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An activist's memo
on the pepper spray-by-Q-tip trial
Plaintiff's lawyer Dennis Cunningham demonstrating "black bear" lock sleeve before jury. Drawing by K. Rudin
by Jan Lundberg
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As a Culture Change reader you have had your upcoming report on peak oil delayed for a reason one could consider fascinating - to those who take interest in civil rights and the struggle to save the remnants of the ancient redwood forests. Since September 8th I have been attending the trial of police and the County of Humboldt (California) who used pepper-spray most innovatively to force nonviolent protesters into "compliance" at three lock-down sit-ins in 1997.
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Sheriff's deputies and the Eureka Police held the heads of teenage girls and other activists, who were attached in steel sleeves to one another, and with Q-tips wiped pepper-spray in the eyes of the protesters. When this did not work fast enough to make them unlock, additional blasts of the noxious chemical were applied within inches of the eyes of some protesters. No female officers were used for the intensive full-body law-man contact on the pepper-spray victims who were mostly females.
Not surprisingly, a civil rights trial on these events is being heard in federal court in San Francisco. Judge Susan Illston is presiding over eight plaintiffs (including my daughter Spring), their pro-bono lawyers, and the potentially liable defendants who are law enforcement officials and their bosses.
As the trial is entering its final phases, to culminate with a ruling from the four-woman, four-man jury, right now I will not say much from my emotional vantage point as a caring fellow activist (and father) who viewed the tactics of the cops as torture. Video tapes were made by the police and activists that have been shown in court and on news stations, when the events occurred and the lawsuit was filed. A trial occurred in 1998, but after a hung jury the then-judge dismissed the case, claiming that no jury would ever find the behavior of the cops to be excessive force or unconstitutional.
But the appeals court and even the U.S. Supreme Court differed, so there is a new trial, finally, with a new judge to replace the former one found to be biased. The plaintiffs' legal team includes the flamboyant Tony Serra (seen at left) who joined the lawyers who defeated the FBI and the Oakland Police in another recent case: Earth First! activists were blamed by law enforcement and the feds for a car bombing that injured only those same plaintiffs who were ultimately successful in federal court; plaintiffs were awarded $4.4 million.
The police in the Humboldt pepper-spray case are of course being painted as angels by their lawyers, as if the cops' whole concern was for the safety of the protesters and others. The jury is not getting to hear the history of police brutality and violations of rights in Humboldt County in connection with other logging protests. (I held a press conference on the injuries suffered by protesters, in 1996.) However, the many details of this case that are being heard include the fact that hundreds of times nonviolent lock-down protests have occurred in efforts to slow the clear-cutting of ancient trees, and all activists were extricated from their binds using cutters and grinders without injury to anyone.
A representative of the pepper-spray manufacturer has been an expert witness in this case to defend the chemical weapon's use, but more than one observer at the trial saw the representative as not only biased but the epitome of a fascistic scientific industrial establishment. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, they have not been allowed to have medical expert-witnesses to counter the claims of the manufacturer-representative who is paid to defend pepper-spray. The chemical has been a factor in dozens of deaths in police custody, and the plaintiffs are citing long-term effects from the experience.
Another unfortunate break against the plaintiffs was that there was not one Black person in the jury pool. This was objected to, but the judge denied the plaintiffs' motion to try again for a more representative jury. Blacks have been subjected to police brutality more than other groups in our society.
Instead of waiting for the next flurry of news stories on this case, you can go to nopepperspray.org and culturechange.org. The lawyers have worked for free for the plaintiffs for YOUR right to use civil disobedience in exercising free speech and free assembly, to uphold the First and Fourth Amendments. But there are legal costs apart from attorneys' fees that must be met - please see the donation webpages in those websites for the pepper-spray plaintiffs. Please help if you can, and pass this memo on to your friends and to other websites.
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– Jan Lundberg
This piece was Culture Change Letter #75
We are looking for journalistic contributions for our various departments which include Tools for Sustainability, Poetry Corner, Fall of Petroleum Civilization, Global Warming Crisis Council, 9-11 and others. Let us hear from you.
Need courtroom graphics for high resolution for print publication? Contact K. Rudin [moxie@mcn.org]. call plaintiffs' media contact number: (510) 548-3113
Prior coverage on this website: http://culturechange.org/issue15/pepperspray.html
Hear a new song by a plaintiff and a duet between a pepper-sprayed protester and her father at
http://culturechange.org/depavers.html
If you are interested in receiving Culture Change's e-letter you can sign up to get Culture Change Letter directly, by clicking here: E-Letter
Jan Lundberg, co-founded the Lundberg Letter, called "the bible of the oil industry", in 1973. Mr. Lundberg ran Lundberg Survey Incorporated for the petroleum industry, utilities and government. He founded the Sustainable Energy Institute (SEI) in 1988.
We promote and practice cultural change as key to sustainability. Does economic growth via fossil fuels and materialism provide real security? A sustainable society features car-free living and growing food locally. Communities must return to self-sufficiency for food and energy.
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