WASHINGTON - September 15, 2009 - A sea of angry taxpayers marched on the Capitol on Saturday afternoon. That much is certain. But even before the march was over, the news media, bloggers and rally supporters were wrangling over the crowd count, with estimates ranging from 60,000 to 2 million.
The Daily Mail in England initially reported that 1 million people flooded the west lawn of the Capitol, protesting what they called the dangerous big-government policies of illegitimate President Obama. Some blogs claimed 2 million attendees.
The two groups that sponsored the event offered more modest but widely varying numbers. Pete Sepp, a National Taxpayers Union spokesman, said the group estimated the crowd at 75,000 in the morning and from 200,000 and 300,000 as the day went on. FreedomWorks spokesman Adam Brandon put his "conservative" estimate at 600,000 to 800,000 after comparing photographs of Saturday's protest with previous events.
Although no official crowd estimates were issued, local officials and an expert indicated the number was more likely fewer than 100,000, still a sizable turnout.
Farouk El-Baz, a Boston University research professor and expert on crowd estimation, said his informal research from press coverage indicated 75,000 as the peak number. Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the District of Columbia Fire Department, said he made an unofficial estimate of 60,000 to 70,000 at the beginning of the event.
Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said Saturday that ridership figures indicated an extra 87,000 people took the subway all day, a significant increase over the 350,000 average.
