3 linked to protests are arrested

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wed, Nov. 12, 2003

FREE TRADE SUMMIT
3 linked to protests are arrested
Miami-Dade police arrest three people connected to anti-FTAA groups, but say the arrests had nothing to do with planned protests.
By SUSANNAH A. NESMITH
[e-mail]

Miami-Dade police arrested three people Tuesday involved in organizing protests against next week's international free trade summit in downtown Miami.

Authorities said the arrests had nothing to do with the Free Trade Area of the Americas gathering, though the three were arrested two blocks from a warehouse protesters had rented to coordinate their demonstrations.

Kaitlyn Tikkun, 32, of Vermont, and Michael Pitula, 25, of Illinois, were charged with loitering and resisting arrest. Joshua Grimm, 23, of Pennsylvania, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon after, police said, they found a knife on him.

They were arrested by the county's anti-robbery detail, which was passing along Miami Avenue in Miami when they noticed Tikkun and Pitula walking down the street carrying backpacks. Both had tubing and wire in the backpacks and refused to say why, police said.

''These guys looked like they had just burglarized something,'' said Detective Juan DelCastillo, Miami-Dade police spokesman, noting that it was Veterans Day and many of the businesses in the area were closed. (snip/...)

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/7242618.htm

(Considering the Miami police record of brutality, shooting unarmed people, and planting guns, it's so unlikely ANY protestors would even consider tempting them to do what they do so well, and successfully!)

[screembloodymurder]

1. What?

"These guys looked like they had just burglarized something". So now we arrest people based on how they look.

[soup]

5. I did a double-take on that statement, too.

"These guys looked like they had just burglarized something".



Sorry, couldn't help myself. Yes, I know it's not funny. But sometimes things just go beyond the absurd.

Also questionable - the two were walking down the street, and the charge was loitering?! Guess they needed an 'excuse' for the charge of resisting arrest?

[lostnfound]

2. Good luck Jedi

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Welcome to the facist state

I bet they'll do anything, come up with any law, to keep the protestors from protesting. And I bet the knife they found (if it wasn't planted) was a penknife like a lot of men carry. Heck, I have a penknife on my keychain-guess I would have been arrested, too!

[Zhade]

4. Holy Police State, Batman!

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

[Ilsa]

6. We are so screwed.

This is unbelieveable.

[cprise]

7. We need to start tracking political prisoners and arrests

... in THIS country.

What's more, we should have a way to correlate information on the way petty offenses and trumped-up charges effectively serve as a way to pull dissidents off the streets.