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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Picture of the Day





CODEPINK's June Brashares, 40, is hustled off the convention floor by security.

(Republican Convention - 2004)

posted by mikevotes at 6:49 AM

3 Comments:

  • 'There ought to be limits to free speech.' -GWB

    By Blogger liberal_dem, at 10:41 AM  

  • I just thought this captured something in a dramatic way.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 11:15 AM  

  • Here's an update on this...

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/nyregion/16settle.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=nyregion&adxnnlx=1226811274-NHxxZrheE5KKjicTYVAa5Q

    Ejected at '04 Convention, a Protester Gets $55,000
    By COLIN MOYNIHAN
    Published: November 15, 2008

    During President Bush's acceptance speech in Madison Square Garden at the 2004 Republican National Convention, a San Francisco woman briefly interrupted the proceedings by standing on a chair and unfurling a banner that accused the president of lying.

    That protest set into motion a chain of events that has ended in one of the more unusual legal resolutions connected to the four days of the convention, during which more than 1,800 demonstrators and bystanders were arrested, most of them in street protests. Hundreds of them subsequently sued the city, saying they had been arrested unlawfully or detained in holding cells without access to lawyers.

    As of September, the city had paid about $1.5 million to settle 142 lawsuits arising out of the convention. The payout total rose by $55,000 on Friday, when the San Francisco woman, June Brashares, 44, an events planner, peace advocate and a member of the protest group Code Pink, reached a settlement in a lawsuit in which she said she had been injured while being ejected from the Garden and had been falsely prosecuted.

    But unlike the other cases, which were settled after allegations of misconduct by city police officers or other city employees, the defendants in the Brashares case were not under the city's control. They were two convention volunteers from California, a Republican group in California and the Republican National Committee.

    Yet the city's Law Department represented them anyway because of an indemnification agreement under which the city assumes the cost of defending any lawsuit arising from the 2004 convention that names the Republican National Committee.

    "This was a reasonable settlement based on the facts of the case," Connie Pankratz, a spokeswoman for the Law Department, said on Friday. Ms. Pankratz said she knew of no other convention-related case in which the Law Department is defending only people or groups outside New York City's control.

    The Law Department could not say on Saturday which city agencies or officials signed the deal, but Ms. Pankratz confirmed that it was reached as part of negotiations to bring the convention to New York. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said business generated by the convention brought the city hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

    No such agreement on legal costs was in place for this year's Republican National Convention in St. Paul — where police officers used tear gas and fired rubber bullets at demonstrators, arresting about 800 people.

    Instead, St. Paul officials required that the Republican host committee buy an insurance policy covering up to $10 million in damages for civil rights violations by the police, to avoid saddling taxpayers with legal costs, the St. Paul city attorney said in September.

    Ms. Brashares's role in the convention litigation began as she and her banner — reading "Bush Lies People Die" — were swiftly ushered from Madison Square Garden by the two volunteers, who were assigned to maintain order as "floor whips" for the California delegation. She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, assault and harassment after the two men, Shaun Flanigan and John Peschong, said she injured them while being dragged from the hall.

    A Manhattan jury rejected those claims about a year later, after watching news videotapes that undercut part of the prosecution's case. Ms. Brashares then filed a civil lawsuit in State Supreme Court against Mr. Flanigan and Mr. Peschong, saying they had torn a ligament in her finger while removing her and had made false statements.

    The Republican National Committee and the California State Republican Committee were also named because Mr. Flanigan and Mr. Peschong had been acting in the official capacity of those organizations, she said in her suit.

    "In the course of removing plaintiff, defendants Peschong and Flanigan maliciously beat, pushed, grabbed and otherwise violently battered plaintiff with the intent of causing her injury," stated a complaint filed by Jonathan C. Moore, a lawyer for Ms. Brashares. In an interview, Mr. Moore said Ms. Brashares felt vindicated by the settlement.

    "She's been compensated for having to undergo a trial when she knew she was not guilty," he said. "It's unfortunate that the city felt they had to indemnify these folks."
    More Articles in New York Region » A version of this article appeared in print on November 16, 2008, on page A41 of the New York edition.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 4:44 AM  

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