Insult to Injury: 25 Oakland Dock protesters charged by OPD

25 anti-war protesters charged

Activist 'disappointed' by legal action in response to April 7 rally
Harry Harris and Laura Counts - STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - OAKLAND -- Twenty-five people arrested during the
April 7 anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland -- including a longshoremen
union leader -- were charged Monday with a total of 63 misdemeanor counts
ranging from interfering with a business to failure to disperse.

Deputy Alameda County District Attorney Paris Coleman filed the charges
after reviewing hundreds of pages of documents, and watching and listening
to video and audio tapes. Other prosecutors also reviewed the evidence.

June Breshears of San Francisco's Global Exchange said Monday that she had
not heard about the decision to press charges, but added she is
"disappointed." Breshears said she was the second person arrested that day,
before the violence began, and she never heard any orders to disperse.

"After the way the police behaved that day, being so violent toward people
who were just expressing their speech rights, it's disappointing that they
are going to use public funds to (prosecute)," she said. "This is just going
to bring more attention to the conduct of the police that day, and going to
trial will just be another opportunity to do that."

A 17-year-old girl arrested at the protest had been charged earlier with
failure to disperse. Of the 33 people arrested during the protest, seven
were not charged.

Dozens of people, including nine longshoremen, were injured April 7 when
police fired lead-shot-filled bean bags, wooden dowels and "stinger
grenades" spewing rubber bullets at crowds blocking the gates to two
shippers with Iraq war-related government contracts.

Police have said they fired in response to protesters who threw rocks and
other objects at them, but none of those charged are accused of that.

One of those charged Monday is among the 31 people who have filed claims
against the city saying they were injured April 7. Lindsay Parkinson, 23,
said she was struck by a police motorcycle driving back protesters and
sustained "severe" injuries. Parkinson said she was unlawfully arrested.

Police said they have television video and eyewitness statements showing
people throwing objects at them, but they were unable to detain any of those
people.

Coleman said "the facts of this case and the circumstances surrounding the
protest support the charges we filed. Really, the bottom line is (the
protesters) went there to interfere with the business of the port and that
is what they did.

"There are many people in many walks of life who may have disagreed with the
war," Coleman said. "There are a lot of other ways of civil disobedience
that don't violate the law."

Coleman said he realizes some people might be upset with the decision to
file charges.

But, he said, "You have to look at the facts presented to you and see if
they support filing a criminal case. And obviously, we felt they did."

When asked why it took so long to file the charges, Coleman cited as one
reason the large volume of documents and tapes that had to be reviewed.

"We wanted to be thorough, we wanted to be fair and there was a lot to
review," he said.

Breshears was one of 24 charged with interfering with a business by
obstructing or intimidating people attempting to carry out business, or
their customers.

Fifteen of the 25, including Breshears, also were charged with disturbing
the peace and failure to disperse.

Jack Heyman, 59, the elected weekend business agent for the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10, was charged with failure to comply
with the order of a police officer and resisting or obstructing a police
officer. Police said he was arrested after he refused to move his car as
ordered.

Heyman's attorney, Ted Cassman, said his client is innocent, and blasted the
district attorney for pursuing charges.

"I think it's a cynical pre-emptive strike by the local authorities to
shield themselves from a soon-to-be-pending class-action lawsuit on behalf
of my client," he said.

Three of the 25 also were charged with resisting or obstructing police and
two, besides Heyman, were charged with failure to comply with police orders.

Those charged Monday ranged in age from 19 to 64. Most are from Oakland and
Berkeley, and others listed Alameda, Emeryville, Danville, Chico, Santa
Rosa, San Rafael, Santa Cruz and Grass Valley as their homes, authorities
said.

Prosecutors said the defendants would be notified by mail and through their
attorneys. They will each be given a court date in the next few weeks, and
prosecutors said they will be arraigned in small groups rather than all at
once.

Each can request a jury trial.

Lt. Howard Jordan, one of the police commanders at the scene April 7, said,
"I think it's a good thing that they did (file charges). It vindicates our
deployment and shows that we did things the way they should have been done.
These folks were out there bent on causing problems. The ones that didn't,
we arrested in a manner that was consistent with the law."

The Police Department is conducting a review of events that day, and the
city has convened a five-member independent panel to conduct its own
investigation of the police response to protesters. The Oakland protest was
the only anti-war demonstration in the country where police used "less than
lethal" ammunition to disperse crowds.