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from The San Francisco Examiner Fri, March 7, 2003 http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.bayview.0307w Reporters: Cops went overboard BY J.K. DINEEN Of The Examiner Staff Bay View Newspaper staffers arrested during Wednesday's antiwar protest in Oakland say they were simply interviewing high school-aged protesters and helping to moderate the march when police came after them. Associate editor J.R. Valrey and managing editor/reporter Ra'shida Askey were charged with resisting arrest and assault on a police officer after a confrontation with police in Jack London Square. Askey, 22, said she was talking to students when she observed police officers on motorcycles "running over kids' feet" in the middle of Broadway. "I was asking kids questions when I witnessed a kid get run over," she said. "I saw the cops who did it and I was telling them, 'These are children, they could be your sisters or your nieces.'" She said a female officer hit her in the face, put her in a chokehold and threw her to the ground. The journalists' version of the events was disputed by cops who said they accommodated the protesting high school students despite the fact that the group didn't have a permit to march. "We escorted them from 14th and Broadway to Jack London Square and then they were all just standing around in the middle of the square with no plan, so we decided to disperse them onto the sidewalk," said police information officer Danielle Ashford. Ashford said the Bay View reporters -- in addition to one other woman -- were the only ones who did not obey orders to move into the sidewalk. Ashford said Askey refused to leave the street, verbally berated the officers, and then "became physically combative." "She hit the officer three times with her hands," said Ashford. Ashford said none of the students were arrested and they were even escorted back down Broadway after the arrests. But the two reporters say the police were out of line. "It was some combat robocop stuff," Askey said. "I was being strangled on the ground with a boot. My tongue actually touched the street. I was tasting concrete involuntarily." Valrey, who cops say kicked an officer, said he was coming to his colleague's aid. "Me and Ra'shida, we were standing at the barricade trying to prevent the students from going to jail or getting killed," said Valrey. "I look at it as an attack on black youth and an attack on black media." The Bay View Newspaper, with a circulation of 20,000, is San Francisco's largest African-American newspaper. ____________________________ E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ===== LMNOP http://lmno4p.org "No War for Oil!" __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more http://taxes.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bdn7KI.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html ==^================================================================
