Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I was going to write this last weekend on the actual 44th anniversary of a very sad event. For some reason, I had a hard time focusing on what I wanted to say, in light of the many emotions that were going through my head. I don’t want the anniversary to go by without writing about the personal significance that day in May had on my life, and I believe on the lives of many in my generation. The Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo, included above from Wikipedia, is one that I have never forgotten. Nor should anyone forget it.
I can’t believe that 44 years have elapsed since that fateful day in May, 1970. On May 4th, 1970, members of the Ohio National Guard fired upon unarmed student protesters, killing four of them and wounding and maiming several others. I will never forget that day because I was a Freshmen at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and when the news of the student killings broke, I thought a bomb had gone off in my head. I wasn’t overly political at that point in time, but that somber event changed all of my prior thinking.
I was just short of my 19th birthday and I remember that day as my personal coming of age experience. I was no longer just a young college student. I was now a member of a class that was shot down by soldiers on a campus not too far away from mine, and in many respects, very similar to mine. The fact that agents of the government could fire upon peaceful protesters was so extraordinary that it felt like a kick in the groin to myself and many other students on my campus and on campuses throughout the country. Along with the killing of two students at Jackson State University(f/k/a Jackson State College) around May 14th, it looked and felt like it was open season on college students.
Indeed, I was “watching” a protest that turned ugly on May 11th, 1970 when elements of the Illinois State Police and the Illinois National Guard attacked the crowd of students that I and friend were in the middle of and chased down and beat some of us and arrested a large group of innocent students. I can still smell the pepper spray from that warm evening. I was one of the unlucky ones who were arrested that night. That event which started as a protest against the killings at Kent State turned into a night in Jackson County Jail in Murphysboro, Illinois.
After getting arrested and fingerprinted and receiving my first full body cavity inspection, I was literally thrown into a cell designed to hold 4 prisoners, which was already holding 8-10 of my fellow students when I was thrust upon them. After spending most of the early morning of my 19th birthday in the lockup, my head was spinning from the tear gas and pepper gas used by the authorities the night before and from the lack of sleep in that overcrowded cell. I realize that my little experience pales in comparison to what the students at Kent State and Jackson State had to endure, but the whole event opened my eyes to something that I have never forgotten.
My country and my state would not allow me and my college classmates and friends to express ourselves as the U.S. Constitution provided in the First Amendment. I felt like I was a second class citizen in my own country and state. Shortly after my arrest, Southern Illinois University was closed down for the semester and many students grades were negatively impacted by the decision to close down early. Many other campuses across the country also closed down early in response to the demonstrations and protests that were being held on a daily basis. So once again, my grades were impacted negatively because of the closure and I was placed on social probation by the university, all because I was expressing my Constitutional rights. Did the Government or the Illinois State Police care about my rights? No, because I was just a student who got in their way.
After the summer ended and I was acquitted of the charge of “unlawful assembly” in a court of law, I was still left on social probation by my university even though I was found not guilty of any wrongdoing. Once again, I felt helpless in my own university because I was labeled a trouble maker even though I had done nothing wrong or illegal. It took many months and years for an investigation into the Kent State killings to take place and as you might have guessed, it was pretty much a whitewash job. The National Guard claimed that they were fired upon even though there was little or no evidence backing their claims.
Even President Nixon lambasted the students in interviews following the sad event. I saw this as another example of the college students being treated as if they had less rights than the National Guardsmen or any other citizen. (I highly recommend a book titled, “Kent State, What Happened and Why”, by James Michener, which discussed all of the evidence and facts surrounding the shootings and came down to the conclusion that the Guardsmen illegally and improperly fired upon the unarmed students.)
The events surrounding the Kent State killings still resonate in my head and I became more politically involved and aware because of Kent State and my arrest shortly after. My big brother was in Vietnam at the time and this weighed heavily upon me, but I had just been slapped in the face by my University, my State and my Country and I now had a duty to expose any and all wrongdoings of our government in prosecuting the war in Vietnam. After all, the students at Kent State and Jackson State were killed while protesting our country’s immoral actions in Southeast Asia.
I made a pledge to myself that I would not allow any government of this country take advantage of any so-called “lesser” citizens for any reason. I also promised myself to never trust my government again without verifying the facts. The phrase heard a lot during those “Days of Rage” was “My country, love it or leave it”. Well, it was my country too and I wasn’t about to leave it just because my rights were being violated. It became my duty to do whatever I could to right the wrongs and to help the disadvantaged overcome the odds. It was also critical in my decision to become a lawyer.
Have I been able to help “right the wrongs” by my country since 1970? I may have helped some, but probably not as many as I would have liked, but every day I attempt to even the odds against the little guy. It has been 44 years and I am physically not the same person, but it feels as if it was just yesterday. I often relive the events of May of 1970 and as I pledged to myself 44 years ago, “never again”. The Occupy Wall Street protests reminded me of the anti-Vietnam war movement in some ways. Those protesters were also mistreated and maligned by an ever-growing police presence. They too may have been changed forever by their experience standing up to governmental power.
Never again will I sit and let someone else stand up to a government gone astray. I can still hear the screams of the students in the video of the event and I can still see the picture of the young girl kneeling over a dead student and I can still hear the words of the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song of the day, “Four Dead in Ohio”. Peace to all of you and I hope that the parents and loved ones of the victims have been able to find some peace in the past 44 years. I hope the Mothers of those lost or maimed, if they are still with us, can also find some peace on this Mothers Day.
I will continue to remind everyone that I can, every year, that those students did not die in vain. They did not die in vain because they spurred on an anti-war movement and they altered my life forever and I believe the life of our country. Their fate is a stark reminder of what kind of power a government has and an example of what a government should not do. What do you think?
“The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.”
I wonder Elaine if your last source will meet approval? Good find.
Cecily McMillan’s guilty verdict reveals our mass acceptance of police violence
The hyper-selective retelling of events mirrors the popular narrative of Occupy Wall Street – and how one woman may serve seven years while the NYPD goes free
Molly Knefel
theguardian.com
Monday 5 May 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/05/cecily-mcmillan-occupy-guilty-police-violence
The verdict in the biggest Occupy related criminal case in New York City, that of Cecily McMillan, came down Monday afternoon. As disturbing as it is that she was found guilty of felony assault against Officer Grantley Bovell, the circumstances of her trial reflect an even more disturbing reality – that of normalized police violence, disproportionately punitive sentences (McMillan faces seven years in prison), and a criminal penal system based on anything but justice. While this is nothing new for the over-policed communities of New York City, what happened to McMillan reveals just how powerful and unrestrained a massive police force can be in fighting back against the very people with whom it is charged to protect.
McMillan was one of roughly 70 protesters arrested on March 17, 2012. She and hundreds of other activists, along with journalists like me, had gathered in Zuccotti Park to mark the six-month anniversary of the start of Occupy Wall Street. It was four months after the New York Police Department had evicted the Occupy encampment from the park in a mass of violent arrests.
When the police moved in to the park that night, in formation and with batons, to arrest a massive number of nonviolent protesters, the chaos was terrifying. Bovell claimed that McMillan elbowed him in the face as he attempted to arrest her, and McMillan and her defense team claim that Bovell grabbed her right breast from behind, causing her to instinctively react.
But the jury didn’t hear anything about the police violence that took place in Zuccotti Park that night. They didn’t hear about what happened there on November 15, 2011, when the park was first cleared. The violence experienced by Occupy protesters throughout its entirety was excluded from the courtroom. The narrative that the jury did hear was tightly controlled by what the judge allowed – and Judge Ronald Zweibel consistently ruled that any larger context of what was happening around McMillan at the time of the arrest (let alone Bovell’s own history of violence) was irrelevant to the scope of the trial.
Editors Don’t Belong in Courtrooms, and Cecily McMillan Doesn’t Belong in Prison
The jury that convicted the Occupier on May 5 had only been given one side of the story.
Kathryn Funkhouser
May 9, 2014
http://www.thenation.com/article/179768/editors-dont-belong-courtrooms-and-cecily-mcmillan-doesnt-belong-prison#
Excerpt:
Pretend you have to choose a book: one is a lurid airport paperback written for people who don’t like to read, the story of a bad girl getting taken down a peg; the other is missing half its pages and it has a lot of footnotes. You’d choose the first book, whatever its faults—you can’t even tell what the second one’s about.
This was essentially the choice presented to the jury of Cecily McMillan’s trial by the rulings of Judge Ronald Zweibel. In a fair trial, the jury must consider two full texts and answer a reading comprehension question: In this case, is there any reasonable doubt that McMillan intentionally assaulted a police officer for the purpose of preventing him from performing his duties? But when the jury convicted McMillan on May 5, they had really been given only one side of the story.
McMillan was arrested on the night of March 17, 2012, which fell on both St. Patrick’s Day and the six-month anniversary of the Occupy movement—a date that would also become known for the seventy-three arrests that occurred in Zuccotti Park that night. While the police were clearing the park of the throng of protesters, McMillan’s elbow struck Officer Grantley Bovell’s face. The defense argues that this event occurred when McMillan, exiting the park as directed, was suddenly grabbed from behind by her right breast. Her elbow then struck Bovell when she startled, without intent to strike him or knowledge that he was a police officer. The prosecution claims that McMillan hit Bovell with her elbow without provocation while he was escorting her from the park. The fact that the blow was struck was never disputed; the question was whether the blow was provably an intentional assault of an officer.
Throughout the case, the prosecutor set out to distract the jury from the question at hand by discussing undocumented events, treating witnesses’ opinions as fact and casting aspersions on McMillan’s character. Judge Zweibel gave them free rein to do so, while consistently ruling key testimony and evidence for the defense inadmissible. This pattern was most clearly demonstrated in the court’s treatment of evidentiary video footage. Several videos posted to YouTube show the crowd at Zuccotti Park from different angles on the night in question. However, the jury saw only a sliver of blurry footage. According to the defense, out of a ten-minute video of the events before and after McMillan’s elbow struck Bovell’s face, only fifty-two seconds was admitted. Zweibel’s justification? At the beginning of this fifty-two-second section is the first frame in which Bovell says he can definitively identify himself.
It’s particularly convenient for Bovell that none of the contextual footage was shown. Another piece of his testimony was directly contradicted by the melee shown at the beginning of the video, in which another officer shoves a protester and announces through a bullhorn, “Leave the park or you will be arrested.” Bovell testified that there was an announcement that the park was being temporarily cleared for routine cleaning, at which point the belligerent protesters suddenly began to cause trouble for the polite police force. The violence with which the police are shown to interact with unresistant protesters in the full video is key to understanding the events of that night. But the judge ruled this footage inadmissible because Bovell’s memory, which proved extremely selective under cross-examination, conveniently didn’t coincide with it. One of the jurors anonymously told The Guardian that it was this fifty-two-second clip, taken out of context, that led the jury to its guilty verdict.
Another short clip was only allowed without sound—this one shows McMillan convulsing on the ground after her arrest. In that audio, jurors would have heard voices in the crowd shout at the police officers to help McMillan, which provides important context to the officers’ motionless observation of her body. If McMillan were faking distress, as the prosecution alleged, it certainly fooled many of those present. Had audio been admitted, the prosecution would have been free to argue that the crowd’s assessment was incorrect, but when the audio of the footage was ruled to be prejudicial, the ruling seemed calculated to bolster the prosecution’s narrative. The police officer’s casual reactions were there for the jury to note, but not the reactions of the civilians. Zweibel, through his selective admittance of clips, looked increasingly like an editor of those YouTube parodies of movie trailers in which The Shining is edited to look like a family comedy, or Mary Poppins is recut as a horror film. The prosecution became the director dictating a vision for the story, and Zweibel acted as the editor, selecting footage to tell the tale.
Throughout the trial, the courtroom rang out with objections, but the judge’s rulings fell overwhelmingly in favor of the prosecution. Zweibel sustained so many of the prosecution’s objections that several times he said “sustained” before Assistant District Attorney Erin Choi could even say the word “objection”. Some courtroom onlookers began placing bets on how many “sustains” for the prosecution Zweibel would pronounce. Drew Mitchell, a member of the group Justice For Cecily who attended the trial, was shaken by the pronounced inequality of the judge’s treatment of the two sides: “Every rule that could be enforced on the defense was enforced. The prosecution had no rules.”
McMillan’s character and history were not only scrutinized but mocked. When defense witness Yoni Miller described McMillan’s reputation in Occupy forums as “queen of nonviolence,” ADA Choi cried, “She is a fraud!” When Miller described seeing McMillan convulsing unaided on the pavement, Choi flailed her arms and hips in an exaggerated, ridiculous fashion, archly asking if her imitation of a seizure resembled McMillan’s. The prosecution’s portrait of this accomplished young activist, says Shay Horse, one of her supporters, is that of “a publicity-crazed millennial,” an image that dovetails with their claim that McMillan hit Bovell for attention from the cameras. In her closing arguments, Choi extended her jeering tone to general statements about assault and those who are assaulted. She said that Bovell would have had to have iron hands to leave a bruise through clothes. Tim Eastman, who attended the closing arguments, tweeted: “Pros[ecutor] says Cecily is ‘not shy’ and therefore ‘would not have trouble reporting sexual assault.’”
While the prosecution took copious liberties in their depiction of McMillan, any attempt by the defense to question Bovell’s testimony or bring up his record was quickly shut down by Choi and Zweibel. Although Bovell’s involvement in the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal was discussed, the defense was prevented from addressing other, violent parts of his record. In 2010, he was involved in a lawsuit against the NYPD for his participation in an incident in which NYPD officers ran off the road a teenage boy on a dirt bike. In 2009, he kicked in the face a suspect lying on the ground. He allegedly assaulted Occupy protester Austin Guest on the same day as McMillan’s arrest. These episodes were not permitted to be entered into evidence. When Stolar explained to Zweibel that he had two eyewitnesses (uninvolved in the pending lawsuit against Bovell) who saw Guest be lifted up by Bovell and a second officer and slammed head-first into each row of seats on the bus used to transport prisoners to court, the judge exclaimed, “He must have been resisting!” and called the allegations hearsay.
Elaine – I know this frustrates your soul, if you believe you have one, but the trial centers on whether McMillan deliberately elbowed the officer in the face. The jury, fallible as they may be, thinks so. All the other stuff is fru-fru. This was not a tit-for-tat trial, it only dealt with one issue. She has a right to appeal and I am sure she will. According to her attorneys she has several issues to take up the judicial ladder.
If she had been a good little protester and just collapsed like she was supposed to, she would not have ended up this way.
firedoglake is think progress on steroids.
rafflaw,
I posted the following at Charlton’s article about the mentally ill judge. I thought I’d post it on this thred too:
rafflaw
Chuck,
I will leave it up to the Professor. I realize I could take down the article that I have written and sometimes it is tempting, but then those who are attempting to disrupt have succeeded.
*****
rafflaw,
You’ve written many fine articles for this blog. I think the one you posted this weekend is one of your best. Many of us older folks remember those times well…and how they changed this country. It is good to be reminded of such turbulent days in our history lest we forget.
*****
Justice Perverted: Occupy Protester Brutally Assaulted by Cop Has Been Convicted of Assaulting…the Cop
5/5/14
http://my.firedoglake.com/wendydavis/2014/05/05/justice-perverted-occupy-protester-brutally-assaulted-by-cop-has-been-convicted-of-assaultingthe-cop-despicable/
Excerpt:
Cecily McMillan had been charged with second degree assault on a cop which stemmed from a 2012 arrest at Zucotti Park on the six-month anniversary of OWS. When cops ordered everyone out of the park so that it could be cleaned of hippie trash and other detritus, Officer Grantley Bovell grabbed from behind, dragged her backward, squeezing her right breast with enough force to leave a hand print-shaped bruise. She reflexively threw an elbow, apparently not even knowing he was a cop at the time. He then knocked her to the ground, kicked and beat her viciously enough to cause a seizure, loss of memory, and hospitalization. Breast-grabbing of Occupiers had become somewhat of a modus operandi for NYPD and other city PDs. Thus, a sexual assault.
The felony assault charge carries a maximum of seven years in prison.
She had been offered a no-jail plea deal, but one that would still mark her as a felon. She refused it, as she wanted to clear her name. Justice was what she sought; vilification and conviction is what she got. Her trial finally began three weeks ago after two long years of waiting with a dark cloud over her head: would she be absolved of the insane charges? For more background and video interviews, read here.
The verdict came at about 3:00 EDT; cell phones had been banned for today ahead of time; on this final day of Cecily McMillan’s trial, Judge Zweibel was slated to issue instructions to the jury, then they would begin their deliberations. That simple fact portended that the Judge strongly believed that the jury would convict. When court resumed after a lunch break, 32 cops entered the court room, signaling that the Judge and prosecutors must have considered that McMillan’s supporters might riot.
Indeed, supporters chanted, ‘Shame, shame, shame’ at the Judge and Po-Po’s.
McMillan was handcuffed and sent to Riker’s Island without the possibility of bail until her sentencing on May 19.
Trying to piece together what’s gone down during the three-week trial has been difficult, as the coverage has been scant, and the live Tweets…very sketchy. I’ll start with the trial; you can skip down to the closing arguments if you’d prefer.
But to say that Judge Ronald Zweibel has been biased would be the most conservative indictment of his rulings and behavior in the court room as well. To say that he knew what the verdict should be or would be on the first day of the trial would be closer to the mark. But the attorneys know there are plenty of grounds for an appeal. Not one speck of evidence or testimony pertaining to the police violence against peaceful protesters, the kettling, pepper-spraying, baton-smashes on heads…none of it.
You can watch Cecily being interviewed on Democracy Now! describing her seizure and other injuries, both physical and mental/emotional, and read more about the worse-than-egregious charges, the reason she’d rejected a ‘felony ‘plea deal’, and other background here.
He refused McMillan’s attorneys’ request to allow Bovell’s disciplinary file to be introduced into evidence, as he faces multiple lawsuits for past brutality, indicating a pattern, of course, and lack of credibility. The Judge refused the request as being potentially ‘prejudicial’. Yes, I’d imagine so. The NYPD has paid out thousands of dollars in lawsuits by Ocuppiers, including according to Sarah Jafee:
“That includes a $55,000 settlement announced Thursday, April 24 [video at the link] to be paid to Josh Boss, who was livestreaming an Occupy march when he was thrown to the ground and kneed by Chief Thomas Purtell, who was at the time the commanding officer of the Manhattan South Patrol Division. Also among the final tally is $82,500 to Shawn Schrader, who goes by Shawn Carrie, over three separate violent arrests. A joint report from NYU’s Global Justice Clinic and Fordham’s Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic found that the police’s treatment of Occupy included ‘frequent alleged incidents of unnecessary and excessive police use of force against protesters, bystanders, journalists, and legal observers; constant obstructions of media freedoms, including arrests of journalists; unjustified and sometimes violent closure of public space, dispersal of peaceful assemblies, and corralling and trapping protesters en masse.”
A slightly less hyperbolic response to the verdict
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/occupy-wall-street-cecily-mcmillan-guilty-assaulting-police-officer
Excerpt:
Prosecutors accused McMillan of attacking Bovell, 35, as he walked her out of Zuccotti Park, in lower Manhattan, where activists had gathered on the night of 17 March 2012 to mark six months of the Occupy movement. Bovell had found her screaming at a female officer, who had asked her to leave the park so that it could be cleaned, prosecutors said.
Assistant district attorney Erin Choi told the court last month that Bovell was walking behind McMillan with his hand on her shoulder. McMillan asked people around her “Are you filming this?”, said Choi, and then “crouched down, then bent her knees, and then aimed her elbow at the officer and then jumped up to strike”.
“Officer Bovell was completely horrified,” said Choi. “This was the last thing he was expecting to happen that day.” Photographs showed that Bovell suffered a black eye. He said that he went on to experience headaches and sensitivity to light.
Prosecutors showed the jury grainy video clips of the incident, downloaded from YouTube, which they said proved McMillan deliberately struck Bovell before attempting to run away. Less than two hours into their deliberations, the jury asked if they could re-watch the video footage. They were given a laptop on which to view it in the jury room.
Had a good work day at the cathouse (part of this former Motel Six now known as Motel Sex) and did get a greeting by a new worker from the Midwest who just moved to Nevada. I re-read many of the comments above and can not understand why folks are grousing at each other. We do not have many psychiatrists out here in Vegas because folks choose to get laid in the shade if you know what I mean jelly bean. But I spoke with a shrink the other day in the bar here and she said that many Americans are wacko due to diet. I said incredulously: “Wacko due to diet?” Her reply was that three squares a day can make the doctor go away and that we get hung up on things which are trivial. She is leaving the medical profession to become a real estate mogul full time. I hope to buy a hotel from her which she acquired in Vegas and open my own slot machine galley and possibly a cathouse further out of town. Real estate out here is very up and down. Gotta buy real estate when its low.
May 4, 1970 was a day of reckoning in America. Keep up the good posts folks. I like reading this stuff.
RTC – Chief Justice Roberts? Please link to something that backs this up? And name the other names.
The murders at Kent State were the death knell of the war movement in Viet Nam. Millions of parents of college age children suddenly sobered up to the realization that their children were no longer as safe as they had believed.
We all died a little bit that day.
A tragic irony is that there are several Supreme Court Justices, led by Chief Justice Roberts who believed that the protesters got what they deserved.
“I was one of the unlucky ones who were arrested that night.” – rafflaw
Yes, but you were one of the honorable ones.
Thank You greatly Larry for your perspectives and reflections.
For all the subsequent work you have done advocating a just cause, as for being arrested, I would consider that a badge of honour.
rafflaw:
For the last hour my mind has been reeling through the late ’60s and early ’70s. It was an incredibly complex time. Anyone who wants to understand how that war came about need only read “Hell In A Very Small Place.” Kent State hastened its end because it galvanized middle class opposition. Thanks for a very thoughtful post.
I confess that I find it inexplicable that ‘Charming. Perfectly charming’ is deleted.
iconoclast,
I think you are correct that in 1970, the middle class was able to send their kids to college. Many of my friends in college were from blue collar families. It wasn’t an elitist movement at all.
Getting back to the original post- one recollection I have is that in the months following the shooting, the so-called head shops in Oregon started selling T-shirts with a target on the front and the word STUDENT across the chest. Just something I recall in terms of cultural reaction. I wore one to my high school. It didn’t get much reaction one way or another, mostly, I think, because its meaning didn’t register with most people. On the other hand, there was a clear shift in attitude toward the war among the adults in my community. Losses had shattered local families and those families and their neighbors had no idea what why their kids had died. It was an interesting time. Others have touched on this, but I’m not sure how we can assume the anti-war movement was one of elites just because so much of it took place on college campuses. As I recall, colleges and universities across America were full of kids from blue collar and middle class families–many of them the first of their generation to attend school.
Happy Mothers Day to all.
Thanks Al.
feynman,
I did see your comment in the deleted section.
Al – you still getting paid in kind?
This Rafflaw article is one of the best. Lately we have had some great ones. I think we need to not get ornery with each other. It is a good crowd here. I have to go work a three hour shift at the cathouse cleaning up rooms. See ya tomorrow.
I think I had a comment deleted. I’ll try again because maybe I am mistaken. It consisted of three words:
‘Charming. Perfectly charming’.