He estimates that 1,782,760 people participated in the 9-12 march on DC. You read that correctly, 1.7 million people.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19743935/The-Real-Number-of-Protesters-Zac-Moilanen
In conclusion, this number surprised me. I knew there were a lot of people, but researching this, looking at the map and actually crunching the numbers, it makes sense. I’m sure not all of these marchers stayed at the Capitol, the fields surrounding it, or even the mall. But that’s not what we have aerial footage of. Because of this time-lapse street cam, it’s easy to see that in the course of around two hours almost two million people marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building.
It’s important to note that he didn’t just pop out a guess, he “crunched the numbers.” He used Google Earth to measure the areas, then took crowd size from previous events to determine how many people fit in the areas that were filled by those events. To be precise, he used Obama’s inauguration, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the Promise Keeper’s Rally as benchmarks to set the standard.
Once he had the numbers, he applied them to the crowds gathered on 9-12. He included in his calculations the time-lapse video that showed the marchers moving from Freedom Square to the capitol.
It’s a good read, and he treats the matter as just number-crunching… it’s not a political issue. But when he’s finished with the numbers, he has 1.7 million gathered in DC to protest a government that has grown too large and intrusive.
Nice work, people.
Unfortunately, Mr. Moilanen's "scientific" analysis is severely flawed. Marching protesters cannot fit into 2.5 square feet. (That's 2.5 square feet, not a square with 2.5 feet on each side.)
ReplyDeleteFor a response to his paper, and an analysis of his flaws, see:
http://j.mp/912turnout
Also, please note that this all depends on a YouTube video, and we have only some random person's word that he didn't mess with the timing of it.
Attempts to “guesstimate” the number of people at this event seems futile and subject to the bias of the persons making the guess. I’d rather take the word of people who were actually there.
ReplyDeleteI'm acquainted with maybe a half dozen people who were there. After seeing questions about the size of the crowd I asked them what they saw. One of them told me that the rally didn't have a permit to use the national mall, but that when the police determined that the crowd was too large (with thousands still arriving) to be contained in the area the permit was issued for, they then opened up the mall for the rally.
Another one, Donna Dawson, wrote near the end of her report which is posted on this blog as "Eye-Witness Report of 9-12 March" that “Before the day was over the park service had to open the Lincoln memorial.” That’s at the far end of the mall from the Capitol.
A lady from Wetumpka called into the Montgomery, AL radio station (107.9 FM) that had Greg Budell broadcasting live from the mall and she said she was at the Washington Monument area and couldn't get closer to the Capitol because the mall was packed with people.
About 2 hours into the approximately 3 hour program, an observer on the top of a 14 story building across the river from the mall who was watching through binoculars called in to the station and said that people on foot were still streaming across the bridge to the rally site.
From http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/09/912_demonstration_a_record_dc.html: Despite mainstream media attempts to characterize turnout as in the thousands, a spokesman for the National Park Service, Dan Bana, is quoted as saying "It is a record.... We believe it is the largest event held in Washington, D.C., ever."
From http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/09/912-invisible-no-more-millions-on-the-mall.html: At the time this photo (of people on the mall) was taken, around 1:00 p.m., Pennsylvania Avenue was still jammed completely, and the mall was packed from the Capitol Building past the Washington Monument.