SEATTLE – A well-known Rainier Valley minister says he and others were beaten by police on Monday during an Occupy Seattle march on the Port of Seattle, but police officials say officers were using only necessary force.
John Helmiere of Valley & Mountain: A Deep Listening & Creative Liberation Community in Columbia City says that he and others were protesting peacefully when they were attacked and arrested by police officers at Terminal 18.
But Seattle Police Department (SPD) disagrees. They say they arrested 11 people for throwing burning flares, bags of bricks and paint, rebar and other debris at officers monitoring the demonstration and that at least five officers were injured and treated at the scene.
SPD spokesperson Detective Renée Witt added that “officers used the force necessary to ward off attacks and or to effect arrest.”
Hermelier however says that hundreds of people had been occupying the blockaded road for hours, and that – by afternoon – the tension at the major terminal was almost palpable, but that police kept their distance until sundown when mounted officers arrived on the scene. He says it was then that police began to maneuver into position and adopt menacing expressions before advancing on the protesters.
He says that he and other protesters were standing still until officers “began throwing their bikes into our bodies, shoving us toward the sidewalk.”
Hermelier says one officer threw him to the ground and punched him numerous times before he was handcuffed and led into a police van. From his congregation’s web site:
An officer pulled me down from behind and threw me to the asphalt. Between my cries of pain and shouts of “I’m a man of peace!” he pressed a knee to my spine and immobilized my arms behind my back, crushing me against the ground. With the right side of my face pressed to the street, he repeatedly punched the left side of my face for long enough that I had time to pray that the crunching sounds I heard were not damaging my brain.
I was cuffed and pulled off the ground by a different officer who seemed genuinely appalled when he saw my face and clerical collar. He asked who I was and why I was here, to which I replied, “I’m a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I believe another world is possible.”
SPD spokesperson Detective Renée Witt maintains the officers used only necessary force.
“If this gentleman feels that he was mistreated or ‘brutally beaten’ he should contact the Office of Professional Accountability and launch a formal complaint,” says Detective Witt.
Read John’s entire first hand account of what he says happened here.
Who to know, where to eat & what to do in one of America’s most diverse zip codes!
