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Police Chief: Parade Organizer, Activists to Blame for St. Patty's Day Arrests
May 7, 2007 5:32 PM
The Springs Police Chief says cops didn't do anything wrong at the St. Patrick's day parade.
Police Chief Richard Meyers gave his after-action report to Colorado Springs City Council today on events that led to seven peace activists being arrested amid accusations of police brutality.
[LISTEN]
Meyers said he "deeply regrets" what happened, but laid the blame for it at the feet of the peace protesters and the organizers of the parade. He said the first "strategic decision" that led to the arrests was made by the activists. They entered the parade under false pretenses, Meyers said, not informing police or parade organizers that members of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Coalition would be marching under an entry permitted to The Bookman, a west side bookstore that promotes children's literacy.
The St. Patrick's day parade is organized by a private, for-profit group. They made the rules for who could be in the parade, and those rules say no "social messages" are allowed. When organizers got wind of anti-war messages being displayed by the bookman group, they asked police to remove them from the parade. Meyers said police only got involved to keep peace between organizers and activists after they disagreed about the activists being removed from the parade.
And Police Chief Meyers said the second of two strategic decisions that led to the arrests was made by parade organizers. They could, Meyers said, have tried to negotiate with the activists, or simply let them march, and then take up issues of permit violation after the event was over.
Meyers categorically denied that city police were brutal or mistreated the activists they arrested. He said what appears to be a choke hold in one widely circulated photo was actually an approved counterbalancing technique and that the department does not use chokeholds. Meyers also displayed a photo of an officer with his Taser pistol unholstered, but explained that the weapon's cartridge had been removed and posed little threat to the public, and that the officer used the Taser legitimately to keep the crowd back when he feared for his own safety.
We'll have more on Chief of Police Richard Meyers' after action report to city council at 6:30 tonight, and look for more information on our website, KRCC.org.
Posted by Eric Whitney on May 7, 2007 5:32 PM | Permalink
Comments
Here is my comment about the police self-'investigation'.
http://www.notmytribe.com/2007/colorado/police-chief-richard-liars-myers.html#more-1272
Posted by: Tony | May 8, 2007 1:22 AM
