Pressure City of Berkeley to Settle Four Civil Rights Cases

(Pictured above: Attorney Larry Hildes and his assistant Karen Wilde, with
five of the Critical Mass defendants at one of their many court dates.
These activists are now suing the Berkeley Police Department).


PLEASE PRESSURE THE CITY OF BERKELEY TO SETTLE
FOUR "CRITICAL MASS" CASES IMMEDIATELY

The decade-long campaign by the Berkeley Police and other elements in the
City of Berkeley to interfere with bicycle demonstrations culminated in a
cluster of flash points during the years 2000-2001. For the first time
ever, activists elected to sue for these harmful attacks on free speech.

Although these four cases show clear wrongdoing by the Police Department,
which was corroborated repeatedly by the citizen-appointed Berkeley Police
Review Commission (PRC), the City Attorney's office is staunchly resisting
efforts to settle the cases and is proceeding with costly and time
consuming actions which will further harm the activists' lives and
increase the costs of the suits greatly for both the City and the victims.
These police abuses have already had some of their desired impact: a
chilling effect on nonviolent free speech activity in the City of
Berkeley. A number of activists have ceased to be involved for fear of
further harm. Please help end this ongoing repression.

While these four cases are strong, a great deal of time and energy is
required to take them to trial, and once in court, there is never a
guarantee of justice being served. As the oil war in Iraq looms, can we
afford to have activists tied down with blatant abuses which happened two
years ago?

We need everyone who cares about free speech in Berkeley to call, write,
and pressure the Mayor and City Council immediately to urge them to stop
the City's denying of the clear wrongdoing of the Berkeley Police
Department and to make amends by settling these four cases. More details
about the cases are below.

Please contact:

Mayor Tom Bates and City Council
2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA 94704
TEL: (510) 981-7100, FAX: (510) 981-7199, TDD: (510) 981-6903
Office Hours: Mon-Fri 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
Email: mayor [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us <mailto:mayor [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us>

You can email them all at once by cutting and pasting this line:

mayor [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us,wozniak [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us,
breland [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us, hogan [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us,
maio [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us, mhawley [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us,
olds [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us, shirek [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us,
spring [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us, worthington [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Or call them:

Linda Maio - Phone: (510) 981-7110
Margaret Breland - Phone: (510) 981-7120
Maudelle Shirek - Phone: (510) 981-7130
Dona Spring - Phone: (510) 981-7140
Miriam Hawley - phone: (510) 981-7150
Betty Olds - Phone: (510) 981-7160
Kriss Worthington - Phone: (510) 981-7170
Gordon Wozniak - Phone: (510) 981-7180
Mayor Tom Bates - Phone: (510) 981-7100

See below for their complete contact information including
addresses, fax and TDD numbers, taken from the City's website:

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Elected/default.htm


=========================
MORE ABOUT THE FOUR CASES
=========================

You may have heard of one or more of these four cases:

1) February 9, 2001: A demonstration in solidarity with the indigenous
peoples of Ecuador resisting the theft and destruction of their lands and
the inevitable ethnocide of their cultures by Big Oil. Berkeley Police
(BPD) confronted the small group of demonstrators with overwhelming
numbers, forcibly confiscated their sound equipment, bicycles with
trailers, and "the couch", as well as a long banner reading "Indigenous
Freedom" and the personal courier bag of bicycle organizer Jason Meggs
which contained his money, passport, tools, other affects, and 27 keys.
Police unleashed violence upon those who remained at the scene verbally
protesting both the confiscation of property and the disruption of the
demonstration. The PRC found unanimously that many instances of excessive
force were committed by the BPD who struck demonstrators with batons,
dragged one demonstrator, and violently executed false arrests. Much of
the confiscated property was either damaged or never returned, including
the personal effects in the courier bag. The couch was destroyed on the
spot by police and Public Works, over the distressed and shouted
objections of its caretaker, Jason Meggs. Meggs, a well-known organizer
of bicycle demonstrations, was repeatedly struck with batons and suffered
permanent injury requiring ongoing treatment. Police were caught at the
PRC in telling numerous untruths about their actions, which the facts and
especially the video evidence directly contradicted.

2) August 10 and July 13, 2001: The police presence at the monthly
Critical Mass bicycle demonstration in Berkeley became dramatically more
aggressive, culminating in horrifying violence. In July, large numbers of
police in cars, motorcycles and bicycles interfered with the ride. An
unmarked police SUV filmed riders, and the police personnel within the
vehicle refused to identify themselves. A number of harassment citations
were issued to selected individuals in a discriminatory manner: one to a
latina woman traveling with the group, and one to a young man who followed
the surveilance vehicle away from the ride in an effort to identify its
occupants. Next month, in August, this police mistreatment only
intensified. One motorcycle officer was especially problematic,
repeatedly speeding through the crowd and endangering them, then cutting
into the crowd and stopping suddenly to cause bicyclists to stop or
swerve. Police again targeted specific individuals, issuing one false
citation early on, and then deliberately targeting a young latino man
while ignoring others around him. Police charged through the group,
tackling the man and arresting him. One observer was slammed into a
restaurant window. Police unnecessarily caused chaos and confusion,
blaring sirens and pulling, shoving and pushing observers in order to flee
the peaceful crowd with the arrestee. One organizer was injured by
police, receiving a gash on his knee which left a permanent scar. One
bicycle trailer carrying a Public Announcement (PA) sound system was
damaged by police when they tore cables from it and attempted to overturn
it. Participants were traumatized and many of them became scared to
return to Critical Mass, and many have not. Later that evening, after
demonstrators went to the "Public Safety" building to protest the racist
false arrest, a friend of the arrestee was arrested in the center of
Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. He had done nothing to warrant a citation.

3) April 13, 2001: Sgt. Hester of the BPD mounted a hidden camera on his
handlebars for the purpose of following Critical Mass organizers and
recording their behavior. Jason Meggs and Ryan Salsbury, organizers who
bring the PA system to facilitate free speech, were the only two so
targeted. The were not informed at any time that their behavior was going
to be monitored and penalized. They were not asked to change their
behavior. They acted similarly to the rest of the hundred or so
demonstrators. Yet weeks later, Meggs and Salsbury received a number of
citations in the mail totaling thousands of dollars, including one
misdemeanor each. They were forced to hire an attorney. The PRC agreed
that this was blatant selective enforcement. This type of activity is
also explicitly illegal. Finally, it is a clear attack on the ability of
the organizers to participate in the expression of their free speech
rights. Imagine if police followed an organizer of a march throughout the
streets and then sent her or him jaywalking tickets in the mail for each
intersection the march crossed. That is essentially what happened here,
because Critical Mass is a march on wheels.

4) September 26, 2000: Berkeley Police directed Public Works to the site
of a bicycle with trailers involved in a "car-free month" demonstration.
The trailers held banners with the slogans, "Celebrate [Car-Free] Living"
and "Appreciate Bicycles". While University of California Police guarded
them, a large group of Public Works employees took a cutting torch to the
bicycle, destroying its hand-made steel trailer hitch (rather than simply
pulling the pin), cut through and destroyed the U-lock, and tore the
hand-made banners to shreds rather than simply cutting their grommet
leads. The workers bent and twisted over the banner poles rather than
pulling them out, and destroyed the main support struts of one trailer in
the process. Police said their excuse for attacking the trailers was
because of the demonstration against globalization which was to occur
later that evening (at which the trailers were to be used).

Demonstrators have already poured a great deal of time and resources into
exposing this abusive campaign. There is overwhelming evidence of police
misconduct. The City is liable, it's just a question of how much more of
the activists' and their public interest attorney's time and money will be
required, and how much more taxpayer dollars will be required, before the
cases settle or go to trial. It is obvious that delaying the resolution
of these cases is a tactic to further squelch free speech and both human
and civil rights in Berkeley. In light of the dark cloud of domestic
oppression which is forming, you are urgently requested to put an end to
this campaign -- conducted before the so-called Patriot Act! -- by using
your voice while you still can.

Other IMC stories and web sites which relate include:

Feb 9: http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/06/132885

S26: http://bclu.org/stories/abuse_reports/abuse-20000926.html
second account w/photos:
http://guest.xinet.com/rts/past_actions/s26/photos/trailersattacked.html


===

Again, please call, write, and pressure:

Mayor Tom Bates
2180 Milvia Street, Berkeley, CA 94704
TEL: (510) 981-7100, FAX: (510) 981-7199, TDD: (510) 981-6903
Office Hours: Mon-Fri 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Email: mayor [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us
<mailto:mayor [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us>

Linda Maio
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704
Phone: (510) 981-7110
Email: maio [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Margaret Breland
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704
Phone: (510) 981-7120
Email: breland [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Maudelle Shirek
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704

Phone: (510) 981-7130
Email: shirek [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Dona Spring
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704

Phone: (510) 981-7140
Email: spring [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Miriam Hawley
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street, Fifth Floor
Berkeley, CA 94704
phone: (510) 981-7150 fax: (510) 981-7155
e-mail mhawley [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Betty Olds
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704
Phone: (510) 981-7160
Email: olds [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Kriss Worthington
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704
Phone: (510) 981-7170
Email: worthington [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us

Gordon Wozniak
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia Street
Berkeley, California 94704
Phone: (510) 981-7180
Email: GWozniak [at] ci.berkeley.ca.us