* New York City Council members file suit
* Protests planned for May 1 labor holiday
NEW YORK, April 30 (Reuters) – A flurry of civil rights
lawsuits accusing police of stifling free speech of Occupy Wall
Street protesters have been filed ahead of a May 1 effort to
reinvigorate the movement against economic inequality.
Four members of New York’s City Council and others in a
lawsuit accused police of using excessive force during protests
in New York City, birthplace of th e movement against corporate
greed.
Their lawsuit, filed on Monday, was among at least three
filed in recent days by supporters and protesters from the
Occupy movement, which has called for massive demonstrations in
New York and elsewhere around the country for Tuesday, the May 1
labo r movement holiday in many countries.
The City Council members accused New York police of
trampling protesters’ rights to assembly and free speech during
demonstrations that began on Sept. 17, 2011 but lost momentum
after the group was evicted from its encampment in New York’s
Zuccotti Park on Nov. 15, 2011.
In the 150-page lawsuit, police were also accused of false
arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
“This unlawful conduct has been undertaken with the
intention of obstructing, chilling, deterring and retaliating
against plaintiffs for engaging in Constitutionally protected
protest activities,” the lawsuit said.
The police conduct was so outrageous, the lawsuit said, that
the court should appoint an outside monitor for future
demonstrations.
A second federal lawsuit filed in New York accused police of
violating protesters’ right to free speech by trapping them
inside metal barricades outside a Manhattan hotel where
President Barack Obama was speaking on Nov. 30, 2011. In the
lawsuit, protesters asked for a court order to allow them to
move in and out of barricades at future demonstrations.
DECLINED COMMENT
New York City’s attorney, Muriel Goode-Trufant, declined to
comment on the lawsuits, saying her office has not yet received
the legal papers.
In Madison, Wisconsin, the American Civil Liberties Union
argued for a temporary restraining order on Monday to block the
eviction of an Occupy encampment near the state capitol. Citing
First Amendment rights, the ACLU in a case against the City of
Madison urged the judge to allow several dozen protesters to
continue to live in the roadside tent village where they have
been since October 2011.
In a related development in New York on Monday, 20
demonstrators – including activist Princeton University
Professor Cornel West – went on trial on disorderly conduct
charges stemming from their October protest of the New York
Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy.
Prosecutors offered to drop the charges under the condition
the protesters do not get arrested again for at least 6 months.
But the protesters’ lawyer, Martin Stolar of the National
Lawyers Guild, said that was rejected to make a statement
against the policy that has been criticized as overly aggressive
and discriminatory.
“The demonstration itself was political to make a point, and
the trial is following through on exactly the same political
point,” Stolar said.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Wisconsin, and Joseph Ax and
Barbara Goldberg in New York; Editing by Vicki Allen)
