News crew crashes Denver's DNC 'concentration camp'
Stephen C. Webster
Published: Friday August 15, 2008
UPDATE: RAW STORY has obtained a letter from ACLU Colorado, sent to the Denver Police Department regarding the protest detention facility. Read it here.
During the 2004 Republican Nation Convention in New York City, over 1,700 protesters were taken into police custody in one of the most sweeping mass-arrests in US history. Many were held in Manhattan's Pier 57, inside a warehouse which was contaminated with lead and asbestos. Some were held for days, and without proper access to food, water, outside communication or legal counsel.
In Denver, police are preparing what a local political organizer calls a 'concentration camp,' laying in wait for mass arrests anticipated during the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
On Wednesday, a Denver CBS affiliate sent a news crew to crash the police department's improvised detention facility, found in a warehouse owned by the city on the north-east side of town.
"This is a building filled with metal holding cells," described reporter Rick Sallinger, introducing the segment. "We showed up at the facility unannounced today, the doors were wide open, and we managed to shoot for several minutes until a Denver sheriff's captain asked us to leave."
Footage of the warehouse revels tall, chain-link fence capped by barbed wire, and segmented pens each bearing an identifying letter at about shoulder height.
The news crew was not invited, nor welcome. Cpt. Frank Gale of the Denver Sheriff's Department called the facility "a secured area," and worried that information related to the site would be used "by people who are potentially trying to be disruptive."
"Each of these fenced in areas is about five yards by five yards," said Sallinger. "There's a lock on the door. How long those arrested will be kept here is not known. A sign on the wall reads, 'Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.'"
"If 300 people are taken to Denver’s temporary detention facility within a short time frame, processing those persons at the rate of 30 to 50 per hour would take at least 6 to 10 hours," notes a letter from ACLU Colorado, sent to the Denver Police Department. "During the Republican National Convention in New York City in 2004, nearly 1,100 people were arrested in a four-hour period. If a similar situation occurred in Denver, it would take at least 22 to 36 hours to process those persons."
Area activists are not amused at the news. CBS carried its footage of the newfound jail to Adam Jung, with Tent State University, and Zoe Williams, a Code Pink organizer.
"Very reminiscent of a political prisoner camp, or a concentration camp," said Williams.
"I mean, that's how you treat cattle," added Jung. "... It's a meat processing plant."
The detention site was supposed to be a secret, said Sallinger.
"At the temporary facility, Denver will of course also be required to provide for detainees’ basic human needs, such as adequate food and drinking water; access to toilets and facilities for washing; and access to medical care if necessary," the ACLU insisted. "Detainees must also be allowed the opportunity for bodily movement, including release from handcuffs or flexicuffs.
"Denver must establish a system to ensure that detainees are assured of access to medically necessary prescription medications they may be taking. Some arrestees will need prescription medications that are in the possession of family members who were not arrested. Denver will have to arrange a system to receive the medications from family members and then deliver them to the appropriate prisoner. Failure to deliver appropriate and necessary medications could result in serious deterioration and damage to a detainee’s health."
A call by RAW STORY to the Denver Sheriff's Department seeking information on this facility was not immediately returned.
"This facility will not be used for long-term detention," stated a Denver police department letter to area residents. "Arrestees who are processed at this facility will be there for no more than the few hours it requires for processing. Water, bathrooms, medical staff and phones will be available to them. The facility will be fully staffed to ensure its safe and secure operation."
ACLU Colorado is currently pressing the police department for further information.
The following video was aired by Denver's CBS 4 News on August 13, 2008.
An earlier version of this story placed Pier 57, where protesters were held during the 2004 RNC, on Staten Island.
Bush protesters get $50,000 state settlement
Associated Press
Published: Saturday August 16, 2008
DES MOINES, Iowa - State records show that a $50,000 judgment has been awarded to two retired school teachers who were strip-searched during a 2004 campaign stop by President Bush.
The State Appeal Board recently approved the out-of-court settlement for Alice McCabe and Christine Nelson.
They brought a claim against the Iowa Department of Public Safety after two state troopers arrested them at a rally in Cedar Rapids in September 2004. The charges were later dropped.
In June, a federal jury awarded the women $750,000 on their claim that their constitutional rights were violated.
Authorities have said the women were arrested because they refused to obey reasonable security restrictions at the rally, but the women claimed they were taken into custody because they had a dissenting opinion from the Bush administration. McCabe and Nelson argued successfully that their constitutional rights to free speech, assembly and freedom from unreasonable arrest and search were violated during the 2004 incident.
The settlement payout was included in a State Appeal Board preliminary report that detailed more than $9.1 million in settlements and judgments the panel approved during fiscal 2008.
ACLU and Impeach for Peace File Complaint in District Court Regarding Public Viewing Area
For Immediate Release
August 11, 2008
St. Paul - ALCU attorneys representing Impeach for Peace and a group of individuals including Coleen and Ross Rowley have filed a complaint against the city of St. Paul in District Court regarding infringement of their clients' rights to demonstrate during the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Impeach for Peace, a non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to holding elected officials accountable to the rule of law, state in their complaint that The City of St. Paul, Mayor Chris Coleman, St. Paul Police Chief John M. Harrington, and Assistant St. Paul Police Chief Matthew D. Bostrom have designated an inadequate and unacceptably small area with sight and sound access to Xcel Center as a designated protest zone. The City has failed to provide details about whether and to what extent that view will be obstructed by fencing, delegate buses and media tents; and whether the area will be a three-sided pen that will severely limit egress and ingress. In addition, the City has adopted Guidelines regulating speech that are subject to last-minute changes as the City deems fit. The Guidelines also do not explain what rights groups and individuals have to demonstrate, hold signs, or distribute literature in other areas in proximity to XCel Center. The lawsuit seeks additional space in proximity to Xcel Center and other relief to protect the right to free speech.
"The City hasn't even amended the Guidelines, as promised, to explain what the "Primary Event Area" is in which most speech activities will be relegated to their ‘Freedom Cage'," Chuck Samuelson, Executive Director of the ACLU-MN stated. "Although the City may pat itself on the back for its forthright willingness to provide such a venue during the entire run of the Convention, we remain concerned about the complete lack of specific information which would allow our clients to plan their peaceful events in a manner that is not unduly restricted by the logistics of the orderly staging of the Convention."
The complaint focuses on the narrow public use area near the Xcel Center, which has been designated for ordinary citizens and groups to exercise their rights to free speech, assembly and petition during the Convention. Given the expected numbers of people wishing to exercise their rights, the likelihood that there may be a divergence of views, beliefs and messages, and the vagueness, arbitrariness, and uncertainty surrounding the details about speech activities in the "Primary Event Area" raises cause for concern. Those details have been a moving target. On December 10, 2007, Defendant Bostrom, appearing before the "Preparedness for Terrorism and Disasters Work Group" of the Minnesota Legislature, stated that he did not want to put protesters into a penned-in area, and testified that he did not intend to put protesters into a specific "footprint." He further testified that "there's going to be a lot of areas where you're going to be able to walk in and around the Xcel Energy Center" during the Convention. On February 28, 2008, a St. Paul Pioneer Press article quoted Defendant Bostrom as stating that protestors were going to be confined to a set area, characterized in the article as a "free speech zone." Just last week, the City revoked permits granted last March for Hamm's Plaza, stating that the area would be inaccessible during the convention.
"Federal authority and local government units at this year's Conventions as well as the past half- dozen Conventions have systematically restricted the release of information in a manner that could be construed as violating First Amendment rights of citizens who wish to make political statements at these venues," Samuelson noted.
View the RNC Signed Complaint and the RNC Brief.
Marching Toward the Republican National Convention
July 17th, 2008
After months of negotiations and legal wrangling, Federal District Judge Joan Ericksen issued a disappointing decision in the suit between the City of St. Paul and the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War. At issue was the Coalition’s request for a preliminary injunction regarding the proposed march route, time and duration. The ACLU-MN and the National Lawyers Guild argued the City’s proposal, dubbed a “recipe for disaster” by the City’s own police union head, violated the Coalition’s First Amendment rights. Despite a traffic engineer’s analysis that concluded that the City’s proposal could accommodate, at best, 28,000 of the expected 50,000 plus crowd, the Court accepted the City’s broad, generalized security concerns at face value and refused to order any changes to their proposal.
In this day and age, we all understand that security is a significant concern surrounding events such as a national political nominating convention. But the Constitution requires government restrictions on speech to be narrowly tailored to serve those interests. Judge Ericksen seemed to understand that when she opined that
[s]ecurity measures that were used - and upheld - for one large gathering do not thereby become the baseline for all future large gatherings. Were it otherwise, a sort of ’security creep’ would come, by increments, to overwhelm the First Amendment.
Unfortunately, the Judge failed to heed her own warning and went on to cite speech restrictions in place at past political conventions to justify her acceptance of the City’s proposal. There was little or no analysis as to whether the restrictions were actually calculated to meet risks or, as we argued, the City had given logistical issues such as parking for busses precedence over protections for free speech. Had the City done its logistical planning around the requested march route, they could have accommodated both.
The most disappointing part of the court’s decision was the complete failure to ensure that the City’s proposed march route will be safe for the marchers. While the Court seemed to be concerned that the City-imposed march duration would not accommodate the numbers of marchers that the Coalition is expecting, the decision failed to meaningfully address the issue. Instead, the Court left it to the City to make good on representations they made to the court about their willingness to make changes to the duration of the march.
We are still reviewing our legal options and will be deciding on our next steps in the days to come.
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