WA: season's greetings from the Port of Olympia

Last night at the lighted ships parade.

WA: imagine, an arrest-free port protest

Yesterday we were at the farmers' market, conveniently located next to the Port of Olympia. As the marchers went past, I was turned off by the bullhorn and the upside-down Old Glory, but was heartened to see a demonstration truly non-violent enough to bring your dog.

Bonus link goes to OlyBlog and "Imagine a different protest."

WA: in Oly, it's pepper spray season again

From the Olympian:

At least 12 arrested as protests move to downtown, I-5 entrance

At least 12 people have been arrested today as protests of military-cargo shipments from the Port of Olympia moved to downtown and the Plum Street entrance to Interstate 5... Protesters on foot blocked traffic at Fourth and Plum about noon by jumping in front of 18-wheelers towing cargo containers containing military equipment bound for Fort Lewis. But Olympia police in riot gear moved in quickly, spraying pepper spray in the faces of the protesters, pushing them with their batons and dragging them away from the road...

There are lots of photos to be seen at OlyBlog (here and here) and The Olympian's gallery. Also, you might like to read this OlyBlog post, "I'm sitting on the fence here instead of lining up against it". My past posts on the port protests are here.

WA: Oly port protesters' cases dismissed

From the Olympian: Port defendants prevail

Citing “gross negligence” by Thurston County prosecutors, a judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against 16 people accused of trespassing during a protest of a military shipment at the Port of Olympia last year. The courtroom erupted in raucous celebration when Thurston County District Court Judge Susan Dubuisson announced the dismissal of the cases...

And from Olyblog:

Because the case has been dismissed, the in camera hearing with the judge, prosecutors, and representatives of the Thurston County Sheriff's office, tentatively scheduled for this week, will not occur, and the identity of the "informant" who leaked information from the defendants' list-serv to the prosecutor's office will not be disclosed. Questions of prosecutorial misconduct have also been laid to rest with this dismissal...

WA: Olympia port protest trial over

Mistrial? Mistrial. Case dismissed, but not for the reason you'd think, and not for the reasons the defense wanted.

Tell you more once the story makes The Olympian and OlyBlog. Until then, be careful with your work product and remember, there's no such thing as a "secure listserv."

Bonus link: what do Athens, Ohio and Olympia, Washington have in common? Chapters of SDS, the new group reviving an old brand, Students for a Democratic Society.

Update 3/30/07: it made The Olympian:

The trial of 15 people who protested last year at the Port of Olympia ended in a mistrial Thursday after the judge learned confidential jury information was sent out over a compromised e-mail listserv used by the co-defendants...

Compromised, but not by Homeland Security or law enforcement. Despite the speculation in the article's comment section, this was a screw-up, not a conspiracy, while arguably it could be contempt of court. It was the defense team that posted the juror questionnaire information to the "secure" listserv, which had more subscriber e-mail addresses on it than the number of pro se defendants and defense lawyers.

Olyblog has video and commentary from the scene of the trainwreck:

* Profiles of the jury pool were sent to an email list that included defendants, lawyers, former defendants, and other members of the legal team. The information discussed through email is protected under attorney-client privilege. This information was inadvertently sent to about 10 former defendants.The defense team immediately noted the error and sent an email to unauthorized recipients instructing them to disregard and to delete that email...

* Does it matter how the prosecution obtained the information? Unless it was through illegal means, no crime. Someone from the defense messed up, period. Try another method of communication - Riseup LISTSERV is hardly secure and easily compromised...

WA: the port in court

Updates from the Port of Olympia protesters' trespassing trial, from the Olympian:

Prosecutor’s comment prompts mistrial review - Attorneys for defendants call foul over mention of gate

(Andrew Yankey, who chose to represent himself in the trial of 17 people charged with trespassing on secure Port of Olympia property during a protest last year, reacts to an objection from the prosecuting attorney during his opening statement to the jury Monday evening, March 26, 2007 in judge Dubuisson's courtroom.)

Judge rebuffs defense in port trial

The deputy is not the only one praying for the trial to be over soon, but plan on it to go way into next week (unless something else mistrial-able comes up).

WA: let the Olympia games begin

The Olympia port protesters' trial starts today. Here's a preview written by one of the accused.

WA: port protest trial on hold

From the Olympian:

Judge delays trial of port protesters

A judge's ruling has postponed the trial of more than a dozen protesters charged with trespassing during the May 30 protest over a military shipment at the Port of Olympia...

At issue is an Oct. 3 ruling by District Court Judge Susan Dubuisson that allows protesters to use the "necessity" defense to win acquittal...

Bonus link goes to a post from one of the participants, via Oly Blog:

Victories and setbacks as the Oly 22 trial gets postponed

WA: Olympia port protest pre-trial

From Olyblog:

Port Protesters Pre-Trial

The last pre-trial extravaganza for those arrested during the Port War Protests is scheduled for Monday, November 6th and the trial is scheduled to begin on the 13th...

If you would like to come to support these 17 cases, come Monday, 11/6/06 at 9am to District Court. Wear red to show your solidarity. Otherwise, be well-behaved, quiet and civil to not complicate the cases. Directions to the court are on the website... and the names of our protesters will be printed on the dockets...

Come witness the process. Some of our protesters are represented by attorneys, some are represented by Public Defenders...

Again with the excluding of public defenders from the category of "attorneys..."

WA: indymedia on Oly port protesters

At least one A&C reader (thanks, Sancho!) was happy for the update from the local paper on the Port of Olympia protesters, who are now looking at a November 13th trial date in Thurston County district court.

(13 of the "Olympia 22." One of the flags is in black and red, the colors of anarchy and communism (and / or the FSLN); the other appears to be of the Palestinian Authority. One sign on the house reads, "Israel Out of Lebanon and Gaza." Being peaceful and nonviolent people, perhaps they're just blocking the other sign on the house which reads, "Hizbullah rockets out of Israel.")

There are other perspectives of course beside The Olympian's, or mine for that matter. One of the cool aspects of Olympia life is the numerosity of independent media for a city so small, bracing for a southern Idaho transplant. Local indymedia deliver a point of view much closer to the protesters' own, mostly saying "hooray for our side."

From Olyblog: Prosecution of Port Protesters

The prosecutor should drop charges or she's gonna lose big because she was almost laughed out of court yesterday!

From Works in Progress: Port and County Prosecutor team up to perpetrate political farce and attempted extortion

Again, it just illustrates that the prosecution is left to clean up the mess that sloppy [political] policing gives them. We should remember that the Prosecution is willingly complicit in that farce -- they could simply drop the charges...

The article suggests that if only the protesters had been successful, they might have saved the life of Fort Lewis SGT Gabriel DeRoo. It's heartwarming that their motives were pure - surely the DeRoo family feels their condolences.

Or it's obscene to suggest so, take your pick. Comrades: yes, I'm against the war, and I would defend you in court with all my cleverness and skill if I were appointed to represent you. However, you would not want me on your jury.

Oh, and p.s.: lines like this -

Most of the protesters are represented by an attorney or public defender...

- always piss me off.

WA: necessity defense okayed for Olywa port protesters

By Christian Hill of the Olympian, photo by Toni Bailey:

Port protesters win right to prove acts were justifiable


Seventeen people who will stand trial next month for allegedly trespassing on secured Port of Olympia property during a raucous May 30 protest got an early victory Tuesday. Thurston County District Court Judge Susan Dubuisson ruled that she'll allow them to use a "necessity" defense in attempting to justify their actions in trying to stop a military shipment from leaving the Port of Olympia...

I especially like this photo from inside the courtroom, a good tableau of life and law in Oly. The guy in the scarf is happy, the seated prosecutor is not. That's my OAC colleague Dave on the far left (of the photo, not the spectrum).

WA: yippee!

Here in the South Sound, tomorrow's district court docket looks to be pretty zesty. One of the Port of Olympia anti-war protesters has issued a call to the barricades:

Urgent: Court solidarity needed for Port of Olympia arrestees

This is it! The big, final pre-trial hearing! Either they take over 20 of us to trial, or we all walk. It'll all be decided Friday morning, and we need your solidarity!

The courts have tried to scare us... They've threatened jail time. They've offered "deals" with such stipulations as not being able to be arrested for the same offense again within a year, not being able to be in the secured area of the Port of Olympia, and having to pay $200 restitution per person to that very port. Not one of these terms is acceptable.

...(T)he way I see it, they can go to Hell with their "deals." I can spend ninety days in jail. I can work $1000 worth of community service. But I don't back down from nobody...

We're hosting a party, right there in our courtroom! Thurston County Courthouse... this Friday morning at 9 am... ...(C)ome on down and hang out with the Olympia 22 in a show of solidarity! There'll be fun, music, dancing. The party begins tonight, will move to the courthouse in the morning, and will go on even after the prosecution throws our cases out the window...

Good luck with that, really; write and tell us how well it goes. This could be an entertaining spectacle if those courtrooms in Building 3 weren't so cramped.

For a contrast, read this report from a protester who did take one of those "deals." As the Pythons might say, "Splitter!"

Update: here's an article from the Olympian.

Off-topic: port in a storm

About the Port of Olympia, "one more special message to go / and then I'm done and I can go home":

I never got a call from an arrested protester. From a guy protesting his DUI, sure, but not from an anti-war protester. I drove past the docks after work last night to see the Pomeroy and some of the people gathering for the "die-in." Today the ship's set sail.

In the end, the Strykers got loaded thanks to ILWU Local 47, and my new town made the map as this year's hot destination for peace tourism. Viva Oly!

The Tacoma paper had a good wrap-up article on the protests:

Military use of Olympia’s port collides with its pacifists

Some people on my side of the political divide were uneasy with this particular bit of protest theater. As one non-violent blogger says in "The Price Of War Protesting":

Protesters are always quick to point out the collateral damage done by war... The problem is they don't seem to think about the collateral damage they are causing.

Others commented on Daily Kos:

We can't allow Kos or his readers to be associated in any way with this kind of action. Interfering with military operations or logistics is a good way to get good men and women serving in our military hurt or killed... Furthermore, we can't give knuckle-dragging RedStaters the opportunity to pin the "anti-troops" label on us. And if you really think it's a good idea to deny critical supplies to our forces...I'm not sure it's just a label.

These people have stepped across the line from criticism of the leadership of our nation's military to interfering in the operations of the military itself. ...(T)his act is so futile as to be effectively a symbolic effort. I don't think we should be shy about openly sharing the sentiment behind their action...but we would do ourselves a great disservice to support the action itself.

Let them starve, without ammunition, body armor and medical supplies. Great thinking!!!! This will win votes and stop the war!!! This sort of depravity makes us all look bad. Sick and stupid.

There. Now back to the public defender gossip (but not before giving the last word to my Pugetopolis neighbor E. Spat).

The war at home

I'm possibly going to have an interesting time being the on-call public defender this week.

From today's Olympian: Port protests escalate - 22 arrests made in demonstrations against military cargo ship.

Twenty-two people were arrested Tuesday in one of the most volatile confrontations yet between anti-war activists and police officers guarding a military cargo ship docked at the Port of Olympia. The confrontations resulted in the most arrests in a single day since the demonstrations began a week ago against the Iraq-bound military shipments leaving from the port...

OlyBlog has been on top of events at the port. For more pro-protest perspectives, see "Olympia Resists Militarization of Our Port" (for "Olympia" read "part of Olympia"). Plenty of photos at either site. You might also hear live updates from the masked kids on the front lines streaming at Oly's unlicensed pirate radio station, Free Radio Olympia, where last night I was informed that the people pulling on the fences were only trying nonviolently to get into the port so they could inspect the shipments.

Also this weekend, the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association will be in town having its annual conference at The Evergreen State College. Labor studies are reliably interesting. One especially animated panel discussion should be "'Global Wars and Local Ports: the Iraq War and the Port of Olympia,' Larry Mosqueda, member of the faculty at Evergreen, and members of ILWU Local 47." Animated, as Local 47, the Olympia local of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, seems to have come out against the protests:

Members of Operation Support Our Troops joined workers loading the USNS Pomeroy for a barbecue lunch Tuesday to show support for the shipment of equipment to Iraq... Local 47 paid for the lunch.

It's fascinating to watch these battles and cleavages play out among progressive labor, enlisted men and women, law enforcement, and the protesters. If I had to choose a spokesman who comes closest to voicing my feelings, I'd probably go with this OlyBlog commenter:

I will not say that I am for or against the war in Iraq. What I will say is that I shall soon find my boots on the desert sands of that far off place. I am a Medic. I joined the Army to heal... I heard about your protest today at the port and it angered me. Not because you were protesting, or what you were protesting, but because the only thing you succeeded in was giving me and my fellow soldiers a hard time and making us have less time with our families. We are operators not policy makers. We volunteered to do a job. That job is handed down to us by a civilian government according to the constitution. What I think about the war in Iraq is totally irrelevant. What anyone in this Stryker Brigade, even its commander thinks about it is irrelevant. We are soldiers and we go where the civilian leadership needs us. If you want this to stop, talk to them, not us. As I said, we are not policy makers... We are given a mission and we prosecute it to the best of our abilities. Don't hassle the soldiers, hassle Congress and the White House.


Updates: from KOMO, Daily Kos, By The Bayou, and Res Ipsa. Oh, and weighing in on the Port of Olympia activity, Michelle Malkin has come out strongly against "coddling" arrestees and for pepper spray in the face (no link here - you find it).

Here's another "pro" post, from My Left Wing, with a commenter wistfully asking us to "imagine what a coordinated longshoreman's strike in the port would do." What the commenter imagines is just the opposite of the Olympia union local's pro-shipments stance:

...(T)he International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) opposes the war with Iraq but supports the shipping of military supplies and the ongoing contract of the port with the military. These are livable wage jobs for their members in a small port... (T)he ILWU made it clear that they would continue to load the ships.

And so the historic rift between Labor and Left gets replayed.

It's quieter down at the harbor this early Wednesday evening - the Pomeroy is about to cast off.

Update 06/01/06: Ship leaves Olympia amid protesters' finale