Juan Gonzalez:

At a rally last night outside Pataki's office only hours before the new
midnight deadline, Patrick Lynch, head of the Patrolmen's Benevolent
Association, reminded every union member what was at stake.

In a fiery speech, Lynch talked about his own father, a former
transit worker who had walked the picket lines in both the 1966 and 1980 strikes
and who raised a large family into the middle class on his MTA salary.

"My father was not a criminal in 1966. He was not a criminal in
1980," Lynch said. Then he pointed to the uniformed cops on the other side of
the barricade.

"Their hearts are on this side with you," he bellowed as the crowd
erupted in cheers.
Then Toussaint came on stage. You saw in his eyes and you
heard in his voice the look and the sound of a leader who had no fear.

"If Rosa Parks had obeyed the law, many of us who drive the buses today
would still be sitting in the back of the bus," he said as the crowd went
wild.

And at that moment, in the frigid cold of Third Ave., it was
clear that Pataki, Bloomberg and the bureaucrats of the MTA had made a huge
mistake.