Common Ground Common Sense > Pittsburgh police brutalize non-violent protesters

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Common Ground Common Sense > State & Local Information > Mid Atlantic Region > Pennsylvania

rox63

Aug 22 2005, 06:41 AM

I heard about this from Laura Flanders on AAR yesterday. This sort of crackdown on dissent by our government should be getting national press.

http://www.organizepittsburgh.org/pog_release.doc

QUOTE

For Immediate Release August 21, 2005

Contact: David Meieran, 412-996-4986 Nathan Shaffer, 412-720-9276

PITTSBURGH POLICE ATTACK NON-VIOLENT PROTESTORS WITH TASERS, PEPPER SPRAY AND K-9 UNITS

Counter-Recruitment Demonstration Ends in Five Arrests and Two Hospitalizations

Pittsburgh, PA – The Pittsburgh Police Department displayed an excessive use of force at a demonstration yesterday outside a military recruitment station located near the University of Pittsburgh. Five were arrested, two were hospitalized and several others received injuries as a result of police unwarranted use of Tasers, pepper spray, retracting batons and K-9 units. Two others were issued citations when they complained about police misconduct.

Yesterday’s protest marks the first time in the city’s history that police used Tasers on demonstrators. Dramatic Indymedia video shows police dragging a young woman off the sidewalk and Tasering her mercilessly as she lay on the street screaming—and this after she was pepper-sprayed directly in the face. The video clearly demonstrates that she posed no threat to the police or anyone else when she was Tasered, marking a clear violation of the city’s official guidelines for the use of these controversial weapons. The activist was taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital for treatment and remains in police custody.

Police also used K-9 units to chase away protestors on the sidewalk. A 68-year old grandmother was bitten from behind by a police dog and then arrested and placed in an unventilated police van in the hot sun where she remained for 45 minutes before she, too, was finally taken to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital for treatment.

In addition, police pepper sprayed a four year-old girl, toppled a man with Multiple Sclerosis in his motorized wheel chair and clubbed a number of protestors with retracting metal batons.

At the time of the police attacks activists were peacefully assembled on the sidewalk in front of the recruiting station, which had opted to remain closed for the day in response to yesterday’s call for non-violent direct action by Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG). It marked the second time this month that POG had pre-emptively shut down military recruitment at that station, which is the headquarters for military recruitment in the city. (For more information Pittsburgh Organizing Group’s counter-recruitment campaign, visit www.OrganizePittsburgh.org .)

POG is alarmed by yesterday’s events. In the past two years, more than 150 people have been killed by Tasers. Amnesty International, the ACLU and other groups have called for a moratorium on their use. In response to a public outcry to police abuse of Tasers, a number of cities have imposed restrictions on Taser use, cancelled orders or pulled them from circulation. The manufacturer, Taser International, is facing multiple lawsuits.

POG is demanding an official investigation into the police conduct at yesterday’s demonstration and an immediate halt to the use of Tasers by the Pittsburgh Police Department. Copies of video documentation of yesterday’s police abuses can be obtained by calling David or Nathan at the numbers listed above or by emailing pog@mutualaid.org.

AnnieBW

Aug 22 2005, 08:22 PM

QUOTE(rox63 @ Aug 22 2005, 08:41 AM)

I heard about this from Laura Flanders on AAR yesterday. This sort of crackdown on dissent by our government should be getting national press.

http://www.organizepittsburgh.org/pog_release.doc

Forbes and Atwood Streets? Geeze... my old drinking...er... stomping grounds!

heritage

Aug 22 2005, 08:28 PM

This was reported in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and discussed on local talk radio, by liberal talk host Lynn Cullen, 1360 AM WPTT. She's on from 9-noon daily.

They are currently talking with a Gold-Star mom.

vet65/69

Aug 22 2005, 09:47 PM

looks like the 1960 allover again it will have to get real bad before it makes the msm like kent state
bushco sure is a uniter

heritage

Aug 23 2005, 09:38 AM

Anti-war protestors fault city police
Group calls for investigation of use of stun guns, pepper spray
Monday, August 22, 2005

By Pohla Smith, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05234/557881.stm

City police used excessive force when they used stun guns and pepper spray to break up an anti-war demonstration in Oakland on Saturday, members of the protesting group charged yesterday.

"Right now we're demanding an investigation," said David Meieran, a member of the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, which protested outside an Army recruiting station Saturday morning. About 30 to 50 people marched from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to the recruiting post near Forbes Avenue and Atwood Street.

Police moved in on protesters after one of the marchers grabbed a TV camera, police said. Two protesters were hospitalized and five people, including one juvenile, were arrested or detained.

The juvenile was cited for disorderly conduct and released.

Meieran said three of the four others who were jailed were released yesterday, but he did not know their identities.

A police spokeswoman yesterday could not confirm that information.

Police used a Taser, or stun gun, on two people and pepper spray on others, including a 4-year-old girl, and "toppled a man with multiple sclerosis in his motorized wheelchair," according to the group's statement.

Others were clubbed with retracting metal batons, and a 68-year-old grandmother was bitten in the thigh by a police dog, the statement said.

The group hopes to show a video of the police actions, perhaps as early as today.

"This is an atrocious example of police misconduct," Meieran said.

The group claimed it was the first time that Tasers were used on protesters in the city, although city police have used them to subdue suspected criminals. The group said that the use of Tasers was a "clear violation of police official guidelines for the use of these controversial weapons."

The police spokeswoman said the kinds of situations at which Tasers have been used previously in the city could not be determined yesterday.

In a statement, city Police Chief Robert McNeilly Jr. said that the arrests were in response to the "actions of several participants who chose to turn the allegedly non-event into something that warranted police intervention in order to ensure public safety."

"When Pittsburgh Bureau of Police officers attempted to arrest a participant for assaulting a television news cameraman and damaging his property, other protestors, many clad in black bandannas to conceal their identity, tried to prevent that arrest and were subsequently arrested."

McNeilly noted that the group did not have a permit to block the streets and ignored warnings by police to stay on the sidewalk and to keep moving.

Meieran said his group is hoping to meet with Mayor Tom Murphy to discuss its concerns.

heritage

Aug 23 2005, 09:40 AM

3 arrested in anti-war protest here
Sunday, August 21, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05233/557445.stm

Pittsburgh police arrested three people yesterday morning during an anti-war protest outside an Army recruiting station in Oakland.

The protest involved about 30 to 50 people who marched from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to the recruiting post near Forbes Avenue and Atwood Street.

Police Sgt. Clint Winkler said he ordered officers to move in on the protestors after one of the marchers grabbed a TV camera and damaged it and protesters then attacked an officer who tried to intervene.

As police dispersed the group, they used a Taser and pepper spray on one woman and charged her with disorderly conduct, failure to disperse and resisting arrest, Winkler said. Another woman, Carol Wiedmann, 68, of Sewickley, was taken to Presbyterian University Hospital after being bitten in the thigh by a police dog, and was to be charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. A teenager also was cited and released.

In a news release prepared before the event, De'Anna Caliguiri of the Pittsburgh Organizing Group said the protest was planned because "it is becoming more and more urgent that we act in a way that impedes the vicious routine of military recruitment in Pittsburgh."

David Meieran, another group activist, said when the marchers got to the recruiting station with the intention of shutting it down, it already was closed. He contended police attacked the protesters without provocation as they were assembled on the sidewalk outside the station. But Winkler said police did not move to disperse protesters until the camera incident.

Tom Boney, a visitor from Graham, N.C., who was helping enroll a child at Carnegie Mellon University, said he could not see any provocation by protestors, but said police did use the police dog to force the protesters to move. Boney also said he did not see Wiedmann do anything to provoke the dog into biting her.

heritage

Aug 23 2005, 09:43 AM

This was the earlier peaceful rally

Hundreds gather here to protest Iraq war
Thursday, August 18, 2005

By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05230/555820.stm

Flickering candles held by hundreds of demonstrators dotted Frick Park at dusk in protest of the war in Iraq and in solidarity with Cindy Sheehan, the dead soldier's mother who has attracted worldwide attention with her vigil outside President Bush's Texas ranch.

As a nearly full moon rose over the Squirrel Hill park last night, the event opened with the brief, somber remarks of Diane Davis Santoriello, of Penn Hills, who told the crowd of her son's death in Iraq last year. As a battery-powered megaphone struggled to project her voice across the natural amphitheater by the Frick Park playground, a companion held a portrait of her dead son in uniform.

Army Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello was killed by a roadside explosion on Aug. 13, 2004.

"Cindy Sheehan is a good friend of mine," said Santoriello, who was wearing a sign that read: "Bush Lied, My Son Died."

"She is my sister in sorrow."

The Pittsburgh gathering, supported by groups including MoveOn.Org, and Code Pink, was one of hundreds planned across the country. In Crawford, Texas, Sheehan continued her watch near the president's ranch. The grieving mother's gesture that has become an international news media event shifted its encampment down the road to land belonging to an Army veteran who said he sympathized with the protest.

The growing protest has sparked opposition as well as solidarity. Earlier this week, a truck veered off the road knocking down crosses that had been placed there to commemorate slain GIs.

"I was really upset yesterday about the crosses being smashed," Santoriello said last night. "Neil's was one of them."

The Frick Park gathering was overwhelmingly peaceful. No counter-protestors were in evidence. Riders in passing cars occasionally waved their fingers in V signs or beeped their horns.

Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., has vowed to remain through Bush's monthlong ranch vacation unless he meets with her and other grieving families. Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan's loss and her right to protest, but has made no indication that he will agree to a second meeting with her. Sheehan and other families of Iraq war victims met with Bush two months after her son's death before she became a vocal opponent of the war.

Army veteran Fred Mattlage, the new host of the Sheehan protest, told The Associated Press: "I just think people should have a right to protest without being harassed. And I'm against the war. I don't think it's a war we need to be in."

Ashley Rotko, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, said she decided to come to Frick Park last night in part because her fiance is in the Army and her brother is in the Marines and scheduled to serve in Iraq. "We don't know why we're over there," Rotko said. "If the war was legitimate, I would support it."

Marty B. O'Malley, of Forest Hills, who was wearing a Vietnam Veterans cap, said he was there because " I think Cindy is asking some good questions. Why did her son die?"

O'Malley said that he was distrustful of what he characterized as the president's shifting explanations for the decision to invade Iraq. "You' can't flip-flop on war ... we're being lied to," he said.

heritage

Aug 29 2005, 07:12 AM

Editorial: Give peace a chance / A protest march gives rise to troubling scenes
Saturday, August 27, 2005

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05239/560842.stm

When peace officers meet peace protesters, the result is sometimes not peaceful. What happens can sometimes be blamed on one side. If a confrontation is averted -- if civil disobedience remains civil -- it is usually because discipline and mutual respect exist on both sides.

That wasn't the case last weekend when 30 to 50 people marched in Oakland from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to a recruiting post near Forbes Avenue and Atwood Street. What occurred was ugly and probably unnecessary, but we aren't prepared to say that one side was entirely blameless. There appears to be enough fault to go around.

Certainly, it seems that the police reacted too aggressively. A Taser stun gun and pepper spray were used on one woman. As a video showed, she was lying on the ground with two officers holding her hands behind her back when a third officer applied the stun gun. Why? The video didn't show the full context but the police have some serious explaining to do.

Such strong-arm tactics actually convey a sign of official weakness. On the face of it, this was a serious breakdown of police discipline, and official investigations need to be diligently pursued.

The use of the Taser was particularly disturbing. We believe Tasers have legitimate uses in dealing with suspects who cannot be subdued in any other way. But in an editorial in February, we warned that the stun guns were dangerous to the point of being lethal and that police should not routinely rely on them to subdue people who do not cooperate. Unfortunately, that seems to be the very thing that occurred in Oakland.

According to James Kleisser, executive director of the Thomas Merton Center, "To respond to messages of peace with outright violence is absolutely outrageous." For our part, however, we will contain our outrage to that already expressed.

Messages of peace? Not to condone the police over-reaction, but it is said the trouble started when a TV cameraman was assaulted by a protester. Any media outlet is going to feel sensitive about that and so should every American. If that incident occurred as alleged, it wasn't just a cameraman who was attacked; it was the First Amendment -- and it was no message of peace being conveyed.

Indeed, if messages of peace were the order of the day, why did some protesters wear masks? The reasons given at a news conference later were strikingly juvenile, ranging from the need to be theatrical, to avoid surveillance by police authorities (but what would they see if everyone was peaceful?) and to show solidarity with the Zapatistas, the Mexican rebels who have not been paragons of non-violence.

Also, why didn't the protesters get a permit for their march? They can argue all they like that one wasn't needed, but Pittsburghers can be forgiven for thinking that this supposedly innocent group of peacemakers were just offering another provocation.

While we are firm opponents of continuing the senseless war in Iraq, we think protests should not become stupid games in which people just act out their frustrations in unproductive and violent ways. That goes for both police and protesters.

heritage

Aug 29 2005, 07:16 AM

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05240/561432.stm

Iraq war protest proceeds peacefully
Sunday, August 28, 2005

By Milan Simonich, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Protesters and police barely crossed paths yesterday during a cold-tempered antiwar demonstration in Oakland.

Gone was the fury of Aug. 20, when police used pepper spray and a Taser gun on a war protester and arrested her and three others.

Uniformed patrol officers stayed mostly in the background while about 100 demonstrators gathered on Forbes Avenue throughout late morning and early afternoon. In turn, most protesters were mild in their language. Only a handful called police "pigs" when squad cars rolled by.

But for Etta Cetera, of Polish Hill, the thought of police clashing with protesters remained fresh in her mind.

"A lot of people believe that we are in Iraq to protect our freedom," she said. "Then, when we come out and try to exercise our freedom of speech in a nonviolent way, we are beaten up and shown violence."

Still, most members of the antiwar Pittsburgh Organizing Group said their intent was to make life uncomfortable not for police, but for the military recruiting station at 3712 Forbes.

Marty O'Malley, 64, a Forrest Hills resident who served in Vietnam, said speaking out against the war in Iraq is important to dissuade people from enlisting.

"It is unpatriotic to serve in an unjust, illegal and immoral war," he said.

Pittsburgh Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr., dressed in civilian clothes, stood across the street from the demonstrators. For two hours, he kept an eye on a block filled with picketers, diners and shoppers. His wife, police Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly, had supervisory duty at the demonstration, so McNeilly said he tagged along to keep her company.

"This is what protests should be -- peaceful," McNeilly said.

As he watched, the chief befriended Mike Firestone, 22, a veteran of the war in Iraq. Firestone said he was driving by when he noticed the demonstrators. He decided to stop to hear what they had to say. It did not impress him.

"I don't mind them protesting," said Firestone, who joined the Army in 2002 after graduating from Brentwood High School. "But they weren't there. I was. Saddam Hussein was slaughtering people."

Firestone said he thinks the war in Iraq is a worthy cause that, given time, will be an unqualified success.

When Firestone went on his way, both McNeillys thanked him for his service to his country.

Chief McNeilly seemed relaxed during the protest. The only time he showed a flicker of tension was when demonstrators wearing pink bandannas to hide their faces showed up. Police presence on street corners got heavier after that, but the crowd dispersed without any trouble a half-hour later.

heritage

Aug 29 2005, 07:18 AM

Letter to the editor: 8/27/05

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05239/560844.stm

Probe them more

I attended the press conference at the Thomas Merton Center Aug. 22 regarding the use of excessive force to disperse what was supposed to be a peaceful protest of the Iraq war and deceptive military recruitment tactics ("Group Says Police Used Excessive Force," Aug. 23). And I was also at the protest.

I believe the use of police force was unnecessary, incited the chaos that ensued and resulted in people being injured by police over-reaction. The little news coverage of the event I've seen, including in the Post-Gazette, seems relatively neutral.

However, some of the questions raised by reporters at the press conference seemed accusatory in nature. Am I naive to be surprised at the negativity and skepticism I sensed by some members of the media? It seemed at times as though victims were being accused of being the perpetrators.

I appreciate the need to gather facts. But listening to the questioning, I was wishing that the media would be more aggressive and persistent in asking members of President Bush's team about: why they continue to equate Iraq with weapons of mass destruction and an al-Qaida connection, yellow-cake uranium in Africa, the outing of a CIA officer, the ever-changing reasons to be in Iraq, the true cost of this war in terms of all the lives lost and the billions of dollars squandered, why the military fails to meet its enlistment goals, and why flag-waving, yellow ribbon-displaying, patriotic Americans aren't enlisting in droves.

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