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Hidden with code "Submitted as Feature" |
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News :: Peace |
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Vehicular Assault, Police Belligerence Back At P4P |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ricky Baldwin
Email: baldwinricky (nospam) yahoo.com (verified)
Phone: 217-328-3037 |
08 Dec 2003
Modified: 09:30:02 PM |
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Once more, peaceful protesters at AWARE's Prospect for Peace demonstration faced an angry motorist driving along the sidewalk and a hothead cop with a tin ear for the US Constitution. |
Champaign- Anti-war protesters on North Prospect this week faced vehicular assault and belligerent police yet again as the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. The Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort (AWARE) has been demonstrating on North Prospect against the Bush Administration's "war on terror" since shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Twenty-five protesters gathered peacefully on the sidewalk after 2 pm on Saturday December 6, holding signs that asked, "How many soldiers died today?" or proclaimed, "War is a dead end job!" Red, white and blue signs that read, "Peace is patriotic," also lined the walk.
Suddenly a jeep traveling northbound swerved violently and jumped the curb near the end of the protest line. The young white males inside gestured angrily at the protesters, showing them fists and middle fingers as the jeep drove along the walk approximately eighteen inches past the curb. The protesters quickly fell back out of the jeep's path and no one was hurt, but the jeep's passengers continued gesturing as they returned to the street.
An almost identical incident about a year ago resulted in a citation being issued to a driver of a truck, license plate "68 DAWG", after protesters kept after the police and finally spotted the truck in a parking lot and called it in to the police.
When you need 'em
Several AWARE activists noted the license plate -- "TRENDS 5" -- and Jan Kruse went to her car to get a phone. While they were calling the police, however, a police car arrived, and a policeman -- Officer Hawkins, badge number 35 -- jumped out and began shouting at one of the protesters who had been handing out leaflets to passing vehicles.
The protester began backing up, asking Hawkins calmly where he would be allowed to hand out the leaflets. An ordinance in the City of Champaign expressly allows the distribution of printed materials in the street. Hawkins refused to answer, however, continuing instead to approach the protester, shouting angrily and demanding the protester's identification.
As one of the lead organizers of the event, I approached and asked the officer what seemed to be the problem. I told him I was in charge, hoping that would get his attention, and began explaining that AWARE had already had several meetings with the Champaign police and city legal department. Both had assured us that we do in fact have the right to distribute our materials in the street -- and AWARE has agreed in the interest of safety to keep to the gutter along the curb and not walk in between cars or enter the median -- exactly as this activist had been doing until Hawkins arrived.
Officer Hawkins's response was to shout at me to get back, saying I was interfering with him, "and that’s a felony!" I took a small step back, checked to make sure I was speaking calmly, and tried again. Hawkins called for backup using his shoulder radio. "For multiple arrests," he barked.
Rule of law, rule of police
AWARE activists had already discovered that the local police in general do not know the law, or care about it, in the preceding year. On some weekends, the desk sergeant in charge would say that, of course, protesters could leaflet in the street. Other weekends, a different sergeant would say obviously not. One Saturday, the answer was yes until the shift change, when it became no again. Two activists were eventually fined $75 each for legally handing out leaflets in the street on North Prospect. The officer issuing the citations informed anti-war activists at that time that if he had to come back, he would send everyone home.
City officials made no apology for the confusion, or for being wrong, and claimed they could not get the citation money refunded.
Later in the year, when AWARE held a candlelight vigil in West Side Park on University Avenue, a police car blocked off the one-way street a block ahead of the event so that no traffic could pass within sight of the vigil. When my wife and I walked past the police car on the way to the vigil, the officer inside the car told us the event was over. When I informed him that it had only just started five minutes ago, he insisted, "Trust me. We're working with you guys." He also told at least one news cameraman that he might as well leave because "they called it off."
In the end, the lead organizer of that event, Jeff Sowers, had to speak to the officer's supervisor to get the major thoroughfare re-opened.
Eventually over 800 people participated in local protests against the impending war with Iraq between October 2002 and May 2003, when AWARE's public demonstrations took a brief hiatus. During March, anti-war protests on Prospect often drew 200-300 or more, and counter-demonstrations regularly drew almost as many. During this time there were several unfortunate incidents, and most police officers on duty genuinely seemed to make an effort to consider the US Constitution -- with notable exceptions.
One Saturday a group of young men from the pro-war side began disrupting an on-camera interview in progress with one of the anti-war protesters. They stood behind the interviewee holding signs and making noise, behavior that is frankly routine in many protest-counter protest situations. But the officer on hand that day would have none of it, and shooed them back to their side -- of the public sidewalk -- with the threat of arrest firmly expressed.
The next Saturday the same student reporter attempted to conduct interviews on the pro-war side, but was met with shouts and hostile gestures from the demonstrators, calling her "the liberal media" and threatening to break her camera if she took their picture. Demonstrators on a public sidewalk, by the way, have no right not to be photographed.
The officer on hand that day -- who had been parked on the grass all day claiming not to see the small pro-war contingents that were hanging around illegally in the median -- responded by threatening to arrest the reporter on unspecified felony charges.
The following Saturday, a couple of bikers from the pro-war side began passing down the anti-war side, insulting people and taking their pictures. One anti-war activist, Lori Serb, insisted that she did not want her picture taken. One of the bikers insulted her and took her picture anyway. Serb angrily snatched away the camera and threw it to the ground, stomping on it -- which she has since admitted she knows was wrong and deserved a mild punishment.
Mild, however, was not the kind of treatment that Serb was to get, as reported on this IMC site. A large policeman in a yellow golf shirt -- Officer Wills -- came running at her from behind and tackled her, forcing his knee into her back, without so much as calling out, "Stop, police!" Serb never even saw him coming. Nine witnesses testified to this same version of the facts, and three policemen gave three different versions in open court, but the judge convicted Serb of "resisting arrest" for allegedly not giving the cop her arm upon demand. Serb and at least two witnesses say the arm was pinned under her. The judge says it does not matter.
Serb was, according to authorities, convicted of a charge for which there is essentially no effective defense. She admits her wrongdoing, for which she was never charged. But no one present without a badge -- on either side -- contradicted her account of her innocence on the actual charge. Serb was, authorities told her, lucky they hadn't charged her with something more serious -- which coincidentally would have required a higher burden of proof.
Getting off easy
In the end last Saturday, no one was tackled or arrested. No expensive citations were issued. No one was told to go home and think about their special crime. In fact, Officer Hawkins seemed to calm down when his backup arrived and when I finally got to tell him about our meetings with Lt. Gallo of the Champaign Police Department. Lt. Gallo. The claim was only treated seriously once I remembered the name. Lt. Gallo.
In fact, Hawkins even shook my hand before he left, though he still made us move the signs we had stuck in the grass -- exactly where activists on both sides have put signs for over a year -- because the owners of the nearby Tires Plus said it was their property. The signs were closer to the walk than several utility poles, road signs and one six-foot junction box for the traffic signals. "I’m not taking anybody's word over anybody else's," Hawkins said.
"Imagine," commented one anti-war activist on the scene, "what it was like in Miami."
And imagine, we might add, what it's like every day in Iraq -- where US troops shoot unarmed children at peaceful protests, shoot up weddings, kill independent journalists, cordon off whole towns for house-to-house searches, censor TV and radio broadcasts, arrest union leaders for speaking out against rising unemployment -- and what it's like in Afghanistan -- where US troops this week gunned down a group of unarmed children, warlords have recaptured most of what the Taliban took from them, and even under military occupation for almost two years the streets are not safe to walk at night.
Compared to such excessive violence, of course, all the protesters on North Prospect have always gotten off easy. But the very freedoms our government claims to be protecting have been harmed. Few handouts were distributed last Saturday after the officer's tantrum, and a few people have been reluctant to return to the events after their run-ins with local law enforcement. For awhile, harassment by counter-protesters also turned away some anti-war people, just as some people reconsidered their anti-war lawn signs after a few weeks of vandalism at home.
Local mainstream media of course have covered little of this harassment and none of the abuse by police. In fact, the first mention in the local press that there were demonstrations on Prospect against war with Iraq was a letter to the editor complaining of the lack of coverage.
But the protests have never stopped. Anti-war lawn signs were in such demand right through the end of "major hostilities" in Iraq that AWARE ran out of them every week for months. (And we were selling our signs, not giving them away like the pro-war people, who had corporate sponsorships.)
Anti-war numbers at the protests were actually at their highest in 30-plus weeks during the one month that counter protesters shared the sidewalk. Pro-war attendees sometimes drove by the anti-war lines and threw cups, bottles or condoms full of mysterious liquids -- or physically attacked a passing car when the driver showed them his own middle finger -- but the anti-war protests continued, because it was still nothing compared towhat thetroops were doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Those anti-war activists who dropped out for awhile have almost always come back, some proclaiming renewed determination to stand up for peace and justice.
The one time protest organizers decided to take a break (over the summer), so many local people asked when the demonstrations would start back up that AWARE was forced to return to the street. Demonstrations are currently every Saturday from 2-4 pm until December 20, after which protests will be the first Saturday of every month until further notice. |
See also:
http://www.anti-war.net
http://www.aclu,org
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