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A STATEMENT FROM THOSE ARRESTED AT THE PEACE DEMONSTRATION IN NEW YORK ON FEBRUARY 15th, 2003:

We represent a cross-section of the roughly 500,000 Americans who came to New York last February 15th to support peaceful solutions in Iraq and to condemn the Bush administration's rush to war. We include students, working people, and senior citizens from a diverse range of racial, gender, and cultural backgrounds. On this day, we came from near and far: “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” a constitutional right guaranteed to all Americans.

What many of us encountered at this demonstration was a highly confrontational police response to peaceful protest. Police blocked off streets to keep us from reaching the demonstration and those of us who were able to assemble at First Avenue were forced into barricaded pens. They subjected us to verbal and physical intimidation, and mounted officers charged into crowds of people who had nowhere to go.

They arrested more than 300 of us. Many of us were arrested arbitrarily and without just cause. Some of us were physically abused by police during and after our arrests. All of us were subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment during our captivity.

The repercussions of this police misconduct go beyond the injuries and inconveniences to those of us who were arrested. Taxpayers of the city of New York must now absorb the cost of prosecuting these cases, and the cost of civil rights lawsuits justly filed against the city. Harder to measure, though, is the loss to every American of constitutional rights, now under threat both from the so-called “Patriot Act” and from Bloomberg's police actions.

On March 20, people will gather again in New York and around the world to voice their continued opposition to the war in Iraq, and to demand that those responsible for this bloody quagmire be held accountable. How will the NYPD respond this time? We invite the people of New York to join us in calling on Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD not to repeat their mistakes. Police must no longer be trained to view demonstrators as the enemy and corral them into barricaded “protest zones”. Instead of provoking conflict, officers should be given specific training in de-escalation and effective non-violent methods of crowd management. They must be instructed to allow peaceful protest and to respect each individual's rights.

The NYPD prides itself on “Courtesy, Professionalism, and Respect”. On February 15, 2003, they fell sadly short of these basic standards of decency. We hope, and we demand, that they live up to their motto on March 20 and beyond.

Sincerely,
Stephanie Abraitis – Manhattan, NY
Matthew Andrews – Lexington, MA
Lee Blaney – Philadelphia, PA
Thomas Bozeman – Seattle, WA
Elizabeth Carson, Woodside, NY
Liz Cole – Philadelphia, PA
Simon O. Collum – Plantation, FL
Jeff Duritz – Cambridge, MA
Scott Fitzgerald – Brooklyn, NY
Rebecca Garte – New York, NY
Andrew Gersick – Brooklyn, NY
Richard Goodwin, Bethesda, MD
Sarah Herard – Ann Arbor, MI
Rachel Jones – Easthampton, MA
Nada Khodl – Manhattan, NY
Eric Larson – Providence, RI
Charles Libin – Brooklyn, NY
Ian Lippincott – Brooklyn, NY
Brian MacDevitt – New York, NY
Luis Manriquez – Brooklyn, NY
Nicholas S. Martielli – Huntington, NY
Jay Marx – Washington, DC
Aura Lee Morse – Portland, OR
Robert C. Padilla – Manhattan, NY
Sara Parkel – Brooklyn, NY
John Pool – Ithaca, NY
Christopher Rodriguez – Woodside, NY
Eric M. Rodriguez – Brooklyn, NY
Jesse Scherer – Stone Ridge, NY
Jennifer Schneider – Brooklyn, NY
Ryan Schwarz – Annandale, NY
Daniel Sieradski – Ithaca, NY
Marvin Sochet – New York, NY
Eric Socolofsky – Brooklyn, NY