Schell, officers named in federal suit filed over WTO treatment

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Schell, officers named in federal suit filed over WTO treatment

Saturday, February 12, 2000

By KERY MURAKAMI
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Mayor Paul Schell and several city police officers have been named in a federal District Court lawsuit that accuses them of violating the civil rights of at least 1,000 protesters during the World Trade Organization conference in December.

The suit claims the city violated protesters' First Amendment right of free expression by firing tear gas and rubber pellets at them, and by imposing a "no-protest zone" downtown.

The suit lists Schell and the city, as well as outgoing police Chief Norm Stamper and unidentified police officers. Schell has said the city needed to restore order after protesters and anarchists broke store windows, shoved delegates and threw objects at police.

But the protesters' attorney, Peter Cogan, said that by dispersing crowds and creating the "no-protest zone," the city also prevented non-violent protesters from demonstrating their disdain for the WTO.

The lawsuit, which Cogan hopes to have certified as a class action, claims the city's real motivation was to "punish the demonstrators for embarrassing the mayor and other high public officials, to stifle dissent and end the lawful attempts of the plaintiffs and others in the class to bring attention to the wrongful political and economic activities of the World Trade Organization. . . ."

Jack Johnson, chief of the city attorney's civil division, said he had not seen the lawsuit. But he noted that a federal judge turned down an American Civil Liberties Union request for an injunction against the curfew. "We're confident the court will uphold the constitutionality of he city's actions," he said.

Schell spokesman Dick Lilly echoed that he was confident the courts would find the city's actions constitutional.

The lawsuit was brought by Seattle residents Mark Luers and Elizabeth Miltko, and all other people who may have been harmed by the city's action. According to court papers, Miltko was knocked down when police stormed a march the morning of Dec. 1 at Denny Way and Fourth Avenue. The suit claims Miltko was "forced to lie naked in a jail cell for more than two hours with an air conditioner turned on so that she would be embarrassed, humiliated and (was) not provided with adequate heat or clothing."

Luers claims he was pepper-sprayed when he stopped to aid a protester overcome by tear-gas fumes. The suit claims he was tear-gassed in the face to prevent him from reporting on the police actions and protesting the WTO.