MN's indymedia journalist Melissa Hill found not guilty in Trial of G20 protest in Pittsburg

[annm4peace]

The matter came to a head in Gallo's courtroom during the March 2 trial of Melissa Hill, a Minnesota videographer with Twin Cities Indymedia.

Like other defendants -- who testified they were merely drawn by the crowd, or to document a historical event -- Hill testified she saw no bottles or other objects being thrown.

While acknowledging that she heard the LRAD's order to disperse, she said she had no idea where she was supposed to go. When she ended up surrounded on the Cathedral Lawn, she testified, she just awaited arrest.

( by they way, the cops broke her camera and video camera and have not paid to replace it)





http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid:76293






MARCH 11, 2010
Bad Timing

BY MARTY LEVINE


After two days of testimony in his courtroom, Judge Robert C. Gallo seemed to realize that for some of those arrested in Oakland following last fall's G-20 summit, their only offense was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But by then, it was too late for three of the four defendants appealing guilty verdicts stemming from the events of Sept. 25.

On March 1 and 2, Gallo heard four cases involving arrestees taken into custody in front of the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning that night.

As with earlier court hearings in October, multiple police officers testified that they were dispatched to break up an anti-police rally in Schenley Plaza. As police cordoned off the plaza, they testified, bottles were thrown and some in the crowd approached police lines.

Using the LRAD -- the Long-Range Acoustical Device, a truck-mounted loudspeaker that can also create pain-inducing sounds -- police declared the gathering "an unlawful assembly." They instructed those present to "leave the immediate vicinity ... no matter what your purpose is." Officers marched on the plaza, funneling the crowd onto Forbes Avenue, then onto the lawn surrounding the Cathedral of Learning, where 107 were surrounded and arrested starting at 11:11 p.m. -- about half an hour after first being ordered to disperse.

But the fact that police arrested protesters en masse created problems for prosecutors. None of the officers testifying in Gallo's courtroom had seen the defendants do anything wrong. As in earlier proceedings, police would even testify that by the time they took someone into custody, they'd already been handcuffed by another officer.

The matter came to a head in Gallo's courtroom during the March 2 trial of Melissa Hill, a Minnesota videographer with Twin Cities Indymedia. Like other defendants -- who testified they were merely drawn by the crowd, or to document a historical event -- Hill testified she saw no bottles or other objects being thrown. While acknowledging that she heard the LRAD's order to disperse, she said she had no idea where she was supposed to go. When she ended up surrounded on the Cathedral Lawn, she testified, she just awaited arrest.

"What did you see this particular do?" Gallo asked Hill's arresting officer, Sgt. Richard Howe.

"I saw no conduct of this particular defendant," Howe testified.

Which made it difficult for prosecutors to back up the charge of disorderly conduct.

"ailure to disperse from the area ... is enough" to warrant being a "hazard," contended Assistant District Attorney Kevin Chernosky. Under state law, a person commits disorderly conduct if he or she causes "public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm" by "creat a hazardous or physically offensive condition."

But Hill's attorney, Glen Downey, argued that "mere presence at the scene ... is insufficient evidence to find a person guilty of disorderly conduct."

Gallo agreed, and found Hill not guilty. The judge had already convicted three others under very similar circumstances, slapping each of them with a $50 fine. But, he explained, "Every prior case I had, the officer was here who saw what happened."

Actually, that wasn't so. During trials held the day before, arresting officers testified that they hadn't seen their arrestees do anything, either.

"I didn't see him specifically creating or doing any acts," testified detective William Friburger, who had arrested Oberlin student Peter Vankoughnett. "He was among the crowd."

Similarly, the only testimony detective Robert Shaw could give against Pitt student Ana Rasshivkina was, "She was standing on the Cathedral Lawn with a group of other people."

And Judge Gallo himself had summed up officer David Sisak's case against Pitt student Jonathan LaTourelle: "He was in the circle that failed to disperse. didn't see him do anything."

Gallo found all three guilty anyway. Their lawyer, Eileen Yacknin, tried to argue that her clients were confused by the LRAD orders.

The LRAD order "mainly all the people who were in the street," not the neighborhood, testified supervising officer Lt. Robert Roth.

"You could hear it all over Oakland?" Yacknin asked Det. Friburger.

"Yes," Friburger replied. The ADA objected before Friburger could answer Yacknin's follow-up: "So that anybody could have heard it a far distance away and thought they could have been told to disperse?"

The same issue should feature in the Citizen Police Review Board's hearings about G-20 police procedures -- if the CPRB can get any police documents to examine. Common Pleas Judge Stanton Wettick has yet to rule on a March 8 hearing in which the city sought to block CPRB access to any police documents not related to G-20-related complaints from individuals. During the hearing, the city's attorneys claimed that the CPRB has no right to the information or right to launch investigations unless there is a specific complaint from a citizen.

"Then you're really trying to give the review board a very limited role," Wettick said when the argument was repeated March 8. "This is an incredibly important decision because it would seriously limit the scope of the Citizen Police Review Board."

[annm4peace]

1. Article by Melissa Hill on the arrests, trials, and injustice from G20 protests

(maybe Teabaggers should read up on what real protesting involves and costs)

(also, Melissa does a lot of real reporting at events and doesn't get paid for it)


http://twincities.indymedia.org/2010/mar/update-g20-appeal-win-and-lrad-experts-pittsburgh


A few thoughts on last week’s G20 appeal hearings

Last week, I was in Pittsburgh again to deal with my appeal on my summary offense conviction of “disorderly conduct”. At this time, there were also a few other appeal hearings from other G20 arrestees for similar offenses. So on March 1st, I went into a hearing of four other G20 Arrestees to get an idea of how the summary appeal process works in Pennsylvania. There were three students and one non-student – all of whom were either arrested on the evening of September 25th near the University of Pittsburgh or the day earlier at Lawrenceville during the un-permitted march.

While none of these appeals had anything with the “failure to disperse” charge, the testimony that the Commonwealth gave focused on the Long-Range Acoustic Device (aka the sound cannon/LRAD), the location of LRADs, alleged dispersal orders, and generally alleged “anti-police” rally that evening. Sgt. O’Neil from the Pittsburgh PD stated that their intelligence indicated that a “anti-police rally” was taking place in Schenley Plaza and that they deployed the LRAD to disperse people from this area.



This testimony then went on for awhile as they described the encirclement of arrests, the LRAD systems and claimed that people had “thrown” a bottle at an officer without indicating who or where. We learned from the “LRAD expert” Officer Friburger that Pittsburgh had two LRAD models during this time a “500 model” that was on the “bear” and a “1000 model” that was on the pickup truck. We also learned that they had officers in the crowds trying to listen to these “warnings” from various vantage points. At one point, one of the attorneys asked Officer Friburger where the defendants were suppose to disperse to – and his response was “jail”, which brought a few laughs in the courtroom.

So despite the fact, that the medic, the students and the person who made wedding invitations were not individually seen doing anything disorderly other than being at the wrong place, at the wrong time, the first day of hearings went bad and all their appeals were thrown out. Under PA law, disorderly conduct requires that the defendants to be “engaging in activity that creates hazardous conditions”. The four arrestees all ended up with a $50 dollar fine plus court costs after the judge found them guilty.

What justification did Judge Gallo use for upholding these convictions? Judge Gallo stated that they were guilty of disorderly conduct because they engaged in hazardous activity that “endangered the safety of the officers”. He further went on to lecture the defendants indicating that the students now have a “record” that may hurt their chances at future employment - and that these defendants were taking place in activity that was “causing a riot” at an “anarchist anti-police” rally.

March 2nd Hearings

Rightfully so, I was nervous the next day when two of us had our appeals in front of the same judge. The other defendant got a lucky break when the arresting officer didn’t show up, which automatically sustained the appeal. Another arrestee argued their case pro-se when they were arrested on September 24th after commenting on the rough treatment of some of the protesters being arrested. Sadly, his appeal was thrown out and he has a $50 dollar fine to deal with along with court costs. Likely, what the defendant said was true and his arrest seemed without any cause or reason - but without an experienced attorney, it was difficult to get this judge to list to anything besides the State’s LRAD testimony.

Finally, it was time for my appeal to be heard before the judge. The commonwealth had three people testify against me, Lt. Trapp, an assistant operations commander that night for the Pittsburgh PD, an LRAD technician, and my booking officer, Sgt. Howe. Lt. Trapp provided the standard police story of what they were doing on the night of September 25th describing police lines and LRADs at various intersections, and attempting to stop the crowd at the “anti-police” rally. The LRAD expert came into court dressed in some sporting some militarized green camo clothing and discussed the LRAD briefly, once again focusing on the “failure to disperse” and the LRAD message.

Finally, my booking officer provided some testimony that basically amounted to seeing me standing around a few minutes before the arrest. However, he wasn’t the one who arrested me and wasn’t able to testify to what exactly “disorderly” I was doing and how I got there.

Then, I provided some brief testimony and told my story of how I was volunteering with Twin Cities Indymedia. We then presented a copy of the issued press passes. The Judge and prosecutor asked some questions about if the Indymedia press passes were issued by the Secret Service, which they weren’t as the Secret Service issued “official” press passes during the G20 to some news organizations. But otherwise, I told a brief explanation of how I was filming up to the moment of my arrest and how I wasn’t sure where to go to leave safely. The LRAD was blasting on and off the same message from the previous day with no directions or specifics.

Luckily - and due to some good lawyering skills on behalf of my attorney - the Judge sustained the appeal so I won the case and am free of the criminal charges. I would have liked to report that this happened in all the cases I saw those two days. However, it appears that sometimes the only way to find “justice” is to make sure you have a good, experienced attorney at whatever level you can afford.

Even with a personal “win” to celebrate, the overall conduct that the police and State got away during the G20 in Pittsburgh suggests that everything is suspended during a large event. Protesting, walking around, independent journalism, or even trying to travel around your neighborhood may leave you suspect to abuse by the State or arrest. Apparently, your mere presence at a protest (even if not protesting) may be perceived as being a “dangerous” condition for the heavily-armed and geared up riot police. Don’t forget you must listen to the LRADs that now appear to be legitimate tools used to disperse a crowd. As they gear up for the Toronto G20, the official security website already links to the Pittsburgh model and there are plans to the largest security operation in Canadian history. None of these police state tactics appear to be going away anytime in the near future.

Finally, my footage is still missing with no explanation and my camera sits broken. I filed a formal complaint with the local Citizens Police Review Board, which is stuck in some lawsuit as they try to get G20 documents to investigate the cases. We will see if that goes anywhere.