They set off in the wee hours of the morning, 25 busloads of union retirees from around the state bound for an AFL-CIO-sponsored rally to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Miami.
Police and union leaders knew they were coming and had plans to make sure the retirees, many of them elderly, got there safely.
But the plans broke down, and two weeks later, no one can explain exactly what went wrong, why buses filled with senior citizens were turned away, why some retirees were forced to trek blocks to the rally and why those in two buses eventually gave up and went home.
''All we wanted to do is go and hear some speeches by the leaders of our unions,'' said Harold Labelle, 79, a World War II veteran who spent 13 hours on a bus -- five getting to Miami, three circling downtown, and five more going back home to Pasco County -- without ever reaching the rally.
''Take a person over 70 years old: He's not going to riot, for God's sake. He can hardly make the walk,'' he said.
Union leaders assert that police were trying to prevent peaceful protesters from coming to Miami. Police officials say violent protests early in the day on Nov. 20 prompted the street closings.
DRIVERS DIVERTED
What is clear is that only one bus was allowed to drop its passengers off at the rally at the amphitheater in Bayfront Park as planned. Twenty-two others roamed downtown and Overtown until they found their way around police lines and parked on side streets -- their passengers forced to walk blocks to get to the rally. And the leader of the two buses from Pasco County finally gave up altogether, concerned that his 80 elderly union members couldn't make the walk.
Forty other buses of union members and students encountered similar problems.
Police say one problem was that union leaders did not have a backup plan, even though they knew that traffic might be disrupted by an unpermitted protest planned at the security fence that surrounded the Hotel Inter-Continental.
''It was common knowledge that people were going to attack the fence line in the morning,'' Miami Police Capt. Thomas Cannon said. ``I had conversations with them about that and whether it would actually be the best situation to bring in buses on [Biscayne] Boulevard.''
Union officials say they had talked to the people organizing the unpermitted march and were assured that everything would be over by the time the buses were set to arrive.
EXPECTATION
''We had no expectation that there would be any reason for interference with the agreed-upon plan for dropping off buses and retirees,'' said Michael Cavanaugh of the AFL-CIO. ``And no march happened there. What did happen, as near as we could see, was there was this huge police response to this thing that blockaded streets and shut off access, even way out at various interstate exits.''
Under a plan outlined before the summit, the buses carrying retirees would be allowed to drop off passengers near Bayside Marketplace. Other buses were to park at the Miami Arena.
The march to the fence, and the resulting skirmishes between police and some protesters, started at 7 a.m. and was over by 10:30 a.m.
But the roads throughout downtown Miami remained blocked.
All the bus captains and passengers interviewed said the first place they were stopped was the Interstate 395 exit to Biscayne Boulevard, about 15 blocks north of the security fence.
Miami-Dade police, in charge of that area, say it was blocked because of the AFL-CIO march that was planned for 2 p.m. Buses began arriving three hours before a 12:30 p.m. pre-march rally.
Police close nearby streets a few hours before every parade, said Miami-Dade police spokesman Bobby Williams.
Asked why the police couldn't let parade participants into the area -- all 65 buses were carrying AFL-CIO credentials -- Williams would say only that the City of Miami was responsible for the logistics of providing the buses access to the rally.
''We were told about the buses,'' Williams said. ``As far as the routing, that was entirely up to the city.''
Once the buses were blocked at the downtown exit from I-395, they were sent in different directions. Five buses from Tampa were directed to the Children's Museum on the MacArthur Causeway to await an escort.
''We waited about five, not even 10 minutes, and here comes a string of state police troopers in cars and motorcycles,'' recalled one of the bus captains, Paul Vasquez. ``You know what? They took us all the way to the arena. I was flabbergasted. I didn't expect this kind of treatment from the police officers. They were very good with us.''
No one is quite sure who came up with that plan, or why more buses weren't offered that option.
A more common scenario was what people on 10 buses from Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast encountered.
GO THERE, NO THERE
After being stopped at the exit onto Biscayne Boulevard, the buses wove through downtown, around lines of police blocking streets, according to bus captain Pat Emmert. Each line of police gave different instructions, some even telling them to go home, she said.
The buses split up and parked where they could on side streets, and their passengers started walking.
''We walked a couple of miles,'' Emmert said. ``And no matter how we were walking, there were these police officers on different streets in full riot gear and they kept sending us around in circles. We had people with arthritis. It was a terrible thing that they did.''
WANDERING ABOUT
Four buses from Jacksonville spent an hour driving around roadblocks before they reached Longshoreman's Hall, northwest of the Miami Arena. Some of the seniors said they couldn't make the walk and opted to wait at the union hall, bus captain Mary Craton said.
The others had been so delayed that by the time they made it to the amphitheater, they were told it was full. So they walked back to their buses and went back to Jacksonville.
''Essentially, these people took a 14-hour ride for naught,'' Craton said.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. NoNonsense English offers this material non-commercially for research and educational purposes. I believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner, i.e. the media service or newspaper which first published the article online and which is indicated at the top of the article unless otherwise specified.