Peace mom, three others held overnight after protest bust

[Guest guest]

" Arlene Montemarano " <mikarl

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 12:29:59 -0500

WHY WAS CINDY SHEEHAN ARRESTED?

 

 

 

Village Voice

 

Peace mom, three others held overnight after protest bust

by Sarah Ferguson

 

March 7th, 2006 11:36 AM

 

 

A lawyer for Cindy Sheehan and three other protesters busted Monday

outside the U.S. Mission to the United Nations says they were roughed

up during the arrests and then held overnight. They were finally

released from jail late Tuesday morning.

 

" It's an absolute disgrace that they weren't given desk appearance

tickets, " said defense attorney Robert Gottlieb, who complained they

were held for some 21 hours.

 

Sheehan, whose son, Casey, was killed in a battle with Shia insurgents

in April 2004, and Missy Beattie, whose nephew, Marine Lance Corporal

Chase Comley, was killed by a suicide car-bomber a year later, were

arrested with two members of the anti-war group Code Pink at around 2

p.m. on Monday after they refused to leave the plaza of the midtown

office building where the U.S. Mission is housed.

 

They had marched there with a group of Iraqi women to present the U.S.

Mission with a petition demanding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

 

Sheehan and the three activists were charged with criminal trespass

and resisting arrest, a misdemeanor. Gottlieb accused the NYPD of

further penalizing the women by putting them through Central Booking

rather than releasing them from the precinct where they were initially

held.

 

" It's been a new policy to hold people for resisting arrest, " said

Gottlieb, who accused police of adding the charge after the fact.

" They were definitely singled out. "

 

Detective Joseph Cavitolo, a spokesperson for the NYPD, said the women

were charged with resisting arrest because they had locked arms and

did not go willingly. He said Sheehan and Code Pink co-founder Medea

Benjamin did not qualify for desk-appearance tickets because they are

out-of-state residents, and added, " There may have been other factors

as to why they were held. "

 

Gottlieb said Sheehan injured her arm during the arrest and requested

medical attention at the precinct, though he did not know how serious

the injury was.

 

Photos shot by AP show her screaming as a police officer pulls her up

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0306-09.htm

by the arm and later looking rather uncomfortable inside a paddy wagon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601241.\

html

 

Reverend Patricia Ackerman, a Code Pink member from Nyack, also

reportedly suffered a wrenched arm and bruises.

 

A central question remains: Why were there any arrests at all?

 

State Department official said they offered to meet with the women as

they marched into the plaza and accused Sheehan and the others of

orchestrating their busts as a media stunt.

 

" When the group showed up, we told them an individual or small group

of individuals could come up, " says Richard Grenell a spokesperson for

the U.S. Mission. " But they chose not to do that. They wanted a media

event downstairs for the cameras. "

 

Organizers insisted the arrests were never planned, and that they made

a stand only after the US Mission refused to accept their " Women's

Call for Peace " petition.

 

" We already had tons of media, " said Andrea Buffa of Global Exchange,

an activist group that works closely with Code Pink.

 

" We didn't need the arrests. All we were trying to do was to get them

to accept this petition, and they wouldn't take it, " adds Buffa, who

maintains they spoke to someone at the U.S. Mission to notify them of

their plans just before the march set off.

 

" People are frustrated that their government is not listening, " Buffa

explained, when asked why Sheehan and the others chose to be arrested

rather than simply walk away. " George Bush won't meet with Cindy

Sheehan, the US State Department won't let Iraqi women from our

delegation whose husbands and children were killed by US forces into

the country, and now they won't even accept our petition. "

 

Earlier in the day, Code Pink activists and a group of Iraqi women had

sought to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and members of

the Security Council to discuss their demands for the withdrawal of

U.S. troops and an international peacekeeping force to prevent civil

war in Iraq.

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to meet with

delegations of Iraqi and Afghan women in Washington on Wednesday,

International Women's Day, to honor their political achievements.

 

But activists say Rice won't meet with the delegation of Iraqi women

who are touring the U.S. as part of Code Pink's " Women Say No to War "

campaign.

 

" They don't want to hear from the Iraqis who are against the war, even

though they are the majority opinion, " says Buffa.

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More by Sarah Ferguson

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http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0610,ferguson,72424,2.html

 

Critical Impasse

With arrests growing and two cops hurt, Critical Mass gets messy

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0608,ferguson,72239,2.html

 

How a Few Idiots Outfoxed the NYPD

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... Peace mom, three others still in jail after protest bust

Village Voice - New York,NY,USA

A lawyer for Cindy Sheehan and three other protesters busted Monday

busted outside the US Mission to the United Nations says they were

roughed up during the ...

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0610,ferguson,72438,2.html