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News :: Media |
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St. Louis IMC Raided By Police -- City Inspectors Sent To Look For Code Violations. |
Current rating: 0 |
by St. Louis IMC (via Sascha Meinrath)
Email: sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (unverified!) |
16 May 2003
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St. Louis Police have raided the Community Arts and Media Project (CAMP) and the Bolozone, a St. Louis housing collective. The raids target participants of the Biodevastation7 conference and activists converging at the World Agricultural Forum. Observers at CAMP have reported that the St. Louis Police have handcuffed about 20 people, and City Inspectors accompanied by police are inspecting the building for violations. Ten people have been arrested at Bolozone. |
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This was forwarded by an Urbana-Champaign IMC reporter currently in St. Louis:
PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL LISTS
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED RIGHT NOW!
Mitchel Cohen, Sehvilla Mann & Brian Tokar, writing from the BioDevastation Conference against Genetic Engineering in St. Louis, home of Monsanto:
At least 20-30 people have been arrested and we need your help. Police invaded two known movement homes this morning,
apparently in "pre-emptive raids" to prevent their attendance at Sunday's demonstration against the World Agricultural Forum.
Others were taken into custody while riding their bicycles to the BioDevastation gathering at Forest Park Community College, and the police have left the bicycles lying along the road. Sarah Bantz, organizer for MORAGE and a speaker at the BioDevastation conference, was arrested for having a container of Vitamin C capsules, which police are claiming to be an illegal drug.
Police have also entered the Randall Building, office of the Gateway Greens/Green Party USA, St. Louis IndyMedia, the
Confluence newspaper, and other organizations, searching for "violations" and who knows what else.
For the last two weeks, the St. Louis police have been spreading rumors of "Seattle-like violence" in order to
ratchet up the levels of tension, rationalizing their procurement of riot gear and new "crowd control" weapons.
We are asking EVERYONE to call the Chief of Police Joe Mokwa, at (314) 444-5624 and demand their immediate release and stop their harassment of the movement against genetic engineering and corporate agribusiness.
We understand that the police may hang up as people try to call the above number. Other numbers for police are (314) 444-5555 and (314) 231-1212.
Thank you, and please spread the word.
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Comments
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Re: St. Louis IMC Raided By Police -- City Inspectors Sent To Look For Code Violations. |
by jb
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 3
16 May 2003
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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has several related stories on its website: http://www.postdispatch.com .
In one, an ACLU attorney comments that the cops are bringing building inspectors with them specifically to get around search-warrant requirements - as in, "let us both in, or we condemn your house." Scary stuff. |
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Re: St. Louis IMC Raided By Police -- City Inspectors Sent To Look For Code Violations. |
by Paul R.
paul (nospam) mediageek.org (unverified) |
Current rating: 3
16 May 2003
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This is what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has to say:
(http://www.postdispatch.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/A4CE375042FC097E86256D280072957D?OpenDocument&Headline=Police+raid+three+buildings,+detain+occupants)
Police raid three buildings, detain occupants
By Heather Ratcliffe
05/16/2003
St. Louis police detained an undisclosed number of people Friday in a sweep of at least three buildings said to be used by protesters of the World Agricultural Forum, which starts here Sunday.
In at least some cases, officers were accompanied by building inspectors who checked for occupancy permits and building code compliance.
Police Chief Joe Mokwa promised an explanation in a press conference at 3:45 p.m. One police source said about 15 people were in custody from various locations.
Included was a building at 3022 Cherokee Street that houses Gateway Green, sponsor of a conference called Biodevastation 7. It is a gathering of activists, meeting this weekend at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, intending the counter the conference of world agricultural leaders at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Union Station.
Also raided were two houses in the 3300 block of Illinois Avenue.
One woman was arrested, her companions said, when police stopped a van and confiscated pills in an unmarked container that she said were vitamins. An occupant of the van said they were videotaped by people in plain clothes who accompanied officers.
The sweep started about 11:30 a.m. and continued into the afternoon.
People who identified themselves as protesters said police had been stopping them in recent days for riding bicycles without helmets or driving vehicles with burned-out lights.
Brian Tokar, one of the organizers of the Biodevastation 7 conference, said that there has been no violence at other Biodevastation meetings that coincide with World Agriculture Forums because the forums -- unlike meetings of the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund or World Bank -- do not enact policies that affect farmers and consumers.
He said St. Louis police are overreacting and inflating the number of people who will protest.
"We've been doing these events for years," he said. "Every year in the U.S. we've gotten these insane, inflammatory issues from the police. It's to inflame public passion and to prvent public discussion of the dangers of agribusiness."
Matt LeMieux, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, said his office received about two dozen phone calls in two hours Friday about conference attendees being arrested.
"I think if the police are going to conduct searchees and arrest people, it ought to be based on current conduct of what a person is doing now," he said. "But what they're doing is pre-emptively trying to arrest people. It's a bad and unconstitutional policy."
He said he was told that in one instance, at the home of some "local, grass-roots activists" where some protesters were lodging, police showed up with a building inspector and said they both must be let in or the building would be condemned. LeMieux termed the threat a "trick" that enables police to search a home without a warrant.
Of the St. Louis police, he said, "I think they've gotten some pretty bad advice from police departments in other cities where these protests have taken place. Instead of contacting the protest organizers and making sure the violent elements are kept out, they went the other direction." |
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More Info -- From St. Louis IMC |
by Paul R.
p-riism (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified) |
Current rating: 6
16 May 2003
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report from press conference
by imc 5:55pm Fri May 16 '03 article#9070
here is what I observed at the Press Conference at 3:30
Law Advisor Justin Meehan (attorney at law, 2734 Lafayette, St. Louis, MO 63104 phone (314) 772 9494 fax (314) 772 3604) invited the press to his office to speak with people who'd witnessed today's events.
Don Fitz, organizer for the Greens and the Biodevastation Conference, spoke about the raids. He said that they were an effort to deny people their first amendment rights. He thought that the police arrested people to prevent them from participating in the conference. The housing violations were simply a pretext, and that they were planned "days ago."
Chris McClarren was in the van that was pulled over this morning. Three different groups interrogated each person in the van. The first were uniformed police. The second were detectives with badges, but in plain clothes. The third were plainclothes as well, without badges. They would not identify themselves, even after Chris asked who they were. This group videotapped each person holding their ID next to their face. THey also searched the entire van.
When Chris tried to get the names and badge number from the police, but they ripped their badges and name tags off as soon as she tried to get the information. One person in the van was detained because she did not have an ID with her. The driver of the car was arrested for seatbelt violations and for having what the police are calling a "controlled substance" in the car - Vitamin C pills.
Chris also thought that the police had a pre-determined list of people that they were looking to arrest.
A St. Louis Post Dispatch photographer was also arrested.
An unnamed eye witness described the raid at the Bolozone, a co-housing project on Illinois Street. He saw 6 vehicles arrive at the house during breakfast. Several cop cars, an inspector's car, a large truck (empty) and a board-up truck (carrying boards to board up the house) arrived. The cops put zip-ties on everyone and arrested about 10-15 people. The inspector went through the house, which is undergoing rehab to keep the house up to code, and looked for violations.
The police began to remove things from the house, including 16 bicycles, duffel bags, slilts, tools from the workshop, and puppets. One cop took a beer bottle from the house and put a rag on the top, and showed it to the other cops, saying he'd found it that way in the house (implying that it was a maltov cocktail). Other cops were placing candles into sponges and putting them in the house.
An eye witness from CAMP was also there. She described a similar scene. The police brought inspectors to the building to look for violations. Several people were arrested. The building was searched and a bunch of stuff was taken. Police took papers, puppets and posters. Police also took one person's computer. There is a police line surrounding the building and no one is allowed to enter it.
The lawyer was trying to get everyone's names so he could bail people out. The lawyer's phone number is 314 772 9494 |
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Police Release Arrested -- Begin Back-peddling Across The Board: |
by Sascha Meinrath
sascha (nospam) ucimc.org (verified) |
Current rating: 6
17 May 2003
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St. Louis Arrests Update
Saturday, May 17, 2003, 1 pm
A great big thank you to the activist universe! Police and media were swamped with calls yesterday leading to the release of all arrestees. We just did an interview with NBC demanding a full investigation into police harassment and violation of people's civil rights. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran the story on the front page, and police are back-pedalling as fast as they can.
Yesterday's "weapons" that police claim they found among the gear in various households have become a keystone
cops routine. The roofing nails were for the new roof that the Greens and IndyMedia were using on their new roof (imagine!); the "metal torches" were jugglers' props; the Molotov cocktail that police made a big media splash with has suddenly dropped out of the picture as we produced independent witnesses who saw police planting it in the building after everyone was already handcuffed in the police wagons.
We are calling for fingerprint experts to determine whose fingerprints are on the alleged Molotov cocktail, that seems to have disappeared.
The City Attorney now says that the law under which the bicyclists had been arrested while en route to the biodevastation gathering against genetic engineering --operating a bicycle without a "bicycle license" -- no longer exists and says in today's papers that "It's just a misunderstanding."
Meanwhile the puppets for Sunday's parade are still being detained. All of the bicycle troupe's food, wallets,
personal supplies are still being held.
Other good news: 72-year-old Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, who had lost two rounds in court (and over $200,000) to Monsanto, announced to the gathering that he had just won the right to appeal to the Canadian Supreme Court, which will hear his case shortly. Percy, a non-biotech canola grower and seed developer, found that his crop had been contaminated by drift from Monsanto's genetically engineered plantations, but the judge held that it did not matter HOW his crop got contaminated, Monsanto's patent rights take legal precedence. Now, finally, the Supreme Court in Canada will rule on the private patenting of living organisms, and we expect a big breakthrough.
The conference itself has been a tremendous success.
More later. Thank you all for your calls, and support!
Mitchel Cohen
www.greenparty.org
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Re: St. Louis IMC Raided By Police -- City Inspectors Sent To Look For Code Violations. |
by Adrianne Aron
adriannearon (nospam) operamail.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 3
26 May 2003
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I am a clinical psychologist in Berkeley, CA. I will be in St. Louis on personal business May 29th-June 3. If there is some way I can help, please email or phone me.
Adrianne Aron
(510) 527-2219 |
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