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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Crime & Police : Government Secrecy : Protest Activity |
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Grand Rapids police kept an eye on peace crowd |
Current rating: 0 |
by Ted Roelofs (repost)
(No verified email address) |
29 Mar 2004
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You always think "But it can't happen here?"
Veteran Grand Rapids peace activist Jeff Smith said he finds it laughable police consider local protesters a security threat.
"We have no history of doing anything that could be deemed as violent or a threat to anybody. Is this the local police acting independently on this? Are they getting orders or encouragement from other officials?" |
As opposition to the Iraq war mounted last spring, Grand Rapids police launched countermeasures of their own. They sent undercover police to antiwar meetings and rallies, collecting intelligence about the aims of antiwar activists.
"We are living in a different time now. It's a different day," said Grand Rapids Police Chief Harry Dolan.
War opponents say their surveillance came closer to tyranny than protection from terror. In one case, they say, police threatened the job of a protester and said they would arrest her if she identified undercover officers she knew from her work as a Spanish interpreter at the Kent County Courthouse.
Calvin College graduate Abby Puls, 24, said that happened in March 2003, as she was leaving a protest near the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building in Grand Rapids.
Undercover officers called her over to their car, Puls recalled. The man on the passenger side took her hand, then squeezed it hard enough to force her to tell them her full name, she said.
The driver hinted she could lose her job at the courts if judges found out she were "choosing sides" on the war, Puls said.
He also said she could be arrested for "hindering and opposing" a police investigation if she identified undercover police, Puls recalled.
Dolan confirmed officers, whom he would not identify, threatened Puls with arrest if she identified them. But the police chief said they did so because they feared their safety could be compromised, either at a war protest or during undercover drug surveillance. Dolan said the officers denied threatening her job and said no one squeezed her hand to make her reveal her name.
Dolan also confirmed police sent undercover officers to meetings of antiwar activists and to rallies against the war. But he said they only did so after receiving information activists planned unlawful measures, such as blocking traffic on Michigan Street in downtown Grand Rapids.
"It is a very important use of resources to be as prepared as we can be," Dolan said.
Police had reason for heightened concern about protesters, Dolan said, given the arrest of 12 people at a Jan. 29 rally protesting an appearance by President Bush. They were arrested when dozens marched through downtown streets after the main rally had concluded and refused police orders to disperse.
Grand Rapids City Commissioner Rick Tormala said he is "concerned" by reports local police infiltrated meetings and rallies, a charge that first appeared in February in the online magazine Salon.
But Tormala said he is especially troubled by alleged threats against Puls.
"If that happened, that's certainly inappropriate and a violation of her rights, " said Tormala, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.
"To monitor citizens and their activities when they are dissenting against the government is wrong. People have a right to assemble and say what they want."
It's an issue up for debate Tuesday when commissioners weigh a resolution opposing parts of the USA Patriot Act, a series of measures expanding police authority in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Proponents say police need these powers to help them prevent further attacks. Opponents, like Tormala, fear civil liberties will be trampled in the process.
Grand Rapids Second Ward City Commissioner Lynn Rabaut said she was unaware of reports police were infiltrating local activists. She said it's tough to say how far police should go to secure the community, but said she gives authorities the benefit of the doubt.
"If any police have any reservations that the people they serve are in jeopardy, I would assume that going undercover to a public meeting could be justified," Rabaut said.
Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell said he is "very concerned" about the alleged incident involving Puls. Heartwell said he recognized the need to investigate threats against public safety but warned of "the tightrope you walk" when police conduct undercover operations.
Dolan pointed to protests elsewhere that went awry, such as the 1999 demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Five days of riots led to 600 arrests and some $3 million in property damage. The city later agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a lawsuit by protesters who said they were illegally arrested.
"That kind of thing causes greater concern," Dolan said.
In October, the FBI signaled its concern about antiwar demonstrators when it sent a memorandum to local law enforcement around the country to report suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads.
The memo was sent in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco.
FBI officials said at the time the intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and "extreme elements" plotting violence.
Dolan said he was unaware of the FBI memo.
Veteran Grand Rapids peace activist Jeff Smith said he finds it laughable police consider local protesters a security threat.
Smith himself views the Jan. 29 arrests as a case of overzealous police -- and beyond that, he maintains there is virtually no history of conflict in this conservative region in decades of protest.
"It seems like they could find a better use of our tax dollars than those things," said Smith, director of the Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy, a nonprofit group that monitors local media.
"We have no history of doing anything that could be deemed as violent or a threat to anybody. Is this the local police acting independently on this? Are they getting orders or encouragement from other officials?"
Still, Smith isn't entirely surprised it would happen here, given reports in other cities of undercover police forays. In Fresno, Calif., a sheriff's detective spent months in 2003 inside a group called Peace Fresno, taking notes at planning meetings and passing out fliers at rallies.
Fresno County's sheriff defended the department's right to send undercover officers to community meetings "for the purpose of detecting or preventing terrorist activities."
In Albuquerque, an assistant prosecutor was fired last March after she allegedly identified two undercover officers in an antiwar protest.
Smith said organizers here finally decided to move meetings to his house on LaGrave Avenue after undercover officers showed up at a pair of meetings. Smith maintained police continued to monitor the group for weeks.
"Police cars would be in front of the house or parking next to the house," Smith said.
Police Chief Dolan denied this claim.
Protester Puls recalled a conversation at the courthouse last March with two male undercover police officers she first met on the job. She had gotten to know them as they lingered outside the courtrooms, waiting on cases.
She was startled to see one of the two at an antiwar protest the day before, holding up a protest sign and "leaning in on conversations," Puls said.
Later, at the courthouse, she asked the undercover officers if they would continue their surveillance of the protesters.
"They said, in effect, they went where they were sent," Puls said.
© 2004 Grand Rapids Press |
See also:
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-13/108047268733040.xml
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Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
