[discuss-dan] charges dismissed against philly protesters

[Mark Cohen <buildingbridges@mindspring.com>]

Many Summer Protesters Cleared
     
 
By Debbie Goldberg
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, November 30, 2000; Page A03 



PHILADELPHIA –– When John Sellers was yanked off a Center City street and
arrested on Aug. 2 while the Republican National Convention was meeting
here, police painted him as a protest ringleader and presented a laundry
list of 14 misdemeanor charges against him, and then the district attorney's
office got him slapped with $1 million bail. 


But when Sellers walked into court on Nov. 14 to defend himself against the
charges, prosecutors said they didn't have the evidence to make their case.
All charges against him were dismissed.


On Monday, misdemeanor charges against another 38 protesters were dismissed
by Municipal Court Judge James M. DeLeon for lack of evidence. They were
arrested on Aug. 1 at the Center City intersection of Broad and Spruce streets.


The red, white and blue GOP banners are long gone, but cases involving
hundreds of protesters arrested during the Republican convention are just
starting to wind their way through the courts. And some civil rights
attorneys say Philadelphia may end up paying a high price for what they
contend was an illegal strategy to clear the streets of protesters while the
Republican delegates, thousands of journalists and other visitors were in town.


"The pattern here is that a number of people were arrested with absolutely
no basis, and it is abundantly clear, when they come to court, there's no
evidence," said Bradley Bridge, a lawyer with the city's public defender
association, who is representing many of the protesters.


Already, a civil rights lawsuit against the city and its police department
has been filed by seven paramedics who participated in an umbrella group of
protesters called the R2K medical collective. The paramedics claim they were
stopped and searched, and that their supplies and personal items were
confiscated by police in several incidents during the convention. None of
them was arrested.


Now that his case has been dropped, Sellers, 34, a career activist, is also
considering suing the city and its police department for what he claims was
a false arrest and an unreasonable bail.


"I feel vindicated, and it's vindication for hundreds of others arrested,
who were taken off the streets in an unconstitutional, preemptive, illegal
strike by the Philadelphia Police Department to silence dissenting
opinions," said Sellers, director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Ruckus
Society. He spent six days in a Philadelphia jail before his bail was
reduced and he was released.


Referring to the Sellers case, Cathie Abookire, a spokeswoman for
Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn M. Abraham, said: "I can only tell you
after we reviewed the case, interviewed people and looked at many, many
hours of videotape, the evidence was not there to bring forth the case, so
we withdrew the charges."


Responding to questions about the arrests of protesters, Officer Carmen
Torres, a police spokeswoman, said: "At this time, we are not offering any
interviews or any information due to the fact there are several issues in
litigation."


In all, 404 protesters were arrested in Philadelphia during and immediately
after the July 31 through Aug. 4 convention, Torres said. Of those, she
said, 35 protesters were charged with felonies, 339 with misdemeanors and 30
with summary offenses, which are akin to getting a ticket.


Of those charged with misdemeanors, nearly 100 protesters have accepted a
pretrial offer from the district attorney's office to clear their records if
they stay out of trouble for six months, said Shawn Nolan, a lawyer with the
public defenders association, who is tracking the cases. The misdemeanor
cases typically involve such alleged offenses as disorderly conduct,
obstructing a highway and resisting arrest.


Of those charged with felonies, some have seen their cases dismissed or
reduced to misdemeanors, leaving about 18 protesters who have felony charges
pending, most of them for alleged assaults on police officers, Nolan said.


During the most active day of the protests, large bands of protesters roamed
Center City, stalling traffic, overturning trash bins and damaging police
cars. Several protesters got into a scuffle with Police Commissioner John
Timoney, and a police officer accompanying him was hospitalized with a head
injury. About a dozen other police officers were injured during the week.


After the Republicans left town, city officials, particularly Timoney,
received widespread kudos for their handling of the convention and the
protests, especially in light of the chaos and mass arrests that had
occurred during protests in Seattle and the District in the months preceding
the Republican convention.


But critics assail what they claim was a strategy by city officials to sweep
the streets of protesters, particularly those they perceived to be leaders,
to charge them with more serious offenses than would be typical in civil
disobedience cases, and to seek huge bail amounts to keep protesters in jail
until the Republican visitors' departure.


The result of that strategy was to "deprive protesters of what we in America
think of as our most fundamental value--liberty," said Stefan Presser, legal
director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. "There's no
question the city is going to have to pay enormous recompense for what was
done by the Philadelphia police."


In particular, the bail amounts set for those described by police as protest
leaders, including Sellers and Terrence McGuckin, were "unprecedented," said
civil rights attorney David Rudovsky, who represents some of the protesters.
"You don't get that for murder in this city. It was pure preventive
detention for political purposes."


McGuckin, 19, spent eight days in jail on $500,000 bail. He was convicted on
Nov. 14 of several misdemeanor charges by a municipal court judge and
sentenced to three months probation, but is appealing that ruling, Rudovsky
said.


The next closely watched trial will involve 75 people arrested during an
Aug. 1 police raid at a West Philadelphia warehouse where the defendants say
they were making--with help from four undercover state troopers--large
puppets that were to be used as props.


"Most of them, the trial will show, were simply making puppets, not . . .
planning illegal activities," Rudovsky said.


In municipal court, where many of the protest cases are being heard, several
dozen activists filled the courtroom on Tuesday. Elisabeth Weaver, 20, who
was arrested the day after the warehouse raid when she and two other
protesters attempted to retrieve some of the puppets, had a sign pinned to
her shirt that said: "Puppetry is Not a Crime." Weaver, a college student
from Lancaster, Pa., was cleared of misdemeanor charges yesterday.


© 2000 The Washington Post Company 



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