Court Allows Police Use of Pepper Spray
11/14/97
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Headline: Court Allows Police Use of Pepper Spray
Source: The Environment News Service
Date: 11/14/97
Copyright 1997: ENS, Inc.
SAN FRANCISCO, California, November 14, 1997 (ENS) - A motion for a
preliminary injunction to forbid the use of pepper spray by police on
nonviolent demonstrators was denied by a U.S. District Court judge in San
Francisco today. The larger civil rights case in which the motion is a
part concerns police actions against demonstrators trying to prevent
logging of California's last old-growth redwood trees. The giant redwoods
grow in Headwaters Forest near Eureka in the northern part of California.
Law enforcement officers from the Eureka Police Department and the
Humboldt County Sheriff's Department applied the burning pepper spray
directly into the eyes of demonstrators on three separate occasions in
September and October and documented their actions on videotape. The
federal civil rights suit against them was filed October 30 by nine anti-
logging protesters.
"Justice requires that a preliminary injunction restricting the use of
pepper spray against nonviolent demonstrators who pose no threat to anyone
be issued at this time," said Mark Harris, one of the lawyers representing
the protesters in the case.
Cited in the civil rights complaint are pepper spray incidents that
occurred at demonstrations on September 25 in the Scotia office of Pacific
Lumber Company, October 3 at a Pacific Lumber logging site near Bear Creek
and October 16 in the Eureka office of Congressman Frank Riggs, a
Republican.
Riggs supports the use of the pepper spray applied directly to the eyes of
protesters as it was on October 16 in his office, as "cost-effective
policing."
Protesters targeted Riggs' office because of his support of a September
1996 agreement between the State of California, the Federal government and
MAXXAM/Pacific Lumber Company to acquire and permanently protect the some
of the Headwaters redwoods in exchange for $380 million and equivalent
land to log.
Environmentalists oppose the Headwaters deal because it does not guarantee
protection of critical habitat for endangered species like the coho salmon
and the marbled murrelet, a land-nesting seabird. The deal would protect
only 7,500 acres of the 60,000 acre Headwaters Forest and only two of six
ancient redwood groves.
Representative Riggs, in his third term in Congress, is a former police
officer and sheriff's deputy, a U.S. Army veteran, and a former manager of
Learning Tools, an educational software company. He is also owner of
Duncan Enterprises, a real estate investment company.
The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) has placed Riggs in the "Dirty
Dozen" of congressional representatives. "is greener than I am," Riggs
brags of his anti-environmental record.
"Riggs personally fought for a wealthy corporate raider's right to cut
down the largest remaining privately held stand of old-growth redwoods,
instead of protecting this unique natural resource in his own district for
future generations," the LCV assessment states.
During the October 16 protest four activists entered Riggs' office and
locked themselves together around a large redwood stump. Police
methodically applied the burning substance directly into their eyes,
causing screams of pain. Police took videotape of this use of the pepper
spray, and these images have been broadcast nationally, arousing
widespread protest against what many are calling torture of the nonviolent
demonstrators.
Thursday more than 200 protesters rallied at Riggs' Eureka office. The
nine young plaintiffs in the lawsuit were presented with the Purple Tear
Award by the Garberville based chapter of Veterans for Peace. "As
veterans, we served our country so that this type of tyranny would not be
allowed, said Vietnam veteran Steve Greel. "We cannot sit idly by and
watch the deliberate torture of peaceful demonstrators expressing their
constitutional rights."
Speakers called for a ban on the use of the spray by law enforcement
officers.
Robert Parker of the Trees Foundation called on individual police officers
not to become "torturers." Police have a legal right themselves to resist
orders that require them to break laws, Parker said. Under the
international Nuremburg Convention, "If you are given an order that is a
violation of human rights you should not follow it," Parker told the
police encircling the demonstrators.
Two people were arrested Thursday at the rally for hanging a banner from a
building in downtown Eureka in view of southbound Highway 101. They were
charged with criminal conspiracy and trespass. No pepper spray was used at
Thursday's rally.
Six others were arrested Thursday while walking in a group of 21 into an
area of Headwaters Forest known as Allen Creek. They were charged with
trespass and resisting arrest. All those arrested are being held at the
Humbolt County courthouse in Eureka.
Demonstrator Amanda Rivers said Thursday after the rally that she is
concerned that First Amendment Rights are continually being breached in
Eureka. "I was frightened by blocking of access by police to the September
14 rally," she said. "This is a breach of the freedom of assembly."
However, in a declaration filed for the officers in the case before the
San Francisco District Court police training expert Joseph J. Callahan,
Jr. said the video of the law enforcement officers conducting the
application of pepper spray to the eyes of the protesters would serve well
as a police training video.
A candlelight vigil is planned for Saturday, November 15 to mark the one
year anniversary of the arrest of 70 people by police in full riot gear at
the Fisher Gate, one of Pacific Lumber Company's main roads into the
Headwaters Forest. On November 15, 1996, police told demonstrators they
were involved in an unlawful assembly and dragged people out of the crowd
of 200 at random according to Angela Wartese an Earth First! spokesperson.
People were held in jail more than 48 hours, but no one was convicted of
any crime, said Wartese. Earth First! has just filed a civil suit in
County Court against the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department and the
Eureka Police Department for false arrest. "This is punishment without a
crime," she complained.