Nurses' protest ahead of Nato summit

Thousands of nurses and other protesters began gathering at a downtown Chicago plaza Friday to demand a "Robin Hood" tax on banks' financial transactions, the largest protest yet ahead of a two-day Nato summit that is expected to draw even larger demonstrations.

National Nurses United officials said they expected about 2,000 nurses to attend Friday's rally to call for the tax to offset cuts in social services, education and health care. They were joined by members of the Occupy movement, unions and veterans.

City officials said the event could draw more than 5,000 people because of a performance by former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, an activist who has played at many Occupy protest events.

Meanwhile, lawyers for Nato summit protesters said police on Friday morning released four of nine activists arrested Wednesday on accusations that they had or planned to make Molotov cocktails.

The lawyers said police, with their guns drawn, raided an apartment building where activists were staying and arrested nine people. The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild said officers broke down doors in the building in and produced no warrants.

"The nine have absolutely no idea what they're being charged with because they were not engaged in any criminal activity at all," said guild attorney Sarah Gelsomino. "They're really very confused and very frightened."

The Chicago Police Department refused to comment.

Many office buildings in the usually bustling Loop business district were closed after workers were warned to stay home because of heightened security, snarled transportation and the possibility of unruly protests.

The G-8 economic summit originally was to be held in Chicago but was moved to Camp David, Maryland. Police and the Secret Service have taken no chances as Obama and 50 heads of state begin arriving for the Nato summit, where leaders will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.

Sunday's anti-Nato march underscores that money spent fighting wars means less money for needs such as health care, education and other social programs, said Andy Thayer, a march organizer. His group — Coalition Against the Nato/G8 War & Poverty Agenda — has been working to draw those connections ever since President Barack Obama moved the G-8 summit, potentially dampening enthusiasm for a Chicago demonstration.

"I think it's really going to be big ... with the nurses," Thayer said. "That is going to be the 99 percent staking itself against the 1 percent, drawing the connections between the war abroad and the war on working people here at home."

Estimates of how many might show up Sunday have varied widely, from a couple thousand to more than 10,000. Busloads of demonstrators from around the country have begun arriving in Chicago, though some who had planned to come, including from the Occupy movement, have said they're staying home or going to an area near Camp David instead.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Thursday that the protesters so far "have been very well behaved."