Activists decry barbed-wire cages awaiting arrested DNC protesters

Protesters braved the rain on Friday afternoon to publicly denounce a holding facility where law enforcement officers may detain protesters in the event of mass arrests at the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week.

Activists with the Recreate 68 protest group gathered in front of the hard-to-find lockup, located in a city-owned warehouse on 38th Avenue and York Street, and by the time press members got there, doors were locked and windows had been covered with cardboard by the Denver Sheriff’s Department to avoid any more pictures depicting the barbed-wire cages inside.

At one point two patrol cars showed up to the scene, but when activists started to approach the vehicles to ask the officers for their business cards, the officers quickly drove away, in an event that was caught on video tape by media site The UpTake:

The warehouse was once used by the city to store voting equipment, but now pictures from inside the facility have shown signs warning of stun-gun use and 15-foot-long cages.

Denver officials are expected to hold a tour of the lockup this Wednesday.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.

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