential nominee told a radio interviewer that he himself had been one of the targets of planned assassination attempts. “The Chicago police acted under extreme provocation,” Mr Humphrey said. "I saw one policeman stabbed in the face with a broken beer bottle, cutting his eye and his face, for no reason at all. 1 saw people come into the Conrad Hilton Hotel and spread filth in the door, on the rugs, and I saw them do many things that were just incredibly bad and shameful.” Mr Humphrey conceded that some policemen “overreacted.” “There isn’t any doubt about that," he said. “But you put yourself in their position, being spat upon, harassed, harangued, being shoved and pushed, having people charge at you like it’s a football team —well, somebody gets hurt. “When the mayor of a city is told, by the best intelligence we have, that a hard core of agitators and anarchists is going to try to stampede the political convention to break up the meeting, he has to take some preventive action.

“The Mayor did not want another assassination in Chicago. We’ve had enough of it, and it’s better to have police protection than it is to have violence and riots.”

Mr Humphrey praised the people of Chicago, who, he said, "didn’t do a thing that was unkind or wrong.”

“Every one of these demonstrations came from people who didn’t live in Chicago.” Mr Humphrey said. “They came in for the purpose of demonstrating.”