Clevelander brutalized and arrested for postering "Bush Step Down"

[kpete]

Clevelander brutalized and arrested for postering "Bush Step Down"
by carol Sunday, Jan. 29, 2006 at 5:27 PM
[e-mail] 216-932-2543 2804 Mayfield Rd, at Coventry, in Cleveland Heighs

The following is a first-hand account of police harrassment and brutality against a World Can't Wait organizer in Cleveland. If anything like this happens to you, let us know asap! Contact [e-mail].




My name is Carol Fisher, and I am on the staff of Revolution Books in Cleveland OH. At the bookstore we have been immersed in building and supporting the initiatives of World Cant Wait. Yesterday, 1.28.06, while putting "Bush Step Down" posters on telephone poles along a major thoroughfare on a sunny Saturday afternoon, I was brutalized by Cleveland Heights police, charged with 2 counts of felony assault and held incommunicado under police custody in the hospital! This outrage and others like it must be exposed and opposed by all who hate the direction that the Bush regime is taking this country and the world.

Here is what happened:
I had set out from my house with a full agenda, to contact lots of people and get out materials about our upcoming Cleveland event at Peabody's to Drown Out the State of the Union address, and the call to protest at the White House on Feb. 4th, with the Cleveland bus info. My first stop was the an area known for its community of artists and progressives, where I stapled up posters for blocks and was greeted warmly by those who saw and appreciated what World Cant Wait is doing. I talked to an artist, and a Palestinian store owner who took fliers to distribute to customers.

Next stop, to the east side. I drove down a street in Cleveland Heights, another area known for its diversity and progressive history. This street was badly in need of postering too and though i was in a big hurry, I couldnt drive on without getting up a few signs. Before long a cop called from across the street: "Ma'am! Hundred dollar fine for doing that!" Oh really, since when? Another way of keeping us from getting the word out, eh? But not wanting to get arrested, I said ok and put up my staplegun and walked away. But that wasnt the end of it. "Ma'am! Hundred dollar fine unless you take those posters down." He is pursuing me across the street. Damn! OK fine, I say, I will take them down (not wanting to get into a confrontation, because I have lots to do today!) But this too is not enough for the cop. He wants my ID. I say I dont have my ID. He grabs my arm. I say let go of me, I am not doing anything wrong, I will take the posters down. People are watching to see what happens, are outraged but very afraid. The cop wont let go, he clearly wants more grief from me, and he is in the spotlight. He wants people to be scared. He pushes me against a store window and next thing I know I am face down on the sidewalk with two cops on top of me, one with his knee in my back. I am trying to call out to people, to tell them what the posters are about. They keep pushing my face into the sidewalk. I cant breathe.

more at:
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2006/01/18586.php

[babylonsister]

1. Police state here we come. K&N! nt

[drduffy]

2. It will only get worse

and worse and worse. Each incident must be confronted, to the degree that we can, in the little bit of media that is still honest and in the courts and on the street. But my pessimism says that it will end in total fascism and/or revolution. In the end, people will die fighting the corporatists. My only hope is that the regime will be destroyed first from the economic and political fallout of peak oil, climate change, a financial collapse from the ending of the petro dollar. Hopefully a collapse before the Bushistas can begin the 'active' phase of WWIII. A collapse that would, in spite of the great hurt and hardship, still be less death and dispair than a totally fascist America would entail.

[izzie]

3. Didn't Nixon do things like this?

I also think that Johnson did such things during the Vietnam war. War or not war seems to bring out just about every thing bad in either side.

[fasttense]

6. I'm not sure what Carol Fisher did that was so horrible???

It may have brought out the worse in the police but it brought out the best in Carol and the WCW folks.

Yup some other presidents got away with murder, Hitler died a freeman. Still doesn't justify what the police did. You would think they would learn from their mistakes.

[AverageJoe]

4. This needs to be on the DU Front Page

Bottom line, this is what we're up against in republican America. Welcome to the funhouse.
:kick:

[fasttense]

5. We all need to go to the 31 January and 4 February protests

to support what Carol Fisher did. The brush regime doesn't want us to know about the protests or to attend. So we must do it.


http://www.worldcantwait.net/

[Puglover]

7. Make no mistake...

these people have the same mentality of Hitlers brownshirts. There is no difference.

[toymachines]

8. I see it now, American Fascism, the police state

For the first time I can picture, almost forsee, a WTO type protest turning deadly, modern revolution in the streets, it seems inevitable... and scares the crap outta me. I hope it is my over active imagination...too bad I am something of a realist.

[Kolesar]

9. There's going to be some interesting city council mtgs in Cleveland Hts

That city has always had a lot of backing for leftist causes. Antinuclear resolutions, anti-Iraq war, an unmarried partners law, etc.

[darkmaestro019]

10. Carol Fisher is a hero and a soulja

and I hope she and the WCW starts NOW doing everything possible to get her on any tv or radio shows that will have her. This needs to be known everywhere.

[RedEarth]

11. Gestapo is alive and well in Ohio ......

[melissinha]

12. Wonder how ALIEto would vote in this case?

If you aren't certain, you haven't been paying attention.


This is absolutely abhorrent and by the quote of the officer, it is aparent that HE is an Activist Police Officer.....

[Glimmer of Hope]

13. Cancer survivor brutalized by police for putting up posters!

How f#*@ed up is that. Carol Fisher is a true hero. I hope this incident gets a lot of attention.

[Psyop Samurai]

14. I never post, and am only sporadically on DU, but...

for some reason this made me mad enough to pick up the phone and call the Cleveland Heights Public Relations Office.

I didn't mince words. I said that, at this late stage in the game, I charge the officers in question, and any police department or municipality that would condone such actions with treason. I declared them collaborators with an illegal and illegitimate regime, and that I hold any and all collaborators responsible, and declare them traitors. I said that I hope I live to see a new Nuremberg Tribunal, but that it must go MUCH further this time - with the lessons of recent history so readily available, the people will NOT so easily escape judgment, and that those of us who have endured this nightmare will NOT just forgive and forget.

I went on for about 10 minutes, and got into a lot of stuff, from their phony wars to their phony media, their coup against the constitution, the subversion of law enforcement, etc.

The lady was nice. I guess it was better than sitting and saying nothing. I think that's what I'm going to start doing. Just call punks and bullies exactly what they are..., to perfect strangers, when appropriate. They got nothin' but deception and intimidation on their side. I told the lady the Emperor has no clothes... hasn't for a long time... and it's time for her and me, and the people in Cleveland Heights, and anywhere USA to get with it.

[Just Me]

15. She needs to get an attorney. She has a section 1983 case,....

,...for police brutality (excessive force).

[Neil Lisst]

19. Ditto that. Call the ACLU.

She needs the ACLU to take this matter.

I feel they would.

[knitter4democracy]

16. OMG! I've seen her before, and I know some of that group!

We used to live just a few steps down from that bookstore--that is our old neighborhood.

This is sick! If it can happen in Cleveland Hts., trust me, it can happen anywhere. I'm am just sick. This is awful! I'm making some phone calls today.

[RazzleDazzle]

17. Phone calls to whom? about what?

can you be of assistance to these people, or are you just wanting more info?

[knitter4democracy]

25. Both.

I called the shop yesterday, and I should hear back from them by the end of the week. I know some long-time Cleveland Hts. people who know people in high places whom I can contact, and I want to write a letter to the police dept. and to the city council as well. What happened to her is just foul.

[eppur_se_muova]

18. Clearly, this is excessive force, and harassment. But...

if you are putting up posters, you need to remember that most municipalities have ordinances against putting staples, nails, tacks etc. on utility poles. They present a hazard to utility workers, who wear 'spurs' to climb the poles, and can't get a safe grip on the pole where there is a belt of old staples around the pole. Imagine that several people probably got hurt before such an ordinance was passed.

Use a tape gun, like you see in the packing/shipping dept. of any large mail order retailer. Try Office Depot or Office Max (whichever one is bluer, I can't recall). Also avoid wooden poles -- use walls or aluminum poles.

[hippywife]

23. Every wooden pole in Tulsa

is riddled with staples that have been there for ions. Anytime I see a utility worker at any of these poles, they are in a cherrypicker. If it mattered so much, they would remove the staples, too, not just the signs.

[liam_laddie]

20. K & R

This is very important...please keep thread going!

[Th1onein]

21. These people are in my cell phone to call tomorrow

Do it. Take their number down and call and let them know that the world is watching.

[CoffeeCat]

22. I don't understand AT ALL...

..how the BushCo fascist pigs get local cops to do their dirty work!

Most local cops care about their communities and they are there to serve the people. Yes, there are corrupt cops, but most care about protecting and serving. I could understand if one of Bush's minions did this.

However, this was a local cop. There were other cops treating this woman so brutally.

How in the world do the sick neocons cajole law enforcement into adopting their fascist ways?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

24. Is Indymedia still the only source for this?

Methinks a woman being roughed up by the cops would make the local news. And it's not as if the Cleveland media are all owned by the BFEE. I think this may be bullshit.

[High Plains]

26. Why don't you call the Plain Dealer and ask them why they're

not covering it?

Odd that someone on DU, where the mainstream media is reamed daily, is waiting for it to put the stamp of approval on this story.