[From the diaries by susanhu. CNN is also reporting this story. (Finally reporting something about the anti-war protests!)]
The AP is reporting that Cindy Sheehan has been arrested.
Update [2005-9-26 19:24:5 by ejmw]: Cindy has written a diary about it over at dKos.
Sheehan and several dozen other protesters sat down on the sidewalk after marching along the pedestrian walkway on Pennsylvania Avenue. Police warned them three times that they were breaking the law by failing to move along, then began making arrests.
Sheehan, 48, was the first taken into custody. She stood up and was led to a police vehicle while protesters chanted, “The whole world is watching.”
Read more here, though it is not a very complete article, I’m afraid.
MSNBC has it listed as “Breaking News” on their frontpage, but no article yet.
I haven’t been able to find out exactly what the charges are. Loitering? Something more serious? I am not familiar with DC; there may be some specific laws about hanging around government buildings for too long. Anybody?
MORE BELOW:
Update [2005-9-26 14:30:17 by ejmw]:CNN has it linked from their front page, but the only real addition is someone spewing right wing talking points:
“I would like to say to Cindy Sheehan and her supporters don’t be a group of unthinking lemmings. It’s not pretty,” said Mitzy Kenny of Ridgeley, West Virginia, whose husband died in Iraq last year. The anti-war demonstrations “can affect the war in a really negative way. It gives the enemy hope.”
Grrrr….
Update [2005-9-26 14:46:8 by ejmw]:MSNBC now has the article up, along with a picture of Cindy smiling and appearing to be carried away (not led, like the articles say).
Update [2005-9-26 15:16:31 by ejmw]:OK, last update. It’s all over the news wires now. Google news now links to over 1300 articles (most of which are probably just copies of the AP one).
Update [2005-9-26 15:52:7 by ejmw]:OK, I lied. One more update. ConnecticutMan1 points out that the CNN article has been fleshed out some more, and has the following to say about the charges:
Others who were arrested also cooperated with police. Sgt. Scott Fear, spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said they would be charged with demonstrating without a permit, which is a misdemeanor.
Also, it looks like they’ll be back out soon after receiving their slap on the hand and requisite fine.
Park Police Sgt. L.J. McNally said Sheehan and the others would be taken to a processing center where they would be fingerprinted and photographed, then given a ticket and released. The process would take several hours, he said.
Update [2005-9-26 16:51:2 by ejmw]:A great play by play of today’s events w/ photos by David Swanson (props to sjct for the link!)
It is the top headline on BBC. Wow- this really moves things along.
Village voice says it was a “die-in.”
Groovy. 😉
The reporter was listed as Sarah Ferguson.
Is this “Fergie” by any chance?
While walking in protest on a sidewalk is legal, blocking the sidewalk probably is not. And most police get pretty irritated when you fail to obey their orders — that alone is grounds for arrest.
She is supposed to speak at the Univ MD tomorrow night — hope she gets out.
she intended to be arrested, I’m sure she’s got bail set up in advance, too. She’ll be out in a few hours or tomorrow morning at the latest. I’m sure loitering is a misdemeaner. Failure to obey an officer, I’m not so sure about but I don’t think it’s a major felony. All the same, she’s being processed; she’s “in the system” now and the experience will open her eyes to a whole ‘nother side of America…
Taken from susahu’s CNN Link…
Hey… All ding dong the neocon had to do was meet with her.
They should be out on bail in a short while. Unless they screw them over like they did to NY protesters during the GOP convention.
I’ve updated the story to reflect the new info.
WHOOPS! I think that was taken from your link… lol
Anyways… It was taken from a link in the story up^^^there.
MMM Whatever happened to….
Or am I being terribly naive?
N/T
This is probably a good move on her part– mobilize support and so on-not fall off the front page- I know that sounds calculating- but it works.
It will be protrayed as calculating on her part. She may be cast as an ego-driven publicity hound. She’s following a tradition of peaceful civil disobediance and I respect that but, it would have been more powerful if she’s done it on Saturday and a few thousand people had sat down with her. Endless paddy wagons taking away sweet little grandma’s and other “normal” looking people would have forced the MSM to cover the protest.
good point– but lost in the msm coverage of Rita -she has always been portrayed as a nut-or whatever they call her this day-I was saying it was about the aftermath of the march and her power as a symbol. She won’t back down no matter what the f-ing media say- that is her power. I say that civil disobedience on the part of someone who carries her moral position-is a good thing,and if that takes an arrest- well -she is no coward. But attention is needed- so the whole thing doesn’t just fade away.I really don’t think she is that calculating, but I am.
Cindy’s protest has always been confrontational, passive resistence. model, that’s why Crawford, Texas. The whole thing is “In Your Face”, everybody knows it. The charge that it’s calculating is like saying there’s air. It’s calculated to try to bring as much attention to Cindy’s issue as she can manage. To not be “calculataing” it would have to be some indescribable moral saintly occurance of the magical mideaval times, like say, Cindy develops the stigmata and her image magically appears on a food item or wall in a provincial location.
If Cindy wants to keep generating publicity, support, and new support against the war she has to keep generating confrontational passive resistence situations.
Uh, can we not play Shirley Temple, Gomer Pyle, or Homer Simpson here? There’s no shock in this nor that those who don’t like Cindy’s activities are proclaiming that she’s doing what she’s doing.
YES ,indeed sainthood is outta fashion.
It’s probably good to point out that 1. Cindy has been talking to Jesse Jackson, who certainly knows of Martin Luther King Jr. and 2. that Ghandi consistently staged acts a good deal more confrontational than this while being non-violent.
Speaking of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi’s “staged acts a good deal more confrontational than this while being non-violent…”
I’d say we’d do well to study the strategies used by MLK and Gandhi. As I recall they succeeded in many of their original goals.
Gandhi’s ‘salt march’ made a huge impression–HUGE-it was all about ‘Shame on you,you greedsuckers’– It worked then and it will work now.
I would like to say that a 4 from rolfyboy is pretty damm commplimentary. 🙂 REALLY, no kidding.
I just forget to give people fours. These days I’m usually speeding through.
Stay and sit a spell sometimes…
Yes Miss Catnip, right up close.
That’s why it is so special!
The DC police are very well trained for this kind of thing. I am quite sure they simply picked her up and carried her to the van.
Clearly this was planned — and I see nothing wrong with that. But I’m not sure it is a very big development. Wing-nuts will see it as proof she’s off her rocker — anti-war people will see it as taking things to the next step. And most of America will yawn and move on.
The key is to carry on. This weekend’s protests were encouraging — especially those in other cities around the country. But remember this, Nixon used the protests to prove his point that “the silent majority” were against the protesters. Rove will do the same.
Neither do I. There wasn’t anything wrong with it when Rosa Parks did it, nor when Gandhi did it either.
Hell, the DC police essentially just played their part. If they hadn’t bothered to arrest Cindy, practically nobody would’ve known she was there. Assuming they did their job professionally, maybe we ought to send them a thank you card.
Many more will need to be arrested along with her to win this battle.
I hope one day I can work up the courage to do it.
Hey!
is that the young john kerry in the top left hand corner of the photograph in the update? Will the right wing photoshop Jane Fonda in there? Or perhaps their best pal Osama?
Good for you Cindy. Good for you the 50 arrested with you. Charged with a misdemeanor of demonstrating without a permit, they’ll be back again.
Should have had folks do this in groups of 50 all day long Saturday. As soon as 50 are arrested have another 50 sit down.
Then have groups of 5 to 10 from every congressional district and state visit their Representatives and Senators today. As soon as 5 to 10 finish their meeting with their rep/sen have the next group of 5 to 10 come in and make the same case.
End the War now.
Bring the national guard home.
Send the troops to finish the job in Afghanistan.
Demand the resignation of bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.
One after another after another after another after another after another after another after an….
She will refuse to sign the bail form and start writing letters from a D.C. jail.
It is time to start taking our protests to a new place, right? Bigger. Yellow. Different.
Anything to get the lumbering giant of the MSM to just cover it. Her getting arrested may do more than the half-a-million or thereabouts that marched on Saturday.
HaHa! Boston you should be down there coordinating this you have a gift.
Look the flipping MSM wouldn’t pay attention any other way. she was smart doing what she did. I will happily send the bail money however I am sure that was covered before she even was arrested.
Pretty sure this is covered already- the checkbook is out-right now-enough of this cra- although i suppose Cindy could write “A Letter from WashingtonDC Jail’- that would be STUNNING!
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/3119&
From CNN:
With many arrested, there will apparently only be charges for misdemeanors. Oh, great name for a cop!
…for elected Democrats to engage in would be for each one in turn to ask for a point of personal privilege on the House or Senate floor. At the microphone, they could amplify the question Cindy Sheehan has been asking: “What noble cause, Mr. President? Who will be the last person to die for your concocted war? When will you come clean with the American people?
Every Senator. Every Representative. One after another. Let them play that on C-Span.
But the majority of Senate and House Democrats have yet to join the majority of Americans who oppose this war. What will it take to get them to lead us away from this NeoImp nightmare?
What will it take to get them to lead us away from this NeoImp nightmare?
Usually I’m not this cynical, but I really am starting to wonder what the heck is taking them so long.
One of my big thoughts on Saturday was “I love the Congressional Black Caucus for speaking out against BushCo,” followed immediately by “Now where the hell are the rest of our representatives?”
I think they have been far too comfortable for far too long.
It is hard to believe that more of the congressional democrats have not taken the most basic step of asking for a general timetable for withdrawal. If the American congress will not even ask the question “When will it end?” CabinGirl your right we need to make them pay the political price. I sane rational Iraq policy should be prerequisite for our support. An opened ended commitment in Iraq is in no way in the best interests of the U.S. Lets get real.
The American Congress won’t ask when it will end OR even how much are we going to spend? What are we spending it on? Who the heck are they representing anyway? Not me, obviously.
I don’ the Dems hav any specific Iraq policy (maybe “Go along to get along”?), let alone a sane and rational one.
ugh. lots of bad typos. sorry!
Thats the Iraq policy of Hillary and Biden. Not exactly a politically couragous stance is it? We are killing our sons and daughters to install an Islamic government in Iraq. Its nuts. Nobody in this country signed up for that not even the neocons. Although that could have been a part of some twisted plan somewhere along the line. You never know with those lunatics.
CNN and Wolf situation room just covered the arrest in their blogging section and featured DK among some other blogs. Talked about the march as well.
I go for a nap and all hell breaks loose. Geez. (Breaking news junkies don’t like it when that happens).
I was dreaming about “Tribbers”, some university in New York and packing up gifts from my mother. It was weird.
Best of luck to Cindy and all the protesters as they move on with their mission. This is far from over.
This was definetily planned. D Janet, M Tracy, Brother Feldspar, Ryan and I saw them training for this yesterday. In fact, I considered going down there for that today too since I’m still in town, but decided against it for different reasons. So yes this was all in the works from the start and I’m glad she did it if it brings more attention to the cause.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/3119
Yes, there was plans, trainings…
I believe that there should be MORE civil disobedience along these lines. My heart was so torn because Mon was my last day and as each day progressed we knew it wasn’t going to be a simple matter of trying to deliver pink slips. something had to be done. Other groups were planning to be arrested as well.
All I can say is – like the train stoppage – several of us who were wanting to “witness” were unable to get to the area at all.
I plan to get arrested here in California later. I am unable to be arrested in DC and have to return for several court dates… they like to postpone, delay so that your costs/travel add up… but I will be with CodePink here in Calif.
Protesting is straight a publicity attempt among other things. An attempt to wake people up at the risk of your own safety and freedom. THIS must be on the NEWS.
We must not forget and we must continue to protest with Cindy.
I should have stayed a few more days… :*( So I could have been there from the get go and been there. Instead of being pushed back and escorted out.
So, today we have Cindy Sheehan wanting an answer to a simple question: why are we at war in Iraq.
Then, we have Judy Miller in jail because she has answers to questions the American public want to know. The NY Times, a daily newspaper supposedly in business to provide the American public with answers, decries the jailing of their “reporter” and cry foul. They want to protect their reporter’s right to keep information from the public and act as a mouthpiece for the Bush administration.
Which newspaper will defend Sheehan’s right to ask, demand, answers from the president? Which paper will demand that reporters stop acting like PR tools and start acting like reporters? It won’t be the Bill Keller edition of the New York Times.
Just as I was about to post this comment I found this story at EDITOR & PUBLISHER:
Oops. It should read:
So, today we have Cindy Sheehan arrested for wanting an answer to a simple question: why are we at war in Iraq?
It had been planned in Crawford. We were going to march to the ranch until they arrested because nobody was hearing us and it seemed like nobody cared and a lot of people who started Crawford didn’t have anything else left to lose. And then totally to the amazement and shock of the lunatics who were there, the media and the world began noticing and responding. At that moment during a meeting it was decided that civil disobedience wasn’t what the issue needed. Reporters were interviewing and reporting and people did indeed care so everything shifted to organizing and acknowledging each other and getting the message out. The march on D.C. got very little news coverage, it was pathetic…..so now we move forward to the next step provided us. If you won’t give us coverage and you won’t let our voice be heard then now we will be arrested as peacefully as we can. This was the first one. The next one will have more committed individuals in it that will not move. Eventually there will be so many of us they won’t have jails enough for us and they will have to get buses and put us in warehouses while processing us AND FRANKLY MY DEAR I DO NOT GIVE A FUCKING DAMN HOW MANY TIMES I AM ARRESTED. If it what we have to do to be heard and acknowledged by the media then that is exactly what we will be fucking doing now! When I left D.C. I told Cabingirl and others that I would be seeing them again. I want to take my children there ASAP to see the things that cowgirls growing up in the wild west only read about and finally see when they are forty years old. I will see her and Rob and everybody else for that, and I will see them hopefully for fun before I am arrested a few times also. If some copper loses his patience and cracks me one I hope Jonathon will represent me!