May I Please, Please Protest Today?

For many Saturdays this year, a group of us have sat on a plaza and read names. People drift by, look puzzled, clutch their small children’s hands more tightly. Some gaze, some avert their eyes. Anyone who establishes eye contact gets a little flyer explaining what we are doing. The point is to engage in debate.

Among the people strolling through the plaza are a policeman or two, who stand by and look on. What don’t they do?

Put me in handcuffs and fine me 701 bucks.

That, unbelievably, is what happened yesterday in the capitol rotunda of Madison, Wisconsin.

Full disclosure—I got the figure of $701 from a friend; I’ve looked but been unable to verify it. However, I did come across the video of Will Williams, below. And Williams is a 70-year old veteran who got handcuffed and escorted down the stairs. Whereupon he tripped—or was he tripped?—on the first steps, and fell onto his handcuffed hands. Ouch. 

Nor was Williams the oldest person to be thrown into cuffs and led off. Check out Wednesday’s post—there’s a clip of an 80-year old woman being handcuffed. She’s singing away, the cops cuff her, and she trots off with them. At no point is she resisting—she’s just singing.

Let’s be clear. This is assault. And under what circumstances can a cop stick cuffs on a person? When I worked on inpatient psychiatry wards, the use of restraints was very clear. A patient had to have shown behavior that was a danger to himself or to others. And that behavior had to be documented. OK—so are cops operating on a different set of criteria? Here’s what one guy said:

Actually, there are several reasons a law enforcement officer can detain you without notifying you of the reason. They need not produce an arrest warrant if they have probable cause that you have committed a felony. Placing handcuffs on a person is not always the result of being arrested; an officer need not arrest you to detain you. If the officer feels you are a flight risk and that flight would compromise an ongoing investigation, or if he feels you are threat to him or another, he may take you into temporary custody. If there are other pressing matters to which he must attend to maintain public or personal safety, he need not speak to you at all.

Nor am I the only one to think so. Check this out….

Dane County Sheriff David Mahoney Thursday refused to retract remarks made Monday during a radio interview on his apparent condoning of the protest singing in great numbers, despite a federal judge's ruling only assemblies of twenty people or less could be staged without a permit.
"I'm here to join alongside the Solidarity Singers. This is an example of freedom of speech," Mahoney told Workers Independent News (WIN) Monday.


This is a monstrous attack on human dignity and on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. And despite the temporary order upholding the government’s “right” to require permits for demonstrations with over 20 people—no. If people want to get together and sing songs in the capitol, dammit, they have every right to do it.

Oh, and the legislator who had a meeting with the chief of capitol police and the secretary of administration? Here’s what she wrote after the aborted event.

"I was very shocked and disappointed today when you and Department of Administrative Assistant Gwendolyn Coomer walked out of a meeting scheduled in my office," she wrote in a sharply worded letter (PDF) that was hand-delivered to Erwin's office in the state Capitol. Taylor also took the police chief to task for being unable to identify the "specific conduct you believe to be unlawful."

Yes, it’s very clear that there are some people breaking the laws at noon in the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Very, very clear…..

For those who can help with the legal costs incurred by protesters, please donate via PayPal to the following fund: 
http://solidaritysingalong.org/