From: "Jeff Stack" 

Subject: St. Louis Arrest Updates

Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 17:46:39 -0500

Good Day,

I wanted to forward this message brought thankfully to our attention by Mark
Haim with Mid-Missouri Peaceworks. It offers some disturbing developments
with regards to police tactics being imported from Seattle and other U.S.
cities to St. Louis in an effort to try curb and chill social and
earth-justice protests. Thankfully, the activists being detained in St.
Louis were finally freed late yesterday. Join in the demonstrations as part
of the international Biodevastation Conference being held in St. Louis (if
you will be in the vicinity) starting Sunday. Please read on, friends.

In Struggle,
Jeff Stack
Mid-MO Fellowship of Reconciliation
jstack@coin.org
573-449-4585

Hello friends,

Yesterday I sent out info on arrests made by police in St. Louis in an
apparent attempt to disrupt, discredit and dissuade turnout for the
Biodevastation Conference and the protests of the World Agricultural Forum.
This is a familiar tactic used by the police on numerous occasions,
including in the days leading up to the big IMF-WB protests in D.C. in April
2000, and at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in July
2000.

While any attempt to interfere with citizens rights to political expression
is reprehensible, part of what is particularly egregious about the current
action is that the police were neither dealing with a massive protest that
threatened major disruptions, and the groups organizing this have no history
of violent tactics, property destruction or anything like this. In fact six
previous BioDev conferences have taken place w/o incident, including one
held in St. Louis in the summer of 1998. One can only think that Monsanto
and the other powerful biotech industry forces are very eager to discredit
their critics and have the influence to move their agenda forward.

Below I've pasted in reports from Mitchel Cohen a Green activist from New
York who is in St. Louis for the conference, as well as two reports from the
Post Dispatch.

I will try to update this when more info becomes available.

Peace,
Mark Haim

P.S. for more info visit http://www.biodev.org/

Mid-Missouri Peaceworks
804-C E. Broadway
Columbia, MO 65201
573-875-0539

E-mail: peacewks@coin.org 
Web site: http://peaceworks.missouri.org 

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" --Thomas Jefferson

From Mitchel Cohen:
St. Louis Arrests Update

Saturday, May 17, 2003, 1 pm –

A great big thank you to the activist universe! Police and media were
swamped with calls yesterday leading to the release of all arrestees. We
just did an interview with NBC demanding a full investigation into police
harassment and violation of people’s constitutional rights. The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch ran the story on the front page, and police are
back-pedalling as fast as they can.

Yesterday’s “weapons” that police claim they found among the gear in
various households have become a keystone cops routine. The roofing nails
were for the new roof that the Greens and IndyMedia were using on their new
roof (imagine!); the “metal torches” were jugglers’ props; the Molotov
cocktail that police made a big media splash with has suddenly dropped out
of the picture as we produced independent witnesses who saw police planting
it in the building after everyone was already handcuffed in the police
wagons.

We are calling for fingerprint experts to determine whose fingerprints are
on the alleged Molotov cocktail, that seems to have disappeared. We are
certain that only the police officer's will be on it.

The City Attorney now says that the law under which the bicyclists had been
arrested while en route to the biodevastation gathering against genetic
engineering – operating a bicycle without a “bicycle license” – no longer
exists and says in today’s papers that “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

Meanwhile the puppets for Sunday’s parade are still being detained. All of
the bicycle troupe’s food, wallets, personal supplies are still being held.
A group of nuns are attempting to force the City to release all personal
supplies and artistic material. Free the puppets!

Other good news: 72-year-old Canadian farmer Percy Schmeiser, who had lost
two rounds in court (and over $200,000) to Monsanto, announced to the
BiodDevastation gathering that he had just won the right to appeal to the
Canadian Supreme Court, which will hear his case shortly. Percy – a
non-biotech canola grower and seed developer – found that his crop had been
contaminated by drift from Monsanto’s genetically engineered plantations,
but the judge held that it did not matter HOW his crop got contaminated,
Monsanto’s patent rights take legal precedence. Now, finally, the Supreme
Court in Canada will rule on the private patenting of living organisms, and
we expect a big breakthrough.

The conference itself has been a tremendous success. This morning was a
powerful panel on the development of genetically engineered bio-weapons,
Anthrax, and the like. Scary, well-documented. For more on that issue,
check out sunshineproject.org.

More later. Thank you all for your calls, and support!

Mitchel Cohen
www.greenparty.org

From Friday Night:

Green Party USA
MEDIA RELEASE      			For Immediate Release
For information call (cell) 314 971 4006

Canadian Activist Arrested in St Louis Missouri, USA

Canadian Arrested on His Way To Conference Against Genetically Engineered Foods

May 16 --- Today in St Louis, Missouri police arrested up to 40 people at
locations across the city, including one Canadian citizen. All were
planning to participate in an international conference on genetically
engineered foods taking place May 16-18. The conference is the 7th in a
series, the 6th of which took place last year in Toronto organized by the
Polaris Institute and the Council of Canadians.

Alistair Neill Stewart of Kitchener-Waterloo Ontario was arrested at 9:30am
and released 5:00 pm. At this time there are still some people in jail. Mr.
Stewart was arrested and handcuffed with 9 other people; all were arrested
while bicycling through a public park. The cyclists were arrested under the
pretext that they did not have a Missouri bicycle license, a fabricated
charge since no license is required in Missouri.

“This was totally unjustified,” said Mr. Stewart, “The police were just
looking for a reason to search people. I am just interested in this issue
and was coming to the conference to perform as part of a bicycle circus.”
Mr. Stewart is a part of a bicycle caravan performing across the USA to
raise awareness about sustainable agriculture. The group plans to bicycle
from this conference to Washington DC where the Biotechnology Industry
Organization will hold their annual convention. Mr. Stewart will be
graduating in June from environmental studies at the University of
Waterloo. “When I was in custody the officers were abusing their power and
ability to intimidate us,” said Mr. Stewart.

“This marks a critical new phase in the repression of the movement against
genetic engineering. This goes beyond trying to discredit critics and goes
to the point of attempting to eliminate the right to demonstrate,” said Don
Fitz, local conference organizer of the Green Party of St Louis. Police
ransacked the Green Party offices and those of IndyMedia, and carted off
equipment and supplies.

The police in St Louis have fixated on the question of violent protest as
part of these conference activities. “They think its another Seattle-type
protest, we are here to speak out in non-violent ways,” said Mr Stewart.

“St Louis is Monsanto’s hometown and this is obviously linked to Monsanto’s
need to shut down criticism,” said Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian research
group the Polaris Institute. Ms Sharratt is a workshop presenter and
assistant organizer for the conference.

-30-
 For information call (cell) 314 971 4006

From Mitchel Cohen, Friday, late afternoon:

Police broke into and trashed the office of the Gateway Greens/Green Party
USA and St. Louis IndyMedia today. We do not know whether they had a
warrant. They found "roofing nails" ("We were putting on a new roof," Barb
Chicherio tried to explain) which they claimed as weapons, and carted off
instruments, computers, and wrecked the place. One man was arrested 2
blocks away after taking his own computer when he feared something was
about to go down and he drove off in his car. Charged with removing
property from a crime scene even though there was no crime scene, yet, as
the cops had not yet gone in.

Bicyclists arrested originally for "riding a bike without a permit", but
later changed it to "impeding traffic".

More to come.

Mitchel Cohen

From Post-Dispatch Friday afternoon:

Police raid three buildings, detain occupants
By Heather Ratcliffe Post-Dispatch
updated: 05/16/2003 03:57 PM
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/A4CE375042FC097E86256
D280072957D?OpenDocument&Headline=Police+raid+three+buildings,+detain+occupa
nts

St. Louis police detained an undisclosed number of people Friday in a sweep
of at least three buildings said to be used by protesters of the World
Agricultural Forum, which starts here Sunday.

In at least some cases, officers were accompanied by building inspectors who
checked for occupancy permits and building code compliance.

Police Chief Joe Mokwa promised an explanation in a press conference at 3:45
p.m. One police source said about 15 people were in custody from various
locations.

Included was a building at 3022 Cherokee Street that houses Gateway Green,
sponsor of a conference called Biodevastation 7. It is a gathering of
activists, meeting this weekend at St. Louis Community College at Forest
Park, intending the counter the conference of world agricultural leaders at
the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Union Station.

Also raided were two houses in the 3300 block of Illinois Avenue.

One woman was arrested, her companions said, when police stopped a van and
confiscated pills in an unmarked container that she said were vitamins. An
occupant of the van said they were videotaped by people in plain clothes who
accompanied officers.

The sweep started about 11:30 a.m. and continued into the afternoon.

People who identified themselves as protesters said police had been stopping
them in recent days for riding bicycles without helmets or driving vehicles
with burned-out lights.

Brian Tokar, one of the organizers of the Biodevastation 7 conference, said
that there has been no violence at other Biodevastation meetings that
coincide with World Agriculture Forums because the forums -- unlike meetings
of the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund or World
Bank -- do not enact policies that affect farmers and consumers.

He said St. Louis police are overreacting and inflating the number of people
who will protest.

"We've been doing these events for years," he said. "Every year in the U.S.
we've gotten these insane, inflammatory issues from the police. It's to
inflame public passion and to prvent public discussion of the dangers of
agribusiness."

Matt LeMieux, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Eastern Missouri, said his office received about two dozen phone calls in
two hours Friday about conference attendees being arrested.

"I think if the police are going to conduct searchees and arrest people, it
ought to be based on current conduct of what a person is doing now," he
said. "But what they're doing is pre-emptively trying to arrest people. It's
a bad and unconstitutional policy."

He said he was told that in one instance, at the home of some "local,
grass-roots activists" where some protesters were lodging, police showed up
with a building inspector and said they both must be let in or the building
would be condemned. LeMieux termed the threat a "trick" that enables police
to search a home without a warrant.

Of the St. Louis police, he said, "I think they've gotten some pretty bad
advice from police departments in other cities where these protests have
taken place. Instead of contacting the protest organizers and making sure
the violent elements are kept out, they went the other direction."

From Post-Dispatch late Friday evening:

Arrests and weapons allegations spark activists' anger
By HEATHER RATCLIFFE
AND JEREMY KOHLER Post-Dispatch
updated: 05/16/2003 11:42 PM
http://postdispatch.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/CA79873CDD7A926886256
D29001A8078?OpenDocument&Headline=Arrests+and+weapons+allegations+spark+acti
vists'+anger

It was good fortune, St. Louis police said, when raids Friday to enforce
housing laws yielded "weapons" like rocks and nails from homes of some
people planning to protest the World Agricultural Forum here this weekend.

But the activists said it was just an excuse to get in and snoop.

More than a dozen people were arrested - none on weapons violations - and
most remained in jail into Friday night.

"This is political repression. We're being targeted," said Molly Dupre,
glassy-eyed as she emerged on bail from police headquarters after about
seven hours in custody on a charge of occupying a condemned building.

DuPre, 23, of St. Charles, described herself as an anarchist and six weeks
pregnant.

Joe Mokwa, chief of a police department clearly edgy about what the coming
days will bring, told reporters, "We are very concerned. We can certainly
draw conclusions and expectations after we found these items."

Some of those things - a bag of rocks and a bucket of nails - seem fairly
common to a home under rehabilitation, as some of those raided were. But
they appeared more sinister when paired on a display table with a sling
shot, whips and torches.

Similar devices were used as weapons in large-scale demonstrations at
international conferences in Seattle and Washington, D.C., officials said.

These were seized from a condemned building at 3309 Illinois Avenue and a
building at 3022 Cherokee Street. Mokwa said no weapons charges were filed
because nothing could be linked to specific people.

Police said neighbors' complaints spurred the raids; names of those
complaining were not revealed. The building on Illinois had been condemned.

"The timing is coincidental because these people just got here," Mokwa said.
"We have an obligation to investigate complaints. We are not going to allow
people to reside in abandoned buildings."

Activists said police circled the buildings for days, questioning anyone on
foot or bicycle.

"It's definitely systematic harassment of protesters," said Art Friedrich,
who lives at 3022 Cherokee.

Fifteen people arrested at the home on Illinois were cited for a city
ordinance violation of occupying a condemned building, Mokwa said. It had no
occupancy permit, according to building inspectors.

Some of those staying there insisted it was not condemned. Three people, who
bought it from the city for $800, have been staying there for a year, they
said.

They opened the house, which they called "Bolozone," to out-of-towners
attending the Biodevastation 7 conference at St. Louis Community College at
Forest Park.

Biodevastation 7 was scheduled as a counterstatement to the World
Agricultural Forum, which begins Sunday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel at Union
Station.

Dupre said she was in her upstairs bedroom at Bolozone when police arrived.
She said one officer told her they had a warrant and another said they
didn't need one.

She said police told her there were orders to sweep the city for anyone who
looks like an anarchist.

Dupre scoffed at any suggestion of violent people staying there. Most are
puppeteers, she said.

"It's a rehab site," she said. "These are things that are going to be found
in every garage across America."

Mike Liebhart, who said his girlfriend was arrested, told a reporter. "I'm
shaken. I feel like my constitutional rights are being taken away. Why are
they raiding these houses? Why are they arresting people?"

Mokwa said police will accommodate peaceful anti-World Agricultural Forum
protests in Aloe Plaza, across from Union Station.

"We are here to protect the rights of everybody," Mokwa said. "We want
people to be able to voice their opinions. People who go into a vacant
condemned building have no rights to be there."

The chief noted, "These people are not here attending seminars. They are
sitting in vacant buildings in the middle of the day."

The building on Cherokee houses the nonprofit Community Arts and Media
Project, a collection of seven grassroots organizations including Gateway
Green Alliance, which is sponsoring Biodevastation 7.

A housing inspector noticed suspicious items during his search, and police
obtained a search warrant, Mokwa said. It was not clear what was seized from
which address.

Friedrich, 23, pulled a copy of the warrant from his pocket. It said police
were looking for barrel traps, Molotov cocktails, gas masks, PVC pipe,
whips, chains, flammable liquids and nails with washers attached.

At one point, police emerged with two 8-foot wood dolls with papier-mache
heads. One was a caricature of a police officer, the other of an alderman.
Such dolls are common to protests, sometimes being used as a signal or
diversion.

Police also removed mirrors, camping equipment, several bags of molding
clay, a disassembled kiln, a length of metal pipe and two construction
respirators.

Friedrich said police told him he could reclaim the items Wednesday, which
is the day after the end of the World Agricultural Forum.

He said he expected to see police, but added, "We didn't really expect them
to flip out about this like they did."

Brian Tokar, one of the organizers of Biodevastation 7, said police
overreacted. "We've been doing these events for years," he said. "Every year
in the U.S. we've gotten these insane, inflammatory issues from the police.
It's to inflame public passion and to prevent public discussion of the
dangers of agribusiness."

Matt LeMieux, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of
Eastern Missouri, said, "I think if the police are going to conduct searches
and arrest people, it ought to be based on the conduct of what a person is
doing now. But what they're doing is pre-emptively trying to arrest people.
It's a bad and unconstitutional policy."

He called the housing inspections "a trick" to get in without a warrant and
suggested police should have worked with protesters instead of antagonizing
them.

J. Justin Meehan, a lawyer called by some of the jailed activists,
complained that police would not release detainees' names, charges or
amounts of their bails.

He showed up at police headquarters at 6 p.m. with $500 to bail out as many
as he could.

"Whatever violations there are have existed for some time," he said. "This
is a ruse to prevent people from their legitimate right of assembly. This is
almost an ideal civil rights case where the police, acting under the color
of law, violate rights guaranteed under the Constitution."

Also Friday, officers stopped a van of activists and arrested the driver
just after the group visited the Regional Chamber and Growth Association
headquarters downtown.

Occupants of the van said police told them they violated the seat belt law.
They said officers photographed each passenger then took in the driver, Sara
Bantz. Her friends said she was charged with a drug violation for carrying a
bottle of vitamins.

Mokwa said the woman was arrested on a warrant in Columbia, Mo.

Jim Getz and Todd Frankel of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

Reporter Heather Ratcliffe:
E-mail: hratcliffe@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-863-2821

Reporter Jeremy Kohler:
E-mail: jkohler@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-241-9435