Round Up the Usual Suspects (I-69 Statehouse protest)

[IndianaGreen]

The following is an e-mail from someone that attended the original rally against I-69. It is posted in here in its entirety, but without the names to protect the innocent from Mitch Daniels's Stassi:

I took my eleven year-old downtown on Saturday to participate in the "Roadless Summer" protest against the construction of I-69. We met other demonstrators at the "mall" area between Meridian and Pennsylvania. When the protest moved to the Capitol area we decided to detour and get an ice cream cone first. When we finally caught up with a few straggling protestors we learned what happened--so I guess I we escaped possible arrest by just "a few licks." (Sorry.)

I have talked to several eyewitnesses to the arrests and what I have learned makes me believe that yet another serious violation of the freedom of assembly has been perpetrated by the Indianapolis Police Department, led by its "Intelligence Division.". You can make up your own minds about the spray painting of the capitol building, but I believe the real criminal element that day was our city police. They have been spoiling for vengeance against the Solidarity/Paper Matches collective and other non-main-stream political groups ever since losing a law suit to them last spring for illegal arrests and searches occurring at the time of August 2003 meeting of the National Governors' Association in this city.

After the spray painting incident at the capitol, the protestors departed the capitol grounds but were "pursued" by elements of five, count 'em, five different law enforcement agencies. When a large number of those protestors were "cornered" near Military Park across West Avenue, the police began targeting and arresting individuals known to them for past prominence in demonstrations over recent years without any knowledge of whether they had been the individuals responsible for the spray painting. Note that the charges brought against most of the twenty-four arrestees is the generic "disorderly conduct" one. These twenty-four will now be forced to obtain legal counsel and be subject to months of legal harassment. Most if not all ultimately will be exonerated or have their charges kicked down to the "infraction" level but the IPD will have had the opportunity to disrupt seriously this summer's Anti-I-69 campaign as well as settle some old scores. Anyone at IUPUI willing to donate their time or money to assist these "detainees," can contact me.

The reprehensible action of the IPD on Saturday is just further evidence that they are the real "rogue political force" in this city. It is time for the mayor and the city-county council to step in and place the IPD under a fully transparent system of civilian supervision before every citizen's rights disappears.

[DrGonzoLives]

1. God willing

we will find out that Shitforbrains personally ordered that action. God, that would be beautiful.