2004 Democratic National Convention, Boston, MA

The 2004 Democratic National Convention convened from July 26 to 29, 2004 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston, Massachusetts, and nominated Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts for President and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina for Vice President, respectively, in the 2004 presidential election.
The 2004 Democratic National Convention included the featured keynote speech of Barack Obama, then a candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, who would later go on to become the 44th President of the United States in 2009.

My friend Steve and I decided we had to go into the streets and photograph this historic event.

One of the most controversial "counter-terrorism" measures was the declaration of a designated free speech zone for protesters, limiting where and when protesters could exercise their first amendment rights. Protesters through the American Civil Liberties Union mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit for the right to protest outside of the designated free speech zone, which the group claimed was unconstitutional. FleetCenter access promulgated tight security measures that frustrated even the news media. Credentials enabling reporters to enter and exit the meeting became the subject of strict rules forbidding the act of borrowing and sharing such passes, a common practice for the major media outlets in the past.[citation needed]
Protesters inside the "free speech zone" drew parallels to Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray, and staged a demonstration in which they wore hoods akin to those worn by Abu Ghraib detainees. Many demonstrators simply refused to enter the "free speech zone."[citation needed]

Thursday July 29, 2004 After four days of relative calm, protests became tense outside the site of the Democratic National Convention as demonstrators burned a two-faced effigy depicting President Bush on one side and Sen. John Kerry on the other and started a shoving match with police.
About 400 protesters marched Thursday through the city before arriving outside the fenced-in demonstration area outside the FleetCenter. The throng pressed up against police officers who used clubs to keep the crowd at bay.
Several protesters were dragged from the crowd and handcuffed by police. Other screamed at the officers to let them go.
Police Superintendent Robert Dunford said two men were arrested, one because police were told he had a bottle of an unknown accelerant, the other for allegedly assaulting a police officer.
Police quickly barricaded the streets near the FleetCenter as the enormous contingent of state and local officers quickly calmed the situation. Fifty to 60 officers with helmets and riot shields marched toward where the confrontation was taking place.
Dunford said he got punched as he ran to the aid of his officers. “I tried to pull my officers from the crowd and I got sucker punched from behind,” he said.