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The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade produced a net total of 7 misdemeanor charges against 7 peace people here in Colorado Springs, but is that typical of the whole US to have this sort of thing happen? After all we are the country where human rights are respected, democracy flourishes in a garden like atmosphere, and habeus corpus is the law of the land. So let’s go to Florida now and see what produced another misdemeanor charge agianst a peacenik to be filed once again by local police?
Instead of the provocative and inflamatory KIDS NOT BOMBS sign that Marie carried, there the peacenik actually carried an even more inflamatory sign! One that demanded FOOD NOT BOMBS! How horrible is that?! These subversives need to show some respect to ordinary Americans, who just want to live in a non-violent society uninterrupted all the time by violent protesters inconsiderately spreading their messages of hate. They should just shut up and get a job.
And all the nice folk upset at the 7 charged here in Colorado Springs should also write to the mayor of the lovely town of Orlando, and let him know that they in Colorado Springs support what he is doing to keep Mickey Mouse safe in America. The nutty Leftist there is lucky the police didn’t use the stun guns on him, when his stew was stolen. Oh well, next time. This ‘peace’ thug certainly will be unable to keep himself out of trouble once again. Why don’t they pass a federal 3 misdemeanors and you are out law?
AMERICA LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT! If you can’t live by the rules I’ll buy you a free ticket to Guantanamo, Peace Dudes…
If a limited number of policemen are charged with stopping an unruly crowd, you might excuse them having to scramble around to contain everyone. Perhaps they’d have to do what it takes to immobilize each arrestee and move on the the next.
Is that what you see in this picture?
I see four officers, among the forteen who were there, two of whom are fastening handcuffs on me. They are about to leave me laying next to Esther who was pushed down beside me, to wait in the middle of the street while they apprehend six others. Examine the pictures. The same two officers handled [mishandled] us while the other dozen filled out the paperwork. If they were trying to get us off the street, why leave us in the street?
I did not resist being pulled from the truck. Why was I not escorted straight away to the sidestreet?
The seven arrestees were cited for “failure to disperse,” not “resisting arrest.” Why then were we treated as if we were resisting? Why the choke holds, pressure holds, the bruises and abrasions? If I was following the policeman obediently, why then do I have a bruise the size of a boot on the back of my leg, an edge of which broke the skin, and a bruised rib cage that pains me to laugh or lie down? As the video evidence shows, and watchers can testify, and the shock of their children attests, we were treated with excessive force.
If an officer shows up on your doorstep, and arrests you for some crime, you don’t begrudge him his actions, he’s doing his job, a tough one. If he’s caught the wrong person, still, people make mistakes, it’s fine, everything will sort itself out, no harm done.
If he wrestles you to the ground, because he thinks you might be armed, because you might be somebody dangerous, again you can excuse him. It is a big responsibility, to protect and to serve. Even if you are hurt. You forgive him.
But if he knew you weren’t a threat, even knew you weren’t guilty, but still threw you to the ground, trying to flex his muscles, to demonstrate his authority in front of hundreds of onlookers, to humilate you and teach onlookers that they’d better not speak up themselves, that’s another story. That’s not an excusible miscalculation of law enforcement. That’s excessive force, that’s injustice. That’s criminal authoritarian jackboot thuggery. Let’s see how far that’s going to fly.
The duplicity accusation is excusable for people who have never faced trying to voice dissent with urgency. You want to play the game by the rules? Go apply for a permit to march with a message of peace in a pro-war parade. Have the organizer tell you no. Hire a lawyer to write him a letter, threatening to sue if you are not permitted to join the parade. Receive his lawyer’s response. No. It’s a private affair, you are not invited. Have your lawyer write another letter, citing the legal precedence in parades in other cities that were sued successfully for discriminating against minority views. Receive another formal reply calling your bluff.
Okay. File papers with a court and sue the organizer. Six months, a year. Maybe win, maybe with a conservative judge, you lose. Take it all the way to the Supreme Court even. That used to mean that the nation’s best minds would apply themselves to serve justice. These days it can mean that George Bush is declared winner of an election he stole.
Meanwhile the war in Iraq, the cause in dire need of your message, rages on.
The courts do not favor the voice of dissent. Anyone who wants to run the battle for freedom of expression through the court system has money to burn, has a delirious notion of the nobility of our judicial system, and is completely out of touch with what the dissenting voices are raised against: injustice and bloody-murder.
The helpful citizen who wants to tell the eyewitness to a mugging that he must regulate his cries for help according to local noise ordinances is very plainly a jerk, and quite possibly a criminal.
Were we trying on St Patrick’s Day to call attention to the crime of war-making? Absolutely. Were we trying to change anyone’s opinion? Naw. We were crying out to the 70% of Americans who want peace and may be timid about expressing it. If you are among those who don’t think a crime is being committed, get out of the way unless you want to be counted an accessory to mass murder.
We have been blessed, so to speak, with a person identifying himself as a soldier commenting on our posts concerning the St Patrick’s Day Massacre. Everybody is welcome to comment, as long as they don’t threaten, or like you know, break laws in the hope of getting everybody else busted.
That’s one version of what is called in the French language Agents Provocateurs,
And I seriously don’t give a fat rat’s ass about people who have difficulties with the French Language, nation or people. “Enfants du France….”
Another version is (not that i could make accusations, as there is no proof.) would be for somebody from the Military Police, the CSPD, the District Attorney’s office for the 4th District, the Provost Marshall from Ft Carson or whoever, to come and make statements like us being misleading or flat out deceptive in our application for a permit at the parade.
They would not be above such actions, it is called a “fishing expedition” and while they wouldn’t be allowed, at least by a righteous judge and a good attorney, to do something like that in the courtroom, they would, will and do go on such “expeditions” BEFORE the case is filed or before the formal hearings begin.
This would lend whole new depth to the term “trolling” a forum or in this case a weblog.
Making no accusations, but you guys who do this, please realize that it is suspicious behavior. Eric has already announced, as has the ACLU, that this will be challenged in court.
People who post and say, “Man, you sure pulled one over on the pigs with that, right on dude” sound for all the world like somebody from the Other Side trying to get us to agree with it, in order to cast doubt on our actions in court.
If we were truly out to destabilize OUR country, trying to overthrow our nation, whatever… or were seriously into legitimate yet unlawful armed resistance, like for instance the Provos, such suspicions would be an invitation to Incisive Revolutionary Actions. The other, other IRA.
Since we are not, since our presence in the parade was indeed peaceful, legal, and within the bounds of morality and decency added on, that would leave no LEGITIMATE reason for people to attempt to makes us appear to contradict ourselves, entrap us or any other such naughty things.
However, the Police do have a long and rich history of such actions, and I would therefore encourage you all not to make statements or questions that call doubt onto The Truth.
The truth is, we had a permit to be in the parade.
We did not attempt to force a confrontation with anybody.
We did NOTHING illegal, immoral or questionable.
Our motives were, as always, to promote peace through EDUCATION.
This is always the policy of the peace movement.
Please refrain from making statements, or asking questions, even innocently, to the contrary. Once again, it would only make us look at you with suspicion. The CSPD has already assaulted us illegally. This is a part of a long pattern of such abuses against dissidents and dissent in America and Colorado Springs specifically.
We don’t pick fights with the police, they could kill us and at least some of the vocal asswipes who think they run our country would cheer them on or say it was OUR fault.
John O’Donnell says that his ‘rules’ prohibit social statements from being made by participants, so he had to have city police assault pro peace parade participants and then have us expelled from the parade. John and the City of Colorado Springs government and police are totally in bed together on this one, and it pays to see just what O’Donnell and the city government have been doing and saying in the past. Check it out below.
Thank God we have the internet to help expose liars and hypocrits like the Colordo Springs city police spokepeople (police blotter), the Gazette editors, and John O’Donnell. See just what John O’Donnell actually means when ordering folk to not make any social statements at St Pat’s Day.
===================================
Fort Carson veteran is St. Pat’s grand marshal
Sgt. Wong returned from Iraq in January
Sgt. Robert Wong, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, has been named grand marshal of the 22nd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saturday, March 12 in Old Colorado City.
Fort Carson selected Sgt. Wong, who was the post’s Soldier of the Quarter for 2004, at the request of the Parade Committee for O’Donnell & Associates, a promotional firm that org-anizes the annual parade.
Hailing from Baltimore, Md., the sergeant is with the 759th Military Police Batallion, which returned from Iraq in January. A contingent of 10 soldiers, all sergeants, will escort him during the parade, according to Parade Committee Chair John O’Donnell.
“We are delighted to have Sgt. Wong as the Grand Marshall,” O’Donnell said. “As a representative of all of the active duty troops at Fort Carson, he serves as a reminder of all of the active members of the armed forces here and abroad. By honoring Sgt. Wong, we hope to honor our military family and friends who can not be with us during this joyful family event.”
To become Soldier of the Quarter, a soldier must be nominated by his own unit, and is then evaluated against nominees from other units, according to Lt. Justin Journeay of Fort Carson’s public affairs office.
More than 110 entries are scheduled for this year’s parade, including bands, floats, dancers, politicians and riding groups. Starting at noon, the parade will go east on Colorado Avenue from 27th to 17th Street.
The festivities will begin March 12 in Bancroft Park with the “5K on St. Patrick’s Day” Race at 10 a.m. The Children’s Fun Run will begin at 11 a.m. Runners can register online at http://www.csgrandprix.com, at the Runners Roost (107 E. Bijou) or on the day of the race at 9 a.m.
from Westside Pioneer article/press releases
Statement regarding The City of Colorado Springs’ responsibility for its police attack on the Saint Patrick’s Day peace marchers
As has now been widely reported, the citizens that decided to march in the peace section of the city’s Saint Patrick’s Day parade were violently dispersed by city police officers. Many of us received no notice at all to disperse, let alone a reason for why the already paid permit for was being declared invalid. What process or procedure was there in place for revoking this permit, other than the police telling us to get off the city street in an abrupt manner?
Our only ‘notice’ for most of us, was actually to turn and see some of our friends and companions being manhandled by police officers, wrestled brutally to the ground, and threatened with tasers and choke and pressure holds. Most of the officers involved gave no verbal identification of themselves, and it was hard to see any name tags in this abrupt melee instigated by city police officers.
The City of Colorado Springs police acted in reckless disregard to our rights, our health, and appeared to relish the opportunity to stick peaceful people in a heavily tax subsidized city event, with criminal charges, instead of engaging in trying to resolve an issue in a way where nobody would be hurt.
What was especially egrarious to us, was the fact that officers in their 20s and 30s were assaulting people principally in their 60s and 70s, in front of children, some below the age of 10. Why was this done? What real and solid rules had been supposedly broken by us? Why the millisecond notice and in this rough a manner?
Afterwards, some of us made efforts to look for the rules we had been charged in the media with breaking. We looked for literature and we looked for web sites that might fill us in with info and guidelines for participation about this event? What we found was nothing. We wondered how was it that in such an unclearly organized event, with an unclearly identified organizer, the police moved in on us like a hurricane?
What we discovered is unsettling. The press afterwards repeatedly declared that police were asked to remove us by ‘event organizers’. Such was the story that city police spokepersons gave. So the search began to find and identify the ‘event organizers’, and to try to find their relationship to the city itself. What we came up with, was that a rather shadowy company called O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc had declared themselves the private party involved. They were in charge of issuing the permits. So we wondered, just what were the costs involved, and did the city itself pay much of the cost of Saint Patrick’s Day? And we also wanted to find out what other events were organized by this company?
What we found, is that the organizers, that call themselves a private company, were not really the priciple oraganizers of events they are involved with in this city at all. In fact, other events supposedly ‘organized’ by O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc were actually mainly organized by the US military, plus local Colorado Spring’s city officials in many different municipal departments, using both federal and local tax monies.
In short, that O’Donnell and O’Donnell’s principle role other than passing out permits, is mainly to pose as private organizers of what are really heavily publicly subsidized events in our area, promoted mainly by government agencies, and having largely a pro-militarism message. In short, O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc. is nothing much more than a small outsourcing of city and federal organizing projects, events oftentime more paid for by the tax monies contributed by all the citizens of the community than by the few few dollars picked up these hidden individuals posing as private organizers.
For an example of how this operates, ‘The Welcome Home Parade’ ‘organized’ by O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc. in 2004, was actually paid for almost entirely by city and federal government moneys, and in fact, like the Saint Patrick’s Day parade itself, was heavily slanted to being pro war/ pro uniform/ pro we support the troops (read war) message. As to taking no ‘social stands’ in public parades , the O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc ‘private’ ghost front for the city actually does take political stands, and that has been consistently pro war, pro militarism, pro military industrial complex.
To give another analogy, O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc operates with the public citizens of Colorado Springs, much in the way that Halliburton and other Pentagon fed private contract operators do in US occupied Iraq. Just as Halliburton is nothing more than an extension of US government operations in that country, O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc. is little more than an outsourced extension of the government of the City of Colorado Springs. In fact, the City of Colorado Springs was more the public provider of where to go for permits, than O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc was themselves. Part of the city building of this celebration, was merely privately outsourced to O’Donnell- O’Donnell, Inc., that’s all.
In short, we reject the legal fiction that the police were responding to a private call to eject ‘gate crashers’ at a private event when they attacked us. We have a right to these public streets, too, especially when an event is in actuality more a municipal government operation than not. And the Saint Patrick’s Day parade is just that.
We demand that the city fully disclose municipal costs for this public event, and disclose publicly how much of the entire bill was paid by the city, and how much was paid for this shadow operation calling itself, O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc? Further, we believe that the city has a duty to fully publicize the regulations for participating in an event subsidized by tax dollars.
If guidelines are hidden from easy view, then how can the police ask citizens to abide by rules that have not actually been seen? It is not enough to just have permit purchasers to see, one time in small print, what others cannot ever see for themselves. We are not our brothers keeper, and if a guideline is only shown to one person out of say a hundred, this is not full disclosure of the regulations. Instead of hiding in the shadows, the municipal government of the City of Colorado Springs has a duty to admit its fundamental role in the organization of this annual parade. This they are not yet doing.
We ask that all charges against particpants in this event be dropped, and that the city government fully disclose its financial involvement with O’Donnell and O’Donnell, Inc. Who pays for the policing of this event, the legal procedures against any of those charged with crimes due to this event, the publicity, the office space to issue permits, the costs of interrupting the normal routine of the downtown area, etc.? Certainly it is not the price of the permits paid by participants that does so alone. In fact, in large part, it is the municipal government itself that does, and that’s what makes this more a public sponsored parade than a private one.
Contrary to what some of the media have charged, those pro peace people in our city would no more crash a private event than the overwhelming majority of other Colorado Springs citizens would do. But the Saint Patricks Day parade is hardly much of that, and politicians tooting their own horns, mini-military squadrons of little kids draped out in olive green military fatigues, corporations advertising their commercial products, and all the other manifestations of people making a multitude of ‘social statements’, only underlines the reality of our argument.
This is in fact a public event in large manner publicly funded, and the city police should not try to hide their abusive actions against some participants behind the skirts of a pretense that they were mereley urgently mobilized by a private sponsor that the city government really had mainly outsourced the giving out of participant permission slips to.
Further, we would ask that the individual owner of the shadow company O’Donnel and O’Donnell, Inc., come forth, and together with us and the city government make some small effort to keep this conforntation from becoming a permanently embedded confrontation within our community. What could well have been a small problem solved via a short discussion with the parties involved, now risks becoming yet another permanent festering sore inside our diverse city. There is still time to stop this from happening if there would be the will to do so. The police should drop the 7 charges filed against the pro peace participants, and let us all move on with our lives without further bitterness. We are all deeply divided in how we feel about this war, and we don’t need to add further to that if we can avoid doing so.
The city of Colorado Spring subcontracts its organizing of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and then claims that its police assaulted us for crashing a private event! Wrong. The St. Patricks’s Day parade normally pushes an only partially hidden militaristic agenda claiming that it is just a big green party made possible by a private individual.
Fort Carson veteran is St. Pat’s grand marshal
picture and comments taken from article at page 7 of pdf file archive of The Mountaineer, Fort Carson publication
Hidden away, though, are the multiple connections the city has with that particular person, and the significant municipal underwriting of the expenses involved, all paid for with your tax dollars. The CS Indy ran an article in 2002 that stated that the municipal underwriting of tjhe St Patrick’s Day parade’s declared expenses was close to 50% of the total costs to their subcontractor.
Of interest also, is how the Colorado Springs police blotter officially lies totally about the unfolding of events. Doubt that? Then go to their ‘Police Blotter’ and read the account. Anybody who has seen any pictures in the press of the arrests being made, can see clearly how the police lie totally about what took place.
The first lie there on the ‘Police Blotter’ is that they told the 45 of us that we had to leave. In fact, I was part of that group of 45, and never got any notice to disperse. My only ‘notice’ was to observe the police assaulting my friends walking quietly alongside of me inside that parade.
The second lie, is that all but seven of us obeyed the order to disperse (the one that I never received along with most of the others in our group), and that 7 refused. Then per police lie, they gave another order to disperse to these 7, whom were arrested only when again they refused. Anybody can clearly see from all photos, that the police had these 7 in choke holds up both high up in the air and flat on the pavement, too, even as the rest of our group was still fully standing beside the already handcuffed arrestees in the parade.
If the police will lie about this progression of what happened, then they will certainly lie about all their conduct in dispersing us. The cameras tell a totally different story than the ‘Police Blotter’ does, and the cop who wrote this false account of events to the ‘Police Blotter’ poorly thought about how obviously dishonest his account would appear, and how obvious from photographic evidence it would be that he was lying about the police attack on us and how it had been implemented by the police themselves.
(Clarification: Esther has just been thrown to the ground. Eric is not on the ground by choice, and Elizabeth is about to be pulled away.)
In the aftermath of our dashed efforts at the St Patrick’s Day parade and the abrupt violence which shocked everyone, the seven arrestees took a conciliatory tact to reflect on the actions and reactions of that day before leveling recriminations. The issue after all was about promoting peace, not fighting back. Where did being gracious get us?
The police seized the opportunity to announce they’ve received no complaints about their manner, going so far even to solicit bystander videos as if to suggest that the documentation will support their conduct.
Though we’d given plenty of interviews, our quiet tone gave the local newspapers leeway to print untruths about what happened that day. The Gazette has now suggested the marchers acted to disrupt the festivities, to obstruct the parade, in a fashion intended to provoke arrests.
The Independent has been able to hide behind offering only the Police Department’s account, that the peace marchers were attempting to participate “without a permit,” and that to an “untrained eye” what might appear to have been a “chokehold” was actually a “pressure-compliant hold.”
Even the local internet jackasses have jumped in on the action to chide us for duplicity in obtaining our permit, giving an uncritical platform for parade organizer John O’Donnell to cry foul.
Well GOD-DAMNIT are you fascists in for a surprise! This treatment is more of exactly what we received on the parade route. And just like the policemen who thought they could set an example and brutalize us unto a side street, this disrespect is not going to stand.
Here’s where it’s going to get you.
Mr. O’Donnell and his partners in City Hall are going to face a civil lawsuit for violating the 1st Amendment rights of 46 marchers. They will face another lawsuit for conducting a public event which discriminated among the participants. You want to throw an all-white, good ol’ boy, pro-war parade these days, you better say so. You can’t of course, and O’Donnell and COS will never put green lipstick on one of these again.
I’m not saying the St Patrick’s Day Parade shouldn’t feature a Marine recruiter’s blow-up doll, or crew-cutted uniformed Pee-wee Killers for Christ, or Hooters sex-workers for gracious sakes. I’m just saying that you’ve got to allow room for another community aesthetic as well.
The Colorado Springs Police Department will face charges for violating the 4th Amendment rights of the seven arrestees, and of three more who were brutalized, with a measure of the 9th Amendment thrown in for the indignity. In the meantime we’ll explore what degree of police brutality is actually sanctioned by the city. I don’t care how much you may hate criminals, all persons have a right to be protected from physical abuse.
We may lobby for special rehab for certain of the policemen. I’d like to see that Officer Erwin “Jimmy” Paladino is not given the authority to remove a kitten from a tree before he’s had counseling.
The Gazette will be charged with slander, plain and simple. You don’t call a 65-year-old woman’s injuries “rugburn” and think you’re going to chuckle your way to market. Ms. Fineron and myself will have our day in court, we’ll demonstrate our actions were not premeditated and for discrediting our integrity we’re going after Hillbilly Gazette editor Sean Paige. Slam-dunk what an asshole.
The Independent’s slander is embarrassing. Michael de Yoanna needs to cover both sides of a story. Our permit was on the books, thank you very much. Quoting a police blotter to say we had no permit, without noting the error, is deliberately misleading. And let me say something about that “chokehold.” Two of our marchers, the very two in fact who were choked, were both corrections department veterans. Both knew precisely the illegality of how they were being handled, and calmly told their respective assailants as much.
The videotapes and pictures will bear out these facts. Perhaps this is the reason that the television media coverage was fairly balanced from the start.
Special note
The police will need the identity of this man that he can be charged with assault upon Elizabeth Fineron, leading to her fall and subsequent dragging across the pavement. As the Gazette put it, What a drag.
Complaints
Let’s say a word about complaints to the police. If you want to complain about the police conduct, you’ll find they don’t have forms for that purpose. They walk you straight in to see an internal affairs officer and he’ll sit and interrogate you without the aid of a lawyer, or a tape recording that you can keep. Best to write a letter describing your complaint and send it in.
What a completely slanderous editorial the Gazette has published, suggesting that we peace marchers planned the police beating we received!
A couple of innocent circumstances find themselves at odds with such a conclusion. Number one, a good number of us can guarantee we would not have brought our children if we had known what the police had in store for us; number two, we parked our cars at the end of the parade route, which turned out to be quite inconvenient when we were turned back; and number three and without doubt a trump card, none of us brought video cameras! Have you ever seen a protest where every third participant did not have a video camera to document and/or deter police brutality? We had none! We’re now having to solicit video footage from eyewitnesses in the crowd to counter the official assurances that their conduct was above board.
That’s because our St Patrick’s Day message was not one of protest, but celebration. Look even at my preparatory efforts to organize the marchers! We wanted to be seen in a different light than protestors. Even in this atmosphere of war and fear, we are optimistic that mankind’s compassion for each other will prevail over war. As some seek comfort in the image of a blow-up marine on steroids, as a symbol of ass-kicking diplomacy, so we honor and want to project the principles of non-violence and peace.
Remarks are being made that the St Patrick’s Day parade was the wrong forum for a peace message. Ignoring the obvious Irish insurgent spirit, pray tell, what are any venues available to expressions of non-conformist views? In this pro-military, conservative town, there’s not a one. Otherwise we’re at the corner of Nevada and Dale on Mondays at noon, at Academy and Austin Bluffs on Wednesdays at three, and at the Fort Carson B-Street entrance every first Tuesday at seven. Have you got another opportunity to suggest? We’ll be there.
Admittedly young cops manhandling elders in front of impressionable children opened eyes less about the war in Iraq, than to the rapidly diminishing civil rights of ordinary Americans. Now everyone’s privilege to voice their opinion appears in jeopardy. We’re fighting for what, overseas? Freedom?
We didn’t march to change your mind about the war. We marched to encourage the majority of the American public who are against the war in iraq, to come out from behind thugs like you who’ve monopolized the street and airwaves with your pro-war, pro-violence message. We’ve seen the shift already as we hold our banners every week curbside, we get far more honks of support than signs of disapproval. The parade would have been a wonderful way to elicit that sentiment in front of everyone on main street. That is perhaps why your type wouldn’t allow it.
The cause for which we marched received a lot of attention as a result of the police over-reaction. But it wasn’t due to our planning, or our preparations in full view an hour before the event began. It wasn’t due to our obstinance in response to being told our permit was revoked, or being ordered to turn away while certain among us were being brutalized. The attention the marchers have received has been entirely due to the city parade organizers’ actions to silence us and the police department’s decision to be violent.
This is how you take fascism down, by showing the politicians, businessmen, chest-beaters and their backers, that they do not have the support of the people. That the common people do not share their zealousness to beat dissenters over the head with the flag. Step aside you goons and conformists, the American People want their country back.
Mark Lewis finally got more of his pictures up at CSACTION.ORG. It’s the POV of the 46 marchers. You are there! (Note the one of three who got by the St Paddy’s Day Gnome, if for a few blocks.)
This from the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission this morning…
Anyone who wishes to register a complaint with the police regarding the St. Patrick’s Day parade incident (you don’t have to be an arrestee to do so) please pick up a complaint form at police headquarters. Also, we ask anyone who considers him or herself a witness (having seen the incident) and who has pictures which help establish what happened to please call police headquarters and say what you saw. We suggest the latter since the media is implying that all the calls being received by police are supportive of police behavior and of the removal of peace marchers from the parade. Thank you.
The police are hearing mostly praise for their unconscionable actions over the weekend. Typical Colorado Springs. Please call in or file a complaint if you feel that they overstepped their bounds. Whether or not you were a witness. You’ve seen the pictures. You know what happened. Peace activists are getting some attention from the media…Let’s make sure we don’t miss an opportunity to advocate for peace and for civil liberties in our own community.
May I clarify the actions of the peaceful marchers at the St Patrick’s Day parade? My fellow participants sat down, not to block the path of the parade, but to resist the rough-handed treatment of me and Esther Kisamore who were being thrown to the ground by a semi-uniformed official with his police badge obscured. This officer was yelling at us to get out of the parade, without telling us on whose authority. He was commanding us to furl our banners, grabbing three which he broke over his knee. All of this is documented by bystander videos. Officer Paladino, it turns out, then tried to wrestle the keys of the bookmobile which I was driving, still without addressing us formally. He pulled me from the truck, pinned me to the ground, and threw Esther on top of me as she was urging for calm, to the horror of the young children marching with us and the hundreds watching.
Who was it that decided our peace message was any more political than the political candidates, political parties, or pro-war organizations parading their ethics in the St Patrick’s Day festivities? In the spirit of the occasion, just as we had done the year before, we purposefully refrained from our usual calls for President Bush’s impeachment or trial on charges of war crimes. Polls now show that our pleas for an end to the war in Iraq reflect the general sentiment of the American public. What parade organizer, or police squad, has the right to squelch that cry?
We sincerely regret the traumatic scene witnessed yesterday by so many children. Yet maybe it provided a teachable moment. They saw erstwhile Officer Friendly revealed as unbridled authoritarian brute, baring tasers and choke holds to enforce someone’s subjective political opinion. Before their young eyes, freedom of speech in America was manhandled and thrown to the curb.
Eric Verlo
Owner, Bookman Bookmobile
Chairman, Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission
Permit holder 21, St Patrick’s Day Parade
Todays peace contingent in the Colorado Springs Saint Patricks Day parade was physically attacked by the police about 5 minutes after we began the walk. One or two people were told that our permission to participate had been revoked, and within seconds the police assaulted us.
Most of us never even heard that they were revoking the permission that we had to participate at all, before we found ourselves watching the police assault selected members our our group. This assault occurred as hundreds looked on in shock. Children began to cry as they saw their parents being taken down and put into choke holds while in handcuffs behind their back face down on the pavement. One of us who was unable to actually walk was pulled from the vehicle accompanying us onto the pavement and bruised badly enough as she was pulled across the pavement to need ememrgency care at Memorial Hospital. Leaders of the 2 main peace groups in Colorado Springs were assaulted, placed in handcuffs, and then held in police cars while being processed. Several children became lost in the parade as they were slightly ahead of their parents who found themselves in the melee.
There was absolutely no cause for our permission to be revoked in such a manner. We had our signs out, our peace shirts on, and a few green flags with peace symbols on them before the parade even got off. The time between the notification for us to remove ourselves from the parade and when the police began their attack was just a second or two. It was as if this was a deliberate plan to have an excuse to physcially assault us, since being for peace in a parade of this sorts in Colorado Springs certainly was little more than being mere balance to the army fatigues on children in some groups, plus the contingents of pro war city council parading their campaigns in front of the crowd. No problem for those people at all, yet we evidently merited a police assault in the middle of the parade!
I have just seen some of the local TV coverage where the only comment about this assault is that people for peace had no permission to protest here by parade organizers. We had gotten permission to participate in this event, and then within seconds we had this permission revoked and an assault on us began. Certainly if the parade directors had felt we were not wanted, they could easily have notified us with more than a few seconds before having the cops beat on us. The fact that they did not, speaks loudly to the piossibility that they delberately cherished the idea of assaulting peace people walking with them, even as pro military contingents were widely evident and welcomed everywhere in the parade.
There was even one group of about 20-25 kids dressed up in Rambo fatigues, but our peace signs were used as reason to assault a group of mainly retired people! Pretty sad stuff overall. I think that the kids with us learned a lot about America today.