6 arrested during BayWalk protest (St Petersburg, FL)

[soup]

Demonstrators from the group St. Pete for Peace tried to block a prisoner transport van, authorities say.

By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 7, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Police arrested six antiwar protesters Saturday night outside BayWalk, including several who stood arm-in-arm to block a prisoner transport van from leaving, chanting "let them go" and "shame on you."

Three of the arrested are juveniles, including a 13-year-old boy whose arrest about 8:30 p.m. sparked the confrontation, officials said.

The protesters were from the group St. Pete for Peace, which has gathered at the downtown entertainment hub Saturday nights to demonstrate against the war in Iraq.<

> Saturday night began as it had in the past. Protesters held signs critical of the war and President Bush, and that extolled the virtues of free speech. Between 30 and 50 people joined the demonstration.

Things turned more contentious about 8:30 p.m. when police arrested the 13-year-old on a charge of obstructing a city sidewalk. Then Michael O'Neil, 33, was arrested after police said he trespassed on BayWalk property.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/07/Southpinellas/6_arrested_during_Bay.shtml

http://stpeteforpeace.org

background from the Florida forum:

Privatizing the sidewalks to stifle dissent – please help!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=145&topic_id=5010

Baywalk update
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=145&topic_id=4904

St Pete for Peace needs YOUR help
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=145&topic_id=4890

Help Stop City Council from shutting down St. Pete weekly peace vigil!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=145&topic_id=1000

edit to add one more link.

[graywarrior]

1. I listened to WMNF the other day. They were discussing

Baywalk protesters and a call-in said he had witnessed altercations between "intimidating" protesters and customers using Baywalk. I knew this would happen. It's been heating up for awhile.

[soup]

4. Get this-

from the article:
>At least one visitor was not amused. "I'm here to have a good time, and these people ruin it," said Shawn Gertsch, 37. "If they want to protest they should go to City Hall. These people seem to have forgotten 9/11."<


Yeah, that's it. We've all forgotten 9/11. - More like we're informed enough to know Iraq didn't attack us on 9/11. What a Dipstick (and that's putting it politely).

[recoveringrepublican]

8. agh, I hate when they tell me that

I just remind them that there are people in Iraq who would like to have a good time also. There are soldiers in Iraq who would love to be the privileged youth at baywalk, but there time is spent trying to survive a war all based on a lie.

www.stpeteforpeace.org

[soup]

12. You make a really good spokesperson

and handle yourself very well. What a great response.

Afraid I'm not that calm or logical.

-

Do you think Sembler/ the city are Trying to make things happen so they can say, "See what a menace these people are? How disruptive?" and get you shut down? That's what this 'putting up barricades for the safety of all' sounds like to me. Utter B.S.

[recoveringrepublican]

20. lol, I wish I was a calm as I am when I have time to write my thoughts out

Usually I am pretty calm, but sometimes the anger when talking to someone so selfish/brainwashed just can't be controlled. Last night I was too pissed and completely lost it. I use to be one of those "the cops are just doing their jobs" type people, but after last night I have zero respect for any local cops. I resorted to calling them Nazis and Fascists. Not one of my most stellar moments.

There are some members of this group that just blow my mind in regards to remaining calm in front of outright stupidity/hatred.

Not sure if you live nearby, but if you are able to make it let me know and I'll tell you how to recognize me and introduce you the organizers and core members of the group. They are by far the most amazing, informed, selfless group of people I have had the pleasure of knowing.

www.stpeteforpeace.org
www.stpetefnb.org

[graywarrior]

21. Yes, I heard similar remarks on MNF.

[Cha]

2. They think they're shutting us

down but it just makes us madder.

Censorship always has the opposite effect.

[recoveringrepublican]

3. Was there, thank you for posting this

I guess I will plead once more for people to come out. The way they have the barricades set up it's impossible to walk on the sidewalk without either going onto Sembler property or walking in the road. The 13-year-old mentioned in the article was also kneed in the back by a police officer...this young man was handcuffed and standing peacefully while this occurred. There were other young teens there threatened with pepper spray.

The police are only there to cause us problems. There are pedestrians walking in the streets (because of the barricades that are said to be there to keep people FROM walking in the streets....such bullshit), but the police do nothing about this, however if one of us get just a little too close to Sembler property they are all over us.

I was also assaulted twice last night with the barricades (once by Sembler himself), right in front of 3 police officers and nothing was done. One man came by while I was leaning on the end of the barricade and he said something like "move you stupid bitch" and yanked the barricade from under me and then tried to push in back into me. Later Sembler came out and I guess he decided he didn't like where the barricade was. I was standing not more than 6 inches when he pulled it violently toward me, I barely had time to move out of the way. This all happened in front of police officers. Now if I had moved that barricade I would have been arrested.

Please come out, bring drums, whistles, tambourines, megaphones, your energy. We have lots, but need many many more. I had the chance to have a discussion with 4 young soldiers who had gone to Iraq...conversation was very civil, and the interaction was priceless. The police presence just grows, and with the exception of two of them, the cops are just salivating to get us for anything. Our tax dollars are now being used to support fascism outright, they are not even trying to hide it anymore.

www.stpeteforpeace.org

[soup]

5. Wondered about you

and the other DUers who have posted about the Saturday night protests. Just saw the article and the bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I was trying to figure out how to scrape enough out of the bottom of the piggy bank for bail if help was needed.

They're really pushing aren't they? Glad to hear you're relatively unscathed. Any word on the release of those arrested?

[recoveringrepublican]

7. From what I'm hearing

there is already something in the works to help raise funds for their bail. The teens were released at 1am, the adults at 5am.

I really have to give these teens so much credit. The are just amazing people and I hope my children grow up to be like them. They will not back down, and have more bravery than many of our adult members (would you believe one of the adults dragged one of them back to the sidewalk?!). They bring so much energy to the protest.

There was a press conference at 11am, and for some strange reason a St. Pete Times reporter contacted me (now I show up, lol, but that's about it, I don't organize or lead anything).

I thought this was in the Florida Section! Agh, will repost the link there.


www.stpeteforpeace.org Check it out.

[nosmokes]

6. are y'all videoing the protests & the cops?

could come in handy later. but make sure you have at least 2 cams so one can cover the other if the cops go after the videographer.

[recoveringrepublican]

9. Yes many of our member brought video cameras

In fact the police confiscated Mike's (one of the members who was arrested)

After being assaulted myself I am going to try to find the charger to mine.

www.stpeteforpeace.org

[La Femme]

10. Camera

Why would they confiscate a video camera unless there was some concern about what was on it?

[recoveringrepublican]

11. I really have no clue, but Mike has been taping

everything these last couple of weeks. Will find out if he ever got it back later.

www.stpeteforpeace.org

[nosmokes]

13. sounds like y'all need a legal fund or the like?

confiscating personal property and arresting people for being on the sidewalk. ACLU? good luck to y'all!

[SouthernDem2004]

18. Did they confiscate it or just take it when he was arrested?

[recoveringrepublican]

22. The word I'm hearing is confiscate. Will know more tomorrow. nt

[daleo]

17. You're a brave bunch, all of you. n/t

[yurbud]

14. AWESOME: war protestors surround police van holding arrested 14 year old

This is the kind of shit we need to be doing--not just showing up, but civil disobedience, and getting enough people arrested to jam up the gears of the system.

Anti-War Arrests

A 14-year-old anti-war protester was arrested Saturday night for obstructing the sidewalk at Baywalk. But St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffit says once they put that boy in the transport van - others from the anti-war crowd "St. Pete for Peace" gathered around, linked arms around the van, and wouldn't let it move. Several are now charged...

http://www.970wfla.com/fla_localstory.html?ID=20050807085632

Hillbilly Hitler art:



Blog:

[mbperrin]

15. Yep, if we don't use some of our speech now,

it's about to disappear. And action must accompany these words. Congrats to these activists for getting the word out!

[Dogmudgeon]

16. If only he was a fetus ...

--p!

[wli]

19. I've got good and bad news for you

These fascists have enough room to lock up everyone who shows up on the streets. You are not going to win direct confrontations like this.

The closed military bases and REX 84 concentration camps are huge, mostly empty (in the REX 84 case completely empty), and very ready and willing to accept anyone who offers himself up as a target this way. They've got the stormtroopers out and who knows where the riot gear or the weird new armored vehicles or the "cops" came from (Blackwater? Soldiers posing as cops? Has anyone even figured out how many there are or where they came from, or if the numbers add up?) but there are enough stormtroopers and enough weaponry to roll right over any crowd of peaceful protesters, no matter how large.

The demonstrations and marches of the 1960's aren't going to work, and will in fact set you up for a huge tragedy of mass mutilation, mass imprisonment, and probably even mass murder if enough people put themselves in harm's way. You need to do this in other ways, like boycotts and sick-outs and going on stay-at-home strikes. Hit them in the pocketbook, not by offering up your face to their nightsticks. And in fact, by not allowing the stormtroopers and massive stockpiles of weapons assembled to hurt their own people, that also hits them in the pocketbook, because then they're sitting on idle stormtroopers and huge piles of useless junk.

ON EDIT: Disseminating information exposing their crimes and corruption likewise hurts them more than millions of people holding up signs in the streets.

[recoveringrepublican]

23. Found out exactly what happened finally.

It's hard to explain how they have the barricades set up, but it makes it hard to know what is happening to protesters on the other end of the sidewalk.

Last week Baywalk was allowing us to walk around the barricades on their property as long as we didn't carry signs. The teen (his name is Joe btw) thought it would be the same thing, so he ventured to walk around the barricade and was arrested with no warning by police or security that he was no longer allowed on Baywalk property. Mike then rushed to defend him when they took his camera and arrested him. The rest of us realized what was going on and many of us went down to see what was happening. There was a group of peace activist unrelated to our group in the area for a Hiroshima memorial who were also down there. About 10 of our members (I had left before this happened) linked arms and started chanting. Then the Hiroshima group started pushing some of our members back to the sidewalk!!! WTF!? Here is the article today from St. Pete times. Ohh and Channel 10 had a headline like "ANGRY PROTESTERS CLASH WITH POLICE"....sigh,

http://www.stpetetimes.com/2005/08/08/Southpinellas/Despite_arrests__prot.shtml

ST. PETERSBURG - Despite the arrests of six anti-war protesters outside BayWalk, members of the group vowed Sunday to return next weekend.

"We've been doing this for 21/2 years," said Marianne Huber, whose husband, Chris Ernesto, was one of those arrested. "We're not going to let this stop us.

"We will be back every Saturday as a peaceful anti-war protest group."


"The only time I really felt scared was when they took out the pepper spray," said Likins, of St. Petersburg. "I didn't really feel empowered. I thought it was something I needed to do."

[soup]

24. Thank you for the update.

Just finished reading the article and was going to post it as a follow-up.

Your personal account is really appreciated - Sounds like they changed the 'rules' without letting anyone know and basically created the incident. It's much easier to banish 'disruptors' than it is peaceful, law-abiding protestors.

Question - The prisoner transport van? Is it normally right there waiting, or is this new? IF this is a new development, it would definitely add to the things that make ya go 'hmmmm'.

Love this quote about the barricades. Common Sense Solution? :
>> Council member James Bennett said a better solution would be to close one lane on Second Avenue N Friday and Saturday nights. That would create more room for the protesters and patrons to move around.

"People have the right to assemble and speak their minds," he said. "But also people have (the) right to come down and go to dinner.

"Let there be room to protest and let there be room to have commerce, go to the movies and go to dinner. They can all coexist."<<


Hope everyone is charging up the videocams/ phonecams for next weekend. Stay safe, stay strong, my heart and my gratitude are with you all.

[recoveringrepublican]

25. Yes that van is always there

which is why I find the charges of blocking traffic just amazing. That damn van sits in the left turning lane all Saturday night, every Saturday night. The members weren't blocking any traffic except that van.

We had plenty of cameras last time, but am trying to find my charger for this next week anyway.

Thanks for caring!