Posters

[Guest guest]

Steering Committee <info wrote:

 

Steering Committee <info

Brutalized & Arrested in Cleveland for Posting " Bush Step Down "

 

Posters

 

Fri, 3 Feb 2006 14:27:27 -0500 (EST)

 

 

 

 

Your Organizer, Steering Committee, sent the following message

to the members of The Broward County Impeach Bush Meetup Group:

 

The following is a first-hand account of police harrassment and

brutality against a World Can't Wait organizer in Cleveland.

 

If anything like this happens to you, let us know asap!

Contact info.

 

My name is Carol Fisher, and I am on the staff of Revolution

Books in Cleveland OH. At the bookstore we have been immersed

in building and supporting the initiatives of World Cant Wait.

Yesterday, 1.28.06 I had set out from my house to post

materials about our upcoming Cleveland event to Drown Out the

State of the Union address, and the call to march around the

White House on Feb. 4th.

 

I drove down a street in Cleveland Heights, another area known

for its diversity and progressive history. Before long a cop

called from across the street: " Ma'am! Hundred dollar fine

unless you take those posters down. " He is pursuing me across

the street. Damn! OK fine, I say, I will take them down (not

wanting to get into a confrontation, because I have lots to do

today!) But this too is not enough for the cop. He wants my ID.

I say I dont have my ID. He grabs my arm. I say let go of me, I

am not doing anything wrong, I will take the posters down.

People are watching to see what happens, are outraged but very

afraid. The cop wont let go, he clearly wants more grief from

me, and he is in the spotlight. He wants people to be scared.

He pushes me against a store window and next thing I know I am

face down on the sidewalk with two cops on top of me, one with

his knee in my back. I am trying to call out to people, to tell

them what the posters are about. They keep pushing my face into

the sidewalk. I cant breathe.

 

I am 53 years old, not exactly a spring chicken. A hand comes

down again to push my chin against the concrete. By this time

there are four cops on the scene. My hands are tightly cuffed

behind my back. They lift me up and shove me onto a parkbench

and shackle my legs. I am still calling out, telling people

what this is about. One of the cops says to me, " Shut up or I

will kill you! " , " I am sick of this anti-Bush shit! " " You are

definitely going to the psyche ward. " Then somebody calls the

EMS, and a fire squad shows up.

 

I am lifted into the EMS truck, hands still cuffed behind my

back. At the hospital, I am treated as an arch-criminal.

Escorted by four policemen, I shuffle into the emergency room,

legs still shackled, covered with leaves and mud. I think to

myself, if I was Black, I would not have made it this far. I

would probably be dead by now. People in the emergency room are

shocked by the scene and by what I am saying happened. I

probably do look pretty crazy by now.

 

They put me on a gurney and pull the curtains around. One

female nurse and four male cops. I am cuffed to the bed.

 

After many hours a psychiatrist appears to determine my sanity.

I dont want to talk to him, but have no choice.

 

I dont know it at the time, but outside in the waiting room all

hell had broken loose. In a very short period of time, over a

dozen WCW people showed up at the emergency room to demand that

someone be allowed to see me.

 

At one point, there was a big confrontation between the WCW

people and the police, right in the ER. My supporters said that

we weren't going to leave until someone saw me. Some of them

were sitting in the waiting room holding the big green WCW

posters.

 

The police threatened WCW folks with arrest! They argued, stood

their ground, called this shameful (both to the police but also

to the nurses who did nothing to stand against this shit). The

cops kept saying that there was no legal right to see me, but

people responded that, in Bush's America, the law is whatever

the police say it is and that there is a moral and ethical

right to to check on someone who is in the hospital.

 

I was released on my own recognizance. The battle is far from

over. This is but one example of the attempts that the state,

their authorities and spokespeople will make to try to keep us

from opposing the crimes of this regime, and especially now, 2

days before the State of the Union address. Our cause is as

righteous as it gets, and no attempts to intimidate or

suppress, with threats or laws or physical abuse, should stop

us but instead strengthen the resolve, build our organization

and further demonstrate to the world that this regime is

doomed, they are vicious, and they must be stopped.

 

 

As it says in the Call, " If we speak the turh, they will try to

silence us. If we act, they will try to stop us. But we speak

for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this

going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so

badly fooled by Sush and we are NOT going to stop...The future

is unwritten. Which one we get is up to us. "

 

Call the Cleveland Heights Police at 216-291-3883

 

Call Cleveland Heights City Hall at 216-291-4444

 

Please contact us at cleveland or 216-633-6200

 

 

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