Thanks for the great first hand account.
bmwcyle and I were at the pub at 9th and F, two blocks north and two blocks west of the security gate when the anarchists went by.
Wasn't the security checkpoint at South 7th as you've identified the segments? South D is not one of the segments that you identified, but maybe I'm missing something.
At any rate, your account confirms my belief that the long line of police cars and motorcycles, passing by my location shortly after the anarchists, but going a different way, went to head off the anarchists at the 7th and D location.
Were the anarchists throwing the broken PVC and snowballs mainly at the regular (i.e., non-leftists) people waiting at the gate or at the police?
Did the PVC hit anyone and injure them, as far as you could tell?
Yes, sorry. South 7th is where the security checkpoint was. (I should always have coffee before posting!)
The snowballs (iceballs) seemed to be thrown at random into the crowd waiting to go through the security checkpoint. It would have been impossible for them to miss, because the crowd was so thick. The PVC was thrown at the crowd closest to the throwers. At one point I did see one of those low metal crowd barriers upended, as if they were going to throw it too, but I suspect it was too heavy. I didn't see that anyone was injured. People with kids and others did their best to get out of the intersection, and I recall that people moved aside to allow them safe passage. The crowd around me remained orderly and there was no panic. Lots of comments about the "a@@holes" throwing things, though. Lots of people were taking pictures!