Police department breaks up protest against police brutality

It would appear that the irony of this situation was lost, as a protest in downtown Olympia against police
brutality ended in police violence.

The April 8 Olympia protest was held in solidarity with people up and down the west coast who held days of action on April 8 and 9 in Oakland, Portland, and Seattle. The days of action were called in response to an increase in police brutality in all these cities, including three murders of unarmed individuals by Portland police in little over two months and the multiple tasering of a woman in late-term pregnancy who refused to sign a traffic ticket.

Twenty-nine individuals were arrested on April 8 and, out of those, 26 were arrested on suspicion of riot but as of this date have not been charged. Calls to the Olympia Police Department for comment have been met with responses that it was the protesters who were violent, not the police. Public records requests, an important part of any article reporting on the police, have been delayed because of unreturned phone calls and what appears to be an intentional stalling of the records request process. Letters received from police claim that the requests will take another three weeks to process.

The march started a little after 8 pm at the corner of Harrison and Division. Participants were harassed by police even before the march started, when participants were ordered to leave the parking lot where they were “loitering.” The march proceeded down Harrison Avenue toward downtown Olympia. Demonstrators marched on the street and passed out literature about police brutality.

Police claim that their station near Garfield Elementary was vandalized by the group, but the march stayed on Harrison until they passed the roundabouts and it would have been very obvious if a marcher were to leave the march to tag the station. Similarly, several people interviewed said they did not know about any of the vandalism that occurred downtown until after their arrest. One person who was at the march reported hearing glass breaking but did not connect this to the march. Statements like these were repeated by many of those interviewed.

As protesters continued downtown, Tony Overman, a photographer for The Olympian, was surrounded by protesters after photographing one person tagging a sign. According to Overman, his phone was broken and his camera was damaged. Cmdr. Tor Bjornstad of the Olympia Police Department claims that Overman snapped a picture which was used to identify his assailant.The pictures on the website of The Olympian, however, do not show how the alleged perpetrator
could have been distinguished from any of the other masked participants.

As marchers reached the intersection of State Avenue and Adams Street, police appeared from all directions and ordered marchers onto the sidewalk. Demonstrators promptly complied. While they were moving towards the sidewalk, police fired at least four pepperballs into the group and beat protesters with their batons. One protester reported being terrified to find a police car bearing down on her very quickly while she had nowhere to run.

Multiple reports by witnesses indicate that police did not appear to care whether protesters were complying with orders and took the occasion to indiscriminantly employ physical force. According to one witness, pepperballs were fired at the crowd even while they were seated, three hitting the back of a person who was lying down.

After police broke up the protest, a group of 29 people were left sitting, some for over an hour, in the empty lot on the northeast corner of State and Adams which was surrounded by a nearly equal number of police.

One by one, pairs of police would wrench protesters from the group by grabbing their wrists in pain compliance holds, even though none resisted.

After being cuffed with plastic zipties and photographed, many with their masks on and off, arrestees were placed in a police van and taken to the Plum Street Jail. One protester was ziptied so tightly that his wrists bled, but police refused to loosen the ties. Protesters were not allowed to move while on the ground waiting to be arrested nor were they given any way to stay warm, despite temperatures that had steadily dropped to the mid-30s.

As the process continued, a crowd of witnesses and onlookers assembled around the block. Attempts by onlookers to get information from any of the few dozen officers on the scene were met by gruff, monosyllabic answers. One CxPJ reporter with visible credentials was threatened with arrest while attempting to get a statement from a police officer. Eventually, an officer told another CxPJ reporter that the protesters were being arrested for “glorified jaywalking,” which is a far stretch from riot.

After all the protesters were taken away, a group of supporters followed the police vans to the Olympia Jail on Plum Street to await their release. Supporters arrived to find the doors the handcuffed shut. The door also has yet to be charged but was unavailable for comment.

The supporters waited all night in near-freezing temperatures as it rained on and off. Though in the past it has been allowed, supporters were ordered to move away from shelter under an awning near the front door. Though it is public property, a police officer shouted at one supporter and claimed that he was “trespassing” and that he would be arrested if he did not immediately leave and go back into the rain. Throughout the night, supporters exchanged food and cigarettes while keeping up pressure on the police by regularly calling to ask about the condition of protesters.

Two people, Maggi Belknap and Paul French, were charged with felonies for alleged assault of police officers during the event. Exactly when this occurred was unclear. When Cmdr. Bjornstad was asked about this, he claimed the assault occurred while Belknap and French were being arrested. He did not know of any witnesses who were not police officers. Tessa Wyllie de Echevarria, who was present as a legal observer, states that she was standing on the side of the group closest to Belknap and certainly would have noticed any altercation.

Furthermore, none of the protesters contacted for comment regarding this witnessed anything which could be considered assault, especially in the manner reported in the Olympian, which claimed that officers were kicked and punched.

One protester noted that when people were always picked up from the group by pairs of police officers, and that any person who assaulted a police officer under those conditions would not have any hope of getting away.

Every time police were visible prior to the breakup of the march, protesters linked arms in an effort to keep police from fabricating charges like the ones they used against Belknap and French. While the police were surrounding the group, French had linked arms with two other protesters in the middle of the group, so he did not have the chance to assault police officers before being picked up from the ground. Belknap and French were transferred to Thurston County Jail, where they were held until their arraignment the following afternoon.

The protesters not charged with felonies were packed into overcrowded jail cells. Multiple protesters have confirmed that 13 female-bodied arrestees were jammed into one cell, 10 male-bodied individuals in another cell, and 4 male-bodied individuals confined in a room that was not even meant to be used as a cell. Police had confiscated any jackets or sweaters held by the protesters as they entered the jail and the rooms were cooled to roughly 60 degrees.

The police began releasing protesters around 2:00 am Friday morning, telling them they had been charged with “riot” (though as of printing they have not been officially charged). Protesters were released roughly every 20 minutes until the last person got out around noon on Friday. Police failed to provide food to anyone they were still holding after 6:00 am and did not provide access to a bathroom facility to any of the four people shoved in a cell without one.

Upon release, protesters were not given any paperwork regarding their charges. Protesters were given back some of what had been confiscated from them as they entered the jail. One person who arrived carrying $9 was given back an empty wallet. After refusing to leave without his money, officers said they would “check on it” and returned shortly thereafter with the $9 they previously claimed he never had.

Three cameras and one audio recorder were confiscated, even though this is illegal unless the items were used in a crime. Though the police did claim a crime occurred, there were no claims that the cameras or voice recorder were used to aid the alleged crime, making the seizures illegal. Police refused even to provide written proof that they had confiscated the material. At least one protester was threatened with rearrest if she continued to ask for written proof that her camera was in police custody.

After all protesters were released, a CxPJ reporter observed the three female-bodied protesters whose cameras were confiscated ask a police sergeant for written proof that police were holding their cameras. The officer again refused and said that he would not engage in “verbal judo” about the issue and that “his word” was good enough.

A letter to the Olympia Police Department from a lawyer representing the three protesters notes that the siezures were absolutely unsupported by law and that even if the police only wanted the pictures taken with the cameras, it would be illegal to develop them without their consent.

Since the alleged riot, one CxPJ correspondent has overheard conversations on campus claiming that police never act unprovoked and if the demonstrators had not been violent, the police would never have attacked them. When asked what she thought of coverage of the event in The Olympian and whether she thought she was getting the full story, one member of the campus community said “I don’t need the full story.” She was willing to trust what the police were claiming simply because it was printed in a newspaper.

Ironically, even Tony Overman, the photographer for the Olympian who claims he was assaulted, has experience which shows the police have no problem using force without any reason and will make any excuse to throw unarmed, innocent people to the ground.

During June 2008, Overman was beaten and falsely charged with assaulting a police officer. The officer based his assault charge on allegedly touching noses with Overman during a heated argument and used this nose-touch as an excuse to slam Overman to the ground. During the arrest, Overman’s right arm was injured in multiple places because a police officer alleged that he was “resisting,” even though no witnesses backed up the officer’s story. The charges were later dropped and, according to Overman, “common sense prevailed,” but it is incidents like this that should cause normal citizens to be wary when officers charge individuals with assault.

Just like the unarmed photographer who was arrested and charged with assaulting a cop when he had no reason to do so and no hope of winning, unarmed protesters were charged with assaulting police even though they would have to be insane to attempt this with so many officers around. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the protesters charged with serious crimes like assaulting police officers were not taken away first. In fact, Belknap was the very last to be taken away.

It is clear that an overwhelming amount of misconduct was exercised by OPD officers, who are charged with protecting and serving the very people whose rights they violated. Most of the charges leveled at the group of protesters were simply false and the slanted, poorly-researched news coverage of the event has damaged their reputations and their chances in court.