September 21–28, 2000

hall monitor

Hearing Aide

It seems unlikely that City Council will call for public hearings into the mass arrests that took place during the Republican National Convention. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a critical mass of protesters urging councilmembers to examine how they were treated this summer.

The first week of August, more than 400 political protesters were arrested. Many were kept in jail with unusually high bails — including $1 million for misdemeanors. Scores of jailed protesters say they were beaten and denied medical treatment while in police custody.

With fluorescent green signs stuck to their chests, dozens of activists showed up to City Council’s opening session on Sept. 14. Their message: The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office and the Philadelphia Police Department are "out of control."

During caucus earlier that morning, a member of the R2K Legal Collective addressed members of City Council.

"We call on City Council to initiate an investigation into brutality in [Police Commissioner] John Timoney’s police force, including but not limited to violence that occurred during the Republican National Convention," said Burt Dale. "And an investigation into [District Attorney] Lynne Abraham’s use of preventive detention through the use of high bails and other systemic constitutional violations."

Specifically, the R2K Legal Collective is asking local officials to look into whether police surveillance violates city law; the harsh charges for civil disobedience; pre-emptive raids in the days before protests happened; the deliberate arrests of perceived "protest leaders"; and the arrests of innocent bystanders, medics and legal observers.

If it is true that the police department spent $10 million — double the original allocation — in connection with security during the convention, demonstrators urge City Council to consider whether "the priorities of this and other spending on the RNC was truly in the interest of the people of Philadelphia."

—Gwen Shaffer