July 6, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org MEDFORD, OR -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon
filed a class action lawsuit today against the U.S. Secret Service, the Oregon
State Police, the Jackson County Sheriff and the Jacksonville Police Department,
charging them with violating the constitutional rights of protesters when they
forcibly broke up a peaceful demonstration in October 2004 during a visit to
Jacksonville by President George W. Bush.
The ACLU said that both
pro-Bush and anti-Bush demonstrators gathered peacefully to express their views
near the Jacksonville Inn on October 14, 2004, but an interagency police squad,
at the request of the Secret Service, moved in only on the portion of the crowd
containing anti-Bush demonstrators.
“Despite the fact that both pro
and anti-Bush demonstrators were within the same approximate distance to where
the president was eating dinner, the Secret Service—and local police—chose to
discriminate against those opposed to the President,” said David Fidanque,
Executive Director of the ACLU of Oregon. “There was no security threat to
the president and no justification for using force against peaceful
demonstrators who were exercising their constitutional rights of free speech and
assembly.”
Police used clubs and pepper spray bullets to forcibly
move the anti-Bush demonstrators several blocks from the Jacksonville Inn, even
though organizers of the protest earlier had cleared their protest plans with
Jacksonville Police Chief David Towe and Jackson County Sheriff Mike
Winters. The protesters included seniors and families with small
children.
ACLU volunteer attorney Ralph Temple of Ashland said the
actions in Jacksonville are part of an ongoing nationwide pattern by the Secret
Service of keeping anti-administration demonstrators further away from the
president than pro-administration demonstrators or the general
public.
“The Secret Service claims their policies prevent them from
acting on the basis of politics, but the truth is that they have repeatedly
discriminated against anti-administration protesters based solely on the content
of their political views,” said Temple. “One of the major goals of this
suit is to force the Secret Service to respect the constitutional rights of
demonstrators when there is no security reason to move protesters out of the
sight and hearing of the President.”
The lawsuit seeks money
damages plus an injunction to prevent similar constitutional violations from
occurring in the future. In particular, the ACLU seeks to prevent the
defendants from excluding or removing a lawful assembly of people from areas
where other unscreened members of the public are allowed to congregate or be
present, and excluding or removing anti-government demonstrators from areas
where pro-government demonstrators are allowed to be present.
The
ACLU is also asking the court to prohibit federal, state and local agencies from
using riot-geared police, excessive force, non-lethal force or chemical agents
against nonviolent demonstrators.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in
U.S. District Court in Medford on behalf of seven named individuals as
representatives of the entire group of approximately 200 demonstrators whose
rights were violated, plus the Jackson County Pacific Green Party. The
seven individual plaintiffs are Michael Moss and Lesley Adams of Jacksonville;
Beth Wilcox of Shady Cove; Richard Royer of Trail; and Shelley Elkovich, Anna
Boyd and Lee Frances Torelle of Ashland.
Named as defendants in the
lawsuit are the U.S. Secret Service, its director, Ralph Basham, three
individual Secret Service agents, Jacksonville Police Chief David Towe, the city
of Jacksonville, Oregon State Police Superintendent Ron Ruecker, the state of
Oregon, two individual state police officers, Jackson County Sheriff Mike
Winters, Jackson County, and unknown municipalities and their police commanders
who may have participated in the police action.
Fidanque said that
the ACLU has assembled a highly experienced team of volunteer lawyers to handle
the case, including lead attorney Martha Walters of the firm of Walters Chanti
& Zenache of Eugene, Thane Tienson of the firm of Landye Bennett Blumstein
of Portland and Ralph Temple of Ashland who is the former Legal Director of the
ACLU of the National Capital Area in Washington, D.C. Also assisting in
the case will be Arthur Spitzer, the current Legal Director of the ACLU of the
National Capital Area.
The legal complaint is available online at:
www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/26078lgl20060706.html A
map of Jacksonville showing the location of the protesters is available online
at
www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/26081lgl20060706.html
