Complaints Swirl Over Holding Area for Arrested Protesters

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0902-03.htm

Published on Thursday, September 2, 2004 by the Associated Press

Complaints Swirl Over Holding Area for Arrested Protesters
by Tom Hays

NEW YORK -- To the protesters, it's Guantanamo on the Hudson. Police prefer the acronym PASS, though nobody gets one.

Either way, the dilapidated, hulking pier on the Hudson River in Manhattan has become a landmark of sorts in the clash between activists and authorities at the Republican National Convention.

Some protesters have complained bitterly about conditions at the temporary holding area set up at Pier 57 for processing convention-related arrests. One former detainee, Andrew Lynn, claimed he was held there for hours on end in "Guantanamo-style pens" -- a reference to the U.S. military facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Police insist their Post Arrest Screening Site allows them to process mass arrests safely and promptly and avoid overwhelming neighborhood stationhouses.


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I've included the following action alert:

Subject: PRESSURE on NYC authorities

Dear concerned citizen,

The last week has seen a powerful, and in many ways
unprecedented display of resistance to the agenda of
Empire in the belly of the beast. We have inspired
each other, our fellow Americans, and the world.

At the same time, the state has used repressive
tactics of sweeping arrests to discourage activists
now and in the future. We have an opportunity to use
our collective outrage (and the media spotlight) to
confront this attack head on. We can.t let them get
away with this!

Solidarity Support Working Group, an A31 noRNC
collective

Appended below is an example letter you might fax or
email to the following city offices, or use to
structure a telephone call. Feel free, of course, to
express your outrage in your own terms. Feel free
to call other decisionmakers, but a deluge on the
following three might be most effective.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mailnypd.html
or call
(646) 610-5410
FAX: (646) 610-5865
or
NYC Police Switchboard
(646)610-5000
Ask for Commissioner`s office

Department of Corrections Commissioner Martin Horn
(Jails)
(212) 266-1212 or (212) 361-8977
FAX: (212) 361-8985
Email: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/maildoc.html

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau
(212) 335-9000
FAX (212) 335-9168

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
(212) 788 7418 or (212) 788 3000
FAX (212) 788-2460 or (212) 788-9711
E-MAIL:http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

--------

Dear ,

Over a thousand people were arrested yesterday in NYC.
In moves that echo the imperial practices of U.S.
foreign policy, the NYPD preemptively and in some
cases violently arrested hundreds of dissenters, a
clear attack on political expression.

Combined with exceptionally unhealthy conditions in
detention, unlawfully delayed periods before
arraignment or release, and excessive bails, these
arrests and the concomitant legal harassment undermine
the ability of our movements to organize political
dissent.

We will resist the militarization of our streets, our
cities, our lives. We will act in solidarity with
those arrested, those abused, in this country and
around the world.

In specific, we will ensure that you and others
responsible for oversight of the NYC police and
corrections departments will either curb this
illegitimate use of power, or pay a heavy political
price. This story will not die. The pressure will
not
cease, until you respond effectively in defense of
civil and human rights.

* Transfer all detainees out of the toxic Pier 57
warehouse.

* Release and drop the charges of those illegally
arrested without clear warning or ability to leave.

* Reduce exorbitant bails (up to $200,000) to
appropriate and reasonable amounts.

* Negotiate with all arrestees engaging in jail
solidarity and withholding their identities. Allow
them to occupy rooms together, to speak collectively
to their lawyers, and to bargain directly with the
prosecutors.

In solidarity with all political prisoners,




===end email===

I hope we are not getting so used to this type of unconstitutional behavior that we just let it slide.
If we do, we're in trouble.

Seriously, how many cops can they spare to guard this place?

Are you going to attack the police with guns? Or are you just going to attack them en masse and beat them up with your fists on your way in?

according to some guy Amy Goodman was interviewing. You would think they would have at least cleaned the place up first.

who was detained there:


I was arraigned and released last night about 1 AM after thirty some hours in custody—I’m fine though have reached a new state of sleep deprivation that I wish I could market as a tranquilizer—anyway, I hope later today or tomorrow to write up the full story. For now, there are still people in jail from the mass arrests on the 31. Most were arrested for horrible crimes like walking on the sidewalk—swept up by police nets or corralled by the cops while they were perfectly legal. Many New Yorkers who were not in the protest were caught in the sweeps. We were held on Pier 57, now referred to as “Guantanamo on the Hudson”—a big pier full of metal, fenced pens with an asphalt floor soaked in diesel oil, a highly toxic and unpleasant environment. Then we were taken to the Central jail, for a long period of waiting and being transferred into various cells. The process was agonizingly slow and uncomfortable and exhausting, but the cops and the guards on the whole were professional and decent and many are supportive, and said privately that they don’t like Bush either. I’ve heard a few rumors of beatings or unpleasant treatment, but I didn’t see anything like that.

However, they are making it extremely difficult for people to reclaim their property—death by bureaucracy. As that property includes our indispensable cell phones, it makes for a difficult day.

I don’t know as yet how many people are doing jail solidarity—the Pagan Cluster decided not to as we judged that the vast number of people arrested weren’t expecting to be, weren’t prepared, and that we didn’t have the numbers to make it effective. Plus upping the ante might end up making a stressful experience even more traumatic for the vast majority who got swept up by the police in illegal arrests. When I left the jail vigil this morning at 5 am, all of our Pagan Cluster men and about half the women were out. I’m about to head back there.

You can help support those who are still in jail by calling or emailing Bloomberg and the Police Commissioner and telling them:

Release the RNC prisoners. Drop the charges. Stop doing illegal, pre-emptive arrests. (Nmbers below).

Thanks for all your support! Starhawk

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
(212) 788 7418 or (212) 788 3000 or (212) 788-9711
FAX (212) 788-2460
E-MAIL:http://nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau
(212) 335-9000

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mailnypd.html
or call
(646)610-5410 or (646) 610-5865
or
NYC Police Switchboard
(646)610-5000
Ask for Commissioners office

05:29 PM
9/2/04
55 people in Central Booking have been on a lengthy hunger strike to protest
the conditions at Pier 57 as well as their indefinite detention; they include
a number of bystanders swept up during mass arrests.
<A HREF="http://nyc.indymedia.org">http://nyc.indymedia.org</A> under BREAKING NEWS...

FIRST PICS FROM THE PENS @ PIER 57! More to come soon...
<A HREF="http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/114761">http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/114761</A>

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0902-09.htm

Published on Thursday, September 2, 2004 by the Associated Press

GOP Convention Detainees Describe Long Stays in Grimy Conditions

by Larry Neumeister

NEW YORK -- His hair so long a police officer called him "Jesus," Sebastian Licht said he set out Tuesday to celebrate his 22nd birthday, only to be swept up in one of the largest mass arrests in the nation's history.

He emerged two days later from court _ smelly, bleeding and determined to become the activist he says police feared he was.

One of more than 1,700 people arrested this week at demonstrations aimed at the Republican National Convention, Licht gained his freedom on Thursday morning. A judge, frustrated at the city's pace in moving protesters through the criminal justice system, ordered the immediate release of nearly 500 of them.

Most of those arrested were anti-GOP protesters, but some insist they got snared in the chaos. Licht puts himself in the latter category.
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