Almost 100 union members and retirees gathered Thursday to urge Attorney General Charlie Crist to investigate city of Miami police actions during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in November 2003.
Thursday's rally, which was organized by the Florida AFL-CIO, was the latest in a series of efforts to hold the department accountable for what summit protesters maintain was police brutality and a violation of their First Amendment rights.
''Charlie, don't you dare say this is political!'' said Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans. ``You can't treat the Greatest Generation the way they did and expect us to go away.''
Fransetta, who first sent a letter to Crist's office on Jan. 2, 2004, organized 26 buses of senior citizens from all over Florida to attend the FTAA protests at the Americas summit.
The police denied those buses access to parking spaces organizers had been promised prior to the event, said Fred Frost, president of the South Florida AFL-CIO. Seniors were forced to walk miles to the union's permitted rally at Bayfront Park Amphitheater and denied water and access to restrooms, Frost said.
''I had never been so scared in my life,'' said Phyllis Lapidus, a retired teacher.
Lapidus' voice trembled as she recounted being surrounded by police officers in gas masks and body armor and carrying machine guns.
''It said to me that this isn't the country that I grew up in,'' the Brooklyn-born Lapidus said.
Late last month, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney sent a letter to Crist requesting a criminal investigation into the matter.
As of Thursday, Crist had not responded.
In the three years since the clash between police and protesters rocked Miami's streets, two local investigations have supported the protesters' claims, Frost said.
He cited the 2004 report from the Miami-Dade Independent Review Panel and the city's Civilian Investigative Panel's 2006 report.
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