|
Police 12 arrests seattle seminar { June 2 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20LEIU%20Seattlehttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aplocal_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20LEIU%20Seattle
Monday, June 2, 2003 · Last updated 10:46 p.m. PT
Pepper spray, 12 arrests at rally against police seminar
By JIM COUR
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEATTLE -- Police using pepper spray arrested 12 people Monday night at a march and rally by about 400 activists protesting an annual training seminar of the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit.
Protesters equated the group with a secret police force.
The five-day LEIU seminar titled "Criminal Intelligence and the War on Terrorism" began Monday at the Red Lion Inn.
The law enforcement group is a private information-sharing coalition of about 250 local and federal police agencies.
Scheduled seminar topics included bioterrorism, the current state of criminal intelligence, cybercrime, protecting U.S. borders, hate groups and outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Arrests were made for assault, property damage, obstructing and reckless burning, Seattle police spokeswoman Deanna Nollette said.
Protesters, who had a permit, had rallied at Westlake Center, then marched to the hotel.
Trouble started when the crowd surged as police were trying to make an arrest along a barricade, Nollette said.
Police Capt. Mike Sanford said a bottle and other debris were hurled at officers.
"When people start throwing debris at police, the police are going to move that crowd - they have to," Sanford said. "The last time that officers did not move a crowd we ended up with a police captain who almost lost his eye."
Nollette confirmed police used pepper spray and fired a type of projectile. She refused to describe the projectiles.
No police were injured and no first aid calls were required for protesters, she said.
One Associated Press photographer was hit by pepper spray; another saw five or six protesters applying ice to welts on their legs and necks that they said were caused by 2-inch, spool-shaped wooden projectiles fired by police.
The crowd had dispersed by 10 p.m. Monday.
At the start of the protest, Luma Nichol, 50, of Seattle, a community organizer for the Freedom Socialist Party, called the LEIU an organization "that acts basically as a secret political police in the United States.
"Why are we here? Mostly to let them know that we know who they and we object to their existence," Nichol said.
"I'm very concerned about the LEIU," said K.L. Shannon, 34, of Seattle, who wore a T-shirt bearing President Bush's picture and the label "International Terrorist."
"We really feel that this LEIU conference is really a breeding ground for goals to continue the war on people of color," Shannon added.
Percy Hilo, 54, of Seattle, who said he was "1,000 percent" against the Iraq War, declared, "We disagree with the LEIU.
"We disagree with the secret planning and we feel that basically it's supposed to be an anti-terror group, but we feel it's just planning to implement government policy that a lot of us do not feel is correct," Hilo added.
Elias Holtz, 20, of Seattle, said the protesters had two goals: "We're here to protest the LEIU and pressure the City Council to force the Seattle Police Department to discontinue its membership in the LEIU."
Spokespersons from LEIU 2003 did not immediately return phone calls for comment Monday night.
The FBI and the Seattle Police Department are listed as seminar co-hosts, along with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, the Washington State Patrol, the state Gambling Commission, the King County sheriff and prosecutor's offices and a handful of other city and county police agencies.
Among the activists' concerns are post-9/11 laws such as the USA Patriot Act, which gives the government new powers to use wiretaps, electronic surveillance and other information gathering. Opponents say it violates civil liberties; supporters say it has helped fight terrorism.
Other groups in the anti-LEIU coalition include the Not in Our Name-Seattle project, the American Friends Service Committee, Radical Women, the Green Party and the Northwest Animal Rights Network.
The LEIU Web site listed on press releases, www.leiu2003seattle.org, was shut down Friday and remained unavailable Monday, so little information was immediately available on the organization, founded in 1956.
---
On The Net:
http://nobigbrother.net
http://leiu2003seattle.org
|
|
