CovOps
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 |  Subject: Just like in other dictatorships: poLICE begin to cite protesters at their homes  Tue Sep 11, 2012 11:03 pm | |
| After making 11 arrests over two days last week, Capitol police are changing tactics in how they deal with protesters.
On Monday, police delivered several citations to the homes of protesters. Offenses included blocking access at the Capitol and hanging signs over railings.
Absent from the charges was improper displays, which were handed out to 11 protesters last week for carrying signs in the building.
Meanwhile, the crackdown continued to draw renewed energy to the movement spawned 18 months ago by opposition to Gov. Scott Walker’s agenda. More than 100 people took part in the daily Solidarity Sing Along in the Capitol rotunda on Tuesday, as Brandon Barwick, one of those receiving a citation on Monday, laid on his back in the middle of the singing circle.
Barwick, the primary conductor for the group since the recall election that failed to oust Walker in June, was apparently making the point that targeting the leader of the sing-along will not end it.
“The sing-along is anybody who comes to it,” he said before the noon event.
The sing-along has taken place nearly every weekday since Walker announced his intent to strip most public workers of nearly all collective bargaining rights in February 2011.
Barwick said he was walking through the Capitol on Monday evening when an officer informed him they tried to deliver a citation to his home, then issued it at the Capitol.
“He told me that’s what he was instructed to do by Chief (David) Erwin,” he said.
He said he finds the tactic “bizarre.”
“It made me uncomfortable,” he said.
Erwin recently announced his intention to bring order to the Capitol by strictly enforcing policies that require permits to be obtained by groups of four or more people. Critics see it as an assault on the free-speech rights of those protesting Walker's agenda.
Department of Administration spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said the ramped-up enforcement effort is just a way to make the Capitol safe and secure for all members of the public after numerous complaints about some protesters yelling at and stalking staffers, journalists and others.
She said the rules haven’t been enforced during the months since massive protests broke out early last year because the police hadn’t had the resources to deal with the crowds. Now that the number of protesters has dwindled, she said, “That isn’t the case anymore.”
Her comments mirror those of Erwin, who spoke to the Wisconsin Reporter earlier this week.
On Wednesday last week, police began citing people for carrying signs under an administrative rule that governs displays in the Capitol. That administrative rule, however, can’t be used for prosecuting people who are carrying signs, a Dane County judge said the very day that police began handing out the citations.
“We’ll have to see what the Capitol police do from here, if the citations change as a result of" the ruling, Marquis said on Monday.
That same day, police changed course and began citing protesters for other rule violations.
“They were just looking for something to cite me for,” said Barwick.
Lisa Wells said she and her partner, Jason Huberty, were each handed two citations at their home Monday, one for obstructing access and one for hanging a sign over a railing.
Madison attorney Patricia Hammel is representing several of those cited. She said all of her clients will argue that their constitutional rights have been infringed and that they plan to plead not guilty and take their citations to trial.
“This is overreach by the Capitol Police,” she said.
On Friday, the Solidarity Sing Along, which drew more than 150 participants, performed inside the Capitol as a protest against the crackdown. But officers didn’t take any action against them. Marquis said that was because they didn’t have the resources to deal with such a large group.
Marquis said last week’s crackdown began when a protester invaded a Red Cross blood drive, which took place from Tuesday through Thursday.
“During the week one of the individuals from the Red Cross had contacted Capitol Police and said they had protesters walking through their area and they were concerned because they were trying to take historical (medical) information,” Marquis said. “And then on Friday they actually got a complaint that one of the people who draws blood said she would not be coming back because she was called abusive names by the protesters.”
Those incidents are under investigation, Marquis said. I have requested the police reports relating to these incidents.
Marquis said such behavior justifies enforcement of the permit process, especially for the Solidarity Singers, who are “controlling access, especially during the noon hour.”
“If somebody else applies for a permit and gets it, they’re now essentially trespassing or impeding their First Amendment rights to be there and hold their event at the Capitol.”
According to Barwick, the singers held their event outdoors in deference to the Red Cross blood drive. It’s the group’s longstanding practice to bow out when other groups hold permitted events.
Marquis said that because the protesters causing problems in the Capitol commonly take part in the sing-along, they are part of the group, and thus need to obtain a permit.
“Some of the regular protesters were up there in the Red Cross area,” she said. “So if they always bow out, why were they in the Red Cross area.”
Barwick said the Solidarity Sing Along is merely a movement to protest through song, and that it has nothing to do with misbehavior by protesters in the Capitol.
“If somebody did that, that’s really sad,” he said of reports of harassment of Red Cross workers. “I hope that individual reconsiders that type of behavior.”
State Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, who has been critical of the police crackdown, said the new tactics were “bordering on the ludicrous.”
“They’re on a fishing expedition to look at some other code provisions,” she said.
For instance, the rule police are using to prosecute banners over the railings authorizes the Department of Administration to remove: “Any equipment, apparatus or machines which fail to comply with the state administrative code and local fire code, unless exempted. All equipment shall be approved by the department prior to delivery and installation.”
“I think they’re really stretching now to look for a reason to do what they’re doing,” Taylor said.
She also criticized the delivery of citations to people’s homes, and in one case, a man’s workplace.
“Today they went to a guy’s place of work and talked to his supervisor and issued a citation there,” she said.
"Now they’re not citing people as they engage in this conduct,” Taylor said. “They’re waiting several hours. So if the conduct is so unlawful and so egregious and creating such hazards, it’s very interesting they’re not citing the conduct as it happens.”
Last week, Taylor arranged a meeting with Erwin and Department of Administration Executive Assistant Gwendolyn Coomer, which she said ended with Coomer and Erwin walking out.
Marquis said the walkout was because of Taylor’s behavior.
“She was very unprofessional in the meeting,” Marquis said. “They were there to answer questions and she’s trying to make it political.”
Taylor disputes that account. She said she asked them to detail what conduct they were arresting people for.
“What they said was: ‘We’re going to make these determinations on a case-by-case basis. If people want to know they have to call the Capitol Police.’” She said. “And I said that’s not acceptable, that you need to let them know what conduct you’re going to arrest them for. They would not answer those questions. They said that’s why they were ending the meeting. But I will say on the way out Wendy Coomer called me rude and disrespectful.”
According to Marquis, Erwin is enforcing the rules to force protesters to apply for permits, which will allow him to staff for events accordingly. She said Erwin has made it clear that they’ll get a permit if they apply, as long as it doesn’t conflict with other events.
“But they don’t do it,” she said. “So it comes to a point where there needs to be enforcement related to that.”
http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/blog/crime-and-courts-police-change-tactics-begin-to-cite-protesters/article_0bd8194c-fc54-11e1-be45-0019bb2963f4.html
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