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The Oakland 25 & the Courthouse Rally of Feb 6th

by Daniel Borgström
The atmosphere was charged with that old time union militancy from a century ago, the kind I’d read about. Well, here it was, back among us, alive and well
25 persons arrested at the Port of Oakland on April 7, 2003 are still facing misdemeanor charges. Not all of the group, known as the “Oakland 25,” were protesters. One was a business agent of the dockworkers’ union, and several were legal observers. These persons were not demonstrators and their arrests were not expected that day. In the months that followed, legal observers were also targeted in other parts of the country, most notably in Miami during demonstrations at the November FTAA conference, and it appears to be national policy under Bush, Ashcroft and Ridge.

Homeland Security officials made no secret of visiting Miami to see how police handled the anti-FTAA demonstrations. One of them, Bill Hitchens, spoke approvingly of the Miami police and told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "We need to do much the same[at the upcoming G-8 conference]." Homeland Security’s interest in the “Miami Model” suggests that it may previously have had some input in the Port of Oakland violence, in which case the “Miami Model” might more truthfully be called the “Oakland Model.”

On the morning of April 7, 2003, several hundred of us showed up to protest war profiteers operating out of the Port of Oakland. This demonstration was organized by DASW (Direct Action to Stop the War) whose people told us, “This is not a civil disobedience action.” Our goal was to maintain the picket line and not get arrested.

Here in America we don’t normally expect to be attacked and arrested for peacefully walking around with picket signs--at least we didn’t used to. Nevertheless, the police reaction was the most violent response to protesters in the in the spring of 2003.

During the attack, which was actually a series of attacks over a period of 90 minutes, police fired “less-lethal” ammunition at both protesters and longshoremen. Dozens of people were injured. However, the immediate result of this was unity between the antiwar movement and the labor movement here in Oakland. We found ourselves all on the same page, and together we asked our Oakland City Council to investigate the police action.

Our intention was to find out exactly who was behind the police violence; the suspects included several Oakland city officials including Mayor Jerry Brown. Other suspects were shipping company officials, some of whom had been seen at the police command post during the attack, and the Department of Homeland Security. The city council responded to our request and voted to investigate.

A blue ribbon panel was set up by city officials, but the investigation never got off the ground. None of the suspected perpetrators was investigated or charged with any crime. Instead, the District Attorney of Alameda County set out to prosecute 25 of the arrestees, and for the last several months there has been an ongoing series of pretrial hearings. The latest of these was held on Friday, February 6, 2004.

THE RALLY OF FEBRUARY 6TH 2004

The courtroom hearing of February 6th was scheduled for 2 p.m., but before that there was to be a rally at 12 noon in the plaza by the Oakland courthouse at 661 Washington Street.

When I arrived, a few minutes after 12, the rally was already in full swing. There looked to be 2 to 3 hundred people, most of whom appeared to be union members, many wearing jackets with union insignia. Banners read: “An injury to one is an injury to all!” “Unity on the Waterfront!” and “Hands off the Oakland 25!”

“Are we gonna take it?” I heard a speaker saying as I approached, and the gathering roared back, “Hell no!”

“Are we gonna fight?”

“Damn right!”

The atmosphere was charged with that old time union militancy from a century ago, the kind I’d read about. Well, here it was, back among us, alive and well--and. ironically, all of this was due to corporate greed and the warmonger policies of the Bush regime. Every cloud has a silver lining.

The platform was a long, flatbed truck with Teamster insignia, and there were numerous speakers on it, several of whom were persons I’d become used to seeing at rallies and city council meetings since the events of last April. Among them were Judy Goff, head of the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, and Walter Johnson, head of the Labor Council of San Francisco. Others represented local unions, community groups and antiwar organizations.

The “master of ceremonies” was Trent Willis, a business agent of the ILWU (International Longshore and Warehouse Union). I was told that earlier there’d been some musicians, including Larry Shaw, a banjo player, and David Rovics, a guitarist who writes protest songs. One of the speakers was Billy Kepoo, a member of ILWU Local 10, who’d been shot in the hand, breaking a bone in his thumb and rendering him unable to work for several weeks.

Henry Graham, president of Local 10, told us that the ILWU knew the protesters were coming that morning of April 7th, and he’d instructed his men to stay 100 feet away from the picket lines. The dockers had followed those instructions, but the police shot them anyway. Nine longshoremen were injured.

There was a young woman in a red sweater whom Trent Willis introduced as Lindsey Parkinson, one of the Oakland 25. She told of her arrest, and said, “It has made me a protester for life.”

I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Isn’t that what happens to so many of us? We attend a peaceful demonstration, feeling secure in our belief that this is a free country where our civil liberties will be respected by those in power, and then we wind up in jail.

A distinguished gentleman was standing on the platform who looked as if he might be the dean of a law school. When he was introduced to speak, it turned out that’s what he was. Peter Keane was a dean and also a professor of law, one of whose students, a young woman, had been arrested on April 7th. The professor pointed out that she’d gone there as a legal observer--not a protester, and she’d been complying with police orders, but the police had grabbed her anyway. He described her arrest which he’d studied on video tape. The teacher was here to defend his student.

One person, whose name and group I’ve forgotten, took the mike. He looked out over the crowd and shook his head as though puzzled.

“Not everybody’s here,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “There are three persons who should be here today but they seem to be missing. The three of them are: Mayor Jerry Brown, Police Chief Richard Word and District Attorney Tom Orloff. They need to come and beg our forgiveness.”

Other speakers included Gwen Hardy of PUEBLO, an Oakland community organization; a person from A.N.S.W.E.R., which organizes the huge rallies in San Francisco; and members of other groups, including a person from the Spartacist League. Lawyers Jim Chanin and John Burris also spoke. These people who took turns on the speakers’ stand represented a broad spectrum of political opinion, but none of them seemed inclined to be a passive victim.

Between speakers, Trent Willis interjected an occasional “Are we gonna take it?”

“Hell no!” the crowd would roar back.

“Are we gonna fight?”

“Damn right!”

Then he presented 4 dockers from Charleston, South Carolina, who had fought and won battles against seemingly insurmountable odds. They were members of the ILA (International Longshoremen’s Association) and they told a story which resembled ours. Four years ago, 150 of their people had been picketing a ship in Charleston Harbor when they were attacked by 650 riot police backed with armored vehicles.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the prosecutor was South Carolina’s Chief Solicitor Charlie Condon, a guy who sounded like a combination of Jerry Brown and Tom Orloff all in one, who charged 5 of the dockers with felony counts of “riot” and “conspiracy.” Condon even issued a press release comparing the 5 longshoremen to the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center, and promised to “put them under the jail.”

It didn’t happen. After about 20 months, during which time the unionists held rallies and gained widespread support from other unions including the ILWU, the “Charleston 5” were freed.

A very familiar part of the story was that, like our Oakland mayor, the Chief Solicitor had political ambitions--in his case, to move on to the governor’s mansion in the next election. That didn’t happen either.

When Jack Heyman took the mike, he needed no introduction. He’s the ILWU business agent who was dragged out of his vehicle and arrested while going to warn his men to get out of harm’s way. For many years Jack’s been a union militant, and I can imagine that the shipping company CEOs find him a thorn in their side, but if they’re the ones who are pushing the DA to press charges, it seems to me that they’re shooting themselves in the foot. They’re just making enemies of the longshoremen, but then of course they’ve been doing that for years, and now they have the backing of the Bush regime. Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge openly intervened on the side of the shipping companies during the waterfront lockout of 2002.

Jack Heyman announced that the San Francisco longshoremen voted at their last membership meeting to hold a “stop work” meeting on March 20th to protest the war in Iraq. “We will demand an end to the war, an end to the occupation and the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops now!” he said.

“This is not a ‘strike,’” Jack went on to explain “We are implementing a provision within our contract that permits us to stop work once a month for a ‘stop work’ meeting. We are trying to organize all ports on the U.S. West Coast to take the same action as Local 10. If they decide to follow our lead, it will send a powerful working class message to the warmongers in Washington that we don't support imperial wars like the one in Iraq.”

The announcement was greeted with cheers.

Direct Action Against the War is the group that organized the port protests of last April and May. Their speaker was a person I’ve seen at numerous events and on TV. Trent Willis introduced her as Sasha Wright, the daughter of a longshoreman. She’d also been in Miami last fall helping to organize for the November demonstrations against the FTAA.

Sasha announced that on April 7, 2004, which will be the first anniversary of the shootings, we’ll be going back to the docks.

Last May, five weeks after the attack, we did return to the docks for a successful demonstration in defense of our First Amendment rights. However, these rights must be constantly affirmed and reaffirmed, else they will weaken and disappear. It’s especially crucial now, in the face of these bogus charges against the Oakland 25.

It was a quarter to two, and the courtroom hearing would soon begin. The courtroom seats 72 people and it appeared that we had several times the number needed to fill it, so most people left, and those of us wishing to attend the hearing fell in behind the ILWU drill team. Chanting, “Drop the charges! Drop the charges!” we marched across the street to the courthouse entrance.

IN THE COURTROOM

We were in Dept. 115 of the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda, with Judge C. Don Clay presiding. The DA’s office was represented by two deputy DAs: Julie Dunger and Stuart Hing. There were about 20 defense attorneys; Bobbie Stein did most of the presentation for the defense.

The Oakland 25 were being charged with several misdemeanors, including “disrupting a business” and “creating a public nuisance.” At today’s hearing the judge was expected to rule on whether some of those charges would be dismissed on grounds of “vindictive prosecution.” There was also the matter of discovery; the DA’s office still hadn’t complied with a court ruling which required him to hand over several hundred pages of documents to indigent defendants.

Defense Attorney Bobbie Stein begin with a motion to dismiss the “public nuisance” charge. She gave a fairly long presentation, citing from about 4 previous cases, and explained how each applied.

Referring to one of the defendants, Stein said, “What is she supposed to have done that constitutes a public nuisance?” Stein wanted to know, but hadn’t been told. She then cited precedence to show that she should be told.

She also pointed out that “public nuisance” is a vague charge. “It’s so self evidently vague that it’s absurd,” she said.

When Defense Attorney Bobbie Stein finished, Deputy DA Julie Dunger took the floor and very briefly told the judge that “public nuisance” wasn’t vague. The result was that Judge Clay agreed with the DA and denied the defense motion.


Next, Stein presented her motion to dismiss for ”vindictive prosecution.” The charges were initiated in part to shield the city from a lawsuit, she said, and pointed out that the prosecution began in retaliation for the civil suit which was launched in June 2003 on the behalf of the people who were shot and injured on the docks.

Deputy DA Dunger then told the judge that the civil and criminal cases had no bearing on each other.

They discussed it briefly, and the judge also denied this “vindictive prosecution” motion, but “without prejudice.” So if the defense finds further evidence, they can bring it up again at a later hearing.


Finally, there was the issue of the DA’s ongoing refusal to comply with a court order requiring his office to turn over copies of paper documents to indigent defendants. This material had been requested in a discovery motion and the DA was required by law to turn it over. It seemed there was no way that the DA could refuse to comply, at least not if this process were to have any façade of legality.

Defense attorneys had raised this issue at every hearing, but so far without result. At the previous hearing of January 9th, the defense had asked that the DA be charged with contempt of court. The judge had indicated that he’d rule on that at this hearing, and so we were waiting to see what would happen.

Deputy DA Stuart Hing handled this part of the prosecution’s presentation, and a different defense attorney then took her turn and told Judge Clay that the DA had refused to hand over the paper documents.

“Did he say that on the record?” asked the judge.

Apparently the DA hadn’t said it on the record. He simply hadn’t handed the papers over.

“The record is silent,” said the judge at last.

Then another of the defense attorneys spoke up and told the judge that in an out-of-court conversation Hing had refused to provide the “paper” documents. Of course that refusal wasn’t on any record. It was a phone conversation.

According to a court order made by a previous judge back in September, half of the defendants had been ruled “indigent” and therefore they were to receive their documents at the DA’s expense. Hing said that was an “unlawful” court order, but rather than hassle about it, he’d prepared the documents and had them ready in his office. The defense could pick them up today, after this session.

“These motions were made September 5th,” a defense attorney objected. “That was 6 months ago. We’re losing the ability to investigate the case.”

The defense attorney explained that witnesses who could’ve been interviewed back then might now be gone. She added that the 6th Amendment guaranteed the right to a speedy trial and the timely handing over of documents was part of that.

The judge rejected the motion.

But at least the defense will now have the discovery documents they requested. No, not quite yet.

At this point another defense attorney asked for a certain CD, something called “Tape # 5.”

Hing told him the CD seemed to be blank, or at least he couldn’t get it to function in a way that he could read it. “Maybe somebody else can,” Hing said. “I can’t. I don’t know that much about computers.”

In the discussion that followed, it turned out that the malfunctioning CD wasn’t an original; it was a copy of something.

“Do you have the original?” the judge asked Hing. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” Hing replied.

The courtroom audience laughed. This exchange seemed to be amusing everyone.

After some more discussion, Hing said, “I think I know where it might be.”

The judge told Hing to get the original.

So at the next session I suppose we’ll see if Deputy DA Stuart Hing has found the original. In the meantime, we can be getting ready for our return to the port on April 7th, 2004.


***********************
For an account of the five weeks of the 2003 Port Protest (April 7th to May 12th)
http://www.artwithoutcredentials.com/peacesign
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