FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@aclu.org
MIAMI – The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida’s Greater Miami
Chapter today filed three lawsuits charging that officers of the Miami,
Miami-Dade and Broward police departments used excessive force to intimidate and
unlawfully arrest innocent bystanders and protesters who were exercising their
free speech rights during the November 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) ministerial meetings in downtown Miami.
The three lawsuits
filed today – on the two-year anniversary of the FTAA summit – are on
behalf of a former Miami New Times reporter, four labor union members and a
college student from Massachusetts whose skull was fractured after police hit
him in the head three times with a baton. All six ACLU plaintiffs were arrested
on November 20, 2003, during marches that resulted in hundreds of arrests after
police used unnecessary force to disperse crowds.
“The ‘Miami
Model’ was a police tactic designed to intimidate political demonstrators,
silence dissent, and criminalize protest against the government policies,” said
ACLU Greater Miami Chapter President Terry Coble, referring to the City of
Miami’s law enforcement strategy during the FTAA meetings. “If this type of
police action is allowed to continue, our country will have lost one of our most
basic rights, and we will be on the road to a totalitarian
government.”
The plaintiffs in today’s cases were among thousands
of people who came to Miami to observe or participate in lawful demonstrations
to protest FTAA trade policies. Despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature
of the gatherings, police officers arrested approximately 300 people, most of
them for minor offenses such as disorderly conduct and failure to obey a lawful
command. Hundreds of people were held in local jails for more than 24
hours. The charges against virtually all of those who were arrested were later
dismissed, the ACLU said.
Working under the overall command
of Miami Police Chief John Timoney, officers from the City of Miami, Miami-Dade
County and the Broward Sheriff’s Office made extensive plans to militarize the
police force in an attempt to limit demonstrations. According to news reports,
police officers from more than three dozen law enforcement agencies converged on
downtown Miami to create an almost surreal backdrop that included armored
vehicles on the ground and helicopters dotting the skyline above. The police
marched in lines wearing full riot gear and wielding batons, tear gas, pepper
spray and beanbag rifles to control the crowds of demonstrators.
The first lawsuit, Lorne Battiste, et. al v. Broward
County Sheriff Ken Jenne et. al., alleges that a deliberate plan to
stifle dissent, along with poor communication and training by police officers,
contributed to the unlawful arrests of: Lorne Battiste, of Miami, a staff
representative with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees; Laura Winter, of Pittsburgh, Penn., an administrative assistant with
the United Steelworkers (USW); Ricky Hamblin, of St. Paul, Minn., a maintenance
worker with the USWA; and Luis Cardona, of Chicago, Ill., a labor union activist
affiliated with the USW.
The ACLU lawsuit charges that all
four union members were arrested and falsely charged with disorderly conduct,
despite the fact that they followed police orders to disperse after a skirmish
broke out between police and other protesters two blocks south of the Bayfront
Park Amphitheater. The union members received conflicting orders from three
different police departments representing the City of Miami and Miami-Dade and
Broward counties as they were returning on foot to their hotel. All three
departments were assigned to cover various different security “zones” in the
downtown area.
Laura Winter, 39, said she tried to explain
to the Broward Sheriff’s officers that she was following orders from Miami and
Miami-Dade police officers. But she was still handcuffed and jailed for 20
hours.
“The police used intimidation and fear to basically shut us
up,” said Winter, who returned to Miami from Pittsburgh to participate in an
ACLU news conference today. “When I asked them why they were arresting us, they
replied that they were simply following orders and proceeded to handcuff me and
force me face down into the grass. At that moment, it felt like I had no rights;
they had complete power to suspend my rights for the sake of what they called
‘security,’ but in reality they were the ones causing all of the violence and
problems.”
The second case, Owaki v. City of Miami, et
al., involves the severe beating of college student Edward Owaki, of
Amherst, Mass. Owaki, 19, joined other college students in a peaceful
demonstration that was cut short when police officers decided to order everyone
to flee the area near Northeast Third Street in downtown. The officers used tear
gas, batons and shields to push the protesters toward Biscayne Boulevard. Owaki,
who turned around to follow police orders to disperse, was then struck from
behind three times with a police baton. He was beaten so severely that his skull
was fractured, and he fell unconscious. Owaki, an Eagle Scout who had never
before been in trouble with the law, was arrested for “disorderly conduct” and
then transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital. He was given Tylenol and then
taken to the Miami-Dade County Jail, where he spent the night. Owaki
suffered from pain and vomiting and a nurse at the jail noted that he was
dehydrated. Owaki was released from jail late the next day and his friends
took him back to Jackson because he was disoriented and in severe pain. He
was admitted to intensive care and spent nine days in the hospital while being
treated for a skull fracture, cerebral contusions and seizures.
The
third lawsuit, Delgado v. Miami-Dade County, stems from the unlawful
arrest of Celeste Fraser Delgado, a reporter who was covering the demonstrations
for the Miami New Times. She was walking with four demonstrators near the
intersection of North Miami Avenue and 20th Street, and was confronted by four
Miami-Dade police officers who jumped out of a squad car and ordered all of them
to get down on the ground. They all immediately complied. Delgado told the
officers she was a reporter, and showed them her identification badge. They
handcuffed her anyway, and forced her to lie down on the ground for more than an
hour. She was frisked while still on the floor, and then arrested for “failure
to obey a lawful command” – a charge that was so clearly fabricated that several
police officers even objected to including the false charge on the arrest form,
the ACLU said. Delgado was transported to the Turner Guilford Knight
Correctional Center, where she spent the entire night barefoot because officers
had removed her boots. The charges against Delgado were dropped the next
morning.
“By ignoring press credentials and arresting reporters
who were not officially embedded, Miami-Dade County police violated the freedom
of the press and deprived the public of crucial information about what actually
happened during the FTAA protests,” said Delgado, 38, who lives in Northeast
Miami-Dade and now works as a senior marketing editor and writer for Barry
University.
This is the second round of lawsuits filed by the ACLU
challenging the unjustified and unprovoked use of force by police during the
FTAA protests. The ACLU filed the first FTAA-related lawsuit in September
23, 2004 on behalf of Carl Kesser, an independent filmmaker who was shot in the
head by police with a beanbag rifle.
The ACLU alleges in all three
lawsuits that the actions of City of Miami, Miami-Dade and Broward Sheriff’s
officers violated the rights of demonstrators, specifically the First Amendment
right barring the government from unreasonably interfering with people’s rights
to engage in political demonstrations and other expressive activities, and the
Fourth Amendment, which prohibits the police from using unreasonable and
excessive force.
“Despite the pride that Mayor Manny Diaz and
Police Chief John Timoney have taken in the ‘Miami Model,’ trampling on the
constitutional rights of demonstrators in order to make downtown peaceful during
the FTAA meetings was not a successful police operation,” said Howard Simon,
Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “Police
officers failed to fulfill law enforcement’s two equally important duties –
ensuring the safety of the community and at the same time protecting everyone’s
constitutional rights. As a result, taxpayers in several South Florida
communities will now be required to compensate people from around the country
for the violation of their constitutional rights.”
The labor activists are represented by ACLU Greater Miami Chapter
Legal Panel Chair Ray Taseff, ACLU cooperating attorney Greg Samms and ACLU
South Florida Staff Counsel Rosalind Matos. Delgado is represented by ACLU
cooperating attorney Benjamin Waxman, and Owaki is represented by ACLU
cooperating attorney John de Leon.
Lorne Battiste, et. al v.
Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne et. al. is on-line at: www.aclufl.org/issues/police_practices/battistecomplaintfinal.pdf
Owaki
v. City of Miami, et al.,is available at: www.aclufl.org/issues/police_practices/OwakiComplaint.pdf
Delgado v. Miami-Dade County is available at: www.aclufl.org/issues/police_practices/Delgadocomplaint.pdf