Portland, Ore.--A peaceful demonstration Oct. 15 for political prisoner Mumia
Abu-Jamal
ended today with six people arrested, one man in the hospital with a compound
fracture of
his arm.
The demonstration, organized by the Portland Free Mumia Coalition, was in
response to
the signing of Mumia's death warrant by Governor Tom Ridge Oct. 13. About 400
protesters gathered at the Federal Building, marching peaceably to the Pioneer
Courthouse
Square where they circled it and then returned to the Federal Building. It was
a completely
nonviolent march, with not even a hint of violence. There were children as
young as 3
months in the crowd, and senior citizens, and, according to the Portland Free
Mumia
Coalition, the group "was certainly not going provoke something and endanger
those
people."
Regardless, there were about 40 cops there, approximately 15 in riot gear, and
five or six
on horseback. They also had two "less-than-lethal" shotguns, which basically
shoots
beanbags full of shotgun pellets at the target. These have been known to kill,
and last year,
police opened fire with them on a protesting crowd, resulting in injuries, and
the mayor
Vera Katz saying it was an unnecessary use of force.
The mounted police, according to organizer Caylor Rollins, repeatedly used the
cops to
herd the crowd on the march, and almost trampled some people when they were
cutting
through the crowd. One eye witness saw a horse almost run over a small toddler
in the
crowd.
These demonstrators, in fact, were dispersing and returning to their respective
homes,
when one protester Chad Hapshe, who was carrying a flower, looked at one of the
cops on
horseback, and threw the flower to the ground, presumably in some sort of
statement. The
cop rode over, and, according to Hapshe, told him to pick the flower. Hapshe
asked why,
stating, "It belongs there, I'm just returning it to where it belongs." The
cop told him to
pick it up or he would arrest him for littering. Hapshe agreed to pick it up,
but the police
arrested him anyway.
A number of his friends saw the incident and came over to see what was
happening. The
police officers knew them by name, as they are long standing Portland
organizers, and told
one, Craig Rosebaugh, to leave, to not be a "martyr" or a "big guy," in the
words of eye
witnesses. Rosebaugh replied, "This is a public park, I don't have to leave."
Then the police
grabbed Rosebaugh, and he pulled away from them. He dropped the large banner on
poles
that he was carrying, and one of the police threw him to the ground, breaking
his arm.
(The Oregonian falsely reported the police as saying that Rosebaugh attacked
the officer
with the pole). The horse trampled on Rosebaugh's leg. "I felt massive pain the
moment
that happened," Rosebaugh says. It turns out that his arm was broken. Rosebaugh
says that
horses were all around him, and he was frightened he would be trampled even
more, so he
protected his head. The police officer pulled him up, wrenching him by his
broken arm.
"They were putting holds on it. I got up to walk, I was not resisting at all,
and they were
still wrenching on my arm until we got to the Justice Center." Rosebaugh was
handcuffed,
with his hands behind his back, wrenching the break, which occurred right above
the
elbow, even more. The police searched him, and wrenched his broken arm up when
they
did this. Then they left him in his cell, handcuffed with his hands behind his
back, for 20 to
30 minutes, until the paramedics arrived, who then handcuffed his hands in the
front.
All
the while, Rosebaugh was screaming that he needed medical attention. In fact,
when they
lifted his arm to search him, Rosebaugh said he screamed, then looked out to
see police
officer in the hallway, watching him and laughing at him. Rosebaugh has a
compound
fracture and may have to have surgery. Police charged him with failure to
disperse, a lesser
misdemeanor. This is interesting, Rosebaugh says, in connection with the
Oregonian's
report that police allege he attacked them, because if he had, he would have
most surely
have been charged with assault.
Rosebaugh's partner, Elaine Close, followed the cops taking Rosebaugh away,
asking
where they were taking him, telling them to let Rosebaugh go, that he needed
help. She
says she was trying to squeeze by a group of officers (she was walking on the
curb side of
the sidewalk), and as she did, she was purposefully pushed into the street by a
police
officer, narrowly missing being hit by a passing cab. There were a multitude of
witnesses at
the time, and cries of "What are you doing?" and "Don't push her!" rang out.
The cops
then roughly grabbed Close and dragged her into the courthouse. Close says that
police
officers made innuendoes to shooting protesters to her, and that she herself
was called a
"liberal commie bitch." She says that the police were rough with everyone,
which bears up
to eye witness reports. "No one was resisting arrest, and they were being so
brutal. I can't
move my arm, the cops hurt it when they were hauling me away." She is charged
with
interfering with a police officer and disorderly conduct.
None of the protesters engaged in any physicality with the police. Even after
the police had
broken Rosebaugh's arm, and pushed Close into the street, the protesters stayed
completely
nonviolent.
Then David Potter was told by cops to clear out, and when he raised the point
that it was
free property he was arrested as well. He was later charged with disorderly
conduct and
failure to obey the direction of a police officer. Potter says the officer read
him the actual
law, and that there was a segment in it that said he had to obey a "reasonable
order" from
the officer, and he contends that this order was completely unreasonable.
The arrest of organizer and PSU faculty Roderick Franklin came next. Franklin
went to
investigate what was going on with Hapshe and Rosebaugh, and a cop asked him
for his
i.d. Franklin said he wouldn't give him i.d., as that wasn't necessary
according to the law,
but he gave him his name. The cop ran it through the computer and came up with
nothing,
and again asked Franklin for his name, and again Franklin declined. He then
arrested
Franklin on a noise violation, because Franklin had been using a bull horn
about 10 to 15
minutes earlier. They finally simply gave him a ticket for unlawful sound
violation.
Then came the arrest of Jonathan Emil Felton, who was also charged with failure
to obey a
police officer. But in Felton's case, he says the officer didn't even give him
an order. "I
never heard them tell me to move. I was just playing my dijeridou [an
Australian musical
instrument] and they picked me up."
Franklin says that when he was being held, he saw the police "running around,
confused.
They didn't know what to book us for. They were passing around code books,
asking for
sergeants and lieutenants to come and help them out." Franklin contends the
police were
figuring out the charges AFTER they had arrested the individuals.
They came up with some pretty creative ones. Chad Hapshe, who dropped the
flower on
the group that began this police assault, was charged with offensive littering.
It's ironic,
because the horses the cops were riding dropped manure all over downtown
Portland, but
as of yet, none of them have been arrested for the charge of offensive
littering.
Leslie Pickering, an activist with Liberation Collective, says that arresting
people and
putting ludicrous charges on them like these is common practice. "It's a
tactic. They want to
arrest two or three people at the end of a big demo for nothing, people who
aren't
organizers, who have nothing to do with it. They use that to deter other people
from
joining and helping, because they get scared, because it's anyone, not just the
organizers."
Organizers on the outside say they were given the run-around when they tried to
locate the
arrestees. People who called on the telephone were told they were not in the
computer,
then they were told that they had been processed and released when they hadn't.
Because
of all the confusion, organizers didn't know the full names of the incarcerated
protesters,
and so the Justice Center wouldn't give out any information. Which seemed odd
in and of
itself, because the Justice Center staff contended they didn't know Hapshe's
last name, but
when asked to look up Rosebaugh's status, they knew how to spell his last name
right off,
even though it is not pronounced as it is spelled, and even though he had been
taken to
Emmanuel Hospital fairly soon after his arrest (not soon enough, with a broken
arm; Both
Close and Hapshe said they heard Rosebaugh screaming, but the cops just shut
the door
until the medics arrived about 30 minutes later).
While Hapshe was having his picture taken in prison, he smiled, "because I
didn't want to
look like a criminal," he explains. One officer told him to stop smiling. "I
said, 'I can't help
it. Whenever I get in front of the camera, I start smiling.'" Hapshe reports
the officer
replied, "I have ways of making you stop smiling," and moved toward him
menacingly.
Franklin also states that while he was being processed, he was talking to one
of the police,
saying, "You got me in here, you've wasted my time, my arms hurt, and for
what?" To
which he reports the officer replied, "You're lucky I didn't do more than
that."
Hapshe reports hearing Close saying to the police, "You're hurting him"
(meaning
Rosebaugh), the cop answered, "I haven't hurt him yet, but that's the plan."
Participants in the march contend that the police harassed them even before
they began any
arrests, telling the protesters where to walk. According to demonstration
organizer Jennifer
Black, was what the police did at two junctures in the march: They told the
protesters they
could not walk the way they had intended to on their route, and they made them
follow the
same route from Pioneer Courthouse Square as to it. It' a tactic used by the
cops to create
anger and dissension in the group, Black says, and to raise hostilities towards
the police, to
escalate the situation.
The Justice Center also confiscated Hapshe's personal items; wallet, belt
shoelaces, as is
standard procedure. However, they transferred those items to another center.
When
Hapshe was finally released, after four hours, at 11 p.m., the other center was
already
closed, so they released Hapshe with no money, no shoelaces, not even a belt to
hold up
his pants. David Potter claims he's missing $40 in cash, and that the Justice
Center staff
gave him someone else's jacket.
The reaction of the media at the time was very telling. One news channel
camera, rumored
to be the Channel 8 news, would not film the police dragging Hapshe off. The
camera man
turned his camera away, and when the crowd pointed it out to him, he just shook
his head.
These acts are not unique to this protest; they have been reported by Portland
protesters for
some time now. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is one that centers around police
brutality
as Mumia was an untiring exposer of police brutality and later a victim of it
himself. Now,
people protesting the injustices heaped upon Mumia are having to contend with
their own
injustices, and the backlash on the local level.
All of the protesters have the same court date: Nov. 8.
Call the Portland Free Mumia Coalition at 287-4217 for more information, or the
Liberation Collective at 525-4975.
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