Upholding law or Violating Civil Liberties?

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On Sunday July, 31, I visited the neighborhood where I grew up to attend a reunion of the many people that have grown up there and who have moved on. The celebration was to be held at one of the many housing developments mostly referred to as projects in the South Bronx. This is an annual event that has been held every year since about 1980. It has always been a peaceful gathering where individuals, many coming from all over the country to participate, spend the day relaxing, listening to music from the past, and recalling precious experiences and tales from of their past. This year the organizers must have fallen asleep or something because on the day of the event, the proper permits to close off the street and for the music had not been obtained. Authorities advised that they could not close off the street or that DJ equipment could not be set up. After some grumbling we all simply decided to make the best of a bad situation and so decided to just sit around on the many benches and spend the day in the projects with family and friends. Police soon came in force almost as if to quell a riot and told everyone that they can sit on the benches only if there were no coolers or tables present. Also, we could not play music out of the few portable CD players they saw and proceded to station Police Vans with Officers at strategic points around the complex. My questions to you are, in your opinion should law enforcement have the right to violate our 1st Amendment rights highlighted under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which gives us the right of peaceful assembly, and post officers to make sure we did not drink water out of our coolers or open our bags and eat sandwiches in public because as the officers pointed out, reflected deviance to their mandate of not assembling for the event? If you agree that the police were worng, who would you have contacted to address this? In my opion, this is a clear violation of our rights, these same police are sworn to protect. What is your opinion?