With about one cop to every two protesters, it was clear that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department was preparing for the worst to happen outside of Duke Energy's shareholder meeting on Thursday, May 3. It didn't, as the 30 or so protesters remained relatively subdued, chanting and even greeting shareholders as they left the building.

• Members of Greenpeace helped organize the Duke Energy shareholder meeting protest on Thursday, where about 30 activists held signs and chanted in front of one of the company's Uptown buildings. (Photo by Grant Baldwin)

Policemen were equally tranquil, even when Occupy Charlotte's Michael Zytkow brought out a cooler and backpack to make a point about the city's brand-new "extraordinary events" designation, which prohibits such items from large gatherings and gives police more power to search and seize.

But things might heat up during Bank of America's May 9 shareholder meeting, where Occupy Charlotte members said they expect about 1,000 activists from as far away as New York, Illinois and California to descend on the Queen City and speak out against corporate greed.

"[The Duke Energy meeting] is a little bit more off the radar [than the Bank of America meeting]," said CMPD Major Jeff Estes, head of security during both events. Estes said he's been in contact with members of Occupy Charlotte and supports their right to protest.

"People think we're against it," Estes said. "As long as nobody's getting hurt or tearing up property, we are all for people's right to protest."

Inside

At least a half an hour before the Duke Energy shareholder meeting began, there weren't any protesters outside, and their voices couldn't be heard inside once they arrived. There was a simple purse-check and a sign-in table at the entrance, along with polite chatter and finger food.

Inside the meeting, about half the audience simply sat and listened; the remaining members spoke up, some louder than others. Duke's president and CEO, Jim Rogers, recognized several people, including the man who asks Rogers every year to change the company's name back to "Duke Power."

Rogers, in a dark blue suit and lavender tie, stood a few feet away from speakers, though he once held the microphone for Anna Behnke, a Mountain Island Charter School student who lives (and may soon attend school) a short distance away from Duke's Riverbend coal plant. Anna and her mother, Sara — who said the family has lived near the plant for a dozen years and that she had been diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma five years earlier — were concerned about ponds that store hazardous coal ash emitted from the plant and wanted to know if they were safe. Rogers said they were.

Many attendees spoke far past the two-minute limit, and Rogers interrupted several of them, asking if they had a question. A few praised the company's leader: One person thanked him for voicing his support for gay marriage and another said he wasn't getting paid enough. Many more urged him to change things — use less coal, find a solution for nuclear waste, generate more renewable energy, and do it all faster than proposed in addition to keeping rates low and spending less on lobbyists.

After several people asked for a meeting with him, Rogers looked over his shoulder to his management team, seated in the first few rows. He pointed out a man on his team and told the audience that anyone interested in participating in a public forum should give him their contact information after the meeting, and several did.

May 9

Representatives of the protest groups outside Duke Energy on Thursday said they plan on remaining peaceful during the Bank of America meeting. But the possibility for violence is undeniable, as the second-largest bank in the country has been under heavy national scrutiny for its deceptive mortgage practices and large executive-compensation packages since the dawn of the financial crisis. That means the extraordinary events designation could be tested more on May 9 than it has since City Manager Curt Walton enacted it in January.

The designation will be applied to large events, such as this summer's Speed Street, September's Democratic National Convention and corporate shareholder meetings, undoubtedly in response to the protest activity outside other such meetings this year and the violent clashes between police and Occupy members in cities like New York and Oakland. During extraordinary events, coolers and other innocuous items are subject to search if police suspect they are being used to carry weapons. Police establish intent on "a myriad of factors," Estes said.

"If we see someone carrying chains or PVC pipe to a construction site, that's different than someone with a protest shirt on with their hand inside a pipe," he said.

But protesters are nonetheless incensed at the power the rule gives the CMPD. At the Thursday Duke Energy meeting, police watched as Zytkow retrieved waters bottles from the cooler and passed them around to protesters.

"At this point you have to ask why we're allowed to bring our hands to the protest," he told the crowd.

Zytkow and the others might not have been Duke's biggest problem. At one point, a company representative approached a group of policemen and asked that they move their bicycles away from the shareholder-meeting banner. The uniformed men obliged.

Additional reporting by Ana McKenzie.