Antiwar demonstrators descend on Minneapolis
Jackie Crosby, Star Tribune
Published March 25, 2003 PROT26
About 200 antiwar demonstrators linked arms and blocked doors of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis today as part of an early morning protest. Authorities closed a block of Third Street alongside the courthouse. About a dozen protesters entered the building and sat in front of metal detectors just inside the front doors.
Police arrested at least 67 protesters who refused to move from the doors in the back of the building and held them on a city bus.
Courthouse employee Alison Berg, 25, was confronted by demonstrators as she arrived for work.
"Don't these people have jobs?" she asked. "How am I supposed to get to work?"
Around 8 a.m., police began arresting demonstrators who were blocking the entrance to the parking garage under the courthouse
Police spokesman Ron Reier said authorities do not interfere with peaceful marching, but do arrest protesters when they block entrances. A federal security officer first asks them to move, he said. If they don't, the security officers call Minneapolis police who restrain the protesters with flexible handcuffs, remove them and ticket them at the Hennepin County Jail for trespassing, a misdemeanor.
"They made their stand and, unfortunately, we made our stand," Reier said. He said no one -- police or protester -- was reported seriously injured during the arrests
"All the protesters let us, peaceably, put on the flexi-cuffs and take them to the buses,'' he said.
One protestor was injured after a police horse got spooked and stepped on her. The injuries appeared to be minor, and the woman stayed in her sitting position as another protestor washed out the minor cuts to her right hand with water.
The protest marked the second set of arrests in as many days as some activists turned to civil disobedience.
Police arrested 28 people Monday after a daylong vigil at Sen. Norm Coleman's St. Paul offices, the first such arrests in the Twin Cities since the war began.
During this morning's demonstration, protesters chanted, "Wage peace, not war, hands off Iraq," "Iraq is not the enemy" and "War is not the answer." One of the signs in the crowd read, "When you fight evil with evil, evil wins."
Philip Chinn, who owns the Federal Cafe in the courthouse building, waited patiently in his car to enter the parking garage. He said he was torn between supporting the troops and hating the violence of war.
"Up until now the protests have been the non-interfering type," Chinn said. "But when it starts to interfere with people's lives, it becomes an issue."
At least 40 Minneapolis police personnel were on the scene as the protest began, according to S.T. Kincaid, a Second Precinct investigator. Their ranks swelled later in the morning.
Demonstrator Kathy Furey, a midwife from St. Paul, carried a placard with a peace sign on it.
"This war doesn't make sense," Furey said. "I deliver babies, and I can't support action that will kill innocent people."
The protesters had gathered at the old Federal Building on Third Avenue, then walked east on Washington Avenue. The group planned a "guerilla theater" demonstration at the courthouse, according to Thistle Parker-Hartog, a member of the Anti-War Committee, which organized the event.
Participants included members of Women Against Military Madness, Code Pink and Veterans for Peace. Police escorted the crowd east on Washington Avenue as they walked on sidewalks, chanting and occasionally spilling into the street.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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