March for Life organizer estimates 2006 crowd at 'well over 100,000'

Published: 2006-01-25

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although Nellie Gray, organizer of the March for Life, estimates the crowd at this year's event at "well over 100,000," she said a definitive figure will have to wait until she and others can study photographs of the march. "I couldn't see the end (of the march) from the stage," Gray told Catholic News Service Jan. 25. "But I do know that there were three hours of people coming up" to the rally site on the National Mall at Seventh Street, she said. "I would say it was equal to the largest" of past marches, she added. Public information officers for both the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia and the U.S. Park Police, which has responsibility for the Mall and other areas around public buildings in Washington, declined to estimate the crowd for this year's march. "We haven't done that since about 1995," said Sgt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police. Officer D.J. Jackson of the D.C. police public information office echoed that date as to when his department no longer would give a count, saying that the crowd estimates stopped after some groups disputed the police figures.

Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .