Laughing Pigs

Attorney Incensed After Viewing FTAA Police Video

A police training video showed high-ranking Broward deputies laughing about shooting rubber bullets at a Coral Gables attorney at the free- trade summit in Miami.

As a middle-aged Coral Gables attorney, dressed sharply in a red suit jacket, skirt and black slingback heels, Elizabeth Ritter stood out among the throng of protesters on Nov. 20, 2003.

Frustrated that she couldn't do business because the Miami-Dade County Courthouse was shut down that week during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit, she hastily made a sign that read ''Fear Totalitarianism'' and decided to stand with the protesters.

The sign, however, became her shield against a barrage of rubber bullets fired at her by a legion of Broward Sheriff's deputies in riot gear. And, in an image captured by a videographer, she is shot in the head as she cowers in the street.

And now another video, recently released, raises questions about the degree to which police, specifically, Broward Sheriff's deputies, were encouraged, -- and even praised -- for using force against Ritter and other protesters.

In the video -- recorded by BSO on Nov. 21, the day after the event -- a BSO top commander gushes over shooting protesters. Another officer refers to them as ``scurrying cockroaches.''

And when it comes to ''the lady in the red dress,'' said a sergeant, referring to Ritter, eliciting hoots and laughter, ``I don't know who got her, but it went right through the sign and hit her smack dab in the middle of the head!''

Viewing the video for the first time last month, Ritter was incensed. Until now, she had no plans to sue, even though a long list of people -- labor union workers, a filmmaker, protesters and a local reporter -- filed complaints and lawsuits alleging the agencies in charge of crowd control -- Miami Police, Miami-Dade Police and BSO -- used excessive force and made false arrests.

MINOR OFFENSES

About 220 people were arrested, the majority for minor offenses such as obstructing sidewalks, according to the Miami-Dade state attorney's office. Charges have been dropped in nearly half of those cases. So far, 57 people have been convicted, according to spokesman Edward Griffith.

The Miami Civilian Investigative Panel, a voter-created board that vets complaints against the Miami police, looked into 20 allegations of police misconduct. Six of those complaints have become lawsuits backed by the American Civil Liberties Union. Last week, the panel issued a report criticizing police for profiling and ''unlawfully'' searching protesters, but announced it had found no evidence of excessive force.

THE BSO TAPES

On one of the final days of the summit meant to hash out a trade agreement among 34 Western nations, Ritter had accepted a friend's invitation to attend an FTAA-related law lecture at Bayfront Park.

While leaders from 34 countries negotiated inside Miami's downtown Intercontinental Hotel, TV news showed hundreds of police in riot gear facing protesters, many college-age, who thought a trade pact would hurt developing countries.

OVERKILL

But it wasn't trade issues that brought Ritter and her friends to downtown that day. The attorney thought it was overkill that the police had all but shut down the city.

''My city, my hometown, was becoming a police state,'' she said.

A videographer captured what happened next, showing Ritter walking alone in front of a line of BSO deputies on NE Third Street.

As the deputies advance, Ritter turns around to face them and raises her sign.

A barrage of projectiles is fired. She kneels, holding her sign above her head as a shield.

Ritter is shot five times -- in her legs, upper body, and shoulder. And when she kneels on the ground, the sign above her head, a projectile rips through it and strikes her in the head.

Hard rubber projectiles typically leave welts and bruises, but at close range can pierce the skin, or rarely, kill.

'I turned around and said, `Why did you hit me?' Is a woman in a business suit a threat?'' Ritter recalled in a recent interview.

A MISTAKE?

'But then I thought, `That must have been a mistake.' A police officer isn't going to shoot me on purpose.''

Ritter walked around downtown in a daze, finally getting a ride home. Although her head and body were bruised and she was upset, she decided not to make an issue of what happened.

Then, last month the BSO videotape emerged as a result of a public records request from the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel.

Its existence was first reported by the Daily Business Review.

The tape, recorded for training purposes, shows Major John Brooks -- then a captain -- addressing dozens of deputies in an outdoor BSO tent.

''How about yesterday, huh?'' Brooks says, complimenting the officers for their work during the protests. ``I would go to war with everyone here.''

Brooks continues, ``I went home, I couldn't sleep, I was just so pumped up about how good you guys were . . . Nobody broke ranks. You're the best I've ever been with.''

Sgt. Michael Kallman, a BSO counterterrorism unit officer, addresses the group next. A voice off-camera says, ``What about the lady behind the sign? We have intel on her?''

The officers laugh.

Kallman smiles and says, ``The good news about being able to watch you guys live on TV is that the lady with the red dress, I don't know who got her, but it went right through the sign and hit her smack dab in the middle of the head!''

He raises his forefinger and zooms it toward his forehead.

The cops all laugh.

Another officer asks, off-camera, ``Did I get a piece of her red dress?''

BSO'S RESPONSE

No disciplinary action has been taken against any officers in the video, said BSO spokesman Elliott Cohen.

''There has been no Internal Affairs investigations involving FTAA,'' he said.

Brooks left the Miami Police Department and joined BSO amid controversy over the removal of Elián González from his uncle's Little Havana home in April 2000. Brooks, an assistant chief at the Miami police department at the time, had accompanied agents on the raid to clear police through police barricades.

Then-Mayor Joe Carollo criticized Brooks, saying his presence in the van gave the impression the raid had the city's seal of approval.

In May 2005, Brooks was promoted to major, making him one of Sheriff Ken Jenne's highest ranking deputies.

The Miami Herald left numerous messages for Brooks and Kallman through the sheriff's public information office. Three messages were left with Brooks' assistant and at Kallman's office explaining the story and asking for comment. The Herald also sent certified letters to both men. Neither responded. Jenne also declined to comment for this story.

Miami police was the lead police agency during the FTAA. Miami Police Chief John Timoney declined comment for this article.

Miami investigative panel attorney Charles Mays said the panel's ability to vet complaints was halted by one huge obstacle: While Miami officers wore identifying uniforms, BSO and Miami-Dade officers did not.

''It made it much more difficult to know who did what,'' he said.

''With multi-agencies running around, as an officer you won't know who's who,'' said Eugene O'Donnell, professor of police science at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former New York City cop.

''It hurts oversight, community and accountability,'' he said.

However, he said it was nevertheless appropriate for law enforcement to prepare for the potential for violence -- like that seen in Seattle in 1999 when protests against the World Trade Organization grew explosive between cops and protesters.

FEW INJURIES

FTAA's injuries hovered around a few dozen and the week was far less violent. Miami police had 16 injuries, spokesman Delrish Moss said.

It's unclear how many Miami-Dade or BSO officers were hurt.

Commander Armando Guzman, a 25-year-old police veteran and leader of the Miami Police Swat Team during FTAA, said officers faced violence that wasn't publicized.

Protesters set fire to freight pallets they placed on the street and fired ball bearings at police using ''wrist rockets,'' sophisticated high-velocity sling-shots, he said.

Demonstrators also flung pieces of brick and rebar at cops, said Guzman.

He was nearly hit in the head with a urine-filled Gatorade bottle.

Guzman witnessed the Ritter shooting.

''Unfortunately there were people between us and them,'' he said.

``If you're in the middle, you're going to get hit.''

O'Donnell added, ''I'm not excusing what they said -- and it probably doesn't sit well with the public,'' he said. ``But it's not unheard of for cops to talk in a kind of locker room way.''

NOT A THREAT

Ritter does not accept that.

''I was not a threat to them,'' she said.

''Referring to people as cockroaches is wrong. Saying they want a piece of my red dress is wrong. The law, I know, will agree with me,'' she added.

BY ASHLEY FANTZ
afantz@MiamiHerald.com

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15228898.htm

Exonerated

Florida Death Row Inmate Tells His Tale

Juan Roberto Melendez has not been able to stop talking since he was freed from a cell on Florida's death row four years ago.

"I remember the day and date exactly -- Thursday, January 3, 2002. It's like my second birthday. The first thing I did was kiss the ground because all I did for 17 years was to walk on concrete," said Melendez, who in spite of his age, 55, still has jet black hair and sports a fashionable goatee.

Melendez was released from Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida after being condemned to die in 1984 for a crime he did not commit. The State of Florida still has not apologised.

His story is typical of other exonerated death row inmates, found caught in a prison system simply because he is poor and Hispanic. Some 96 percent of the states where death penalty sentences were studied by the American Bar Association in 1998 showed a direct link of discrimination.

Some 63 percent of the inmates on death row in the U.S. are black or Latino, even though they represent 25 percent of the total population, according to a 2002 Human Rights Watch report.

Melendez is one of 123 former death row inmates set free since 1973. Because so many mistakes are made and innocent people killed, the death penalty must be abolished, rights workers say.

"God only knows how many of all of the people who have been executed in this country did not have the same good fortune as I or other death row exonerees in this country," Melendez told IPS. "I can not stress enough just how lucky I was to have been able to prove my innocence."

Melendez spent 17 years, eight months, and one day -- nearly one-third of his life -- on death row. "When I was released, I was given 100 dollars, a pair of pants, and a shirt. That's it," Melendez said. "Nobody ever apologised."

The U.S.-born Melendez dropped out of school after attending ninth grade in Puerto Rico. He moved back to the U.S. in 1970 and found a job in Delaware as a migrant worker picking vegetables. Later that year, he travelled on to Florida working at various citrus fruit plantations in the state.

Soon after, Melendez started getting in trouble. He served seven years in prison for armed robbery in 1974, a crime he admits he committed.

In 1981, he was set free, but the freedom would prove to be short lived.

Less than two years later, Sept. 13, 1983, a cosmetology school owner named Delbert Baker was brutally murdered and robbed shortly after closing up for the night.

Though Melendez maintained his innocence and could provide four people who verified he was elsewhere that day -- police arrested the Latino on the basis of testimony of a man who held a grudge against Melendez.

While awaiting trial, though, Melendez's attorney interviewed Vernon James, a man seen in the cosmetology school just before closing time, who confessed to the crime in a tape recording.

"I was already indicted; that's why the confession didn't let me go free and why James wasn't charged," Melendez said.

James refused to testify at Melendez's trial, citing his Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination. The court ruled that his tape-recorded confession was hearsay evidence and did not allow it to be played. Melendez was sentenced to death on September 21, 1984.

Appeals by Melendez's attorney proved unsuccessful and Melendez sat on death row an innocent man. James was murdered in 1986.

"Death row was hell," he said simply. "All of us (inmates) always felt the pressure everyday." The mental anguish of having a death sentence hanging over their head took its toll on everyone, he said.

He was locked in his cell nearly all day. He spent that time reading, mostly books sent to him from people in Europe who had read about his plight. His Bible, too, was a constant companion. He prayed a lot.

When he was allowed out two hours on Monday and Wednesday to exercise, he was shackled. The restraints remained on during the five-minute long showers he was allowed three times a week.

"Sometimes I was deliberately shackled too tight by some of the guards," Melendez said, adding that he believes this is why he has arthritis in his arm joints. The irons have left permanent marks on his wrists.

In those 17 years, Florida executed 51 inmates. Melendez did not know most of them, but when a friend was killed, it was emotionally painful. "It was horrible. It was like losing a loved one," he said. Melendez only had two visits -- his mother and brother came in 1986; an aunt and his mother came in 1992 -- but it was emotionally overwhelming for him. "I told all of them not to come back; it was just too much," he said.

Ten into his stint, Melendez gave up hope. He had lost a round of appeals and depression set in. A lasting sadness among prisoners is common on death row and he had endured four friends' attempts at suicide. He decided that was the only way out of his nightmare.

"I actually made a noose with a plastic bag. I was ready to kill myself," he said.

In the end, though, he did not. "I had a vivid dream about happy times. When I woke up, I knew I didn't want to kill myself."

In 1999, Melendez was on his last round of appeals before execution. His attorney told an investigator to find something -- anything -- that would give the defence more time. He did. He found the transcript of James' confession in a circuit court judge's office in Polk County, Florida. The judge was Melendez's original defence attorney.

The circuit court judge told the investigator that, while cleaning out his old office he found the transcript. Its discovery was enough to grant Melendez a new trial.

"For a day or two, I was mad at the (circuit court) judge for either forgetting or not knowing about the transcript. But then I figured that anything that could get me off death row was good," Melendez said.

It took two more long before a new trial was granted by Circuit Court Judge Barbara Fleischer on December 5, 2001. A month later, Melendez was set free.

Since then, Melendez can't stop telling his story. He lectures about his ordeal to universities, high schools, detention centres and "anywhere people want to hear my story," Melendez said. Requests have taken him across the U.S. and over to Austria, Canada, England, France, Germany and Spain.

When he is not lecturing, Melendez helps recruit troubled children to work on a plantain farm in Puerto Rico. He teaches them the methods of farming and harvesting. While they work, he tells the story about how he came to live on death row.

"I try to tell the kids to not commit crimes, to try to not mark themselves (get arrested), to live a clean life. Because I had a criminal record, I became a tool for the system," Melendez said.

Mark Weisenmiller
TAMPA, Florida
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-07.htm
IPS-Inter Press Service